Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:52):
Oh good morning.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Would you please join in with me in the call
to worship. Print it in your worship guide. Oh, sing
to the Lord, a new song, for God has done
marvelous things. The Lord is remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness.
Make a joyful noise to the Lord. All the earth
(05:09):
break forth into joyous song and sing praises. Let's see
war and all feels it the world and those who
live in it. Let the floods clap their hands. Let
they heal sing together for joy, Sing the Lord, a
new song, for God has done marvelous things. God steadfast
(05:32):
love endures forever.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Amen, siss.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
S S S.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
S s S.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
Stop pray with me, Father God. We come to worship
(08:44):
this morning to respond to your call that knock, to
open the door and greet your awesome presence. Repraise you
for your presence among us, for the privilege of calling
you Father, and we pray your blessing on this family
of faith and your church throughout the world. We have
(09:07):
gathered seeking your truth and ready to answer your call
to service. Grant this morning that we may relish in
the great love that you have for us and the
fellowship we experience as a gathered group of believers known
as Fifth Avenue Baptist Church. We pray for your guidance
(09:32):
as we seek wisdom and peace in finding the pastor
that you would have lead us to live out the
great commission to love God and love others. So guide
our worship with Doctor Moore this morning, as we seek
to sow the seeds of your love in our church,
(09:54):
our community, and wherever we are needed to advance your kingdom.
Now we ask that you send your spirit among us
and make us faithful servants. Hear us as we pray
the Lord's prayer together, our Father, who art in heaven hollow,
(10:17):
would be thy name, Thy Kingdom, Come, Thy will be
done as diz in Heaven. Give us this day our
daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive
those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation,
(10:39):
but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the Kingdom,
the power, and the glory forever. Amen.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
At this time, I would like to invite all the
children to come down and hang out. I know I'm
not miss Rachel, but please come. Ah. Sure, how's everybody doing?
Speaker 1 (11:14):
You're doing great?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Can you help me out with something real quick.
Speaker 5 (11:18):
This could go really good or really.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Bad, all right, but we're gonna do it anyway. Okay,
I have a tennis ball. You love tennis balls. Doctor
Moore loves tennis balls. These are These are doctor Moore's
tennis balls, and he loves to play tennis. This is
what I need you all to do, okay. I need
you all to kind of shape a little circle. Okay,
And this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna I'm
(11:46):
gonna hand the ball to my boy calling here, Colin
is gonna send it all the way around. I want
everybody to touch the ball, give it back to Iris,
and then hand it back to me. Okay, come on,
Jacob Harry up.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
All right ready.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
When I say you go, make sure you pass the
Carolina and get everybody around.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Okay, go.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Do dude, that was pretty simple, right. You think you
could do it much much faster.
Speaker 6 (12:25):
You think you can do it faster.
Speaker 5 (12:26):
Let's do it real fast.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Okay, on your set, on your mark, get set, go dude.
Do do do do do do do do do do
do do do do do do do do do do
do do do do do Oh man, come come come, come, come, come, almost.
Speaker 5 (12:44):
There, almost there, almost there, almost there, almost there. O,
my gosh.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
All right, cool, So.
Speaker 5 (12:48):
Y'all think that was much faster?
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Yeah, all right, so this we're gonna do. We're gonna
do it one more time, but we're gonna deal with
two balls. Okay, all right, you ready, you're ready, You're ready?
Set God do, dude, keep.
Speaker 5 (13:07):
Going past the past, the passing. Go go go go
go go go go go go go go go go.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Go go go go go go go go go go
go go go go go go go go go me.
Speaker 5 (13:16):
Tout you go go go. All right, I was pretty fast.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
I think we can go even faster with three balls.
What do y'all think? One more time?
Speaker 5 (13:27):
Let's go. You're ready set go.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Do hold lose it lose.
Speaker 7 (13:40):
No, no, no, no, no no you get it, get it.
Speaker 5 (13:44):
Goot the drop, you drop the drop.
Speaker 6 (13:46):
Oh no, Drake drink Drinke up, Jacob.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
Future baseball right there? You see that.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
All right, let's do it one more time, but with
one hundred tennis balls.
Speaker 6 (13:59):
You're ready, you know what?
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Griffin, that was a great question because I did not
come prepared with one hundred tennis balls, and hopefully my
unpreparedness will help you remember today's scripture passage. It's found
in John fifteen, and it's talking about Jesus is hanging
out with his friends and he's giving them instructions for
(14:24):
what he wants them to do. After he ascends, he's
saying he was sent by God who loved him, and
because God loved him, he shares love to the disciples.
And after that he wants the disciples to share love
with one another, just like we were passing out the
tennis balls, right, we were just passing out we were
(14:47):
sharing love.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Right.
Speaker 5 (14:49):
So God loves Jesus.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Jesus loved the disciples, and the disciples are called to
love one another. Well, just like the disciples, we are
called to love one another. What happens if we've run
out of love like we ran out of tennis balls, Well,
(15:12):
we don't know what happens. Well, here's the truth. God's
love never runs out, just like I've ran out of
the tennis balls. God's love never runs out. So we
have to figure out how to use God as the source.
Speaker 5 (15:27):
Of love, not the world right.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Right, So we are called to love one another, to
share that love with one another and always look to
God as the source of love.
Speaker 5 (15:42):
Let's pray.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Dear God, we thank you for today. We thank you
for loving us, help us spread the love like tennis
balls to one another.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
It's in your name that we pray these things. Amen.
Amen to y'all.
Speaker 5 (16:05):
Later.
Speaker 8 (17:35):
Okay, Holy God, you are the giver of all good things,
and your work makes clear that every good and perfect
gift comes from you. We ask that you accept these
gifts and use them.
Speaker 9 (17:48):
To your glory and your name. We pray Amen, No a.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
M.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
As we go into a time of ancessory prayer, there's
going to be time that you have to offer up
your own private prayer cancers, but we do want to
lift up those in our congregation who are in need
of our intentional prayers. We want to pray for Joe Barnett,
who is healing from surgeries. We also want to continue
to keep build Deingman in your heart. And I'm sure
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that there's countless others who are afflicted by hospitals, who
are afflicted by addiction, who are inflicted by the worries
of the world, so we want to lift them up
as well.
Speaker 5 (23:24):
Let us go to the Lord in prayer.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Blessed Heavenly Father, we give you all the things, all
the glory and all the honor for who.
Speaker 5 (23:39):
You are, Lord, and how you're.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Moving in in amongst Fifth Avenue Baptist Church. Lord, we
ask that as you move, Lord, that you continue to
soften hearts, that you continue to guide us, that you
be a beacon of light in front of us, that
you can continue to guide us.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
Lord.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Lord Lord, in this moment, we lift up to you, Lord,
those who are ill, those who are in need of
your presence. We ask that you be with the doctors
and the nurses that's on their cases, that you provide
clairvoyance for them, Lord, that you provide healing mercies on
their behalf. Lord, we ask that you be with those
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who may have lost loved ones, Lord, that your presence
would dwell with them in their sorrow.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
In their mourning. That you be with them Lord.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
But Lord, those who may be addicted or afflicted by
the ways of the world, we ask that you show
up in a miraculous way. Lord, that you encourage us
to be the agents of change in a broken world.
That you empower us to go beyond the walls the
Fifth Avenue Baptist Church to the streets of Huntington and
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its surrounding cities. To be a city on the hill. Lord,
to be beacon of light to those who may be struggling. Lord,
we struggle as your people, so we call out to you,
ab a father, Please be with us as we lift
up to you our own private prayer concerns. Lord, You
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are the father of love, so teach us to love
you first, and love each other as you have loved us. Lord.
This love is not a love of emotion, but a
love of choice. So allow us to choose love each day.
Speaker 5 (25:50):
Lord, we love you, and we thank you to.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Your name that we pray these things. All God's people said. Amen.
Speaker 5 (26:02):
Our gospel reading is from John the fifteenth chapter, beginning
with verse nine. This is the electionary text I'll be
following the election of the next couple of weeks. And lectionary,
you may know, is a historic rotation of Scripture passages
to the church. Christian Church has used for centuries, most
often in Catholic or Lutheran or Episcopagan or Methodist churches.
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Baptists sometimes use it, so if you have friends in
other churches, you can compare notes on the sermons this
couple this week, in the next couple of weeks, Jesus
is speaking to his disciples. As the Father has loved me,
so I have loved you. Abide in my love. If
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you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love,
just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide
in his love. I have said these things too you,
so that my joy may be in you, and your
joy may be complete. This is my commandment that you
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love one another as I have loved you. No one
has greater love than this, than to lay down one's
life or one's friends. You are my friends if you
do what I command you. I do not call you
servants any longer, because the servant does not know what
the master is doing. But I have called you friends
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because I have made known to you everything I have
heard from my father. You did not choose me, but
I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit,
fruit that will last, so that the Father will give
you whatever you ask him. In my name. I'm giving
you these commands so that you may love one another other.
(28:02):
Here ends the reading of God's Holy Word. May God
bless it for our hearing and understanding. The Beatles iconic
song All you need is love, simplistically claims that love
is the answer for all things, and in a very
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generic way. I suppose most of us would probably agree
with that. I mean, who's going to vote against love? Right?
But you want to vote against love? No? But the
Beatles were no great theologians or sociologists for that matter.
While maybe we could all agree that love is all
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we need, we also might want to talk about some details, right,
What do we mean by love? What responsibilities come with love?
In John's Gospel, when Jesus is preparing his disciples for
what will happen to him soon, he tells them that
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if they love him, they will obey his commandments, and
then he gives them this commandment, love one another. While
John Jesus mentions obeying his commandments, this commandment love one
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another is the only commandment in the whole Gospel of John.
It's as if Jesus is John thinks that loving one
another covers it all. It's as if he's singing alongside
Ringo and John Lennon and Paul McCartney and George Harrison.
All you need is love. If you obey my commandments,
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all you need is love, Love one another. All you
need is love. Why are we supposed to make of
this commandment that is on the one hand, central to
Jesus's teachings, and on the other that is so general
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that it lacks any tangible meaning. Surely Jesus meant for
us to do more than just sing along with the beatles.
A little over twenty years ago, I received a phone
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call from a Hindu couple, Jstree and Jatindra, and they
wanted me to perform their wedding ceremony. Now, this was
back when the Yellow Pages were one way you could
advertise your business. That's why it's twenty years ago. And
they had called several churches in Charlotte that had big
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quarter page ads, but every pastor they contacted turned them away.
After several nos, one pastor said that he wouldn't do it,
but he knew a Baptist pastor who would, And that's
when I got the phone call. The Hindu priest or
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pujari that was doing the ceremony was from Great Britain
and he had no legal standing in the US to
marry people. The small Hindu temple in Charlotte did not
have its own pujari and they didn't want a justice
of the peace to do their legal wedding Someday Monday
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through Friday, and then have a different date for the
wedding that meant so much to them. They wanted me
to legally marry them in the midst of their Hindu ceremony. Well,
I told them that from my faith perspective, that I
could only do the service in a Christian tradition, and
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that usually I have several premieral counseling sessions with couples,
all of which they readily agreed. At our last session together,
I told them that I'd like to attend the whole service,
not just the little piece I was going to do,
to kind of experience a wedding service and their tradition.
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They both laughed. It's really long, they said, Oh, I
don't mind. I said, I mean a couple hours to
kind of experiencing something new and learn something new. I'm
happy to do that. Jay Shree said, it's nine or
ten hours. That's when I laughed. I did show up
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forty five minutes before my scheduled time at four point
thirty to experienced part of the service, and I stayed
a little bit longer. I was seated close to the canopy.
The couple was up on a canopy in the central
part of the room, and each of them had an attendant.
The pujari was speaking in Sanskrit, and an artist was
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crafting an exquisite hennah tattoo had begun on her hand
and was working up her arm. Few people, I would say,
virtually no one was really paying any attention to the
couple or to the pujari. The seating was in four
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quadrants with a canopy in the center, and waiters were
walking through the aisles and the pews, offering drinks and appetizers.
People were talking just as if they were at a
casual event. It was a warm August day, so when
ice cream was brought by, I picked up some ice cream.
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Five minutes before fourth I started putting on my robe.
A couple minutes later, I was waved to the canopy.
God is Love, and those who abide in love abide
in God. I began with a passage from First John,
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and suddenly the room became quiet. People turned around, the
waiters all moved to the exterior part of the sanctuary,
and everyone listened and paid attention. For about twenty minutes,
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we all worshiped and celebrated together. Different faiths. There are
plenty of other Christians who were there friends of this couple,
different faiths. We worshiped and celebrated this wedding. The couple kissed,
I pronounced them husband wife. Everybody clapped. A moment later,
I stepped off the canopy and the maid of honor
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and the best man followed me, and we all signed
the marriage certificate. About that time, the pejari began speaking
in Sanskrit again, and people began talking. The waiters began
passing out the drinks, refilling orders, and their service went on.
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Twenty plus years later, I'm still fascinated by that moment. See,
in the Hindu faith, what really matters are the rituals
and doing the rituals properly, and you can do that individually.
Nobody needed to pay attention to what Jshri and Jatendra
were doing as bride and groom or what the priest
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was saying, just as long as the rituals were done properly.
But that's not how we do it in Christianity. And
I say this not to criticize him. I am not
going to criticize anybody's faith. I don't think that gets
us anywhere as Christians. But Christianity is a communion faith,
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meaning that we worship as a community, and instinctively the
service as it shifted from Hinduism to Christianity, everybody stopped
talking and understood, this is common space, and we're doing
this all together, and we're sharing this experience together because
that's how Christianity is practiced. Now, I also know I
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was speaking in English and not let everybody spoke sangscript there,
but that wasn't all of it. There was a change
in the common feeling in the room. In Christianity, our
faith is tied to how we treat one another. Jesus
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put us in commun unity in churches to practice our
faith together. There's no sense of practicing our faith as individuals.
It's always in community or as a part of a community,
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which means to practice Christianity, we have to love the
people around us. This means the person in Sunday school
who is always arguing with your ideas. This means the
commission member that seems to be cranky about every detail
in church business. This means the parent who can't keep
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his child quiet when we are trying to have reverent worship.
That we have to practice this faith together with all
of these people. Jesus expects us to practice our faith
by loving people in our collective body. In the moment
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that I began reading the words from Saint John and
everyone turned around and listened. As I married j Shree
and Jatendra, I saw my faith in a new and
important way. Jesus is speaking to his disciples on the
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day before his crucifixion the Way First, the way the
Gospel of John runs, and he tells his story. Jesus
is using this time to prepare his disciples for the
time when he's gone, which is why this week this passage,
which took place before the crucifixion, is read this week
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in the lectionary readings, because later this week is when
Jesus ascends into heaven. So for centuries, Christian churches have
used this passage to remind us that Jesus did prepare
his disciples for life after he left them. Jesus tells
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his disciples, those who are with him that day and
all of us who have been following him since then.
Jesus tells them what he says is a new commandment
to love one another. This phrase to love one another
is unique in the Gospel of John among the gospels.
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None of the other gospels use that phrase, and this
is the only phrase that John uses when he speaks
about love. Now. In Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus said
that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. He says,
in fact, that the greatest commandment is to love God
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with all your whole being, your heart, your mind, your soul,
your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. In Loop,
Jesus says that we are to love our enemies. These
three circles, loving one another, loving our neighbor, loving our enemy.
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These three circles circulate throughout the gospels. Luke's Jesus kind
of mocks people who only live in the smallest circle,
people who only love those who are in their group.
Luke's Jesus says, if you truly follow him, then you
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will love your enemies. How big we draw the circle
is the challenge. Right, We're just living, just loving our
friends one another or our neighbors who may be different
from us, or our enemies. This is the tension right
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to love one another in creating this circle. How do
we do this? First? I would like to say that
Jesus does not tell us to like one another. This
(41:45):
is a big distinction, right, there's nothing in scripture that
says you have to like everybody. Like has to do
with our feelings, right, how somebody strikes us? What is
it about the personality that we like or don't like?
Or or maybe it has to do with what has
happened between us. If somebody has hurt our feelings, we
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don't like them anymore. If they have maybe undercut us
at work, we don't like them anymore. Maybe somebody has
hurt us in other ways. Thankfully, Jesus does not tell
us that we have to like them. He is not
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asking us to change our feelings about people. He is
commanding us to love them, not like them. Love is
something we do, not just something we feel. In fact,
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love is something that we do even when we don't
feel love or like. Perhaps the best definition of love
is Paul's letter to the Corinthians, the thirteenth Chapter. I
wrote about this a couple of weeks ago. In the
columns there, Paul defines love, you know this passage. Love
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is patient, Love is kind. Love is not envious or boastful,
or arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its
own way. It bears all things, believes, all things, hopes,
all things endures, all things. Love never ends. In those words,
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Paul defines how we're to treat one another. How we
are to love one another, regardless of how we feel
about them, regardless of whether we like them or not.
This is how we are to treat them. To love
one another the first question. Whenever we have interactions with people,
especially when we have maybe negative interaction with people, the
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first question is what is the most loving thing I
can do at this moment. As important as Paul's definition
of love in the middle section of the thirteenth chapter
of Corinthians, I find it's the first three verses that
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catch my breath that cause me to think about my actions.
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of
angels but do not have love, I am just a
noisy symbol or gong. In other words, If I speak
charismatically and love people, and people love to hear me,
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but my words are not loving or do not inspire
others to love, then it would be better for me
just to be a clanging symbol. If I have prophetic
powers and understand all mysteries and knowledge. And if I
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have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do
not have love, I am nothing. In other words, if
somehow I am the smartest person in the world, with
a PhD mind in literature and theology and science, but
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I don't have love, I'm nothing. If I in fact
use my knowledge or my faith to make others feel
less worthy of God's love, than God has wasted such
knowledge on me. And if I have a mustard seed faith,
the kind Jesus said could move mountains, but do not
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have love, Paul says, I am nothing. If I give
away all my possessions, and if I hand over my
body so that I may boast, but I do not love,
I have gained nothing. In other words, if I give
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more money to this church than anybody else combined. If
I volunteer all my time, working even more than Janice
Frampton ever could, but do not have love, it's all
been wasted. Unless we treat one another in loving ways,
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whether we like each other or not, nothing else really matters,
because Jesus told us to love one another. A few
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months after I did the wedding for this Hindu couple,
I ran into the pastor that gave them my phone number.
He immediately asked if I did the wedding. I figured
you were liberal enough to do it, he said, grinning,
slapping me on the shoulder. It was not a compliment.
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He had a bit of a mocking tone to it,
which raised my temperature a little bit. So my response,
those said in kind words, was a little bit of
a rebuke. Not my best moment. Do you really want
to know why I did it? I asked him. He
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was dying to hear. Here was this nice young couple,
good people. I really enjoyed our conversations in getting to
know them. And they were reaching out to Christian pastors
to help them for what they saw was the most
important day in their young lives, their wedding day. But
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all they found were pastors too busy or too principled,
or they just didn't care like you, I said. They
had several ordained staff members, one of them could have
done a service, but they turned them away because of
their religion. At least you sent them to me. I
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wanted them to know that there were Christians that would
care about them as human beings, treat them with kindness first,
and would respect their religion. I did the wedding simply
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because Jesus told us to love one another. Do we
need any other reason to do anything? Oh Man? In
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our Baptist tradition, we end our worship service with an
invitation Him, a commitment Him, so we stand to sing
Him for eighty six comm you, sinners, poor and needy,
we open our doors of fellowship. We would invite you,
if you've never made a profession of faith to follow
Jesus Christ. We would hope this would be the day
you would want to desire to be baptized. Or maybe
you've been a Christian for some time but you're looking
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for a new church home. We would love to welcome you.
I'll be and from the communion table to greet you
if you would like to come. Let's stand together and.
Speaker 7 (49:44):
Sing ssssssssssssss.
Speaker 6 (51:15):
Such an.
Speaker 5 (52:06):
That's a good Southern Appalachian hymn that has uh has
roots two hundred years ago in camp meetings among America
on the frontier. Once, when I was in seminary, I
went to they had a shaped note. If you don't
mean it from your are shaped notes. In frontier communities,
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people didn't have big educations. They couldn't read music, and
so a shaped note tradition rose up where you could
sing I have forget this thing's not working right where
you would sing the notes based on the shape of
the note, not where it's placed on the scale. And
so this has been a long tradition, it's been around.
It's kind of died out now. But I went to
this gathering and it was fabulous to hear folks sing
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these old hymns used in the shape notes. So anyways,
that was that's two cents extra today you did not need.
But anyways, I do want to thank so why were
you who helped out with worship today? Jay please tell
Susan thank you. Thank her for telling us about Jeremiah Tree.
I will try to make sure pick up some things
for that in this next week. And Mary Beth, thank
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you for leading us. And Spencer and Casey please pass
my thanks on de Layton for leading us with a
beautiful prayer. I want more teenagers to write my prayers
because you guys are doing a great job. Appreciate all
of you all for helping Vaughn and I help you
collectively as a church to worship God together. Let's see
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the benediction, friends, as who go back out into the world.
May God bless you and keep you. May God's countenance
fall upon you and be gracious under you. May God's
face shine upon you and give you peace. So friends
(53:55):
go in peace.
Speaker 10 (53:56):
Amena six weeks, something.
Speaker 3 (55:49):
Like the bass
Oh good morning.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Would you please join in with me in the call
to worship. Print it in your worship guide. Oh, sing
to the Lord, a new song, for God has done
marvelous things. The Lord is remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness.
Make a joyful noise to the Lord. All the earth
(05:09):
break forth into joyous song and sing praises. Let's see
war and all feels it the world and those who
live in it. Let the floods clap their hands. Let
they heal sing together for joy, Sing the Lord, a
new song, for God has done marvelous things. God steadfast
(05:32):
love endures forever.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Amen, siss.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
S S S.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
S s S.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
Stop pray with me, Father God. We come to worship
(08:44):
this morning to respond to your call that knock, to
open the door and greet your awesome presence. Repraise you
for your presence among us, for the privilege of calling
you Father, and we pray your blessing on this family
of faith and your church throughout the world. We have
(09:07):
gathered seeking your truth and ready to answer your call
to service. Grant this morning that we may relish in
the great love that you have for us and the
fellowship we experience as a gathered group of believers known
as Fifth Avenue Baptist Church. We pray for your guidance
(09:32):
as we seek wisdom and peace in finding the pastor
that you would have lead us to live out the
great commission to love God and love others. So guide
our worship with Doctor Moore this morning, as we seek
to sow the seeds of your love in our church,
(09:54):
our community, and wherever we are needed to advance your kingdom.
Now we ask that you send your spirit among us
and make us faithful servants. Hear us as we pray
the Lord's prayer together, our Father, who art in heaven hollow,
(10:17):
would be thy name, Thy Kingdom, Come, Thy will be
done as diz in Heaven. Give us this day our
daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive
those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation,
(10:39):
but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the Kingdom,
the power, and the glory forever. Amen.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
At this time, I would like to invite all the
children to come down and hang out. I know I'm
not miss Rachel, but please come. Ah. Sure, how's everybody doing?
Speaker 1 (11:14):
You're doing great?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Can you help me out with something real quick.
Speaker 5 (11:18):
This could go really good or really.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Bad, all right, but we're gonna do it anyway. Okay,
I have a tennis ball. You love tennis balls. Doctor
Moore loves tennis balls. These are These are doctor Moore's
tennis balls, and he loves to play tennis. This is
what I need you all to do, okay. I need
you all to kind of shape a little circle. Okay,
And this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna I'm
(11:46):
gonna hand the ball to my boy calling here, Colin
is gonna send it all the way around. I want
everybody to touch the ball, give it back to Iris,
and then hand it back to me. Okay, come on,
Jacob Harry up.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
All right ready.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
When I say you go, make sure you pass the
Carolina and get everybody around.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Okay, go.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Do dude, that was pretty simple, right. You think you
could do it much much faster.
Speaker 6 (12:25):
You think you can do it faster.
Speaker 5 (12:26):
Let's do it real fast.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Okay, on your set, on your mark, get set, go dude.
Do do do do do do do do do do
do do do do do do do do do do
do do do do do Oh man, come come come, come, come, come, almost.
Speaker 5 (12:44):
There, almost there, almost there, almost there, almost there. O,
my gosh.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
All right, cool, So.
Speaker 5 (12:48):
Y'all think that was much faster?
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Yeah, all right, so this we're gonna do. We're gonna
do it one more time, but we're gonna deal with
two balls. Okay, all right, you ready, you're ready, You're ready?
Set God do, dude, keep.
Speaker 5 (13:07):
Going past the past, the passing. Go go go go
go go go go go go go go go go.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Go go go go go go go go go go
go go go go go go go go go me.
Speaker 5 (13:16):
Tout you go go go. All right, I was pretty fast.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
I think we can go even faster with three balls.
What do y'all think? One more time?
Speaker 5 (13:27):
Let's go. You're ready set go.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Do hold lose it lose.
Speaker 7 (13:40):
No, no, no, no, no no you get it, get it.
Speaker 5 (13:44):
Goot the drop, you drop the drop.
Speaker 6 (13:46):
Oh no, Drake drink Drinke up, Jacob.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
Future baseball right there? You see that.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
All right, let's do it one more time, but with
one hundred tennis balls.
Speaker 6 (13:59):
You're ready, you know what?
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Griffin, that was a great question because I did not
come prepared with one hundred tennis balls, and hopefully my
unpreparedness will help you remember today's scripture passage. It's found
in John fifteen, and it's talking about Jesus is hanging
out with his friends and he's giving them instructions for
(14:24):
what he wants them to do. After he ascends, he's
saying he was sent by God who loved him, and
because God loved him, he shares love to the disciples.
And after that he wants the disciples to share love
with one another, just like we were passing out the
tennis balls, right, we were just passing out we were
(14:47):
sharing love.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Right.
Speaker 5 (14:49):
So God loves Jesus.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Jesus loved the disciples, and the disciples are called to
love one another. Well, just like the disciples, we are
called to love one another. What happens if we've run
out of love like we ran out of tennis balls, Well,
(15:12):
we don't know what happens. Well, here's the truth. God's
love never runs out, just like I've ran out of
the tennis balls. God's love never runs out. So we
have to figure out how to use God as the source.
Speaker 5 (15:27):
Of love, not the world right.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Right, So we are called to love one another, to
share that love with one another and always look to
God as the source of love.
Speaker 5 (15:42):
Let's pray.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Dear God, we thank you for today. We thank you
for loving us, help us spread the love like tennis
balls to one another.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
It's in your name that we pray these things. Amen.
Amen to y'all.
Speaker 5 (16:05):
Later.
Speaker 8 (17:35):
Okay, Holy God, you are the giver of all good things,
and your work makes clear that every good and perfect
gift comes from you. We ask that you accept these
gifts and use them.
Speaker 9 (17:48):
To your glory and your name. We pray Amen, No a.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
M.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
As we go into a time of ancessory prayer, there's
going to be time that you have to offer up
your own private prayer cancers, but we do want to
lift up those in our congregation who are in need
of our intentional prayers. We want to pray for Joe Barnett,
who is healing from surgeries. We also want to continue
to keep build Deingman in your heart. And I'm sure
(23:13):
that there's countless others who are afflicted by hospitals, who
are afflicted by addiction, who are inflicted by the worries
of the world, so we want to lift them up
as well.
Speaker 5 (23:24):
Let us go to the Lord in prayer.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Blessed Heavenly Father, we give you all the things, all
the glory and all the honor for who.
Speaker 5 (23:39):
You are, Lord, and how you're.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Moving in in amongst Fifth Avenue Baptist Church. Lord, we
ask that as you move, Lord, that you continue to
soften hearts, that you continue to guide us, that you
be a beacon of light in front of us, that
you can continue to guide us.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
Lord.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Lord Lord, in this moment, we lift up to you, Lord,
those who are ill, those who are in need of
your presence. We ask that you be with the doctors
and the nurses that's on their cases, that you provide
clairvoyance for them, Lord, that you provide healing mercies on
their behalf. Lord, we ask that you be with those
(24:22):
who may have lost loved ones, Lord, that your presence
would dwell with them in their sorrow.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
In their mourning. That you be with them Lord.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
But Lord, those who may be addicted or afflicted by
the ways of the world, we ask that you show
up in a miraculous way. Lord, that you encourage us
to be the agents of change in a broken world.
That you empower us to go beyond the walls the
Fifth Avenue Baptist Church to the streets of Huntington and
(24:55):
its surrounding cities. To be a city on the hill. Lord,
to be beacon of light to those who may be struggling. Lord,
we struggle as your people, so we call out to you,
ab a father, Please be with us as we lift
up to you our own private prayer concerns. Lord, You
(25:31):
are the father of love, so teach us to love
you first, and love each other as you have loved us. Lord.
This love is not a love of emotion, but a
love of choice. So allow us to choose love each day.
Speaker 5 (25:50):
Lord, we love you, and we thank you to.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Your name that we pray these things. All God's people said. Amen.
Speaker 5 (26:02):
Our gospel reading is from John the fifteenth chapter, beginning
with verse nine. This is the electionary text I'll be
following the election of the next couple of weeks. And lectionary,
you may know, is a historic rotation of Scripture passages
to the church. Christian Church has used for centuries, most
often in Catholic or Lutheran or Episcopagan or Methodist churches.
(26:24):
Baptists sometimes use it, so if you have friends in
other churches, you can compare notes on the sermons this
couple this week, in the next couple of weeks, Jesus
is speaking to his disciples. As the Father has loved me,
so I have loved you. Abide in my love. If
(26:49):
you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love,
just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide
in his love. I have said these things too you,
so that my joy may be in you, and your
joy may be complete. This is my commandment that you
(27:12):
love one another as I have loved you. No one
has greater love than this, than to lay down one's
life or one's friends. You are my friends if you
do what I command you. I do not call you
servants any longer, because the servant does not know what
the master is doing. But I have called you friends
(27:36):
because I have made known to you everything I have
heard from my father. You did not choose me, but
I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit,
fruit that will last, so that the Father will give
you whatever you ask him. In my name. I'm giving
you these commands so that you may love one another other.
(28:02):
Here ends the reading of God's Holy Word. May God
bless it for our hearing and understanding. The Beatles iconic
song All you need is love, simplistically claims that love
is the answer for all things, and in a very
(28:24):
generic way. I suppose most of us would probably agree
with that. I mean, who's going to vote against love? Right?
But you want to vote against love? No? But the
Beatles were no great theologians or sociologists for that matter.
While maybe we could all agree that love is all
(28:46):
we need, we also might want to talk about some details, right,
What do we mean by love? What responsibilities come with love?
In John's Gospel, when Jesus is preparing his disciples for
what will happen to him soon, he tells them that
(29:08):
if they love him, they will obey his commandments, and
then he gives them this commandment, love one another. While
John Jesus mentions obeying his commandments, this commandment love one
(29:30):
another is the only commandment in the whole Gospel of John.
It's as if Jesus is John thinks that loving one
another covers it all. It's as if he's singing alongside
Ringo and John Lennon and Paul McCartney and George Harrison.
All you need is love. If you obey my commandments,
(29:57):
all you need is love, Love one another. All you
need is love. Why are we supposed to make of
this commandment that is on the one hand, central to
Jesus's teachings, and on the other that is so general
(30:19):
that it lacks any tangible meaning. Surely Jesus meant for
us to do more than just sing along with the beatles.
A little over twenty years ago, I received a phone
(30:40):
call from a Hindu couple, Jstree and Jatindra, and they
wanted me to perform their wedding ceremony. Now, this was
back when the Yellow Pages were one way you could
advertise your business. That's why it's twenty years ago. And
they had called several churches in Charlotte that had big
(31:02):
quarter page ads, but every pastor they contacted turned them away.
After several nos, one pastor said that he wouldn't do it,
but he knew a Baptist pastor who would, And that's
when I got the phone call. The Hindu priest or
(31:24):
pujari that was doing the ceremony was from Great Britain
and he had no legal standing in the US to
marry people. The small Hindu temple in Charlotte did not
have its own pujari and they didn't want a justice
of the peace to do their legal wedding Someday Monday
(31:44):
through Friday, and then have a different date for the
wedding that meant so much to them. They wanted me
to legally marry them in the midst of their Hindu ceremony. Well,
I told them that from my faith perspective, that I
could only do the service in a Christian tradition, and
(32:08):
that usually I have several premieral counseling sessions with couples,
all of which they readily agreed. At our last session together,
I told them that I'd like to attend the whole service,
not just the little piece I was going to do,
to kind of experience a wedding service and their tradition.
(32:30):
They both laughed. It's really long, they said, Oh, I
don't mind. I said, I mean a couple hours to
kind of experiencing something new and learn something new. I'm
happy to do that. Jay Shree said, it's nine or
ten hours. That's when I laughed. I did show up
(32:55):
forty five minutes before my scheduled time at four point
thirty to experienced part of the service, and I stayed
a little bit longer. I was seated close to the canopy.
The couple was up on a canopy in the central
part of the room, and each of them had an attendant.
The pujari was speaking in Sanskrit, and an artist was
(33:15):
crafting an exquisite hennah tattoo had begun on her hand
and was working up her arm. Few people, I would say,
virtually no one was really paying any attention to the
couple or to the pujari. The seating was in four
(33:35):
quadrants with a canopy in the center, and waiters were
walking through the aisles and the pews, offering drinks and appetizers.
People were talking just as if they were at a
casual event. It was a warm August day, so when
ice cream was brought by, I picked up some ice cream.
(33:58):
Five minutes before fourth I started putting on my robe.
A couple minutes later, I was waved to the canopy.
God is Love, and those who abide in love abide
in God. I began with a passage from First John,
(34:21):
and suddenly the room became quiet. People turned around, the
waiters all moved to the exterior part of the sanctuary,
and everyone listened and paid attention. For about twenty minutes,
(34:44):
we all worshiped and celebrated together. Different faiths. There are
plenty of other Christians who were there friends of this couple,
different faiths. We worshiped and celebrated this wedding. The couple kissed,
I pronounced them husband wife. Everybody clapped. A moment later,
I stepped off the canopy and the maid of honor
(35:06):
and the best man followed me, and we all signed
the marriage certificate. About that time, the pejari began speaking
in Sanskrit again, and people began talking. The waiters began
passing out the drinks, refilling orders, and their service went on.
(35:27):
Twenty plus years later, I'm still fascinated by that moment. See,
in the Hindu faith, what really matters are the rituals
and doing the rituals properly, and you can do that individually.
Nobody needed to pay attention to what Jshri and Jatendra
were doing as bride and groom or what the priest
(35:47):
was saying, just as long as the rituals were done properly.
But that's not how we do it in Christianity. And
I say this not to criticize him. I am not
going to criticize anybody's faith. I don't think that gets
us anywhere as Christians. But Christianity is a communion faith,
(36:11):
meaning that we worship as a community, and instinctively the
service as it shifted from Hinduism to Christianity, everybody stopped
talking and understood, this is common space, and we're doing
this all together, and we're sharing this experience together because
that's how Christianity is practiced. Now, I also know I
(36:36):
was speaking in English and not let everybody spoke sangscript there,
but that wasn't all of it. There was a change
in the common feeling in the room. In Christianity, our
faith is tied to how we treat one another. Jesus
(36:58):
put us in commun unity in churches to practice our
faith together. There's no sense of practicing our faith as individuals.
It's always in community or as a part of a community,
(37:20):
which means to practice Christianity, we have to love the
people around us. This means the person in Sunday school
who is always arguing with your ideas. This means the
commission member that seems to be cranky about every detail
in church business. This means the parent who can't keep
(37:42):
his child quiet when we are trying to have reverent worship.
That we have to practice this faith together with all
of these people. Jesus expects us to practice our faith
by loving people in our collective body. In the moment
(38:06):
that I began reading the words from Saint John and
everyone turned around and listened. As I married j Shree
and Jatendra, I saw my faith in a new and
important way. Jesus is speaking to his disciples on the
(38:34):
day before his crucifixion the Way First, the way the
Gospel of John runs, and he tells his story. Jesus
is using this time to prepare his disciples for the
time when he's gone, which is why this week this passage,
which took place before the crucifixion, is read this week
(38:57):
in the lectionary readings, because later this week is when
Jesus ascends into heaven. So for centuries, Christian churches have
used this passage to remind us that Jesus did prepare
his disciples for life after he left them. Jesus tells
(39:21):
his disciples, those who are with him that day and
all of us who have been following him since then.
Jesus tells them what he says is a new commandment
to love one another. This phrase to love one another
is unique in the Gospel of John among the gospels.
(39:45):
None of the other gospels use that phrase, and this
is the only phrase that John uses when he speaks
about love. Now. In Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus said
that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. He says,
in fact, that the greatest commandment is to love God
(40:07):
with all your whole being, your heart, your mind, your soul,
your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. In Loop,
Jesus says that we are to love our enemies. These
three circles, loving one another, loving our neighbor, loving our enemy.
(40:31):
These three circles circulate throughout the gospels. Luke's Jesus kind
of mocks people who only live in the smallest circle,
people who only love those who are in their group.
Luke's Jesus says, if you truly follow him, then you
(40:53):
will love your enemies. How big we draw the circle
is the challenge. Right, We're just living, just loving our
friends one another or our neighbors who may be different
from us, or our enemies. This is the tension right
(41:22):
to love one another in creating this circle. How do
we do this? First? I would like to say that
Jesus does not tell us to like one another. This
(41:45):
is a big distinction, right, there's nothing in scripture that
says you have to like everybody. Like has to do
with our feelings, right, how somebody strikes us? What is
it about the personality that we like or don't like?
Or or maybe it has to do with what has
happened between us. If somebody has hurt our feelings, we
(42:06):
don't like them anymore. If they have maybe undercut us
at work, we don't like them anymore. Maybe somebody has
hurt us in other ways. Thankfully, Jesus does not tell
us that we have to like them. He is not
(42:27):
asking us to change our feelings about people. He is
commanding us to love them, not like them. Love is
something we do, not just something we feel. In fact,
(42:53):
love is something that we do even when we don't
feel love or like. Perhaps the best definition of love
is Paul's letter to the Corinthians, the thirteenth Chapter. I
wrote about this a couple of weeks ago. In the
columns there, Paul defines love, you know this passage. Love
(43:16):
is patient, Love is kind. Love is not envious or boastful,
or arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its
own way. It bears all things, believes, all things, hopes,
all things endures, all things. Love never ends. In those words,
(43:41):
Paul defines how we're to treat one another. How we
are to love one another, regardless of how we feel
about them, regardless of whether we like them or not.
This is how we are to treat them. To love
one another the first question. Whenever we have interactions with people,
especially when we have maybe negative interaction with people, the
(44:04):
first question is what is the most loving thing I
can do at this moment. As important as Paul's definition
of love in the middle section of the thirteenth chapter
of Corinthians, I find it's the first three verses that
(44:26):
catch my breath that cause me to think about my actions.
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of
angels but do not have love, I am just a
noisy symbol or gong. In other words, If I speak
charismatically and love people, and people love to hear me,
(44:48):
but my words are not loving or do not inspire
others to love, then it would be better for me
just to be a clanging symbol. If I have prophetic
powers and understand all mysteries and knowledge. And if I
(45:08):
have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do
not have love, I am nothing. In other words, if
somehow I am the smartest person in the world, with
a PhD mind in literature and theology and science, but
(45:32):
I don't have love, I'm nothing. If I in fact
use my knowledge or my faith to make others feel
less worthy of God's love, than God has wasted such
knowledge on me. And if I have a mustard seed faith,
the kind Jesus said could move mountains, but do not
(45:54):
have love, Paul says, I am nothing. If I give
away all my possessions, and if I hand over my
body so that I may boast, but I do not love,
I have gained nothing. In other words, if I give
(46:15):
more money to this church than anybody else combined. If
I volunteer all my time, working even more than Janice
Frampton ever could, but do not have love, it's all
been wasted. Unless we treat one another in loving ways,
(46:38):
whether we like each other or not, nothing else really matters,
because Jesus told us to love one another. A few
(47:01):
months after I did the wedding for this Hindu couple,
I ran into the pastor that gave them my phone number.
He immediately asked if I did the wedding. I figured
you were liberal enough to do it, he said, grinning,
slapping me on the shoulder. It was not a compliment.
(47:22):
He had a bit of a mocking tone to it,
which raised my temperature a little bit. So my response,
those said in kind words, was a little bit of
a rebuke. Not my best moment. Do you really want
to know why I did it? I asked him. He
(47:44):
was dying to hear. Here was this nice young couple,
good people. I really enjoyed our conversations in getting to
know them. And they were reaching out to Christian pastors
to help them for what they saw was the most
important day in their young lives, their wedding day. But
(48:08):
all they found were pastors too busy or too principled,
or they just didn't care like you, I said. They
had several ordained staff members, one of them could have
done a service, but they turned them away because of
their religion. At least you sent them to me. I
(48:30):
wanted them to know that there were Christians that would
care about them as human beings, treat them with kindness first,
and would respect their religion. I did the wedding simply
(48:53):
because Jesus told us to love one another. Do we
need any other reason to do anything? Oh Man? In
(49:15):
our Baptist tradition, we end our worship service with an
invitation Him, a commitment Him, so we stand to sing
Him for eighty six comm you, sinners, poor and needy,
we open our doors of fellowship. We would invite you,
if you've never made a profession of faith to follow
Jesus Christ. We would hope this would be the day
you would want to desire to be baptized. Or maybe
you've been a Christian for some time but you're looking
(49:37):
for a new church home. We would love to welcome you.
I'll be and from the communion table to greet you
if you would like to come. Let's stand together and.
Speaker 7 (49:44):
Sing ssssssssssssss.
Speaker 6 (51:15):
Such an.
Speaker 5 (52:06):
That's a good Southern Appalachian hymn that has uh has
roots two hundred years ago in camp meetings among America
on the frontier. Once, when I was in seminary, I
went to they had a shaped note. If you don't
mean it from your are shaped notes. In frontier communities,
(52:26):
people didn't have big educations. They couldn't read music, and
so a shaped note tradition rose up where you could
sing I have forget this thing's not working right where
you would sing the notes based on the shape of
the note, not where it's placed on the scale. And
so this has been a long tradition, it's been around.
It's kind of died out now. But I went to
this gathering and it was fabulous to hear folks sing
(52:51):
these old hymns used in the shape notes. So anyways,
that was that's two cents extra today you did not need.
But anyways, I do want to thank so why were
you who helped out with worship today? Jay please tell
Susan thank you. Thank her for telling us about Jeremiah Tree.
I will try to make sure pick up some things
for that in this next week. And Mary Beth, thank
(53:11):
you for leading us. And Spencer and Casey please pass
my thanks on de Layton for leading us with a
beautiful prayer. I want more teenagers to write my prayers
because you guys are doing a great job. Appreciate all
of you all for helping Vaughn and I help you
collectively as a church to worship God together. Let's see
(53:32):
the benediction, friends, as who go back out into the world.
May God bless you and keep you. May God's countenance
fall upon you and be gracious under you. May God's
face shine upon you and give you peace. So friends
(53:55):
go in peace.
Speaker 10 (53:56):
Amena six weeks, something.
Speaker 3 (55:49):
Like the bass
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.