[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to God. If you're ever in the Madison area, we'd love for you to stop by and study the Bible with us on Sundays at 5pm or Wednesdays at 7pm if you have questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, you can find us
[email protected] be sure to subscribe to this podcast as well as our Sermons podcast. Madison Church of Christ Sermons. Thanks again for stopping by. I hope this study is a blessing to you.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Back when the New Testament was written, Gary Bradley moved to Huntsville, Alabama.
[00:00:43] Speaker C: You.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: You beat me to the punch. I couldn't even.
You guys, he is no stranger here. You guys have experienced him for six months as we were working through the preaching search back in 2020 or 2021, I guess it was.
And for six months, we got fed every single week. And it was such a joy to not just hear his messages, but to hear the wisdom behind the messages.
And I think you said 47 years at Mayfair, right, and have been one big blessing to not just the Mayfair congregation, but to this whole area.
He is, and I don't say this to, you know, blow his head up.
[00:01:23] Speaker C: It's.
[00:01:24] Speaker B: It's already too big as it is. But no, we're close and he knows how much I love him.
But it's not just his ability to speak. It's his ministry, his ability to touch people where they are. He says things in a way that penetrate your heart. And I'm just so incredibly thankful. One that he came and did what he did for us here at Madison. He's special, but also just for the way he has given his life to ministry. And you guys, if you know him well, you know he'd hate every bit of this that I'm saying, but I just want him to know how much we at Madison love you and appreciate you. Brother G. Gary, and we're excited to have you with us. I'm going to say a prayer real quickly and then Robin will lead us and we'll turn it over to you.
Father, we thank you so much for the blessings that we have all around us.
And Father, we.
We look at our families, we look at our friends here, we look at the church that we are a part of. We are just so thankful, Father, and we know how special this time when we Come Together is where we challenge each other and encourage each other. And Father, tonight I pray you'll be with Gary. Help him to share a message that will lead us and direct us in our hearts and minds. Help us to look inwardly, to evaluate where we are and see the changes that we may need to make in our lives. We are so grateful for him and his ministry and Ms. Bobby being with us tonight. Pray that you bless him in what he's doing. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
[00:02:56] Speaker C: And the whole church said amen. Boy, it is wonderful to be back at Madison.
My, what a crowd.
Did y' all think it was Sunday morning?
Wow, it's just wonderful to see all of you again and to be a part. And I appreciate Brandon.
May the Lord forgive him of those exaggerations.
And may the Lord forgive me for enjoying them.
It's good to be with you again.
I'll assure you, you did as much for me those six months as I did for you, because I learned to appreciate what a healthy church is.
And I told Brandon, excuse me, at supper, that Madison is a healthy church.
You're going through changes, building changes, and you're in the middle of the biggest explosion we've ever seen.
I wasn't here in the space buildup, contrary to what some might think, but I've been here since 79 and I've never seen anything like it.
Apartments, as you know, are everywhere. People are coming in, and brethren, most of them probably have never heard of the New Testament Church.
I see car tags in Huntsville, California, Texas, Kansas, Canada. You know, they're coming in from everywhere.
And I'm praying that Madison, along with Mayfair and all the other brothers and sisters in North Alabama, will take advantage of this opportunity.
And I think this all starts with what I want to talk about.
I am not as busy as I used to be.
Thankfully, I've told some of you that I've learned how to say no.
The most difficult. Well, I gave up the pulpit at Mayfair in 16, 2016, and I was able to go into a lot of congregations and try to help them grow.
But I was still on television and I gave up TV last year.
And that was the most difficult thing I had to do, 45 years on the air.
But what I loved about it was as I drive around now and Bobby and I have been driving around looking at all this growth, what I felt like when I was on Sunday morning at 10 o' clock, and if they wanted to hear what the Lord has to say, it was there, but it's not there anymore.
And I've had a hard time adjusting to that.
When I went through and I'd go to my car, I could say, okay, I don't know. Who watching. How many have been baptized in 45 years? I don't know.
How many have placed membership and gone back to the Lord? I don't know. That's not the point.
I was doing what the Lord asked us to do. I was teaching the truth.
And when you teach, you are successful.
That's what the Bible says.
The response is up to them, as you well know.
I want to talk to you tonight. I want to tell you what's happening to me.
Since I'm not as busy as I used to be, I'm not reading the Bible anymore.
I am now listening to God.
When I read the Bible, I was using my eyes.
When I listened to God now from His Word, using my ears and my heart.
And so that's what I want to talk with you tonight.
And that is. Has anybody ever told you you were a good listener?
You know, my wife says, and she's here tonight, my wife says, that I hear, but I don't listen.
Really? You mean there's a difference? Oh, yeah.
Evidently, there's a big difference between hearing and listening.
And so when I read my Bible, now I'm listening to God, and it is the most refreshing thing.
I'm reading like I used to. I would read it, I'm sorry to say. I had three sermons to get up. I had a TV show to do. I used to read the Bible to get ready to preach. Now I listen to God to try to be a better person.
I try to be a listener.
You know, that's what prayer is.
Prayer is God listening to us.
Can you imagine?
Can you imagine God wanting to hear from us?
He does.
And so then I found a verse. And I love Acts 2. Now I love Acts 2. I preach from it, and we believe it, we practice it. But I love Acts 10.
If I had been present, contrary to some believe, I was not present on Pentecost, and if I had been present, I wouldn't have done anything because I'm not Jewish.
I love Acts 10.
Acts 10 is where you and I come in.
Acts 10 is where the message finally gets to the Gentiles.
And I want you to look at this marvelous verse.
In verse 33, I want, when you go home, read the tenth chapter of Acts. It starts off by talking about how wonderful Cornelius is. Oh, he just does everything right.
I've always used Cornelius in Acts 10, 1, 6 to prove that good Moral men and women are not saved.
All those wonderful things about Cornelius, he put most of us down, but he wasn't saved. Okay, let's get to verse 10, verse 33. All right. He's sent to Joppa, and he got Simon. Simon comes back and brings some men with him. And when he gets there, he falls down on Cornelius, falls down on the floor.
Peter says, stand up. I'm a man.
And then he rehearses what the angel had told Cornelius to do.
Send to Joppa. Get Peter. He came, and Peter said, I'm glad you sent for me. Look at this verse. Now we're all here.
Who's here? Well, look at the verses prior to that. It says, that crowd that gathered. Listen to me now.
Was Cornelius. Family and relative. Family and friends.
I know this is close. I know this is sensitive, because we all have family and friends.
Don't we wish those who are not were Christians?
I want us to be concerned about everybody in Huntsville and North Alabama, the United States. But I want my grandsons back in church.
And yet they say those who are studying this thing, that friendship evangelism still works.
You know how many are converted by television? Well, how many are converted by campaigns for Christ? How many are converted by family and friends?
All heads go up.
So, folks, it'll still work.
But let me just go ahead and say this.
In my case, no more preaching.
They've heard enough sermons.
It's prayer and example.
Do they know where Granddaddy stands?
Yes.
Do they know that Granddaddy loves. We don't throw anybody away.
Did you hear me?
We accept them because the Lord accepts them.
Do we approve of their decisions? No.
The Lord accepts me. Does he approve of all of my. Does it? No.
So we're all here now. Then he takes it to another level, this verse. I told Brandon today, this verse blows my mind.
Because we're all here, family, friends, and even Peter brought some folks with him. So there's quite a crowd there. And it says, in the presence of the Lord, brethren, have we forgotten that if we really felt the presence of the Lord, would we sing better?
Would we pray better?
Would we treat each other better?
I'm old enough, as obviously been documented already, to see a change in dress and just a kind of a casual.
And that's okay. That's all right.
But let's don't make our relationship with the Lord casual.
He's still God.
He is still our judge.
He is still our Savior.
We were talking at supper about dads, and y' all have some wonderful dads. Here.
And sometimes parents are encouraged to say, well, you know, we gotta be buddies with our teenagers, with our kids. No, they got enough friends. They need a dad.
Let's remember the presence of God with us when we're here and when we come to worship. And we're gonna talk more about this in a minute, but I'm just trying to get you ready. All right? So we're all here, family, friends, Gentiles, Jews alike.
In God's ear.
Wow.
Philip had a. My Philip in Guntersville had a funeral the other day, and they got word that the governor was going to come.
And they said the law enforcement, the county and the sheriff and all of them just got excited that Governor Ivey may come to that funeral. There's a God fearing Christian man that died.
One of the commissioners that had been a commissioner 10 days.
Fellas, you know what happened? He got on a ladder and fell and hit his head and killed him.
And he was a brother in the Lord.
David reads Reeves.
And so the governor was coming. Well, finally the last word was, Philip told me she didn't come.
So we get excited when important people come. Well, God's here, the maker of the universe.
And so we're all here in the presence of God to listen.
Are you a good listener?
Do you listen with your heart?
James says, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. Somebody says, you've got two ears to hear and only one tongue to talk.
Do I get in trouble by what I say or what I hear?
I get in trouble with this big mouth.
And so we need to learn to listen, but we need to learn to listen spiritually and so to listen to everything.
One translation says all things that God has commanded him to tell us.
What part of God's word? This is a prayer meeting now, tonight.
What part of God's word do you struggle with?
Well, I know you know about baptism. I know you know about communion. I know you know about a cappella singing. I know you know about things like, do you struggle with forgiveness?
What part of the Bible, when you get to it, you try and say, well, you know, nobody's perfect.
Do you struggle with gossip, bitterness, jealousy?
What do you. What part of God's word? He said, now we're here for the preacher to tell us everything God's commanded. This is not the preacher's idea.
Cornelius is telling that God's told him. He's God's spokesman, and we got to hear it all, good, bad and ugly.
So what do you struggle with when you listen to God and He tells you, I want you to do this like repenting, like Luke 13, 3:5, except you repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
You believe that?
Yeah, I believe it.
Okay, let's go to something else. Now, hold what I've said and let me share with you some things that mean everything to me, and I hope you will agree. I'm going to use four church words.
Who are we?
It's so easy. I've seen this happen in congregations where the church starts and it starts growing and we start ministering to each other. It's true in business, you can start a business, and if the Lord blesses that business, then the business starts controlling you.
Let's don't do that at Madison.
Let's don't do that at Mayfair. Let's keep growing. In order to get big, you've got to stay small.
You've got to take care of each other. We're going to get to that in a minute. All right, Number one, I love worship. I don't know what in the world we would do if it were not for Sunday.
Covid did a number on us.
I don't think we've gotten over it yet, insofar as it played to our.
I don't know, it's just. It's just kind of cool to get up on Sunday morning and put the coffee on and maybe get in your recliner and you still got your house coat on or your pajamas, and you turn on, and there's Mayfair's preacher and there's Lee Milam leading, singing, and. Oh, boy, we're just right there in the middle of it. No, you're not.
No, you're not.
And I'll show you why in a minute when we get to the next point.
But when we come together on Sunday morning, and this is a beautiful place to be on Sunday morning. I've been here. I know we battered and bruised and left by the side of the road during the week, and we meet each other in the lobby. How you doing? Fine.
How you doing? Fine. No, we're not fine.
We're hurting.
Somebody has said that if you preach on pain, then you hit one third of the congregation every Sunday.
So we must not be fine.
We must have struggles. And the reason I worship and I enjoy worship is because I stay focused on God, because he's the only one that can really do anything about my struggles.
I can tell my wife, I can tell my kids. I can tell my elders. I can tell my fellow preachers, but they can only go so far.
It takes the lord, I've had 10 funerals in 14 weeks and it's been rough.
We've got 127 widows at Mayfair.
One of them told me recently that she's still sleeping on the couch.
You can't get in the bed yet.
Another one told me that the hardest thing she has to do is walk in that building by herself.
Wow.
No, everybody's not fine.
You need God.
In Acts 20, Paul dropped the bomb on the elders. Verse 28, he said, the departure's coming.
Now, that's bad. But let me tell you what's worse. It's going to come out of the eldership.
Men shall depart, speaking things they ought not. He told Timothy. So he told them there was going to be an apostasy and it's going to come out of the eldership. And so he starts to leave. And in verse 32, he says three things that helps me stay focused on folks. There's. Sometimes I feel like God is 1000 miles away.
I beard Ray Jones because it was so senseless and I was kind of retiring and he was kind of retiring. We were going to do some great things.
And he goes to paint rock one of his farms and has a wreck, kills him on a four wheeler.
I was angry, I was frustrated. It hadn't gotten over it yet. It's been three. It'll be coming up on three years.
And so when Paul dropped the bomb on the elders in Acts 20, he said, now I commend you to God.
There's none greater.
He'll be there when the friends have gone home.
He'll be there in the middle of the night.
So I commend you to God.
And then the word of his grace, that's the Bible you hold in your hand, God's Word, which is able to build you up.
What do I need? After fighting and struggling all during the week, what do I need on Sunday morning? I need to be built up.
I need to be edified. I need to leave better than when I came.
To me, brethren worship is being preoccupied with God, not who's there, not what they got on, not what we're going to eat lunch.
But being absorbed with God, you have to work at that. So he said, I commend you to God and the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among those who are sanctified.
There's only three things in this world that God, God's Word and God's people.
Now to stay focused because the devil doesn't want us. The key word Here is focus.
And he doesn't want us to stay focused. We need to have preparation. We used to get ready for Sunday on Saturday, remember?
I'm going to bring up an ugly word now.
Two ugly words, ironing and shining shoes.
Because that's what we used to do on Saturday to get ready for Sunday.
I think we'd get more out of it if we put more in it.
And so we prepare and then we get here.
We participate.
We just don't sit like a bump on the log. We sing. You know, I've been there a long time. You know what they've never done at Mayfair? They have never asked me to lead singing.
And it breaks my heart, but my wife tells me I can't sing either, so. But I sing. I make a joyful noise to the Lord.
I participate and I pray because I want to stay focused on God. And then when I leave, I practice.
I practice what you know, we make up our minds in worship to do better, don't we?
Keith Hodges, our new senior minister, said Sunday that there are two ways to respond. You can walk down the aisle if you want to, or you can stay in your seat and just tell God you're going to do better.
We make all kind of promises during worship, don't we?
And Satan comes in Monday morning and does his best to change our minds. So let's worship. It helps me to stay focused on God ministry. No, I backed up. I went too far. No, that's too far, too.
Okay, I've got a flip top phone.
So that's how high tech I am. All right. Fellowship helps me to face life's problems. Now then, I'm through talking about God. Now I'm talking about us.
I regret that the Word, the beautiful, gorgeous word, fellowship has been delegated to a hall in the church building.
The fellowship hall.
No, no, no.
The word fellowship is joint participation. During those 10 funerals at Mayfair, we've had some unbelievable heartbreak. That's fellowship.
You have fellowship in pain.
What brings us together? A picnic or a pilgrimage or pain.
And so then we've got this wonderful family of God that says in 13 times they're one another passages.
13 times the writers in the Bible said, look after one another, care about one another. One of the ones I really love is Galatians 6, verses 1 to 4. He said, if a brother be run over. This is my translation now. If a brother be run over in a trespass. Get this now. Ye who are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of gentleness, considering thyself, lest you be tempted.
You hear what he said?
Did you listen?
Did you listen to what Paul said?
You know somebody that's fallen away?
You know anybody that's been run over by sin?
Who is the spiritual here?
Oh, that's the elders. Well, I don't know. Maybe. Well, it's the preachers. Well, I doubt it.
It's those who can listen spiritually, those who are led by the spirit.
You who are spiritual, restore means, bring back to the original condition.
Then watch out.
What are you talking about, Paul? Lest they knock on your door one day.
So you do it in meekness and gentleness, lest you be tempted. Then he said, bear ye one another's burdens. Are we doing that at Madison?
I bet. Can we do it better? Yes.
You have to have a person that is unselfish to really care about you.
Paul said in one of the letters, he said, we've learned not to depend upon ourselves, but depend on God.
Have we?
Have we really?
And so it's a matter here of just looking after each other. And he says, bear ye one another's burdens.
Okay, Paul. I'll just get involved in other people's lives as much as they will let me and so fulfill the law of Christ.
Sunday morning, you're going to have communion.
Why? That's the law of Christ.
Sunday morning, you're going to sing a cappella. Why? That's the law of Christ.
When you care about other people's burdens, then you're fulfilling the law of Christ.
And so then that's what Fellowship. It's not a casserole. It's not a room in the church building.
It's crying. I had a youth man in Chattanooga, I think it was, and he had a baby to die.
And it was a horrible situation. It was their first child, only child. And I was with him a couple of weeks later. And I said, well, where are you? How you doing? He said, I'm okay, but can I tell you the truth? I said, yeah.
He said, people mean well.
They came by and they said, you know, everything's going to be okay. No, everything's not going to be okay.
Well, y' all have another baby. Can you believe somebody said that?
You can have another child?
He said.
And they said some even quoted scripture. He said, I knew the Scriptures.
What I needed was somebody to hold me and cry.
That's what fellowship is.
Don't try to fix it.
My Daddy died in 84 Montgomery.
Four families drove from Huntsville to be with Bobby and me and my sisters.
When I buried my daddy, mother died 92.
Those same four families drove all the way to Montgomery and held us.
I stood between those two graves.
I remember it's been a long time, but I felt like I was an orphan for the first time in my life.
And I still do.
I don't know what people do without the church.
I really don't.
Laughlin. I went to Laughlin years ago and I said, if you have somebody that doesn't have anybody to do the service, I'll be glad to do.
Some years later, she called. One of the ladies called me and said, we've got a girl down here whose mother's died. She doesn't know. They don't go to church. They don't know anybody. And I went down and I talked with her and I said, tell me something about Mother.
She stopped for a while and she said, mother, love flowers.
Okay? And that was it.
Isn't that sad?
We live in a crazy world, a lonely world, you know? While I was on tv, we had calls that'll come in, and I've got you. Talk to the ladies that answered. I had four lines that came into the Mayfair building and talk to those ladies that answered the phone for the Tennessee Valley, and listen how difficult it was.
I'd give away power for today, and they'd call in and say, we want power for today.
But they wouldn't hang up.
The ladies would laugh and say they found somebody that obviously cares about them and loves them.
And so then fellowship is to help me face life's problems.
John 16:33. Jesus said, in this world, you shall have tribulation, you shall have trouble. He said, but be of good cheer. I've overcome the world.
This is going to be just for a little while, but I'll be with you through it. It's interesting what members at Mayfair. Remember what I preached about, you know, 37 years in the pulpit, they said, well, one of the elders spoke in the fellowship hall the other night, and he said, you remember Brother Bradley said that you're either going into a storm, you're either in a storm, or you're coming out of one.
So we need each other.
And I'm so proud of my brethren that can go in and do what needs to wash dishes, clean the commode, take care of the love. I'm so glad that we have brothers and sisters that can do that and make that time so very.
A little bit easier. All right, we gotta move. If y' all get tired, you can get up and leave. I'm gonna stay here for a while, but. Okay. Ministry helps me to find my talent. Okay. When people come, and they will come to Madison. I told you, I'm sure I told you before, they need two things.
When somebody places membership, when somebody's baptized, they need a friend and they need a job.
And the record shows if they have a friend and a job, they will stay. When troubles come, if they don't have a friend and they don't have a job, the least thing that comes along, they will go out the back door and you'll never see them again.
So that's the reason we need to be aware of what people need when they come into the family of God.
The story of the five talent man, the two talent Man.
The Lord said the hardest thing to the one talent man. And all he did, bless his sweetheart. All he did was bear his talent.
How many of us have done that?
And he said, thy wicked and slothful servant.
Wow.
He said, at least you could have put it in the bank and I'd have gotten interest.
You wasted it. You did nothing.
And so then it's compelling upon us to find our. The happiest people in the world are those who have an ability and they have a passion, and they find somewhere in the family of God to use it.
Do I have to? What time? I gotta quit. The bell hadn't rung yet. No.
Do you know about Shannon's house? The house next door to Huntsville Women and Children's Hospital?
For years, I walked out of Huntsville Hospital and found people that had been sleeping in their car. They had spent all of their money in the hotels, and their loved ones, their premature babies, were in the hospital and they had nowhere to go. I came, called some folks together, and we bought a house. And it was remodeled. And I got up on Sunday morning and said, we need $40,000 to furnish this house. It's kind of a McDonald's thing. In the name of Jesus, we got 60,000.
Well, we had to have mom and a daddy.
You got a house? It's right next to the hospital. We're ready to go. No mama and dad, who's going to close their house up and move into that house and have strangers down the hall every night?
Well, I was sick with a respiratory problem, and I started looking through the membership file and I couldn't think of a thing. We had a couple.
Johnny and Christy Johnson had just moved here from Montgomery about two months ago.
And folks, this is not a preacher story. This is the truth.
Their picture kept coming up on top of the stack.
I called Johnny and Christian. I Said, y' all meet me at Blue Plate. That's where Preston. That's where we eat, and I want to talk to you.
And so they met. They didn't know what I wanted.
I said, would you two think about praying about being house parents?
For our Shannon's house? We named it after one of our young men, 27 years old, that died of cancer.
They said we'd pray about it.
Two nights later, he called me and said, we'll do it.
They moved out of their house, boarded it up.
They've since sold it and moved into Shannon's house 15 years ago.
And they touch people's lives every day.
When there is a person in the hospital, they can stay there free of charge. And do you know what happened? Do you know that not one thing has happened?
And there are strangers down the hall from us every night, and yet not one time have they ever had to ask anybody to leave. That's a God thing.
They found their talent.
I met with them last week, and I said, well, how you doing? She said, well, I've always wanted to have a bed and breakfast, but I've got one for the Lord now.
She found her talent.
Oh, boy.
What about this one?
Evangelism.
Let me use another word. I didn't have time to change it. On my power. Let's put sharing your faith.
Can you do that?
Can you share your faith? Can you tell somebody? Like in Mark, chapter 5, verse 19, Jesus cast the demon out of this old fellow, and he just scared everybody to death, running through cemetery naked and just carrying on.
And so the Lord cast the demon out of him, and he came to the Lord and he said, I want to go with you. I want to help you in your campaign. You know what he said?
Go home.
Excuse me?
Go home and tell your family what the Lord has done for you.
You ever done that?
Mmm.
Somebody studied this? I didn't. I just read it. That in the churches of Christ, the average senior high school kid will leave home, go to college, go to the military, having never heard, verbally, sincerely, their mama and daddy tell them personally what the Lord means to them.
Oh, they brought them to church, vbs, Sunday school.
But mom and dad never had that. Come to Jesus meeting, let me tell you. This is Deuteronomy, chapter 6.
That's what he was. Moses was trying to get these young married to go into the promised land. And he said, when they shall ask you, where did these commandments come from?
Where did these.
All of these rules and regulations? He said, let me tell you, we were once In Egypt, and God led us out.
There's a lot of mamas and dads that were once in Egypt and God led you out, but you've never shared.
Would thrill their soul if they knew about it, wouldn't it?
What does this Lord mean to mom and dad? Dad's tough, Momma's sweet and good and, you know, they take care of me. They gave me an education. Did they tell you about the Lord?
I'm not talking about a big campaign. I'm talking about going home and tell your family what the Lord means to you.
I don't know if those grandsons of mine who are unfaithful.
I might ought to tell them again what the Lord means to me instead of what I think they ought to do. They know what they ought to do. They just don't do it.
But I wonder what would happen if I were to tell them what the Lord's meant to me over these years.
There's nothing, you know, the church.
What is the church? It's the family of God. God wants us to be. God wants all these people that are coming into Huntsville to Madison County. He wants all these people to be in his family.
And somehow we've got to figure out how to get to them with the Word.
We can do it with their babies.
We can do it at school, maybe.
Look at this crowd of young people over here.
Have you invited anybody to worship lately? You've got two wonderful preachers. You've got wonderful leadership. You've got a great family. Does anybody know about it other than us?
But when I think about the church, and that conjures up a lot of ill will with a lot of people because they've had a bad.
Oh, man. I've got to tell y' all this, because I got to call him in the morning, and he's probably. If. If you're here tonight, I want you to tell me.
I opened the office. I opened the mail the other day, and there was a letter signed.
Had my name on. Opened it up, and there was a sweet letter in there about what was going on in Cuba and how bad it is. They're starving to death. There's no medicine. There's no nothing to eat.
And he said, and enclosed was a check for $1,000.
He lives in Athens, Alabama.
So I called him and I said, randall, I just. I just.
You just made my day. I've just opened a letter from you and a sweet letter about your care and concern for the church and for the brethren in Cuba. And I just got to let you Know how much I pray. I said, tell me a little about yourself. Are you a member of the church?
He said, I used to be.
Cold chills went down my arms when he said that.
I said, tell me more. He said, well, I was raised in Athens and I got married and got a job and went up north and we didn't go while I was up there and we moved back. And he said, one time I went to a church in Athens and they weren't very friendly and I didn't go back.
Now next Sunday, I start preaching in Athens at Central for just about the whole month of July. I'm going to call Randall in the morning and tell him I want to see him Sunday morning at 9 o' clock and I want to personally thank him. And then Judy, my secretary, pulled the file.
This fella has been given giving money to Cuba for the last three years. He's given a total of $3,900, nearly $4,000 that slipped right by my desk that I didn't know about.
And so I'm going to tell him in the morning, I'm going to hug your neck Sunday morning, but I want you at church.
You need to come back to the Lord.
See, they're there. We just got to find out. I baptized a doctor in Chattanooga, 70 years old, I think.
But his secretary's husband, who was a deacon in the church, had studied the Bible with him.
But I brought him up out of that water and he was crying like a baby.
And he said, gary, I've been looking for this for 40 years.
I didn't know it was here, that there are people that just want to follow the Lord according to the scriptures.
It helps us to find why we're here.
I learned from Wendell Winkler. I learned a lot from Wendell.
I used to preach because he did that. The church was to edify. It was benevolence and it was evangelism.
But I don't do that anymore.
I still believe we do benevolence. I still believe we do evangelism, but I think the purpose of the church is singular.
Luke 19:10.
The son of man came to seek and to save those who are lost.
The singular mission of the church, save the lost. You can do it through evangelism. And I wish we would do it like Beltline.
Beltline is doing it through benevolence.
And they're doing it as effectively as any church. I know when people call for help, they said, yeah, we'll pay for your light bill.
We'll do this. If you'll come to church Sunday.
We'll help you if you'll help us.
And so they have trained people that will help these people deal with their financial and emotional problems.
Saving the lost through benevolence.
But what's the purpose? Why are we here? It's like the CEO of Huntsville Hospital calling all 8,000 employees of Huntsville Hospital together, saying, folks, guess what? We're going to start trying to heal people.
Really? I thought that's the reason you existed.
It is. You see my point? I love you. Thank you for listening. May God bless you.
