Spring Spruce Up, Ordination Service, "Come Out From Among Them"? (Pastoral Emphasis for 3/26)

If you have not done so yet, please pick up your financial contribution statement from the Welcome Center. They will be disposed of after April 15th.

Thanks for those who came out on Saturday for our Spring Spruce Up. Everyone was very cheerful, loving, and willing to work.  Here are some stats:

• 26 total members: 12 members (including one new member) and 14 leadership 
• All areas of the church were cleaned. 
• Total hours: 50.05 for a savings of $1,250.00 ($25 per cleaning hour) 
• Some great comments: “Where do you need me to work?” “I better get to cleaning because I want my windows to be "squeaky clean!” 

Join us again on Wednesday at 7 pm for our Bible Study series called the Journey. This Wednesday, we'll wrap up our volume 1 with a time of review and fellowship. You can purchase your volume 2 book for $4 from Deacon Johnson.

Sunday afternoon at 4 pm, I preached at New Dimensions Fellowship Church for their 13th church anniversary. I appreciated those who came out to support as well as those who prayed for me. I preached from Matthew 7:24-27 on the subject, "Obey Jesus or Suffer Loss”.

Next Sunday, 4/2, we're having an ordination service at 4 pm. We'll be ordaining Elder Rod Harrison, Ministers Matt Darby, Rasheeda Oliver, and Evangelist Barry Singleton. Come out and let's encourage our brothers and sister in their continuing work for the Lord.

Also, we will not have Communion next Sunday but will celebrate it on Easter Sunday.

After service last Sunday, someone asked me a great question in regards to my sermon, "Jesus is a Friend of Sinners" from Mark 2:13-17. The question was "how do you reconcile associating and being a friend of sinners with the command to 'come out from among them'"?

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 6:16-18 (ESV):

What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.” 

When Paul mentioned that "God said this", he is referring to the OT where many times God told His people, Israel, to separate themselves from the other pagan nations. They were to eat, dress, and worship differently. This was to physically set them apart as God's people.

Now where the separation was physical in the OT, it's a spiritual separation in the NT. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 5:9-10 (ESV):

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. 

When Jesus prayed for His disciples, He said...

I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. (John 17:14-16)

So “come out from among them” means Christians are to separate themselves from the immorality of the unbelieving people around them. Isolating ourselves physically by living in a monastery like monks is not the answer. We are to associate and be friendly with sinners in order to share Jesus with them but not participate in their sin.