Building Bridges

Introduction

Want to take just a moment to thank those of you that are visiting with us for being here. I know some of you have traveled a little bit of distance to be here through the dark of night, especially my daughter Jana and her friends that have come from College Station. Glad that they came our way. If you haven’t met my daughter Jana, she’s the one that looks like Gina looks like Gina and Julia, okay. Also want to thank the many several gospel preachers who come out this evening. And thank you for your encouragement to this church as well as to the word that we’re going to study tonight. I want to talk a little bit about this concept of building bridges from a spiritual concept, of course.

1. A Need to Remain Separate From the World

We’re not going to give any instruction on construction of things like that. But along that line, as we talk about the things that we’re going to look at tonight, if you’re here from the community, if these are things that are foreign to you that we talk about tonight, I hope you’ll feel free to ask questions or make comments and address anything you wish to me. And I know also in regard to the work here that the elders and Tony and others will be glad to answer for the work here if you have an interest in knowing more about this congregation. Well, when we talk about this idea of building bridges, I want to introduce that first of all with a balance that I think we all understand, or most of us do, as we think about what it is to be a Christian, that there is a need for us to remain separate from the world in the way we think and the way that we conduct our life.

That is, there is a natural separation that’s going to be between you, if you’re a Christian, and those in the world. There’s going to be a different way of thinking. There’s going to be a different way of living. There’s going to be a different way of talking. And maybe one of the first points we want to notice, and especially for you young people, is to realize you don’t need to be afraid to be different. You know, you don’t need to be afraid to be different than the people around you. But there’s also, as we think about this, many scriptures that remind us of the importance that God places on the way we live, and that we need to always honor holiness, that we never need to compromise holiness.

And when we talk about trying to influence others and do things with them, we don’t want to compromise the way that God expects us to live. And we find several scriptures that emphasize this. In 2 Corinthians chapter 6, verses 16 and 17. There is a reminder about God’s character, and he says, as God has said, I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be my people. That’s a phrase that occurs many times in the Old Testament as God is looking for people that are wanting to be His. I find that’s an interesting phrase anyway. I will be their God. That’s looking at it from people’s perspective. I’m going to be their God. And they’re going to be my people.

What an honor. What a privilege. What a blessing to be God’s people. But then along that with that, he goes on and says, therefore, come out from among them and be separate. Now, we’re going to talk about the other balance to this, because obviously when he’s saying this, he’s not saying, go live in a monastery. He’s not saying go out and live in an island and don’t have anything to do with people of the world. But he is saying there needs to be a different way of thinking, a different way of living, a different way of talking when we’re talking about being a Christian, when we’re talking about being God’s people. If we’re just like everybody else, then we’re not God’s people.

Do not touch what is unclean. Excuse me. When we think about that concept, do not touch what is unclean. We understand that during the Old Testament time there was a different standard of what was considered to be unclean. Certain foods, especially, that they didn’t eat, they weren’t going to take any part of. But you think about how rigid it was in the Old Testament in that regard. And then when we understand that concept of those things that God does not approve of are things we don’t need to have in our life. And I think there’s certainly a lot of value in recognizing how we don’t want to be getting as close as we can to sin. We don’t want to just be as close as we can to doing something that’s just not right.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and verse 33, we read, do not be deceived. Isn’t that an interesting way to start that? What’s the implication? That is that it’s easy to be deceived. And then he says, evil company corrupts good habits. I wish I could tell you how many people that I’ve known that have thought it’s not going to affect them to spend all their time with people who have really bad morals. And they think I’m going to be the one that’s going to be the influence, and unfortunately, many times it turns around the other way. The American Standard Version says, be not deceived. Evil companionships corrupt good morals. Now, that’s those two different things are really not saying anything different, thank you. Appreciate that. You read my mind.

2. In the World, But Not of the World

But it does emphasize it a little bit differently when we think about the people that we are making our closest friends, is going to affect our morality. It’s going to affect our habits. It’s going to affect the way we live. When we make that our closest association. But the balance to that is that we don’t isolate ourselves. And this isn’t this may be a difficult thing for some to keep that balance and say, I’m still going to have association with people, but I’m not going to let my heart get attached to them in the way that it’s going to affect me. Jesus prayed this in John the 17th chapter, specifically about his apostles. And as he’s praying for them, he says, I do not pray that you should take them out of the world.

That is, completely remove them from their contact with worldly people. But that you should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. And we usually summarize that by putting those two concepts together. In the world, but not of the world. And that’s not just a matter of a necessary evil. It’s also something God wants us to do. That we’re going to need to be able to be some kind of an influence to other people. There have been different groups that have completely isolated themselves from the world. And I’m not going to pick on any particular groups. But there have been different ones who’ve had that concept. We’re just going to completely isolate ourselves. We’re going to go to this commune.

We’re going to do, we’re not going to have any influence with the outside. It’s going to be this utopian society. Everything’s going to be perfect. And what happens? Sometimes some pretty tragic things. One in particular, I remember that happened in Guyana with a man named Jim Jones. And many others like that. They don’t remove the problem of sin. They more or less mask it in many ways. And they’re still not doing what God wants us to be. In 1 Corinthians chapter 5, and I’m not going to go into detail about the whole chapter, but most of you are familiar with it. This is the passage where he’s letting them know that in order to reach somebody that is that is a Christian that’s not living that way, that there is some disciplinary action that’s taken upon them, what we usually refer to as withdrawal, and the term is used here and in 2 Corinthians, excuse me, 2 Thessalonians chapter 3.

But he makes this caveat. He makes this point and says, I wrote unto you in my epistle not to keep company with a sexually immoral person. Yet I certainly did not mean with this sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous or extortioners or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. Now, his point that he’s making, and you can correct me later if I’m wrong, is that he’s saying we are not to disassociate ourselves with people that we completely disassociate ourselves with people that are world around us. With always remembering, I’ve got to not let that come to the point that it’s affecting the way I live, the way I think, and that’s why it’s so important, as we talked about quite a bit yesterday, that we have close association, very close association with those of light precious faith.

3. God Built a Bridge Instead of a Wall

We need that reminder. Because we really, we’re not just isolated. We’ve got to go back out into the world, and we need that undergirding. We need that strengthening that’s going to help us to face some of these different people that we may face and different attitudes and different things that go on. Now sometimes, if we’re not careful, we build a wall that makes it difficult to help the lost. And this can happen in a few different ways. But let’s just look at the example of God Himself. There is absolute holiness. He is absolute good. And man is separated, of course, because of his sin. In Isaiah 59, the first two verses, I could probably turn it off, and half of you could quote this verse, right?

Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened that it cannot save, nor is ear heavy that he cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you so that he will not hear. Now that’s a passage that I use a lot of times when I’m trying to explain somebody what sin is. And that it is a very serious thing. It’s nothing to be taken lightly, because this is what it does. It separates us from God. It separates us from the giver of all that’s good. It separates us from our Creator. In 1 John chapter 1 and verse 5, this is the message which we’ve heard from him and declare unto you that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

There is no darkness in God. He cannot, by his very nature have association with sin. And that puts us in a very precarious position. Because man, who is separating from sin is in of his biggest need, is in need of this relationship with God. So what did God do? Well, he had every right to build a wall between us and him and the chasm that existed between us because of our sin. Instead, he built a bridge. He built a bridge for us to be where he is, to have contact with him. It took the form of love in John chapter 3 and verse 16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

And the emphasis that we should place on that is the love that God has. We just sang several songs about God’s love. And I don’t believe that I fully appreciate God’s love. What I mean is that he loved me enough to send his son to die for me, and we can say the words. But do we really, do we really fathom what that is? Maybe it comes into play more when we can actually experience things ourselves. You know, you’ve heard different illustrations. Maybe one of my favorite ones that express the magnitude of God’s love is it’s it doesn’t, it doesn’t fit every, it doesn’t fit all the capacity of it, but you’ve all probably heard this. The guy that’s operating the drawbridge. And he takes his son with him, his young son with him to work one day.

And he sees the drawbridge is up and the ships are going under the train track, and he’s explaining to his son the different things, and then he gets distracted, and as little boys do, he kind of disappeared. And he hears the train whistle, he knows it’s time to lower the drawbridge, and he looks for his son, and he sees that his son has fallen down in the gears of the drawbridge. And he can be rescued if he’ll just not operate the machinery and go down there and get the sun. So he starts to open the door to head down toward this these gears, and all of a sudden he hears the train whistle again. And he knows that the hundreds of people on that train will die if he doesn’t lower the bridge.

And so he lowers the bridge and crushes the life out of his son. Now, that act of compassion that bridge operator showed toward those hundreds of people that passed him, didn’t even appreciate what was going on, might in some way illustrate the way that we can go about our lives and not even appreciate the sacrifice that was made for us. But more importantly, is to recognize that God didn’t just do that because there was a multitude of people, but because he loves each one of us and knows that was the that needed to be done, Christ had to be sacrificed in order for us to be with him. And so that bridge that we’re talking about that is a way for man to get to God, both spiritually and in eternity, in actuality to be with God, begins first of all with the concept that God loves us.

Secondly, as Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 8 emphasizes, that it is a bridge of grace, the provision for us to be right with God has been made by God’s grace. That is, this is unmerited favor. It is not deserved. It is not because our life was worth the death of his son. It is not because we did something that made us worthy of that, but it does mean that God considered it worthwhile to sacrifice his son in order to save us. And he says in verse 8, for while, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus, which God of Word prepared that we should walk in them.

Now, I know a lot of times we get off on talking about, we start off talking about all the things that this doesn’t mean, but let’s not miss what it does mean. It’s saying that it is by grace. It is not that you’re going to go to heaven because you deserve to go to heaven. None of us are going to say, I earned it, I deserve it, give me what I deserve. Because if we get what we deserve, we would all spend eternity in hell. God provided a way for us to receive something that we do not deserve. And it is grace. It is unmerited favor. It’s the thing that should make us all the more appreciative of what God has done, because it is his grace by which we are saved.

Yes, there is our part. We’ll talk a little bit about that in a moment. God, of course, his bridge took the form of sacrifice, and there were so many things that could be emphasized about that sacrifice and what it really meant. And again, I want to remind you that there were so many people, even in that day, that were that were crying out, crucifying, that were hurling insults at him, that didn’t appreciate that he was dying for them. But that’s no different than us disregarding and unappreciating today that this sacrifice was made. In Isaiah 53 and verse 4, surely our griefs he himself bore. And our sorrows he caring. Yet we ourselves esteemed him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But he was pierced through for our transgressions.

He was crushed for our iniquities, and the chastening for our well-being fell upon him. By his scourging, we are healed. What a sacrifice he made.

He was sinless. He didn’t deserve any of it. Now there have been other people that have been mistreated unnecessarily, but there’s never been anyone without sin that’s been punished like he was. And at all the time he could have called 10,000 angels as he told Peter, but he willingly endured it for our benefit. It is also the form of mercy that we find this. Mercy particularly has to do with the idea of justice being acquitted. That there is some justice that is being provided for, not by the ultimate carrying it out, but rather by mercy that is here. In Titus chapter 3, in verse 4 says, But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, he saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we ourselves have done in righteousness, but according to his mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.

You know, some of these concepts are things that sometimes people don’t want to, I don’t know if there’s a pride related to it, but sometimes people don’t want to think about that I’m getting something I don’t deserve. That I’m actually I’m actually asking for mercy. But the reality, if we understand it, is we are all in need of it. And so God provided this bridge to himself by the mercy that he showed. And it of course brings provides also by the forgiveness that we find, for example, as it’s mentioned in Ephesians, the fourth chapter, as an example of how we should be. In Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 32, where he says, Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has forgiven you.

That’s a good thing to remember when we might be feeling unmerciful, when we might be feeling unforgiving, is what God has really done for us.

4. We Must Meet His Conditions

This bridge that God created is a way for us to be where He is. In John chapter 14 and verse 6, Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. And so this is the only way. This is the only way for us to restore this relationship with God. This is the only way for us to be with him eternally, is through Christ. And God lets us choose whether we want to walk across that bridge or not. He doesn’t force us, he doesn’t make somebody walk across that bridge.

But we have the choice. We must meet his conditions. This is one of those things that gets confused sometimes, especially in a lot of the religious discussions that go on in various groups. When we think about the idea of salvation is undeserved, it doesn’t mean it’s unconditional. If it was unconditional, God said he wants all to be saved. So if it’s unconditional, everybody would be saved. Yet we know Jesus said that white is the gate, broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many are they that find it. Straight is the gate and narrow the way that leads to life, and few are they that find it. Matthew 7, 13 and 14. So if there are most people are going to be lost, but God wants most people to be saved, the differing factor is that salvation is there are some conditions that we need to meet.

That doesn’t take away anything from it being undeserved. That doesn’t take away anything from it being merciful. That doesn’t take anything away from it being forgiveness. It just means that God, who we need to trust for our salvation, has the right to set what those conditions are. I believe there’s more to it than that have to do with the right kinds of heart, that has to do with being his people, but it is something that we should simply recognize and that we need to help people to understand. And we usually break it down pretty simply. Mark 16 and 16, he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. Belief is where it begins. You say, well, where’s the hearing? Well, we’re already hearing, okay, so we skip that one.

And I’m not saying it’s unimportant. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. It needs to be based on what comes from God’s word. But when we’re talking about it’s somebody learning about God and they’re seeing this from the word, it has to begin with their faith, with their believing in God and believing in everything that the Bible says about Him and His Son. We need to repent, not just of what we call immorality. In Acts chapter 2, when Peter said, Repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. When he said that, he’s speaking to some people that a few verses before are called devout Jews.

I would say, and I don’t think I’m stretching this too far, most of them probably live better than most of us. They were good people. They already understood the principles of things that were wrong as far as morality. One of the main things they needed to repent of was their attitude about Jesus Himself. And I usually put it this way. What we need to repent of is anything in our life, whether in our thinking or in our actions, that is against the will of God. Whatever that is. It might be doctrinal, it might be moral, it might have to do with some things that we think about God, but whatever it might be, those are the things we need to repent of. We need to have that attitude of repentance toward God of anything that is against his will.

We need to confess our faith in him. Maybe sometimes this is minimized as saying, well, I don’t think it really matters whether or not we voice it, whether or not we say it. Many different groups that are looking at other things have realized the value of acknowledging something. The word confess literally means to say with, and the Greek verse, the Greek word follows the same idea. It’s that there is something that we need to acknowledge. And in particular, this is our faith in Christ. If you confess me before men, I will confess you before my Father which is in heaven, or as Romans chapter 10 and verse 10 says, with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. And with the heart, man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Galatians chapter 3, that reminds us about when we become a child of God. John 1.12 says, to everyone that received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe on his name. They give to have the right to become children of God. Galatians 3 26 says, you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ, have put on Christ.

I’ve never really understood why there’s such an objection to baptism. It’s one of the simplest things. It’s one of the easiest things. I understand the theology that prevents this idea of anything that we do, but once we understand it is God’s conditions that we need to meet, to be receptive to the provision that He’s made for us, then why would we want to leave out anything He tells us? And that’s one of the easiest ones. I actually think it’s something that God put in there to just see whether or not we’re really trusting Him or whether we’re trying to do something on our own way. And isn’t it ironic that some of the ones who seem to emphasize as much about it all being about God will not submit to something that God says this is what you need to do.

It’s not that hard. If you’re here this morning this evening and you haven’t obeyed the gospel by believing and repenting and confessing and being baptized, this is not the end of the sermon. Sorry to disappoint you. This is just a little preview. But I just want, while we’re on this topic, I just want you to say, I just want to say, I hope you’ll realize that this is a simple plan. Maybe it’s the simplicity that stops people. And if this is something that you need to do, you can take care of this tonight. You don’t have to know everything there is to know about what God wants you to do. You can put that into place. You can have that repentance that says, I’m ready to do whatever God wants me to do, and spend the rest of your life learning about that.

You can begin that tonight.

5. Tear Down the Walls We Put Up

But there’s also the need for us to remain faithful. Revelation chapter 2 and verse 10. That there is the crown of life that awaits those that remain faithful. Well, what about our bridges? Are we building bridges like God is? We need to help build bridges to help other people to come where we are, if indeed we are in Christ. Now there may be some things that you need to study out for yourself or understand and be confident about yourself. But if you’re in Christ, if we are in Christ, if we’re saved, don’t we want other people to be where we are? Don’t we want to help them get to where we are? And I think we first of all sometimes have to tear down some of those walls that we might be putting up.

That we talked about at the beginning of the lesson. Are we building walls that prevent us from even starting to build those bridges because we’re so focused on one aspect of it of saying, I want this sanctification and this holiness and so totally separate away from everybody that now I build this wall where nobody even knows how to come to be where we are. Sometimes arrogance can be one of those things that keeps people from even wanting to listen to what we have to say. It’s a wall that can be erased. And what I mean by arrogance is not the same thing as confidence. We can be confident about what we believe. But we also need to be willing to say, I’ll change from anything that I find different from what I believe, if we can find it in God’s word.

And I can be wrong. I can be wrong. I’ve had to change my mind about some things before. You show me what the Bible says, and I’ll change that. But I’m not just going to believe something just because somebody says it. It’s got to come from God’s word. That’s where my allegiance is. What about hypocrisy? In both forms. And the truest meaning of the word hypocrisy is to be a pretender, to be an actor. It was used of the people in that first century that wore masks and played a part. And if our Christianity is just playing apart and it’s not real, it will probably manifest itself in the way that we usually use the word hypocrisy, which is saying one thing and doing another.

And probably that’s one of those things that I hear mostly when people talk about not wanting to get very involved in Bible study or going to services, is they say, well, that’s just a bunch of hypocrites down there. You ever hear that? You ever hear anybody say, oh, yeah, they’re just a bunch of hypocrites? And we usually have answers. Well, you want to spend eternity with a hypocrites or you want to sit on a pee with them? You know, something like that. But let’s just be realistic about it. If people see us, if people see me, if people see you as a hypocrite, how likely are they to want to be where you are? So it’s very important that we do our best to be sincere in what we’re doing, which brings up the next one.

In sincerity. If we’re not sincere, both in regard to our service to God, and if we’re not sincere about our care for them. It’s not going to be very effective. It’s going to be more of a wall. If we’re hostile toward people, you know, maybe obviously sometimes we can get pretty passionate about what we believe. But we need to be real careful that we don’t come across as being somebody who’s who’s just wanting to pick a fight. There’s a terminology that we find in the Bible about being contentious. And the big the basic meaning of that word is somebody who loves to fight.

There was a there was a brother a number of years ago. I was 19, so you’d have to figure out where I was.

I was preaching, and this guy had been through some pretty rough stuff from some background that he’d had. And things had kind of calmed down, and we seemed like we were getting to kind of a peaceful place, and we were having a Bible study, and we were studying the book of Hebrews, and he was getting fidgety all through the class. And right toward the end of the class, he couldn’t contain himself anymore. He said, When are we going to get done with this? And study some real meat. He said, I want to put some people’s feet to the fire. That’s what he said. To him, that was the heart of the gospel was the fight. He wasn’t happy if now we were able to move on and just talk about learning more about God and learning about God’s plans.

I know that sometimes people love fighting more than they love fighting for the truth. We should be willing to fight for the truth. But not to the point of saying that I’m more about fighting than I am loving the truth.

Rudeness, just plain old rudeness. You know, rudeness, being rude to people doesn’t usually get very far. And this can come out when we have conversations that we’re more interested in winning an argument than we are in winning a soul. this may not necessarily completely qualify as rudeness, as it is just failure to understand the importance of things being in the right order. But somebody wrote an article a number of years ago. Some of you who’ve done a lot of reading maybe remind me who it was, because it’s one of those things I’ve forgotten where I read it. Oh, by the way, it was Never mind. Anyway, this guy was saying he was in his office. And this guy came in off the street.

And he says, he says, hey, Reverend, I was just coming in here. I was walking past the your church, and I came in here, and I wanted to ask you a question. He said, Well, first of all, you should not call any man reverend. And second of all, this is this is not a church, this is a building. He said, Oh, okay, Pastor. Well, he said, And he says, he says, hold on, you know, now wait a minute. The pastor, that’s the elders. That’s not what a preacher is. He said, Oh, okay. He said, well, anyway, I was I was just thinking about this denomination here. He said, now, and he explains to him about how the denominations is not a concept in the Bible.

He said, No, now what is your question? He said, never mind. Never mind. Now, you sit down to talk to somebody about the Bible. You could stop and answer every everything that they say that’s inaccurate. Or you can be patient enough to listen to where they’re at and start developing a concept of where do I need to begin? Where can I start to build upon? And I can get around to some of those things that maybe I need to answer later on. Carelessness. You know, being careless with what we say and how we say it, presenting things in such a way or saying things about people, about different ones that are going to be disregarding their kind of the position that they’re coming from instead of realizing I need to do what I can to win this soul.

6. Follow God's Example in Building a Bridge

We need to really follow God’s example in building a bridge. First of all, love. Not in some kind of a mishy, mashy somebody says, How do you define love? Well, love is a feeling that you feel a feeling that you’ve never felt before. You know, that doesn’t mean anything. Bible teaches the idea of marriage of love, both in the context of the relationships that we have as well as what we should have for people that we don’t even know, is a concept of wanting the best for them. True concern. That’s sincere. That I really am concerned about the well-being of others. That’s what God demonstrated. And in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, which is a passage that’s often used in weddings, and I’ve done, I use it in weddings too, and it certainly has some application there because love is essential in a marriage, but it’s not exclusively there.

And 1 Corinthians 13 is peculiarly located between chapter 12 and chapter 14, which are verse which are chapters that deal with a congregation and how they’re working together. In that day they have the spiritual gifts and how they exercise them. So he begins the passage and says, Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I become a sounding breast or a clinging symbol. I’m just making a bunch of noise. If I’m getting up and I’ve got these abilities to do things, that’s beyond everybody else, but I’m not concerned about the people that I’m presenting them to. I’m just making noise. He says, and though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have faith so that I can remove mountains, but have not love.

I’m nothing. You realize how applicable that is to the interactions that we have with each other, as well as the interactions that we have with people in the world. We have all kinds of knowledge. Let’s face it, if you’ve been paying attention and sitting at the feet of Tony or one of these other preachers that are in the audience, you’ve been given an opportunity to hear things that most of the people in the world don’t ever hear. What a blessing. What a wonderful thing to have this information. But if you don’t love people, no matter how much information you have, it’s nothing. There’s no value to it. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

Look at the emphasis he’s placing on this, that of course has to do with us being interested in other people’s well-being. That I’m really thinking, how am I going to help them in their life with God? What can I do for them? Not just how can I make myself look good. I mean, look at this. This is feeding the poor and giving your body to be burned, making sacrifices like that. He says, you’re nothing if it’s not, if you don’t have love. They don’t care how much you know unless they know how much you care. And it is, it should be true concern, not just a gimmick. It should be something that’s real. That you really are concerned about your friends and about your neighbors and about your families and about those that you come in contact with.

There’s also a need for us, like God, to show undeserved favor to people. 2 Peter 3, verse 18 says, Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and forever. Amen. So here’s this phrase that we talk most of the time in this verse about the knowledge, growing in knowledge. But he’s also talking about growing in grace. To be more graceful to others, giving people more than they deserve. I don’t know. Maybe sometimes we’re just so much into that fairness that we don’t stop and think, you know, I really need to give people more than they deserve. I need to give them more patience. I need to give them more tolerance. I need to give them more understanding.

I need to give them more time than they deserve from me. Sacrifice, 1 Corinthians chapter 9. We talked about that in quite a bit of yesterday evening. That by all means, Paul would have done things that he gave up from himself for the benefit of winning souls. And verse 19 says, Though I am free from all men, I’ve made myself a servant to all that I might win the more. We’re going to need to sacrifice some time and some energies and some personal habits and sometimes some comfort if we really want to be what God wants us to be, because we love souls like he does. We need to be willing to give up things that interfere with our influence on other people. We need to be forgiving.

The verse we read in talking about God’s forgiveness says, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you. There’s really no room for us to be bearing grudges. We need to let go of judges and forgive mistreatment. Because those are walls that can stand between us and God, and that forgiveness can have an amazing effect on that kind of bridge that we’re trying to provide to help people to be where we are. There’s some specific things you can do. Simple acts of kindness. Then I’m kind of surprised. Maybe it’s because the world we live in, the kindness is not as common as it used to be. That people are surprised when you show you ever have that happen? You just do something kind, and it’s part of the way you were taught.

It’s part of what you’ve learned to be as a Christian. It’s part of maybe the way your parents showed you. And you do this, and then the people are just surprised that you’re being kind. And sometimes I don’t even know how to respond to that. You know. Just being thoughtful. You know, thoughtfulness can go a long way. Showing some care for somebody when they lose a loved one. Showing some interest in what people are going through. Helping a mother that’s dealing with a rowdy child. By the way, along that line, y’all got some great kids here. And I’ve, and for you mothers that are wrestling little ones, y’all are doing a great job, and I don’t hear them, okay? But I hear just enough of others’ kids here.

And I like that.

You know, having personal interest in people. Not because of what you’re going to get back, but because you are genuinely interested in their well-being. Listening more than you speak. Isn’t that a biblical principle? Be swift to hear. That’s always an interesting phrase, isn’t it, in James 1. Listen fast. Speak slow. Be swift to hear and slow to speak. Listen more than you talk. Avoid unnecessary conflicts. Now, what I mean by that is Paul went out of his way not to have conflicts and things that he didn’t need to have conflicts because the gospel itself is going to provide enough offense. So don’t provide unnecessary conflicts. And that may be sometimes with some people, you just hold off on the politics. I mean, sometimes we’ve got to bite our tongue.

And sometimes we might even hold back a little bit on our favorite sports team. Although I don’t know that necessarily gets too many people upset, except when I mention the San Antonio Spurs.

Realize there’s an opportunity for you to meet people that you otherwise would not meet. You know, different groups that you get with because of your children. You know, Gina and I realized we lost a lot of our contacts once Jana moved out. She was the fifth one, and most of so many contacts we had were through our children. Make use of them while they’re there. Now it’s all about who cuts Gina’s hair. That’s who we study with. And you laugh, but last year we came back and baptized her hairstylist from Carthage. You know, they’re kind of stuck right there while they’re cutting your hair. So if you’re if there’s a hairstylist in here, you know what I’m talking about. see people as souls, not just not just somebody walking around.

Conclusion

Recognize that these are individual souls, and they’re going to stand accountable to God someday. So let me just end by saying, what are you building in your life? Are you building bridges? Are you building walls? Which is it? Think about your activities and what you’re doing. And if you’re here and you’ve not made the decision to follow Christ, have you crossed the bridge he provided for you? Have you made that opportunity? Have you recognized that he’s done so much for you, and he just asks for your simple obedience to him and simple trusting faith. If you’re here tonight and you need to cross that bridge to be with him spiritually and with him eternally, we hope that you will, because now is the time. If we can assist you in any way, come forward as we stand and as we sing.