Pastor Tim thinks about how God tells us to show care for others in a different way than our natural impulse — and why that matters.
The following study questions and transcript are AI generated and may contain errors.
Well, good evening and welcome to Steadfast. I’m so glad to be with you once again as we continue our series, and the second half of our summer series actually, proverbially speaking. We’ve been exploring Proverbs 25 this summer, but last week we took a bit of a shift. We’d looked at the first portion, which all sort of built on matters of speech and so on. Now we’re thinking more generally: how do we interact with the people around us? How do we care for them?
One of the challenges in caring is that we tend to be really self-centered a lot of the times. I certainly do. I’m usually preoccupied with things I’m worried about, things I’m hoping to accomplish, things that I would like. How do we get out of that? Well, that’s a really difficult question, and one we won’t completely solve tonight. But what we do see is that God is calling us to. He doesn’t want us to be self-centered. He wants us to look like Jesus.
I had an illustration all planned out for tonight, and we’re going to take a little bit of a detour. I know many of you have been praying over the last few weeks for my family. My cousin Donna had, I have to say now, had terminal cancer. She passed yesterday. And besides just being preoccupied thinking about that, as I looked at the illustration I had, I thought, I need to change it. Because as I reflected on Donna, and as I spoke with others about Donna, the thing I kept coming back to was how much she was worried about everybody else.
I think, if I recall correctly, it was a while back on Steadfast that I shared this picture. I know I’ve shown several times this picture of my grandpa and me, but what I may not have mentioned when I’ve shown it before is that this picture, this particular framed version of it, was a gift from Donna. It sort of exemplifies Donna, because for the last two decades that she’s been a part of this family, right from the beginning, and that was what was so striking about her, she got to know everybody and made it her business to know what they cared about, what mattered to them.
And so for example, while she never got to meet my grandpa, she knew how much he meant to me. And so one year for Christmas, she found this picture that my mom had shared on Facebook and she got a print of it and she put it in this beautiful frame because she knew that that would matter to me. And it wasn’t just for me, it was for everybody, everyone in the family, whether she saw them all the time or not. If she was getting a gift, if she was hosting a party, she always knew what everyone cared about, what everyone was interested in.
Didn’t matter if the person was easy to talk to or more challenging to talk to, she made it her business to care. And as I was thinking about this topic tonight and providentially how we arrive on it tonight, Donna’s one of the best examples I know of someone who really lived what we’re being called to in this passage. And so it just seemed right with her death yesterday to set aside what I was going to use to open us up tonight and just reflect on her life in that and be thankful to God that he provided that example and the blessing of knowing her.
And if you know someone like her, and I hope that you do, if you’ve had the blessing of someone like that in your life, you certainly can’t help but be struck because, you know, if we’re around people enough, we may figure out things they care about, and at least for the ease of getting along, make it our business to know some of the things people appreciate. But to be really around someone who goes the extra mile and does really just want to care about everyone around her, it’s a beautiful thing.
And that’s what God calls us to in this life. He wants us to be people who show that kind of care. Let’s go ahead and pray, and as we do tonight, pray that God would help us to be that sort of people. Will you join me? Father, thank you for this evening and for the opportunity to study your word. And Lord, I do thank you for the life of Donna, and what a blessing I know she’s been to all of us.
Lord, I thank you that we have hope in the resurrection, and we do eagerly anticipate the day that we’re reunited with her. Lord, thank you for all the individuals you brought into the lives of those that are here tonight that show that sort of care. Lord, would you help us to be a people who care about one another, that we would show the kind of love that strikes us when someone else takes the time to show it, that we’d show that to others, that they would see the love of Jesus in our lives. We pray this in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
Let’s go ahead and look at verse 16, which we were on last week, and then from there we’ll jump in also to verse 17, because the two are related. They’re different, and yet their difference even is revealing about how they connect together.
If we look here at verse 16, it says, “If you have found honey, eat only enough for you, lest you have your fill of it and vomit it.” But then we go into verse 17. It says, “Let your foot be seldom in your neighbor’s house, lest he have his fill of you and hate you.”
As I was reading verse 16 and you were looking at 17, hopefully you noticed it’s a different topic, and yet there’s a strong parallel there. In both cases, it says don’t do too much of something, or else something else having to do with an overabundance of something will happen. But there’s a key difference in those two examples. The first one is don’t eat too much, because why? You’re going to get sick. And maybe you’ve had that experience. You just ate too much of something and you made yourself sick.
The second one, though, notice isn’t about us being sick. Look at it again, second half of this verse, lest he have his fill of you and hate you. So it’s care for the neighbor. It’s don’t do too much and cause him to get sick of you. So it’s about moderation in both cases, but the first one’s the part that’s easier for us. It’s about care for ourselves, and most of us get pretty good at that. Maybe not perfect, and we have a whole industry in this world about self-care and self-improvement and so on. If we’re not good at it, we’re certainly always trying to get better at it.
But the second one is care for others, and that is what made me come back to thinking about Donna as us preparing this passage, because it’s often what we miss, because when it’s being directed towards us at first, at least we just accept it because, well, of course people should care about the things we care about, right? Sometimes it takes seeing that person showing that kind of care over and over to different people for it to really be apparent to us.
Like I said, that’s what really struck me and why I felt like I, for those of you that didn’t know her, why I felt like I needed to share that tonight, because what really was striking about Donna is she would keep showing that care to everyone over and over again, and then there’d be something I’d mention in passing, and I wouldn’t even think it’d be noticed, and she’d notice it, and it’d come back maybe a year, two years, three years later. She took that kind of care, but it’s a quiet care.
Some of you, I think, actually said hi to her on chat, even if you didn’t know her over the years, because as you know, if you’re on a mobile device, it’ll say you’re watching this video with so-and-so, and I’d see every once in a while someone say, hi, Donna, and she was the kind of quiet person. She wouldn’t get on and actually chat, but she would come on here just quietly and watch. She didn’t ever say anything about it. She just cared enough to watch without trying to get attention, without even saying something, so I would thank her for watching. It wasn’t that sort of thing. She just cared about her family and wanted to know what we were doing.
Actually caring about other people often is that way. It’s ideal when it’s quiet. As far as we know, as we’re doing it, the people around us aren’t even aware that we’re doing it for them. We’re just caring. It should be like air where it’s just present. That’s sort of what we have here, because if you think about it, if you’ve ever had someone who is too present, someone, a neighbor that every time you go outside, you have to talk for an hour or two hours or three hours, that kind of neighbor, you notice that. But the neighbor who’s always there when you really need him or her, but isn’t overly pushy, isn’t always knocking on the door, is just somehow always there just at the right moment.
For a long time, you may not even think about it until you start to think, wait, this person was there here and here and here, and you start to put it together, but for a long time, you don’t notice it. It’s the ones that are overly pushy that do make you kind of wish for a break that you notice, that I notice. And so when we’re actually showing care by taking in other people’s needs and then trying to apply them, a lot of times it just goes by and we’re not even aware.
How do we live that kind of quiet care? Well, if we take just the direct, literal thing being addressed here, that we’re not overbearing, that we’re not overpresent, we’re going to do it. And a lot of people aren’t really aren’t going to think about it for a long time, because if we’re present when it’s helpful, but we’re not overly present, people aren’t going to think, well, I’m so glad I know this person. He’s always not overly present. She’s not always there just too much. She’s just there at certain times. We’re not even aware of it, and yet we’re not putting someone in an uncomfortable position where they’re thinking, I need a break.
Because why? Because we’re actually thinking about their needs. We’re not thinking, well, I’d like to talk right now or I need conversation or company right now. We’re thinking, well, what would be good for this other person? Because the fact that this is being given as a proverb that we need advice on implies that it’s not about us at all. We’re pretty good at knowing if we’re around someone too much and we’re tired of being around them, then we just aren’t around them for a little while. We take a break. We go do something else.
But being aware of when we’re around somebody that’s too much for them, they need that break. Well, that’s actually taking into account their needs. And that’s where I really think the bigger point isn’t simply being around someone too much, but really just a call to take in people’s needs. Be aware of when they need us there, when they don’t need us there, when they need us to care in a certain way, when they’ve simply had too much. They need a friend, but they don’t need any pressure or anything that will add to that burden. They just need someone to sit with them.
Job’s friends were exemplars of this at first. When they go, and Job’s going through everything that he’s going through, and his friends just sit there with him. They’re just there in the agony with him. But what happens? Well, they revert to their self-importance. After the days they sit there with Job in silence, they need to get their say in. They need to say, well, this is how I think you should be on this. And this is why I think that you’re surely being punished by God for the way that you did something wrong that you’re not even aware of. You need to figure it out, Job, because that’s why everything’s going wrong for you.
And it really ends up coming back to them. That’s not helping Job. Ultimately, they’re wrong. So it’s really not helping Job. But what’s it about? It’s about them feeling important in front of Job, that they can be the ones to correct them. And when we’re talking about those examples that God blesses us with in life, those people, those rare people that are really trying to care genuinely, their life is permeated with care. They’re the ones that just keep being Job’s friends at the beginning. They just sit there with us.
That’s really hard to do. If you ever tried to do that, I’ve tried to do that. And then there’s always that moment where I want to go ahead and I’m going to insert my advice. Yes, I know at first the person can’t handle it. But now I’m going to insert my advice because I need to say something. Or maybe I think they’ve been really dumb and I want them to know that. I waited for a while. I was patient. But that’s about what I need. How can I instead be about being there for them?
I wasn’t really aware of this. And that’s probably a sign that that I’m not a farmer. But we were in a drought here in Missouri until recently. For the most part, it doesn’t really affect someone like me. If you live in the city and you’re on city water with a giant river nearby, there just doesn’t really that much concern if there’s a drought. But what does become apparent is when there’s too much water. And we’ve had a ton of rain these last few weeks.
And so right now there seems to be a perpetual series of flash flood warnings and flood warnings coming through. I have one of those ever helpful smart speakers that likes to give way too many alerts. And what does she do? She keeps mentioning there’s a new extension to the flood warnings. Why is that? Because the ground saturated. That ground can’t take any more. And if you’re a raindrop, you’re not worried about that. You’re just falling to the ground, just adding more water.
And at some point, that would have been a blessing. At other points, it’s not. Sometimes where we get into trouble is that as we’re thinking about our own needs, we think, well, my land is dry. I could use the rain. And we’re not really paying attention to our neighbor who in some bizarre circumstance actually has ground that’s oversaturated.
Maybe they are right by the riverbank and they’re constantly being inundated with water. Or maybe they’re just a little lower and they’re closer to the water table and they just can’t take as much as we can. And a lot of times, whether it’s advice or being around other people or getting things to try to help other people, but we’re focused on our own needs, whatever it might be, we’re focused on, well, my ground is dry and I need this. I need company. I need conversation. I need advice. I need this. I need that.
And we’re not really worried about the other person. What’s he going through? What’s she going through? And so we bring out the rain. We bring out the rain. And so we bring out the fire hose. I’m going to saturate this ground. There’s not enough rain coming down, even if we have rain every day. So I’m just going to make sure my ground is saturated. We’re not noticing all that water is going and deluging the person downhill that’s being swamped out.
Because what we’re really doing is we’re, even if we think, well, I’m helping my neighbors, I’m bringing more water into this picture because it’s been dry. We’re not thinking about whether we’re talking about a full-fledged regional drought or just something that occupies our unique piece of geography in life. What this scripture is calling us to is to think about not measuring how dry are we, but going over to our neighbors, going over to our family, going over to our fellow church members, our brothers and sisters in Christ, and taking a measurement of their ground.
So that our priority, even when we’re trying to help people, isn’t measuring how we feel and then applying that to the other person, but going and measuring how they feel. What they’re going through and helping them with what’s actually going on in them. And that’s where this is so hard to apply. Because as we think about this exhortation not to be overly present in someone’s house, well, again, it’s probably not obvious to us that we’re being overly present.
Because if we’re over there, we’re thinking, well, I need to be over here for whatever reason, whatever it might be. And it’s saying, but pay attention to how the other person’s feeling. See where they are and then do what’s good for them rather than just thinking about, even as you’re trying to, in some sense, be a blessing to the other person. Well, this is how I feel. So that person must feel that way too. And therefore, I’m going to act accordingly.
Actually measure how other people are feeling. And so it’s a two level thing. First, we need to say just on the top of it, we need to take a measurement of how we need to be considerate of other people’s needs. But then we also shouldn’t just be considerate, but we need to actually measure what their needs are as opposed to ours. And that, again, this is why I decided to rewrite the first part of this sermon.
The point is still the same, but thinking about what I’ve shared with Donna, the thing that was remarkable is that she actually came to understand what other people needed. And again, like, for example, it was really apparent at Christmas time, if we had a big family gathering and how each person’s gift was unique to them. It wasn’t what she was excited about at the moment, although she was excited about it because she’d gotten it and she wanted people to be happy, but it was what they would appreciate.
And sometimes we do that. I know with myself, if I’m thinking of giving a gift, sometimes I’m really trying to focus on what the other person would like and what they’re hoping for. And sometimes I’m just thinking, well, I want to get something to make this person happy and I really like this, so I’m going to give them this. Have you ever been in that spot? And sometimes that’s a good idea. It’s like you’ve discovered something new and exciting and you realize that it’s going to make them happy too.
But sometimes it’s, well, I want to do something nice for this person. I want to be considerate and I’m measuring what I like, and so therefore they’re going to like it too. And what I’ve missed is that second step of consideration. Let’s see what he or she actually appreciates. Let’s see what he or she needs.
This proverb is calling us to be the sort of people that don’t just get to that first step. I want to do something nice for somebody else, but then we actually understand what nice is for that other person. And that’s so much harder because it requires stepping out of ourselves and our own comfort zones and our own preferences and actually understanding other people genuinely. It’s not easy, but God calls us to that. And here’s the beautiful thing. When we actually do it, when we succeed, and most of us, all of us really, we’re not going to do it perfectly.
And you might do it fantastically one day and the next day you utterly stink at it. But when we do do it and it really impacts someone, what do we do? We start to point them to Jesus because as we show them that kind of love that doesn’t come easy and doesn’t come naturally to us, people start to ask why we’d be different. Why do we do that? And that leads into what people really need that sometimes we think we can get away with not doing. And that’s that we need to be faithful to others, not just being kind and courteous in the moment, but genuinely faithful to other people.
Take a look at verse 18. “A man who bears false witness against his neighbor is like a war club or a sword or a sharp arrow. Trusting a treacherous man in time of trouble is like a bad tooth or a foot that slips.”
This almost feels like a different topic, doesn’t it? And at first I was tempted, we’re going to cover this first part that we’ve been talking about one week, we’ll cover the second part another week. But the more I thought about this and the more I’ve been praying over this passage, the more I thought, you know, I think actually my first impulse when I was dividing up the passages for this series was the right one. These go together. And here’s why I think that’s the case.
Because that first part is talking about being considerate of other people’s needs. And here we’re getting a description of some of the times that people are in the greatest need. Why would we bear false witness towards someone? Well, often it’s because they’re in a vulnerable position. Maybe they’ve been accused of something. Maybe they’re going through a really tough time and we can either decide, well, you know, I know the real situation for this person, but it would be expedient for me to say otherwise, because maybe it’ll elevate me. Maybe there’ll be a benefit for me.
But in that, what am I doing? Caring for myself again. And one of the key ways that we show care to other people is we do it, not just when they’re beneficial to us, not just when everything’s rising for them, but when they’re in their deepest pits. Are we willing in those moments to say, well, I’m going to stick out my neck and say the truth, even if it would be so much easier, even if it’d be beneficial to me to say something false that makes me look better instead?
False witness can have huge implications. We certainly know, for example, if it were in court, it could actually lead to someone’s death or life. And even if it isn’t in court, we have examples. For example, you see cases of cyberbullying. That was a big thing that was in the news a few years ago. I assume it’s still going on just as much. It just doesn’t get talked about all the time, but you’d hear about some teen who’d go and kill himself or herself because of false things said that were meant to elevate the person saying them.
It may not always be that dramatic, but certainly even in less dramatic cases, sometimes we just embellish a bit because we’d like to be the hero of the story. But as we elevate ourselves, we’re denigrating someone else. And as we do that, sometimes we kind of play out, well, it didn’t do that much harm to that person. It wasn’t that important. It was much more beneficial to me. But God is challenging us instead. Be faithful with our words. Say what’s true about other people. Be a good witness for that other person.
And especially, and I think that’s why it moves on here in verse 19, be there when people are in their deepest need. It said once again in verse 19, “trusting a treacherous man in a time of trouble.” We don’t want to be the person that’s being trusted when someone else is in trouble, and then we commit treachery against them. We want to be faithful to other people. Because what happens at the end of verse 19 is like a bad tooth or a foot that slips.
You think about if you’re walking across a platform and that platform collapses, well, you could really get hurt. You might even die from that. It can be a horrible, horrible thing. How much more so if the person’s trying to escape a really bad circumstance? They’re being pursued by someone with a gun, say, and they run out onto a deck and the deck collapses. Now they’re laying on the ground trying to figure out if they’ve broken anything, if they can get back up. And the person with the gun is standing there pointing it at them.
And so often in life, even if it’s not a literal situation, metaphorically, we feel like we’re in that situation. And we know when we’re on the side of the person laying down on the ground sprawled out, we want those around us to help us. And better yet, maybe if they’re helping to hold up the structure, we’re walking across it and we know it’s wobbling and someone says, I’ve got this, I’m holding it up. We want them to hold on to it with all their might so we don’t fall.
So much more so that’s what we should do for others as well. And I believe that verse 17 leads into verses 18 and 19, because if we’re operating from a standpoint, not only that we want to show care to other people, but we want to show care that really meets people in the needs and the crises that they’re going through, well, then we can’t be doing that and also bearing false witness against them. We can’t be doing that and also fail them in their hour of need.
Because if we’re really being formed in a character of desiring to go right where someone is and help that person, then the last thing we’re going to want to do is turn and leave them to fall. To speak badly of them. God calls us to really genuinely care about people’s needs and a huge part of that quiet care is faithfulness, because faithfulness is genuinely, genuinely, I can’t speak tonight, genuinely quiet most of the time.
True faithfulness isn’t a shouting, I’m going to make sure to come through for you. If you have any problems, I’m going to take care of them. No, it’s what happens when we do it and the person doesn’t even notice. A lot of those times, what do I want to do? I want to shout, hey, did you notice I took care of this for you? How much better is it when we’re not even looking for a pat on the back from it? We just do it. Person doesn’t know, but we’ve been faithful.
They wouldn’t notice when we’re not. More than that, they notice as we can feel it. More than that, they notice it as we confess Jesus, when we as those who confess Jesus are not. Jesus calls us to be faithful and he doesn’t call us that in a vacuum. He’s done it for us. Look at Hebrews chapter 13, verse 6.
Author of Hebrews says, “So we can confidently say the Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me? Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you, the word of God, consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
Well, ultimately our leader is Jesus. And so what do we do? We look to him and how he has led and he has been faithful. And a lot of times we don’t even notice God’s faithfulness. Had a friend who wrote an essay a few months ago about all those times that we’re not even aware of what God has done for us. And how true that is. The majority of the time, we’re totally oblivious to what God is doing for us. But he has been faithful.
What do we notice? The times where it doesn’t work out right. And of course, in God’s goodness and God’s care for us, when it doesn’t work out right, it still is right. And it still is God’s care. But that demonstrates what happens in our own lack of care. Because people notice when it doesn’t work out right as we’re caring for them and we back off or we don’t do what we should. They notice that. And unlike God, at least the vast majority of the time, that’s because we’re imperfect and we’re not acting as we should.
Sometimes we genuinely care and genuinely try to help someone and it just backfires. It doesn’t go right. But a lot of times as we reflect on it, we can see how we could have done better. Am I willing to ask the question, how could I do better? And how could they be more like Jesus to the people around me?
And notably, that’s the second part of what we see there in that passage, because the author is also calling the people to look at the leaders of the church who taught them the gospel and saying to them, imitate them. The assumption there is that those leaders are actually acting like Jesus. They’re not supposed to imitate people acting sinfully. They’re supposed to imitate people who are showing what Jesus does and how Jesus loves.
And so that certainly reminds us as Christians, as we share the gospel with other people, as we post about our faith online, perhaps, or we tell a co-worker, hey, I can’t go with to this or that because I’m going to be at church on Sunday. As we make it apparent that we are Christians, how important it is that we actually live like Jesus so that as people struggle in their own struggles, they say, wow, here’s someone who’s really impactful in my life. Here’s someone who has been there for me quietly. Sometimes I didn’t even notice, but actually genuinely cared about where I am.
I certainly think the second half of this challenges us not just to be genuinely caring or generally caring, but to be genuinely caring in those most difficult times, those moments that are least desirable to be caring in, those times that we kind of like to turn the other way and pretend we didn’t see what was going on because it’s going to be difficult if we’re actually going to care in that moment.
But boy, in those difficult moments, when we’re facing them, we certainly realize when things go wrong. It was about 10 years ago, I think actually almost exactly 10 years ago, that it was discovered that airbags from a certain manufacturer, Takata, were defective. The defect was traced back to a plant, one particular plant that hadn’t handled materials properly and hadn’t assembled things properly.
And people have been driving around at that point for a decade and a half or so in some cases with cars that had defective airbags. Well, how could it go so long? You’d think that recalls would happen relatively close to the time the car is manufactured, but how could this be different? Well, because hopefully you don’t deploy the airbag. The airbag, if you think about it in your car, is there in some sense caring for you every single day when you turn on your car, when you go and drive, it’s there ready to spring into action, but you hope it doesn’t spring into action. Because what does it mean if it springs into action? It means you’ve been in an accident, at least if it’s functioning properly.
How much worse if it springs into action when you haven’t been into an accident? So most of the time, it’s just quietly caring. It’s just there. But what happened with these Takata airbags? Well, in that hour of need, when someone would get into an accident, at times it would malfunction. And instead of just deploying and protecting the person, enveloping them into this cushion that would keep them from slamming into the steering wheel or going out the front window or the side window, as it may be, instead of doing that, it would shoot shrapnel out and it actually killed people.
People that might have survived a given accident otherwise, but didn’t because that shrapnel was being thrown out in place of the care that they needed. It’s now the largest recall in automotive history. 100 million airbags recalled. Takata is no longer in business. But you think about it, it all started with a lack of care at a very small level, not storing certain chemicals properly. And it developed into this massive scandal and this massive thing that ended up taking people’s lives.
How often though? Well, we think, well, how did it ever get to that? How could things get so out of hand? How often is it in our own lives? Those little places where we have the choice. Am I going to care for these chemicals? Am I going to take these things that I’ve been entrusted with and show care to the other people around me with them? Or am I just going to think it’ll be okay if I don’t? How often do we cut corners?
Sometimes it really isn’t a big deal. It’s in the grand scheme. Nothing happens from it. But we don’t know those times where we’re going to mishandle things. And it’s going to turn into a moment where that lack of care turns into something much bigger. That when someone that’s counting on us is really struggling, that we end up shooting shrapnel at them instead of helping them, enveloping them in care when they need it.
Here’s what we know though from Scripture. God never fails to show us care. His airbag never misdeploys. If you’ve trusted in Jesus, or if you trust in Jesus right now, you can know that His care, His grace airbag will deploy for you. It absolutely will. But then that speaks to whom it is that we should be. Because we are called to show His care and faithfulness in this world.
And so as the church, as Christians, may we be the people that, as people reflect on us someday, people say, wow, I don’t think this, I don’t, I hope someday someone could say of me that I wasn’t even aware that they knew that I was showing care to them, but they caught those little details. And because of that, they knew some love and care that they need in a moment. And it pointed them to Jesus. I hope that’s the case.
I fail an awful lot. And so I’m certainly not saying as we wrap up this message that I know that will be the case. I hope it is. I pray that it is. I pray that God continues to draw me closer to Him to make me the sort of person that shows that kind of care. And may we all think that.
Because God’s gifted us with a certain amount of time, a precious resource, far more precious than those chemicals that went into the airbag. Are we going to show the kind of care that He enables us to show? So that as people go on for however long this world goes on afterwards, that we contribute a part into bringing God’s care into a world that’s hurting. Because as we do, God will use that for His glory and to draw more people into His family.
Would you pray with me, please? Father, would you help us to be people who care? Lord, it’s hard to care. A lot of times it feels like it ends up working out in ways that don’t help us, in ways that undercut us, in ways that disadvantage us. When people don’t notice our care, we want to somehow make it to our advantage by bringing their attention to it. Or we try to find those places where we can cut corners or maybe say something untrue, just embellish to build our own case, to build our own advantage.
But Lord, would you help us not to do those things? But even when there’s no benefit to ourselves, even when it feels like the care requires a quietness that won’t be noticed, would you help us to be people who are always standing ready, ready to be your hands and feet in this world that you use as those airbags for other people in crises? Would you help us to be that to our brothers and sisters in Christ, in the church? But not just in the church, beyond that, in this world that’s hurting and uncertain in so many ways that we would deploy as needed.
People would see as we do that, that we surely couldn’t do that on our own. But we’re doing it because your Holy Spirit, He is enabling us. And because of that, they would come to know you. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.
Hope this was an encouragement and a help to you. And if it was, please do give it a like or a share. That can feel like a pretty quiet thing, can’t it? But when you’re willing to share the study of God’s word with people that you know, you may not know what impact it has, but God does use his word. And not because of you or me, but because his spirit takes when we talk about his word, he takes it and applies it to people’s hearts and their situations. And he uses it for his glory. So thank you for helping with that.
We need to constantly be refining our understanding of his word and preparing so that we can share his word in people’s times of need. And we do that in part by studying what we believe and what scripture says about what we believe.
We started an exploration of the sacraments a couple weeks ago in Sunday School Express, and we dove deeply into baptism last night. But Sunday School Express is only 30 minutes. So we’re going to pick that back up. I mentioned this last night, but if you have any questions, if you came last night or not, you have questions about baptism and you’re kind of trying to sort things out, I’d encourage you to please join us at our Bible study tomorrow night, 7:15 p.m.
It’s not like our church services and Steadfast, where it’s a live stream. Instead, it’s a video conference. We use Microsoft Teams, sort of like Zoom, if you’re familiar with that. It’s super simple to get in. Sometimes technology gets in the way, but we’ll get through it. So all you need to do is reach out, leave a comment, send me a private message, email me, text me, however you’d like to do it. Reach out. We’ll get you in if you’d like to ask some questions and talk about that.
I think we’ll have a wonderful discussion tomorrow. And then at Sunday School Express, speaking of which, next week, we’ll continue to develop that exploration. So please do avail yourself of these opportunities over this week as we explore baptism in all sorts of different aspects. Try to understand how baptism should be applied, what it means to receive baptism, all these sorts of things.
Maybe it can be helpful to you if you haven’t been baptized yet and you’re trying to sort out what this thing is. I’d love for us to talk about that together. So please do avail yourself of those two opportunities. If you have a question you’d rather ask in private about it, you can always use our prayer and question line, 833-356-4032. That’s 833-356-4032. And of course, you can always leave a comment in the comments below as well. It’s great to hear from you there.
Hope you have a wonderful and blessed week. I’ll see you again next week.
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