The Gift of Saints

Philippians 4:21-22 | December 29, 2019

Have you ever mailed someone a nice holiday greeting card?

I came across a few examples that were sent out this year. 

One card simply had this printed on the front:

Card

Merry Christmas – I Hope I Sent This by February

Better late than never, right?

Another card said:

Card

‘Tis the Holiday Season – May Your Sweaters be Ugly and Bright

One family’s card said:

Card

Sending Joy to All Our Favorite People, Love, The Brandon Family

And then in smaller print at the bottom it said:

Card

Congratulations on making the list

The Everett family had 3 super cute pictures of mom and dad and their two sweet little kids and everyone was all smiles – and then in large letters in the middle of the card it said:

Card

Our real life looks nothing like this

God bless them for keeping it real!

Email and texting and social media have made sending greetings faster and easier and less expensive, but whether it is digital or a hand-made card, there’s just something special about being greeted, right?

In a world full of darkness and despair and discouragement and a variety of media cycles driving us toward constant fear and negativity it is nice to simply get a greeting.

Someone has defined a greeting as a willing action to recognize the presence of others. 

So, what kind of greeter are you?

• A card
• A text
• An email
• A DM
• A handshake
• A hug
• A side-hug
• A fist bump

Even just a little wave of your hand from the steering wheel when you drive through your neighborhood?

What kind of greeter are you – and does it matter?

Well, greetings seem to matter enough that God made sure they were put in the pages of the Bible. 

It seems that God wants all Christians to be greeters.

He wants us to recognize the presence of other people.

So, what does that look like in real life?

Let’s find out. 

Listen to Philippians 4, beginning with verse 21:

21 Greet every saint in Christ Jesus.

The Apostle Paul was a greeter in real life. 

And what was his real life?

Well, in the moment that he is sending out these greetings he is a prisoner. 

So, in an extremely difficult circumstance where he has lost most of the freedoms of life Paul is still greeting – he is still recognizing the presence of others.

What kind of greeter are you when things get difficult in life?

• When you’ve had a bad day at school
• When you’ve had a bad day at work
• When you didn’t get what you wanted for Christmas
• When your Christmas cookies didn’t turn out right
• When your finances hit a bump in the road
• When your health hits a bump in the road

Listen, nobody’s perfect and we are all going to struggle and have our moments or our days or our weeks – but do you still recognize the presence of others when you are going through a difficult time?

I have watched people in some of the most difficult and tragic moments of life bring some healing to their own hearts and minds and souls just by the act of greeting others – just by continuing to recognize the presence of others – just by giving a kind greeting to the sales clerk at the long line in customer service, just by giving a kind greeting to the nurse checking their vitals in the middle of the night, just by giving a kind greeting to the person who dropped off a casserole and 5 packages of paper plates when someone in the family died.  

None of us are perfect, but generally speaking, what kind of greeter are you on the good days and the difficult days?

Do you graciously recognize the presence of others?

I read once how a political consultant said the presidential candidate he worked for could walk into a room anywhere full of hundreds of strangers and almost instantaneously find the man or woman in the room that was privately experiencing the greatest amount of need or pain or hurt or brokenness.

Paul recognized the presence of others – he was a greeter.

And who was Paul greeting?

The saints. 

What is a saint?

Many times, people limit the term “saints” to people who have died or people who have done unique good deeds. 

• Paul
• Peter
• Matthew
• Pope John Paul II
• Mother Teresa
•  

But biblically understood, all believers are saints because they have been joined together in spiritual union with Christ.

1 Corinthians 1:2

…to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling…

The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses and sanctifies the soul of a believer and allows them to be called a saint.

A person is not a saint based on good deeds that they do.

A person is a saint because the surpassing value of Jesus Christ – his holiness and righteousness and purity – has been credited to their spiritual account.

In greeting the saints at Philippi, Paul was not only affirming their salvation, but he was affirming that they were now holy and set apart by God to live their lives in a way that was consistent with their calling.

But this isn’t just a request to greet folks and say “howdy”.

The tense of the verb here is imperative, so, Paul is not only telling them to greet everyone for him, he is giving them a gracious command to be greeters themselves. 

He wanted them to follow his practice of greeting other believers. 

How do you greet other believers?

This is what Paul told the folks in Rome:

Romans 16:16

Greet one another with a holy kiss.

Many cultures still practice greeting with a kiss, but it doesn’t work in every culture and every setting. 

The idea behind it works, though – Christians should love one another. 

There’s a whole lot of “one another’s” in the bible

• Build up one another
• Serve one another
• Be devoted to one another
• Rejoice with one another
• Weep with one another
• Admonish one another
• Be kind to one another
• Forgive one another
• Submit to one another
• Comfort one another
• Encourage one another
• Pray for one another
• Confess your faults to one another
• Be truthful with one another
• Do not take one another to court

But perhaps the greatest of the one another’s is to love one another – Christians should love one another. 

And that’s super easy, right?

I mean, none of us in this church ever messes up or does the wrong thing or says the wrong thing or forgets to do something or fails to show up for something, right?

I mean, we are that church where all of us do the right thing all the time, right?

No, loving one another is not the easiest thing in the world, but it is what we have been called to do. 

And you know one of the best ways we can love one another?

By obeying the command to greet one another.

Maybe not with a holy kiss but with a holy hug or a holy handshake or a holy elbow bump or a holy fist bump. 

1 Peter 1:22

Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart…

Peter was making a simple connection:

People who grow in their love for obeying God’s truth will grow in their love for other Christians. 

So, how are you at doing at loving other Christians?

Peter seems to be saying that the answer to that question is strategically connected to this question:

How are you doing at obeying God’s truth?

Do you have days where you don’t feel like loving others?

Then strive to obey God’s truth more!

If you have low levels of love, you may have low levels of obedience. 

My brother-in-law wrote the following words that I use in every wedding ceremony I have performed:

Richard Smith

Love is not always a feeling, but it is always a choice.  If you spend your life choosing to love, there will never be a shortage of feelings. 

So, loving the saints and greeting the saints is a choice.

Or we could say it this way:

Authentic faith produces authentic love and authentic love produces more love.

What if that was what we wrapped and put under the tree!

What would change in our lives if we said to our spouses or our children or our parents or our fellow church members:

“Merry Christmas. I want to give you the gift of more obedience to God. Because my heart is becoming convinced that the more I love obeying God, the more I am going to grow in my love for you and that love has the potential to get very strong and very deep.”

That gift would be so much more satisfying than perfume and cologne and toys!

Paul said greet every saint because it is an expression of the salvation and love and obedience we have in and to Christ. 

And notice Paul said “every” saint – not just the ones at our church. 

Life is hard and difficult and full of pain and heartache, so, for the good of our hearts and the good of the gospel and the good of the evangelization of the world we need to greet and encourage the saints who are Baptist and Presbyterian and Methodist and Lutheran and Non-denominational and any other person who is believing in and relying on and trusting in and clinging to Christ, the Messiah.

And we don’t need to greet just the saints, right?

We need to greet the saints and build up the saints and build up the church so we as saints can be lights in this dark world. 

We need to greet the saints so we will have the kind of love that spills over into greeting those who are not saints.

Let’s make this super, duper practical:

If you are a member or even a long-time attender of Holland Avenue Baptist Church, you are officially a greeter.

Rebecca McLaughlin is a wife, mom, author, and theologian, and a few months ago she shared about a Sunday morning at her church.

She was catching up with a friend of hers when she noticed out of the corner of her eye someone she didn’t recognize and thought she might be a visitor.

Rebecca McLaughlin

Honestly, I wished I hadn’t seen her. Interrupting my friend would be rude. It’s good for me to invest in friends! Someone else will likely spot that woman.

Rebecca McLaughlin

These were some of the excuses that ran through my head. But the woman was clearly new, and for all I knew, not a believer. So, reluctantly, I interrupted my friend.

Turns out the woman had not been to church in 10 years and her fiancée broke up with her right before their wedding and she was seeking and searching for something – anything – so, Rebecca talked with her for a moment and invited her to their small group and she hasn’t missed church since.

Rebecca McLaughlin

This was one of many opportunities my husband Bryan and I have had to connect with not-yet-Christians inside our church building.

Rebecca McLaughlin

We have very little else in common. I’m an extrovert; he’s an introvert. I’m from England; he’s from Oklahoma. I’m into literature; he’s an engineer.

Rebecca McLaughlin

But God drew us together around a shared sense of mission, and Bryan recently expressed that mission in three rules of engagement at church.

Rebecca McLaughlin

These rules make our Sundays less comfortable, but more rewarding.

Rebecca gives some really, really, really good commentary for each of the rules, so, check out the link at the end of my sermon notes online to see the whole article, but for the stirring of our minds here are the 3 rules Bryan mapped out:

Bryan McLaughlin

• An Alone Person in Our Gatherings Is an Emergency
• Friends Can Wait
• Introduce Newcomers to Someone Else

Friends can wait is a helpful one.

Rebecca McLaughlin

Friends can wait for our attention on a Sunday…Spurring each other on to welcome strangers in Christ’s name won’t weaken our friendships; it will deepen them.

Let me greatly affirm that I believe with all of my heart that we are a super friendly congregation on Sunday morning.

And that has been backed up by many visitors our staff has spoken with. 

But being friendly and greeting are two different things.

Greeting goes beyond a handshake and a welcome. 

A greeting:

• Asks for that person’s name
• Invites that person to lunch
• Invites that person to your Sunday School class or small group

That takes a little more effort and at times it might even be a little uncomfortable – but discomfort can bring great reward.

A few months after her first visit, the woman that Rebecca greeted that morning shared this:

Unknown Woman

I’m so grateful my fiancé broke up with me. If that hadn’t happened, I would not have found God.

Can I also share that a similar thing happened with someone in our church?

And they just texted me the other night to glorify God for it.

They were broken and searching and discouraged and prayed for God to send someone to them to greet them and encourage them and help them and two months later God sent them someone from our church and they eventually visited our church and later joined our church and now they are a sweet part of our fellowship and serving other saints and their families in some super, cool, significant ways.

So, greet every saint.

And greet people who aren’t saints. 

If you are a Christian, you are a greeter. 

Again, what does that look like in real life?

Listen to what Paul says next:

21 The brethren who are with me greet you.

So, Paul is greeting them from prison and he has people that are staying with him in prison and they are greeting too. 

People like Timothy and Epaphroditus and others decided to stay close to Paul and encourage him and minister to him and minister with him.

Some of the people that are with Paul don’t even know these people in Philippi, but they feel like they know them.

About 6 or 7 years ago I was standing in the kitchen of our family homeplace in Lee County about an hour from here.

It was our extended family Christmas get-together and my dad and my aunt and my uncle and my dad’s aunt were sitting at a little round table after lunch.

And I stood there for about 10 minutes listening to them swapping stories about different people they knew and have known.

“No, you remember his sister married the boy that lived on the farm that Uncle Rudolph had rented out to Clara’s cousin…Oh, you mean the one that grew up next to Billy Johnson? No, Billy grew up next to Clara’s nephew. This was the boy that went to school with Ralph Neely. His daddy was Ed Jones and he was the one that married the daughter of the game warden that worked with daddy.”

On and on and on they went, and they kept going and going and going with one more genealogy and one more story after another and my head was spinning because most days, I have trouble just remembering my own kid’s names.

But you know what is beautiful about that and why I sat there and listened to them?

Because they loved telling stories about people – not gossip – but stories about people. 

Paul and Epaphroditus had been sitting around in Paul’s prison cell telling story after story about Lydia and the prison guard and others who had come to faith in Christ in Philippi and the rest of Paul’s crew said, “Hey, tell them we said hey, too!”

Why?

Because saints are in this together – you are not an island and our church is not the only church – all saints are in this together. 

If you are a Christian, you are a greeter.

And you know what, you can find Christians in places you never thought you might. 

Listen to what Paul writes next:

22 All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household.

I feel like I could preach a whole sermon on this verse and you know by now that I could.

But let me just make a semi-quick observation: 

This was Nero’s household Paul is talking about – the same Nero who was known for brutally persecuting and executing Christians.

And yet Paul is acknowledging that there were saints working in Nero’s house and in Nero’s government.

I don’t know how or what that looked like.

Maybe they were like many of our own Christian missionaries who go into the most dangerous parts of the world and can’t go as missionaries or they would be immediately killed.

Rather they go in as lawyers or doctors or accountants or business owners and live and work in that culture sharing the gospel in kind and gracious and unique ways.

Or maybe Nero was patient with Christians if they were good at their jobs and let them live as long as they were good doctors or good soldiers or helped him make money. 

We don’t know for sure, but Paul let’s us know that there were Christians living and working under the roof of one of the most notorious killers of Christians that has ever lived.

• Maybe you didn’t like Clinton
• Maybe you didn’t like Bush
• Maybe you didn’t like Obama
• Maybe you don’t like Trump
• Maybe Bashar al-Assad makes you nervous
• Maybe Vladimir Putin makes you nervous
• Maybe Kim Jong-Un makes you nervous

But can we just acknowledge the tremendous likelihood that there are and there have been and there will always be true Christians working somewhere in and around and under all of their roofs?

Listen to these words again that we looked at two Sundays ago:

Isaiah 46:9

For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me,

 

Isaiah 46:10

Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying,

 

Isaiah 46:10-11

 “My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure…Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it, surely I will do it.”

If you are a Christian, you are a greeter.

So, greet and pray for the saints working in government.

And if you are a Christian, you can greet anywhere because the purpose of our God will be established!

I was reading this week about an elderly woman in Durham, England who sits by her window every day.

She sits by her window and smiles and waves. 

Her granddaughter says that her grandmother suffers from dementia and depression and other disabilities.

But every day she sits at her window and waves and smiles. 

This past week she received an unexpected holiday card in her mailbox – it had a note and a gift card to the local grocery store.

This is what the card said:

Card

To the lady who waves and smiles, with Christmas wishes. It’s nice to see you smile and wave when I walk past your house. Please accept my small token gift to give you another reason to smile.

The card was simply signed with the name “Leigh”. 

If all you can do is smile and wave, then smile and wave for the glory of God.

If you are a Christian, you are a greeter.

Why? 

Because the purpose of our God will be established, and because you have been rescued from the domain of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of light, and because you have the honor of being a member in God’s church, and because right now the Christmas gift of salvation and the treasure of knowing Jesus Christ is yours forever.

For the New Year and all year may we find ways to greet everyone – especially the saints – in and through the glorious and powerful name of Christ Jesus.

Message by Dow Welsh |

December 29, 2019 © Holland Avenue Baptist Church

 more |

Above are pre-sermon manuscript notes, not sermon transcript

Sermon scriptures NASB unless otherwise noted

Lots of help from many pastors and theologians

Weekly help from Bruce Hurt at www.preceptaustin.org

https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/make-sunday-mornings-uncomfortable

 

 

 

 

So have you ever mailed someone a really nice holiday card since among the holiday card? Maybe put it in a lot of moon post office here in the back hall. I came across some interesting cards that were popular this year. Some that you could buy kind of custom made cards. One of them just said this Mayor Christmas. I hope I sent this by February. Sometimes you just gotta be sure you get in the mail, right? Another one said, This is the holiday season. Mayor sweaters be ugly and bright. Bless you, Scott McDonald. We're so glad that that has been a part of your holiday. One family's card said this sending joy to all our favorite people Love the Brandon family and then down below. Congratulations on making the list. You made it. You're one of the favorites. The Everett family had a card with three super cute pictures of their family mom and dad and the kids. And then in the middle of the card. It simply says this our real life looks nothing like this. Listen, any time you pick up some ice card and that family looks perfect, bless its ally. We all know that, right? Because because our car is the same thing. Appreciate their desire to keep it real. You know, we live in a day and age where you know there is a decreased some say in the sending out of cards and others say an increase. There seems to be a decrease in the type of cards that you buy just the at the box store. But there seems to be an increase in personalized cards, and so it's all over the place, whether or not we're really sending out as many cards as we used to. But today we have social media and text messaging and email, so so we can send something a lot quicker, a lot easier and even oftentimes, the less expensive ways. But it really doesn't matter if it's digital or if you get something in the mail. It's just nice to be greeted, isn't it? It's just it's just nice to receive a greedy in a world where things air dark and grim, and we seem to be played down upon that constantly. It seems to be so much bad news. It's good to know that in the middle of all the bad news that every now and then there's just there's just a greeting. There's just someone that that steps out into our life and just acknowledges that we exist. Someone has defined a greeting this way. A willing action to recognize the presence of others, a willing action to recognize the presence of others. So what kind of greeter are you? Are you an email person? Are you a text person or you a D M person? Or are you a holiday greeting card person to you? Mail it. Do you handshake the hug, the elbow bump the aside, hugged you. Fist pump. How is it that you greet people? Does it matter? Does it matter whether or not you greet people that matter how you greet people? Well, interestingly, God seems to say that the greetings important, he has greetings throughout the Bible. He makes sure that the greetings made it into Holy Scripture. And so there's a picture of greeting, at least from God's perspective, that that seems to tell us his believers that if something were supposed to be doing, in other words, God wants Christians to be greeters. So what does that look like in real life? What does it look like to be a Christian greeter? Well, let's see if we can find out this morning. Apostle Paul riding his friends and Phillipe beginning in verse 21 of Chapter four, Paul writes. This greet every saint in Christ Jesus Apostle Paul was a greeter in in real life, and and what was his real life? His real life at the moment that he's writing, this is he's in prison, so he's in a difficult situation. He's in a time of life, for most of the freedoms of his life had been taken away from him. And yet still, he is recognizing the presence of others. He is still greeting others. How do you greet when life is difficult? How's your your greeting when things don't go great at school or or things don't go great at work? How's your greeting? When when you don't get the Christmas present that you were looking for or your Christmas cookies don't turn out the way you wanted him to? How's your greeting? When you your finances hit a bump in the road or your your health hits a bump in the road? How do you greet when things are difficult. Listen, none of us are perfect. We're all going to have our days or weeks or months where we struggle in recognizing the presence of other. We struggle and greeting others. But but generally speaking, how do we do at recognizing others when we are dealing with difficulty? I have watched some people in some of the most difficult and most tragic moments of their lives bring some healing and some help and some encouragement to their own hearts and their own minds just by recognizing the presence of others. I've seen those folks standing in a long line at customer service the week after Christmas, and I've seen them just give Akane greedy to the person working the counter when they get up there. I've seen the same folks in the middle of the night at the hospital. When the nurse comes in to check the vitals, they just give a kind greeting to that nurse that's caring for them. I've seen some of these same folks give a kind greeting to the person that stopped by their house and dropped off a casserole and five packages of paper plates because someone in the family had died just a con greeting, just recognizing that the presence of others. We won't do it perfectly because we're not perfect. But but there seems to be this picture of Paul pulling us toward greeting. And so how? How is your greeting life on the difficult days? How is your greeting life on the good days that not difficult days? Do you graciously recognize the presence of others? Other people I was reading once about a political consultant, and they were talking about the candidate that they worked for, and they said that their candidate could go into any room anywhere in the country. There could be hundreds of strangers in that room, and that candidate could go almost instantaneously and find the person in the room that was the most broken that was hurting the most and had the most pain. They knew how to recognize others. Paul says that we need to recognize the presence of others. Paul was a greeter. And who is he greeting when he was a greeting? The Saints, Who are the saints? Well, it's a football team, but that's another story. And it's also kind of confusing because sometimes we hear the word saints and we go. 00 those air people have already died. You know, the saints they've already got, you know, or those people who have who have done some amazing, unique special deed in life. You know ST Paul, ST Peter, ST Matthew, Pope John Paul, the second er or Mother Teresa or others like that. But the reality is, according to the Bible, a saint is anyone who is a true believer and follower of Jesus Christ. The Saint is a Christian. First Corinthians Chapter one verse to Paul says to those who have been sanctified in Christ, Jesus saints by calling the blood of Jesus Christ saves and redeems and sanctifies a person and allows them to be part of the kingdom of God. A saint is not someone who has done good deeds. You don't become a saint because you've done a good deed. You become a saint because the deed has been done for you. Salvation has been accomplished for you. A person becomes a saint because the surpassing value of The Holiness and the righteousness and the beauty and the purity of Jesus is credited to that person's account. The same is not someone who has performed good deeds. A saint is someone who has been rescued by Jesus. Paul's writing these giving a request to greet the folks. But he's not just saying howdy. The tents of the verb here is imperative. So he's saying, Hey, I really want you to greet him But he's also kind of tact team in that by saying Aye, and I want you to be a greeter, not just greeting others, but be agreed. Er yourself. So how do believers greet one another? Paul was right in the church at room, and he said, this greet one another with a holy kiss. Now some cultures, this still works. I'm just going to tell you, probably go work in the south too much, right? So you know, we gotta be a little careful, but but the idea behind it is fantastic. The idea behind it is this. Greet each other because you have affection for one. Greet each other because you love one another. There's a lot of one another's in the Bible a lot. Just here's just a short list of some of the one another's build up one another. Serve one another be devoted to one another. Rejoice with one another. Weep with one another at Mon ish one another. Be kind to one another. Forgive one another. Submit to one another, comfort one another and courage one another. Pray for one another. Confess your faults to one another. Be truthful with one another. Do not take one another to court. There's just a few of the one another's that we see in the Bible. But maybe the most powerful, maybe most important one is is to love one another. We see this in several places in Scripture, and that's super easy to do, right? I mean, it's easy for us to love one another, right? I mean, there's never a time that anybody in our church ever does anything wrong, right? I mean, we never forget to do something. We never forget to show up for something. We never say the wrong thing at the wrong time, right? We never do anything wrong, right? We're that church where everybody just does the right thing all the time. Well, no, we aren't. And neither is any other church in the world. Now. We're centers, and it's hard to love each other sometimes, right? Yeah, because sometimes we don't like what the other person does. Sometimes we don't like what the other person didn't do. Sometimes we keep score and we shouldn't. It's just hard sometimes to love one another because we're centers and we're going to mess up and we're going to fail. But we have been called to love one another on one of the best ways that we can love one another is to obey the command, to greet one another, a simple command of greeting. Maybe not with a holy kiss, maybe with a holy hug or holy handshake or a holy elbow bump or only fist bump or whatever it may be. But but we've been called to love one another into greet one another. First Peter. Chapter one, Verse 22 Peterson. This since you haven't obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the Brethren fervently love one another from the heart. The math here is really simple. Peter seems to say, You know what we're talking about love that we're going to talk about obedience. He seems to be making this connection that the people who grow and their love for obeying God's truth will grow in their love for other people. So question. How are you doing it? Loving other Christians? How are you doing it at loving other people in the church? Are you doing it at loving other Christians? You know, in other places, if you feel like you're struggling than Peter seems to be saying, the question you should ask is, Well, how is your obedience to God? Because the picture seems to be a decrease in obedience to God's truth means there will be a decrease in love. So if we are struggling in loving others, that maybe we need to increase our obedience to the Lord, that there's a connection between those two things, that obedience to God will stir us to love others. My brother in law wrote these words that I've used in every wedding ceremony that I've ever performed. It goes like this. Love is not always a feeling, but it is always a choice. If you spend your life choosing toe love, there will never be a shortage. The feelings so loving the saints and greeting the saints. It's a choice. It's it's a choice we could say this way authentic faith will lead to authentic love. An authentic love will lead to MME. Or Love and others. If there's a struggle of love, then there's a struggle of faith. So is our obedience to God. Increases our love will increase authentic faith will lead to authentic love. How about that for a Christmas present? I think of all the things that you may have gotten this year. I have to say this Bless if you were here for any of the sermons the last few weeks. Bless one of, well, my oldest child's dear heart. Because in the sermon, I said something about you know what a great Christmas gift with me would be. A bag of King's ass candy bars from the gas station. I got one. That's fantastic. I love it. But imagine of all the gifts that you got this year, imagine if the gift that you gave your family and your church and your extended family and your community and your coworkers what if the gift you gave them was this? Merry Christmas. The gift I'm giving you this year is increased obedience to God because I've become convinced that increased obedience to God means that my love for you is going to increase and my obedience to God means that not just is it going to increase, but my love for God is going to lead to my love for you being stronger and deeper. That's a Christmas gift that that that will make a few more rounds than a bag of chocolate or some cologne or perfume or whatever else you may God, Paul said. This greet every saint, greet every saint in Christ Jesus because it is an expression of your love and your obedience in and through Christ and notice, he says. Every I think, not an accident there. Listen, life is hard. Life is difficult. Life is full of heartache and pain. Life is full of tragedy, triumph and trials trouble and because life is is so hard for the good of our hearts, for the good of the gospel, for the good of this church, for the good of the community, for the good of the evangelization of the world. We need to be good greeters and encourage Er's toe all the saints who are baptised and Presbyterian and Methodists and Lutheran and non denominational and anyone else who is believing in and relying on and trusting in and clinging to Christ the Messiah. We need to be good greeters to the saints and not just to the Saints. We need two good greeters to the Saints, because what happens is that the saints get built up and the church gets built up. And all of a sudden all of that greeting and all of that love it spills over from our lives into the lives of people who are not saying we're not just greeting. The saints were greeting one another in an effort to become a community and a family that greets the world with the joy of Jesus. If you're a member of Holland Avenue Baptist Church, you are officially a greeter. You remember you're a greeter. Even if you've been attending a long time, you're a greeter. But that's who you are. You're a greeter. Rebecca McLaughlin is a wife, mom, author, theologian. A few months ago, she shared a story about something that happened recently in her church. It was Sunday morning she was talking to a friend of hers, catching up with that friend, and she noticed, out of the corner of her eye that there seemed to be a person she didn't recognize someone that she thought might be a visitor. And this is what she said. Honestly, I wish I hadn't seen her interrupting. My friend would be rude. It's good for me to invest in friends. Someone else will likely spot that woman. These were some of the excuses that ran through my head, but the woman was clearly knew, and for all I knew, not a believer. So reluctantly. I interrupted my friend and she went over and she spoke to the woman will come to find out the woman had not been to any kind of church and more than a decade, and her fiance had just broken up with her before their wedding. And she showed up that morning just searching for something, seeking for anything. And so Rebecca greeted her, and then she invited her to come to their small group during the week. And to my knowledge, that young woman has never left the church since she's been there ever since. So what stirred Rebecca to think handy? To be sure I speak to that lady. This is how she described it. This is one of many opportunities my husband, Brian, and I have had to connect with not yet Christians. Inside our church building, we have very little else in common. I'm an extrovert. He's an introvert. I'm from England. He's from Oklahoma. I'm in the literature. He's an engineer. But God drew us together around a shared mission. Shared sense of mission. And Brian recently expressed that mission in three rules of engagement at church. And I give you those three rules. But this is what she said. These rules make our Sundays less comfortable, but Maur rewarding. So you look at my notes this week. She gives a great comment here in each one of these things, the whole articles there you can see a link to at the end of my sermon notes online. But I want to give you the three things that Brown mapped out. Here they are, and a lone person in our gatherings is an emergency. That's good. And a lone person in our gatherings is an emergency. Secondly, friends can wait and third introduce newcomers to someone else and a lone person in our gathering that is an emergency. Friends can wait. Introduce newcomers to someone else. Friends can wait is a helpful when she says this about that. Friends can wait for our attention on a Sunday, spurring each other own toe Welcome strangers. And Christ name won't weaken our friendships. It will deepen them. Why? Because we will be a part of that shared mission. Hey, em! I'm not here to be entertained and I'm here. Serve. I'm here to find a way to encourage and help people. And some Sundays you're going to show up and you don't have anything in you deserve. You're wiped out. You got nothing in the tank. And that's when someone else will come up next to you and they will greet you. They will encourage you. We are greeters. Let me greatly affirm that our church is possibly the friendliest congregation I've ever been around. All of my friends, family, people who visit tell our staff this all the time. Just how unbelievably friendly our churches on Sunday morning. So let me just greatly affirm you and encourage you Keep up the great work. It's it's fantastic, One of my friends told me after he visited us, that is the friendliest church I've ever been to in my life. He's right. We're super friendly. But the gods called us to be more than just friendly. He's called us to greet and greet is more than just a handshake and welcome to church. Greeting sometimes means that you asked. That person's name greeting means that you invite them to your Sunday school class or to your small group. Greedy means you might even invite that person out to lunch. In other words, it's something that might be a little more uncomfortable. But that discomfort actually comes with great reward. What kind of reward? A few months after that, your young woman had been visiting the church. They were in a small group together and and the question was asked, Hey, what's something that God has done in your life? And this is what she said just a few months after she was greeted at church. I'm so grateful my fiance broke up with me. If that hadn't happened, I would not have found God. See, the reward and us going beyond friendliness and moving into a greeter is that we might actually be a part of someone finding God. That's why we greet. But that's why we we take the extra step on extra move. You know, something similar happened in the life of our church, someone who is who was broken, someone who was discouraged. And they prayed that God would send someone to greet them toe, help them to encourage them. And two months after they prayed that two months after they wrote that prayer down, God sent someone to them, someone from our church to greet them, to help them to encourage them. And that person eventually visited our church in that person eventually joined our church, and now that person, in unique and incredible ways, is serving of saints and their families at our church. A few nights ago, they texted me just to say, Man, praise God for this. So if you're Christian, you're a greeter. If you're part of the family of God, you you're greeter. We greet every saint, and we even greet folks who are not saints because God has called us to greet in the name of Christ again. What does that look like in real life? Well, listen what Paul's is next. The brethren who are with me greet you, suppose in prison difficult time. He's riding a greeting, writing to encourage and help someone else. And there's other people with Paul, and they're sending their greeting on as well. So people like Timothy and a path for dieters. They they were with Paul. They decided to stay close to Paul. They were sticking close to Paul in prison. They were trying to encourage him to minister to him and minister with himto others. They don't even know these people. I mean, Timothy probably didn't know anybody in the church at Philippi. Some of the people sitting in Paul's prison so they don't know anyone at that church, but they send their greetings. O Nas. Well, it's probably about seven or eight years ago now, I was at the family home place over in Lee County, little more than an hour from here, and it was our annual big extended family Christmas gathering. And after lunch my dad and my aunt and my uncle and there, and we're all sitting at the table in the kitchen talking, and I went in there, just kind of lined up to the wall and listen in on their conversation. And I stayed there. I don't know. Maybe maybe 10 15 minutes, just listing them swap stories about other people. They went something like this. Well, you remember the boy that, you know, she married that boy who was living on the farm that Uncle Rudolph rented, you know, to Claris cousin. You remember? You mean Claris cousin that grew up next to Billy Johnson? None. And Billy Johnson grew up declare his nephew. Yeah, you remember It was Ralph Neely, Remember? Ralph Neely was over there, and he lived next door. And And you and you remember Ralph Neely? His daughter married at Johnson's son, Remember? And remember at Johnson, you know, he was He was the one that was game warden with Daddy. You remember that? And I mean, an own and own and on and on and on. I mean, every genealogy you could imagine, every and I sat there in my head was spinning. I mean, I'm hoping I can remember all four of my kids names on any given day, and they are remembering every little moment of all these people's lives, and I just couldn't believe it. But you know what was great about it? You know, I sat there, kept listening because they just all smiled. They were so enjoying that conversation they were enjoying just the beauty of telling stories about the lives of other people, not not gossiping. They weren't sitting there being rude. They weren't talking bad about people in there. They were just telling stories about people's lives. I think that almost what it must have been like in Paul's prison cell palling up Aphrodite, us. They're sitting there. They both password itis is from the church in Philippi, and Paul had been there, helped start the church, and they're sitting the prison cell and there, telling stories about Lydia, about this business woman who came to faith in Christ. They're they're telling stories about the jailer, that the one who is part of imprisoning Christians about how he came to faith in Christ and they're just telling the stories and the other folks sit there. Gomes. Amazing. Praise God. You know what? Tell him we said hey, to tell him we said hey to And why would they do that? Because that's what a saint does. A saint doesn't sit in their country club and be rude and mean and petty about what they don't like a saint, not sit in their country club and say, Well, we're going to do what we can to protect our people. And we don't want anybody else coming in, But we'll still your people, too. That's not what a saint does. A saint says. There is a church and Alabama crushed this morning. We're going to weep with them. We're going to grieve with them. We're going to mourn with them. A saint says there's a church a few blocks over from us and they're struggling. We're going to pray for them. We might even stop by and try to encourage their pastor. A saint knows that we're in this together, and then in this world that is dark and full of sin in this world that is full of tragedy. Every single day, a saint says, we need each other and we have the gospel. We need each other and we have the gospel saints know they're not alone Island. But they're in this together and a saint, a Christian knows. You know what? I'm a greeter, you know it's amazing. What's amazing is where you'll find some saints. Listen to impulsive nix. All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household. I feel like I could preach a whole sermon on this one verse and mostly, I know I could do that. And so, but I'm not. This is just the count, a little little quick semi thought here about this passage. So the household here that Paul's referring to is Nero, the same Nero that was knows for persecuting and executing Christians. And so Paul's writing here saying, You know what? There's some saints in Nero's household. There's some saints in Nero's government. How is that possible? Well, we don't know for sure. You know, maybe it's like some of our modern day missionaries. They go to some of the hardest places in the world, and they can't go in. It's a Hey, I'm a Christian missionary. Let me tell you about Jesus. They have to go. His doctors or lawyers or accountants or our business people are nurses or whatever it is they've been trained to be. And they go in and they live and they work and they use opportunities. They have to make much of Jesus. Maybe it was something like that. Or maybe as long as you're a doctor or a lawyer or an accountant or a soldier, somebody in Nero's government or army and you're helping him. You're a good soldier. You're making money for him. And you're not standing around preaching Jesus to everybody. All that and they'd be near it. And Gary just leave you alone. As long as you're doing your job, we don't know. We just know that Paul says that there were saints in the house and the government of Nero. Now, here's just a quick little point. I want us to get in our minds. Maybe you didn't like Clinton. Maybe you didn't like Bush. Maybe you don't like Obama. Maybe you don't like Trump. Maybe the leaders of Russia and Syria and North Korea. Maybe those men make you nervous. But can we just kind of a Cree that the likelihood that there are saints, there have been saints and there will be saints under all of those roofs. And in all of those governments, the likelihood of that is high. The likelihood that God has Christians in places that many people would never walk through the door with likelihood of that is high because his kingdom is forever. No kingdom on this earth is forever. But his kingdom is forever. And he puts his saints where he wills. We looked at these words a couple of Sundays ago. Listen to him again as a Chapter 46 for I am God and there is no other. I am God and there's no one like me declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things which have not been done saying this. My purpose will be established and I will accomplish all my good pleasure. Truly, I have spoken truly. I will bring it to pass. I have planned it. Surely I will do it. That's our God, joy to the world. To that God. Oh, come all ye faithful to that God, that's our God whose plans and purposes will be established. If you're Christian, you're a greeter. And the reason you congratulate is because your God's purposes will be established. His plans will be carried out, his promises will be fulfilled. And so we greet and we love and we encourage and we help because of the fuel behind our greetings And that fuel is Jesus himself. I was reading this week about an elderly woman in Durham, England. She sits by her window every day and she waves and smiles and everybody that comes down the road her granddaughter says. She has dementia, she is depressed and she has other disabilities. But every day she waves and smiles. And then this week somebody sent her holiday card, and in that car was a little gift card to the local grocery store. And this is what the card said to the lady who wind waves and smiles with Christmas wishes. It's nice to see you smile away when I walk past your house. Please accept my small token gift to give you another reason to smile. The card was simply signed. Lee Lee didn't know the utterly woman. The only woman didn't know Lee. But every day that elderly woman with dementia who's depressed, discouraged and disabled, sat by her window, sits by her window and she waves and she smiles. And for one person that walked by her wave and her smile meant a lot enough to send a greeting. Listen, if the only thing you can do is wave and smile, then wave and smile for the glory of God, wave and smile. Whatever that looks like in your life, find your way to be a greeter. If you are a Christian, you are a waiver You are a smiler. You are a greeter. Why? Because our God will establish his purposes. And because you have been transferred at the domain of darkness into the kingdom of light. And the beauty of the gospel is that right now the treasures of Jesus Christ are yours and they will be yours forever. And because those things are true, we can greet and we can love and we can encourage. And we can wave, weaken, smile, weaken Greet all the saints and weaken Greet anybody who's not a saint in Christ. Jesus! Why? Because we have Christ. Jesus. Christians were greeters because our Lord has greeted us. The gospel has won our hearts. So let us go into the world and never quit singing. Yea, Lord, we greet thee and pointing people in the direction of our king our Messiah that our Savior