Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript: Sharing One Another’s Goods, Space, and Time
## 1 Peter 4:9

Sermon text for today is 1 Peter chapter 4 verse 9. The sermon topic is on sharing one another’s goods, space, and time. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. 1 Peter 4:9. Be hospitable to one another without grumbling. Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for the simple instruction. We thank you for the profundity of it as well in terms of the new creation and the new community that you brought to pass through the work of our Savior Jesus.

Bless us Lord God with an understanding of this very important concept in community building. In Jesus name we ask it. Amen. Please be seated.

So Christine and I took another architectural tour this last week in Portland. Lana took another as well. They’re really wonderful walking tours to get the history of Portland as well as a history of architecture. The particular one we went on last week kind of went through the nine different primary architectural styles found in Portland except the first one’s no longer around—the log cabin.

I was struck though by how many of these styles have a common feature and it might seem obvious, but it wasn’t obvious to me that buildings would be built like this so often. And that is that there’s a basement—not meaning something in the ground, but the first floor, we could say the foundation of the building. And frequently this basement or substructure—not substructure, the actual underlying of the basic building—looks kind of rustic. It’s even in architectural styles rusticated to look like it’s kind of like stones that are heavy and foundational.

And on that foundation then the rest of the building goes up. And then in many of these buildings at the top there’s some sort of thing at the top, a design element that is the top of it. And this goes back to the columns of Roman and Greek architecture where you’d have a base, a column, and a top. And ultimately I suppose this goes back to the temple of God and the two pillars in front of God’s temple which had ornamentation on the top.

So this kind of tripartite, this three-part architectural structure for the last several thousand years—you know, last millennia or so, or even 2,000 years—has been evidenced in various building styles, not in all of them anymore, but in many of them. And it kind of makes sense. You have a foundation and it’s doing something a little different than the rest of the building. And then there’s at the top some kind of ornamentation to show the result of the building.

Well, what we’re doing is we’re going through three community building practices—actually nine, but in three sections that are significant for the one anothers. We’re going through one anothers in the New Testament to tell us how to build a church community. And so the base element that we laid down for the first three sermons in this series was affirmation.

We affirm one another because we’re part of the same family. We affirm one another because we’re members of the same body. And so there’s gifts that we affirm, not just their presence here. That’s the first affirmation. The second is recognizing, getting to know their strengths and affirming them for those strengths. And then the third affirmation was a demonstration, a visible demonstration of affirmation of them in the way we greet one another—greet each other with a holy kiss.

And I guess the big takeaway from that is that the greeting of one another in the context of a community and the kind of greeting that builds community exceeds or goes beyond the normal greeting which would have been a kiss in that particular culture. We’re supposed to be evidently glad to see one another. That’s a good way to put it. We’re supposed to be evidently glad to see one another and our greetings should have that kind of evident gladness and affirmation of each other in our personhood as part of the same body and as part of the same family.

That’s the foundation. You know, if we get now to specific practices of sharing our space and our time and our goods with others, if we go about doing that without affirmation, then it’s really not going to produce what’s needed. The foundation, I think, is this affirmation of one another. And what we’re going to do now over the next six weeks, beginning today, is build on that the main structure of sharing and serving one another in the context of building this community at Reformation Covenant Church.

And that’s what I’m talking about. I’m talking about this church. Now, there’s implications for this for the broader church. And there’s implications for many things we’ll say for the broader culture. But these things that Paul writes were demonstrably to be evident in the context of the particular local congregations that were receiving these letters—yes, the extended churches, but you don’t greet everybody in Oregon City this morning. You greeted one another as an example. And so these things have particular relevance to the building up of community here at Reformation Covenant Church.

It is through the body of Christ that the defense of the church and the missional activity of the church will go out. If you lose the community of the church, everything else goes away. Okay. So this is of fundamental importance for us—these community building practices.

And today we want to talk about this beginning of the sharing: the sharing of one another’s space, one another’s time, and one another’s goods. And hospitality is the first thing I want to talk about from this verse in 1 Peter 4:9. And then as we’ve done in the rest of this series, we’ll look at related texts after that to flesh out the picture of what this verse is telling us about and what sharing is.

Next week we’ll talk about sharing in terms of meeting people’s needs more. And then we’ll talk about sharing in terms of spiritual development in the third week. But today we’re actually talking about—a good illustration of it, a good example of it would be hospitality, having people into your home. And so 1 Peter 4:9 is this commandment from God. He tells us this is really what you should be doing. This is a command to be hospitable.

And remember that when we talked about hospitality in Genesis 18 several months ago, hospitality actually means love of strangers. But a lot of times when we read hospitality, we think just about getting together with our friends and buddies and being hospitable. But that’s not really what’s going on here. Ultimately, hospitality is a love of strangers. But we’re also told to be hospitable to one another in the context of the Christian church. So to build on whatever knowledge we have of each other and to increase our knowledge in our community through opening up our homes, being hospitable with one another.

So we’re to be hospitable to one another, and we’re to do this without grumbling. We’ve said this before, but grumbling is like sighing. “Oh, we’re having the Joneses over, the house is dirty, I’m feeling kind of stressed today,” whatever. So don’t grumble as you show hospitality, as you share your time and your money—or goods rather—and your space.

And those, I think, are three good ways to think about this. When you’re hospitable, when you share with one another via hospitality, you’re having people—remember the illustration of Abraham—you’re having people into your space, right? He sees the people on the way, on the road some, you know, going by. He brings them into his space, right? Then he shares his goods with them. He feeds them, gives them things to drink, helps him to be relaxed. He provides shade. So he shares his goods with them. And all this is happening in a context of time that Abraham could have been doing something other with, right?

So really hospitality is a good example of sharing this first of the three sharing aspects. The verse can be kind of fleshed out: to be hospitable not just generally, but what it means is that with other people, and first and foremost in the context of the body of Christ here at Reformation Covenant, be hospitable to one another—to me, to you. Look at the people around you. Bring them into your space, right? Which means inconvenience. Which means you’re might be embarrassed. Which means maybe the house isn’t clean enough or whatever it is. Maybe your space is where you like to be free to be yourself, which is another way of saying being free to sin. So maybe it’s an invasion of that. You’re going to have to be a little nicer when you have somebody over than you might be in your space.

But even if you’re great in your space, it’s still an imposition. It’s bringing somebody into something that particularly in our culture, in our time and place, is seen as kind of private space or inner sanctum. So by hospitality, first and foremost, it means sharing our space with one another. Christians are to invite one another into their living space. They are to share life together. This means eating, studying, playing, praying, and so on together.

So I don’t want to limit it to just having people to your house, but that’s a good illustration of the rest of it, right? So it’s not just into your house, but it’s opening up your space to other people, which means opening up your life and to become community oriented at that moment rather than individual oriented.

And then secondly, when you do this, we share one another’s goods. We’ll look at other scriptures today. It’s very important that doing good in the Bible is seen as a concrete sort of action that you do. It’s not some sort of moral state. It’s a set of actions or things that you do. We’re to share our goods with one another. We’re to borrow things from each other. We’re to give things to each other. We’re to share our goods together. And the way to think about this is it’s a family thing. Think of it as an extended family, really, not just as a metaphor, you know. Well, maybe I don’t know how your family works.

In my family, Chuck came over yesterday to borrow some tools. And as I see him go out the door, I think to myself, I might see him again. I might not. Oh, sorry. Your families aren’t like that. It’s not that my kids wouldn’t want to return them, but our lives are busy and so I don’t know when I’m going to get them back and when I’m not. But that’s okay because they’re our family. We share things with one another, right?

We invite people into our space and we share also our goods with each other. And you know, there’s a time and some of you probably live in more extended families than I’ve got. I’ve got, you know, five kids and eight grandkids or whatever it is. And so there’s that. And we share goods with one another. And if somebody needs something and we’ve got it, we’ll let them borrow it or we may just give it to them, right? And so we do that, you know, you do that. You share things with your wife, your husband, your kids, your extended family. And if you’ve got a large extended family in the area, sometimes there’s sharing of goods between them as well.

Well, it’s the same thing with the church. The church is a family. That’s what God says—not as a metaphor, but as a reality. And we’re to share our goods with one another the same way, or maybe even more importantly, than sharing our goods with family. Okay, so this is an aspect of hospitality. We share our goods. Not just, you know, having people over for food. That’s important to share goods that way. But there’s a sharing of life together that results in the sharing of stuff in the most practical way. We help one another by sharing our stuff. It may be financial support. It may just be loaning something. But whatever it is, it’s a sharing of stuff together. Okay?

And the Christian church congregations are supposed to share their space with each other and they’re supposed to share their stuff. And thirdly, the way to think of this is we’re sharing our time as a result, right? I mean, if you’re going to have somebody over, you know, say, “Yeah, come on over. There’ll be food. Just live in the house if you want and I’ll be in my study watching some TV show or studying the Bible.” That’s not the idea.

You’ve taken a time and depending on who it is, it could be an extended time. I mean, who knows how long the thing might go on. We used to have people that we’d invite over from church and we had to finally say like 1:00 in the morning, “Got to go to bed, sorry.” So you don’t know how long the time might be, but you’re taking your time that you could do other things with and you’re sharing with other people.

That’s, you know, in a formal Sunday setting, not such a big deal. It’s a day of relaxation. You got nothing else going on. But frequently when our family members or our extended family members in the church need something or could benefit from your time, your space, or your goods, it’s an interruption. God is constantly interrupting what we want to do. God has plans that are different than our plans. And it’s good to have plans. It’s good to be intentional about our days. But if we’re called to hospitality, to sharing space and goods and time with one another, it means we’re committed to letting other people interrupt us. We’re committed to letting other people interrupt us.

And remember, it says to do this hospitality without grumbling, right? So don’t get upset with the interruption. Okay?

Other—some people, you know, so this is hard for some people. It’s hard for a lot of us to let other people interrupt us, to take up some of our precious time. And it is precious. I mean that sincerely. And with many people, our precious goods and services and our precious space. And God wants us as a basic one anothering of one another to be hospitable in that particular way. And some of us have a real hard time doing that.

Others of us have a hard time on the opposite end. Others of us have a hard time if we need something going to another brother or sister in the church and asking for help, or asking—not even it’s a benevolence thing, but just “Could I borrow your lawnmower?” Whatever it is. Some of us have trouble doing that. And some of us have real trouble interrupting somebody else. Well, I really would like to talk to so-and-so about this, but you know, they’re so busy, we think. And so we don’t do it. And so the isolation continues.

And the sort of community building practices that God says is really part of the Christian life, right? We’re going to talk about that at the end. God is trinitarian. Those three are interrupting each other all the time. All the time. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They’re not isolated. They’re one God existing in three persons and they have community that consists in that. They’re really other-oriented. And so God wants us to have the fullness of divine life. And he calls us into a body of believers. And he tells us affirm one another. And he says share with one another—including most importantly sharing our time with one another because it’s such a precious asset. It’s such an emblem of our lives, right?

So God calls us to hospitality. And we can think of that in terms of, as we looked at the story of Abraham, as a demonstration of the three areas of our goods, our space, and our particular time.

Now, Romans 12:10 was the verse we started this series with, right? Romans 12:10, the New American Standard: “Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Give preference to one another in honor.” That was where we began. And we talked about brotherly love. Okay. But the word here translated “be devoted” in the New King James says “be kindly affectionate toward one another.” It’s a particular Greek word that talks about family relationships, not Philadelphia—brother love—but a strong family, clan, tribe commitment to one another.

And so I think the New American Standard does a good job: “Be devoted to one another.” Okay? “Giving preference to one another in honor.” Live as a family. Live with those kind of tight relational bonds where we’re each anxious to give up our time, our space, and our goods to each other. And we’re also not afraid and not prideful—that would prevent us from asking people for help, asking people for some of their time, asking people if we could come and hang out in their space together.

How often do you do that? Last week, how much of your time and your space and your goods were involved in ministering one to the other? And is it always the same people, right? This is something we’re supposed to do to one another in the context of the body of Christ. So underlying this again is this affirmation, this being devoted to one another. And if you don’t got that, you’re probably not doing what we’re talking about today, and you probably won’t do it, at least you won’t do it without grumbling or sighing in some way.

So again, the foundational level is an affirmation of one another, of being devoted to one another, right?

Now, listen, this is all about community groups. I mean, this is about the body of Christ. Paul’s not writing to community groups, but when your church gets a little bit bigger than it used to be, when you move from kind of natural community to the loss of natural community, you need to build more intentional community. One way to accomplish this is community groups. Okay? And I’ll talk more about that in a little bit, but I want to say this now before I forget.

I was going to save it for the end, but I’ll say it right now. At Reformation Covenant Church, we keep a list of members and regular attenders. You’re on a list. And these lists—everybody on this list, at least maybe, you know, unless somebody’s been here the last month or so—they’re all assigned to a community group. Maybe you don’t know that. Maybe you don’t know you’re actually assigned to a community group, but you are.

And we regularly every quarter or so go over with the community group leaders all the people assigned to them, which is, you know, maybe half of them attend and half don’t attend. It’s okay—you don’t have to go to community group—but I would suggest this for you as a way to practice what we’re talking about today. Your devotion to your community group goes beyond just those that attend group to those that have been assigned because the group is a way to accomplish in a smaller setting a smaller community what we really can’t do effectively as a large church, right? Or we can downstream some of that stuff.

So I would encourage you in your community groups to know who’s assigned to you, who’s not coming, and then to go out of your way to use your time, space, and goods to befriend them, to minister to them. Okay? Have them over. Don’t just focus on the ones that show up. You got to keep that strong. But you see, this is what we’re counting on doing: seeing this hospitality to one another in the context of the entire body of Christ here.

Remember, greet one another with a holy kiss. Let your greetings of each other go beyond just what you would do if you meet, you know, some work associate. There should be a devotion to one another, a love that God has set these people into your life, and then a resulting sharing of time and space and goods.

Now, this is particularly important for American churches. Why? Well, I’ve been listening to a book—I think I told you this, I think I mentioned this book before on Audible. It’s called Misreading Scripture Through Western Eyes. It was recommended to me by George, whose wife is Rachel. That’s the way I’m going to say it from now on. I’m going to try. George, whose wife is Tanya. George, whose wife is Rachel. George, who we don’t know his wife yet. It’s a way to distinguish them without saying “little George,” “young George,” “middle George,” “big.”

Anyway, George, whose wife is Rachel, recommended this book, and I’m very grateful to him for having done that. And one of the chapters that I just listened to twice in the last day—once by myself, once with Christine—was one on individualist versus collectivist cultures. And this one of the two writers had been a missionary in Indonesia. And Indonesia is a collectivist culture. Never want to be alone. You know, if you’re alone, that’s sad. People are really sad for you if you ever have to be isolated. Community is—they’re all about community. If people have to leave work to go to a doctor appointment or something, another person from work gets an excused absence to go with them so they won’t be alone.

It’s not because they’re weird. It’s because they really think in terms—they’re a collectivist culture. And in America, that seems just nuts to us. We’re an individualistic culture. Now, don’t get freaked out about this. I’m not going to, you know, advocate Christian socialism. But what I am saying is that there’s two extremes, and what we serve is a trinitarian God who is unity and diversity. Cultures tend to fall into a ditch of either being too collectivist or too individualistic.

We’re not here. I mean, maybe you see people headed this way, but by and large, America, Western cultures are, if they’re going to fall into a ditch, it’s too individualistic. We need to hear sermons—and lots of them—on hospitality, community building practices, how to one another, one another, because it’s not natural for us. Okay?

What we’re raised to think is that our own personal choice, our own personal decisions about things is ultimate. Indonesia, you don’t send a couple off to date. You don’t have a couple just decide who they’re going to marry. You got to meet with the parents and the aunts and the uncles and with the extended family to see if it’s a good match. And the young people don’t find that burdensome. They find it protective. They like it. Not probably not all of them, but they like it. See? But in America, that’s just nuts. It’s seen as some kind of horrible thing because what we want is every individual 22-year-old who can make great decisions about everything in life deciding who he’s going to marry, right?

Clearly, there’s a problem with that system, and how we go about solving it is not a topic for today, but it’s an illustration to talk about collectivism and individuality.

Now, look, those two realities affect the way the church functions. He’s got an excellent section at the end of this chapter on individualism, collectivism, and the church. Okay? In our country, up until the Great Awakening, it was still that you were a member by baptism. You got baptized as an infant. It wasn’t your choice. You were a member of this, we could say, collective—this community, the body of Christ. It’s not a decision to be part of that body.

Now, what happened then was people thought, “Oh well, these kids growing up may not know Jesus personally, right? Because salvation always has to be individual, we think. But of course, in the Bible, Lydia and her household, and the jailer, Paul and Silas and his household. You see lots of household things going on as well as individual conversions—it’s unity and diversity, right?”

We’re not ball bearings. We’re more like leaves on a tree. We’re not ball bearings with feet that can just roll on whenever we want to roll on. We’re supposed to see ourselves as committed to each other, right, in particular context, whether it’s a family, the church, whatever.

Well, as the country moved away from infant baptism into believers baptism, it was an indication of a move from the collective to the individual. And now it’s up to every individual if he wants to be a member of that church. And to imagine this—this is what these writers are talking about, not me. And the idea that someone was forced to be a member of the church through baptism is just anathema. It’s anathema to a culture that is highly individualistic, in an ungodly way. I think so. Too individualistic. You can get the other way, right? Too collectivist. That’s normally not our problem. Don’t worry about it.

They talk about, you know, language. As you read your New Testaments, you read the word “you” a lot. We don’t have “you” plural and “you” singular. The Greek does. And very frequently, what you see as “you” through Westernized singular is actually a “you” plural. You should actually, I think a better translation would be “we all” or “y’all,” right? When it’s plural, and we tend to think of ourselves individually. We read the Bible that way, and that’s kind of the point of the book.

Well, if you have that kind of individualist mentality, you’re not devoted to one another in the context of a church. You may see, “Yeah, I’m part of a body. I got to like people, you know, okay, I’m part.” But you don’t see yourself as devoted to them, committed to them, people that you have and you should invest time and space and goods with. You’re likely to see the connection to the local church attenuated—weak. And what do we see at this church? We got a list, you know, we got a list of people that just end up walking away because, you know, why does that surprise us?

That’s what the cultural values are—is a highly individualistic perspective. And then when we try to talk to them and say, “Well, you know, it’d be nice to know where you’re going to church. We could release your membership there, transfer your oversight. We’re not going to get into a big deal with them. Just let us know where you’re going to.” Well, why should I do that? You see, that’s because we’re so individualistic.

And this book is excellent, this chapter on the relationship of individual versus collectivist cultures. Now, as I said, there’s ditches in both ways, but these sorts of sermons, community building practices to build the body of Christ, are absolutely essential in our particular setting as Westerners at this time and in this place where we find ourselves today. Okay. So hopefully you understand that.

You know, we talked about this in our marriage Sunday school class, right? So what is marriage? If it’s two individuals coming together, remaining individuals, it’s, you know, if that’s what your thing is, you’re going to be married because it suits your personal needs. It suits your personal wants. It’s what you kind of think is good for you. If you’re selfish about your marriage, it’s going to be hell on earth trying to build a Christian marriage on that foundation. Okay? It just will be.

Marriage is about God bringing two sinners together to find out how badly they sin. Okay? And how badly the other person sins. That’s what it is. It shows you how much of a sinner you are that you didn’t know you were. And it shows you how much of a sinner that beautiful gal you love so much—how badly she’s a sinner, too. And then you work through that, and what you find is a gospel-shaped relationship of grace for one another and realizing that God has brought you together not to be happy first and foremost, but to be holy and to be sanctified.

Community builds sanctification, and an individual perspective on life avoids sanctification. Now it can happen. God is gracious. I get all that. But these talks are vital for understanding our relationship to the body and to the family of Jesus Christ and in terms of the church. And you know, it’s nice to talk about this in an abstract sort of way, but no—God wants you to think of it in terms of the particular—wants you to think of it in terms of the church directory, okay? Not some abstract church in Oregon City people you’re never going to have to your house. He wants you to talk, think about it in terms of the local congregation as well, or even primarily, as the place that this community is to be put into the context.

This is from R.J. Rushdoony. He says, “For the existentialist mind, freedom is autonomy and hence isolation. In scripture, the term koinonia means a common and shared life. It means a mutual care, concern and sharing. It is also translated as fellowship.”

And he goes on to talk about it. So what we’re talking about here is koinonia, community, communion, fellowship, caring for one another through these basic community building practices. All right, let’s talk about a few related texts quickly.

Galatians 6:9 and 10. “Let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those in the household of faith.”

All right. So here another way to put this is to do good to people, and specifically to do good—particularly, he says, “Yeah, you’re to do good generally in your life, seek the well-being of the city, but particularly he says, those of the household of faith.” Maybe we messed up with the community groups by pushing missionality too much or before the groups congeal into doing good for each other. Okay, that’s the foundation work—doing good.

And so to do good is really what we’re talking about today. To do good frequently means—and when in the Bible you read this doing good stuff like we just read in Galatians, it’s very practical. It’s not moralism. It’s not doing, you know, kind of praying for people or what not. It’s practical, on the ground, boots on the ground sort of doing good. It’s actions. It’s deeds. It’s sharing food and clothing. Sharing your life, sharing your time, sharing your space, sharing your goods with one another. That’s what doing good is. Okay.

In 1 Thessalonians 5, we read, “We urge you brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak, be patient with all. See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. Well, always seek to do good to one another and also to everyone.”

Okay? So we’re to do good. There’s a book in our library. It’s actually in my office right now called Essays to Do Good. It’s written by Cotton Mather in the early 18th century. Cotton Mather was one of the most influential clergymen in American history, one of the most influential writers in American history. His grandfather was Increase Mather, right? He wrote many books—hundreds of them. Very influential.

Let me—I have a quote here from Benjamin Franklin as an example. Or do I? Yeah, there we go. This is from a Wikipedia article on Cotton Mather, talking about Benjamin Franklin. He said, “Much as he prided himself on being self-made, Benjamin Franklin readily acknowledged his debt to Cotton Mather.” Quoting from Franklin now:

“When I was a boy, he wrote Mather’s son later in his life. ‘I met with a book entitled Essays to Do Good, which I think was written by your father. It had been so little regarded by a former possessor that several leaves of it were torn out, but the remainder gave me such a turn of thinking as to have an influence on my conduct throughout the rest of my life. For I have always set a greater value on the character of a doer of good than on any other kind of reputation, and if I have been as you seem to think a useful citizen the public owes the advantage of it to that book.’”

That’s this book I’m talking about. And Mather goes through different kinds of people in relationships—right?—servants, masters, businessmen, rather, schoolteachers, pastors. Goes through different kinds of people and callings that we have, and he says in each one of them this is how you ought to be doing good. Do good is the subject of your life as a condition—is to do good.

These texts are talking about that. And so Mather was concerned that as important as our normal vocation was, that just as importantly we would put time and energy into meditating on, studying out, and being intentional about how we do good to others. And Mather understood his Bible, that meant to others in the context of the local church, the household of faith that you’re bound to now that you’re part of the family with.

Now, I would I would encourage you: if you think these verses, you know, are applicable—and I don’t see how you could not think they are—at some point this week, be a little intentional. Ask yourself, “How can I share my space, my goods, my time with people at RCC in a way? How can I do them good that I haven’t yet done? Am I even thinking about it? Is it on my radar?” Put it on the radar. Get intentional about doing good for one another.

You know, we talk about John 17 and about how the unity of the church will be the demonstration that Jesus is the son of God and will provide evangelism. That’s true. We apply it to the church in Oregon City. That’s true. But look, the church doesn’t see the church in Oregon City primarily, but the church knows your people that you work in the context of. They’ll probably know your church here. And if you are helping one another, if we’re doing good to one another, if we’re sharing our time and our place and our resources with one another, people are going to know about that.

This is why people are attracted to the Mormon church. They take care of each other, right? Well, that’s how our reputation should be, and it should be being played out right here in the context of the local church.

Mather said a lot of great things in the book. I don’t have time right now to quote from it, but he said some great stuff. I mean, for instance, on the Sabbath, he talked about physicians. One way for them to do good was to do their work on the Lord’s day as required, but not take any pay for it. Not make it a commercial transaction. He talked about the need to help prepare people as well for doing good, which is the next point in the outline.

2 Thessalonians 3, listen to this relationship here. “Now, those who are such we command and exhort through our Lord Jesus Christ that they may work in quietness and eat their own bread. But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary in doing good. If anyone does not obey our word in this epistle, note that person and do not keep company with them.”

Okay? So what he’s saying is, “Look, you’re supposed to work. You’re supposed to be able to take care of yourself. Self-reliance is actually a good virtue if not taken to a vice where you’re completely isolated from community. But then he goes on to say, ‘Yeah, people ought to work quietly and not be idle and work so that they can have resources. But the very next verse says, ‘But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary in doing good.’”

Now, I don’t think he means just the doing good of your vocation. Vocation—one of the reasons that God wants you to do it is to help other people. If you look in the Proverbs, the centrality of the section in the middle of the book on work has as its center the benevolence, giving to other people. So one of the reasons we’re supposed to work is to help other people, to be benevolent toward them.

Preparation for doing good. You can’t share goods that you don’t have. So if you’re going to want to share goods, then you’re going to want to work to make preparation for yourself so that you can do good, right? So if the purpose of the sermon is to share goods, time and space, well, you need to have goods, time, and space to share, and you want to be preparing for that. You want to help your children prepare for that.

Cotton Mather, in his book, talks about the importance of teaching all your children—including your daughters, including your daughters, he said—to have a trade. That if you don’t teach your children to have a trade, including your daughters, you teach them to be thieves. This is an old Jewish statement that Mather bought into. Why? So that you can do good to other people. I mean, that’s part of it. There’s other reasons. God’s extending his kingdom through the work of his people. But part of it is preparation for doing good is vocational.

1 John 3:14. “We know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren. Look, this is no minor issue. This is how we’re going to have assurance of faith. That’s what he’s talking about here. He says, ‘He who does not love his brother abides in death.’ So the issues are death and life.

“Whoever hates his brother is a murderer. You know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know that we know love because he laid down his own life for us, and we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. That’s another way of saying sharing time, space and goods, right? Laying down your life for your brothers, ministering your life to their life, laying down your life for theirs.

“But whoever hates has the world’s goods, sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him—how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. And by this, by this we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him.

“If our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts and knows all things. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God and whatever we ask, we will receive from him because we keep his commandments.”

He says the key to assurance is not study theology—as important as that is. But he says that if we do this stuff here, if we love the brethren, if we share our life with our brothers and sisters the way Jesus laid down his life for us, if we do this community building practice of sharing our time, our space, our goods with other people, by this we’ll quiet our hearts before him. By this we’ll have the assurance that we’re of the faith because this is the mark of Christ laying down his life for ours.

So it’s important, this kind of community building practice, doing good, is important because among other things it gives us confidence of our salvation. And then as the verse I just read says as well, it means our prayers will be answered. Additionally, it gives us confidence of answered prayers because we love the brethren. Sometimes you pray and don’t get an answer. Sometimes God wants you to think about, “Well, how are you? Are you doing good to other people?”

It kind of works, but thing is, are you evidencing the grace that God gave to you by sharing with your brothers and sisters in Christ? This is the way we see that we pass from death to life.

James 2:14-17 and Luke 3:9-11. A matter quote here: “Workless faith is worthless faith.”

James 2:14-17. “What does it profit my brethren if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? Well, what’s he talking about—works? Meritorious works, moralistic works, works of, you know, love for God. No, he goes on to tell us, ‘If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to him, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit?’”

So what he says is a workless faith is indeed a worthless faith, as Cotton Mather put it. And what he’s talking about in terms of a workless faith—it’s a faith that doesn’t share. By way of application, doesn’t share our space, our time, and our goods with other brothers and sisters in Christ, and particularly those in your local congregation. I think that’s what he’s saying. That kind of worklessness is worthless faith. It’s an academic faith that really has nothing to do with the life of Christ as it’s lived out in the body of Christ.

Now listen, he says it’s worthless faith if you don’t help somebody who has a need in their body. Now what’s more important in a person’s life—bodily needs or mental needs, for you know, goods or needs for you in relationship? I think the latter is true. Now you can get to a point of absolute starvation, but I don’t think that’s what he’s talking about here. If we’re to be encouraged to share goods, times, and places with one another for the sake of our physical well-being, surely this means that the people who feel isolated, outside of community, who don’t go to your community group, and who knows why, and who may feel alienated from the group—those people need your love and assistance.

If it’s important in terms of them physically having needs, how much more spiritually having needs? Well, they should take care of themselves. Well, maybe yes, maybe no. But your obligation is to go and minister to them, to share your life with the extended members of your community group. I think that’s true.

And then in Luke 3, listen to this. Luke 3:9 and 11. “Even now the axe is laid at the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So the people asked him, saying, ‘What shall we do then?’ He answered and said to them, ‘He who has two tunics, let him give to him who has none. He who has food, let him do likewise.’”

Now we quote that verse in our anti-abortion liturgy of, now, adoration, which we probably ought to be doing more regularly—prayers of implication against Planned Parenthood, et cetera. And we talk about that verse and the significance that each of us has to remember that the axe is laid to the root of the tree. That includes us. We’re trees, too. But the immediate context tells us that the judgment that’s coming can be avoided by what? Doing good, by sharing time, space, and resources with other people. It’s of that great significance.

We don’t have time to do this, but the very next verse—running out of time here, that’s unusual, I guess. Actually, no. Matthew 25:31-26:1. I won’t read it. You know the story. Jesus says, “The great judgment is coming. There’s going to be sheep and goats. And the determination of sheep and goats is not a theology test. It’s not, you know, do you understand the five points of Calvinism, as important as they are? But Jesus says the distinguishment will be whether you clothed and fed and visited people, providing presence and relationship, right? Or not, whether you did that for him.

“They say, ‘Well, how did we ever see you and feed you and clothe you or visit you?’ And Jesus said, ‘As much as you did it to one of the least of these, my brethren, my brethren—not given to World Vision to help people around the world. That’s good. But the test here is whether you did it to the least of these my brethren,’ Jesus says, pointing to us. Are we doing that for each other? You see? If we are, we’re sheep. If we’re not, we’re goats. This is what Jesus concluded this section of his teaching with. It was kind of the great capstone talk about the coming judgment, and that judgment is on the basis of whether we do good to those in the household of faith, particularly those with needs.

Brothers and sisters, this is an important truth, and it’s a truth that runs against our grain because we have these Western individualistic perspectives. God wants us to build a community here at Reformation Covenant Church to mature the community we have, and he wants us to do it by affirming one another. But then he also wants us to do it by building on that base a beautiful house of sharing with one another our time—particularly today talking about our time and our resources and our space as well.

So ask yourself: What am I reluctant to do? And then what am I good at? Have this as a discussion in your community group. What am I, what are each of us good at? Are we better at sharing resources than time? Or resources than having people into our place? You see, a relationship—you might want to see your strengths and your weaknesses. And you may want to use your strengths in an increasing way for the kingdom and encourage other people with those strengths that you have.

And you may at the same time want to look at your weaknesses and think of ways to intentionally, as Mather would tell us to do, to work hard at doing good. To work hard at, you know, just the same way he said you come up with great inventions. He came up with a cell phone. There’s an imagination of something going on, right? Science fiction. “We’ll be able to talk to each other without wires.” And that imagination—which I think is one of the central areas of the work of the Holy Spirit—that imagination changes reality. It changes the future. We have them now.

Can you imagine the sort of church that does these community building practices well, effectively, dynamically, where it really is evidently the every body who wants to see? Do you see? Can you imagine your life more given to that kind of sharing, that kind of affirmation? I’m, I guess I’m saying today that the Bible wants you to imagine that and to realize that the spirit of God is going about doing just that.

You know why? You know why he wants us to do it? He wants us to have abundant life. How does it relate, Pastor Terry? Well, you know, if you’re isolated, if you’re all alone, you don’t dance. If you’re expecting everybody to circle around your life, right, you’re static. That is not the God of the scriptures. The God of the scriptures—there’s three persons moving around each other, deferring to one another, glorifying one another, right? Sharing with one another, right? That’s the triune life. That’s the dance, the joyful dance of the God who created us.

He made us in his image. He wants you to enter into that kind of trinitarian perspective on the relationships in your life to move away from radical individualism and selfishness to becoming other-oriented because he wants you to dance the way the triune God dances. Imagine it. Imagine it. And then recognize that’s what the Holy Spirit’s doing with you. He will accomplish that now or later. But that’s the road you’re on. Let’s embrace it now.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for the wonderful things you have planned for us. And we thank you for the wonderful way you’ve brought us together into a body of believers to help us dance with each other. Bless us, Lord God, this week as we meditate and think about ways that we could be improved in sharing our time, space, and resources with one another. In Jesus name we ask it. Amen.