Our_Bulletin_8_01

Family News and Notes

If you are willing and are financially able you may contribute to the Building Fund today. Thanks.

REMINDER If you are willing and able to help clean the building please sign the Sign-Up Sheet on the table in the foyer so Grady will know what to expect. Thanks.

The Men's Business Meeting will be next Sunday following the evening services. All the men of the congregation are encouraged to attend.

Visitation Team No. 2 will meet following the morning services on Sunday, August 8. So please check the insert in today's bulletin to determine if you are on this team.

Many thanks to the men who participated in the services last Wednesday evening on the topic of MATERIALISM / MONEY. They all did a good job. We have lots of talent in this congregation.

The final Summer Youth series was Tuesday nite at New Boston. Thanks to all who participated in this year's great series on "Let The Beauty of Jesus Be Seen In Me."

David was away Wednesday nite in Hattiesburg, MS to kick off the Summer Series on "Wonderful Jesus," at the Kensington Woods church of Christ, where his good friends Tyler Young and Ken Upchurch are ministers. David will also be away next Sunday thru Tuesday (Aug. 8-10), as he conducts a 3-day Gospel Meeting for the church of Christ in New Summerfield, TX, east of Jacksonville.

Welcome home to Lee & Kelley Moses and all of our teenagers who have been away this past week at Bible Camp at Cisco, TX. Thanks to Bob Hedges for making two trips out there Sunday and Friday to help deliver and pick up the campers and their luggage.

Lurlene Johnson's sister has been in Titus Regional Medical Center. We don't have an update on her at the printing of this bulletin.

Patsy Duncan had gallbladder surgery last Monday. She was able to return home the same day. She is making a great recovery.

Barbara Duncan saw her doctor last Monday and her red blood count has increased. She is to see her doctor again this Monday and Tuesday to see if the increase has continued. She is subject to exploratory surgery to determine what her problem is.

The words "Thank You" seem so inadequate to express my gratitude for the calls, cards, food, inquiries of concern and words of encouragement that you showered me with in my recent and past surgeries. I am deeply grateful for your love and fellowship.

In Christian love,

Patsy Duncan

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PRAYER LIST

Justin Barker, Louis Bell, Annah Brown, Sue Browning,

Josephine Cooper, Perry Cooper, Barbara Duncan, Patsy Duncan,

Zenith Hargrove, Howard Horton, Elna O'Neal, Winnie Patton,

Dorothy Sargent, Ola Mae Simpson

ALSO: Tom Dooley, Robin Embree, Kelsey Meyers, Lois DeWahl

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Complacent Self-Satisfaction

(Death Knell For Christians & Churches)

"Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." (Matt. 7:14)

"So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit thee out of my mouth." (Rev. 3:16)

Few things are more dangerous to us spiritually than an attitude of complacent self-satisfaction. This attitude may well destroy more Christians and hinder the spiritual and numerical growth of more congregations than any other weakness Satan can exploit against the people of God. The times we are living in right now could, in many ways, be characterized spiritually as an age of complacent self-satisfaction.

In the early days of the restoration movement, churches of Christ struggled to gain recognition and respectability for our plea of undenominational New Testament Christianity. We met in living rooms, attics, basements, or in rented facilities, many times in "across the tracks" locations. We were small in number, limited in finances, and virtually unheard of among the established religious order of the day. But, we didn't stay that way for very long. We had the truth of God's Word and the evangelistic fervor of a group who believed its message was one of LIGHT in the midst of darkness.

So, with truth in hand and religious zeal in heart, we set about to win the world for Christ. We invaded our neighborhoods with a "grass roots" movement of home Bible studies evangelism, better known at the time as "cottage meetings." We filled the radio waves with bold "Gospel preaching" that challenged false teaching and championed the cause of Christ. We held great "Gospel Meetings," where, because the average brother or sister in the pew worked hard to get their friends, neighbors, and relatives to attend, thousands heard the Gospel preached for the first time without denominational perversion. We sent out evangelists to the uttermost parts of the earth, to preach the old-fashioned Gospel of Christ. As a result, like our first century brethren before us, we set the established religious community on its ear, as we "turned the world upside down" for the cause of Christ. We met with great success! We baptized thousands into Christ! We became the fastest growing religious group in America!

But then something happened to us, which was the beginning of our decline. We achieved religious respectability. We moved across the tracks to "up town" locations, where we built million-dollar church buildings, like our denominational friends. In fact, we became so friendly with our denominational friends, we quit exposing and challenging much of their denominational error. The struggle was over - the church had arrived. We had our large numbers, our fine buildings, and our big budgets, so we could sit back, take our ease, and "eat, drink, and be merry!" And, that's exactly what we did in far too many cases. We "fellowshipped" and partied ourselves to spiritual death. We turned inward. We forgot our mission. The evangelistic fervor departed and we became stagnant.

Complacent self-satisfaction has become the order of the day in many congregations. You think about it honestly and you'll see that's a true representation of many "Christians" and perhaps most congregations in our brotherhood today. Check the attendance statistics for most congregations, and you'll find large numbers who don't attend Bible study classes, because they're self-satisfied they already know enough about the Bible. Even right here at North Jefferson, where we think of ourselves as being a sound, conservative, and faithful congregation of the Lord's people, nevertheless we can't get all of our brethren to attend every service because many are evidently self-satisfied that God didn't really mean what He said in Hebrews 10:25-31.

Sadly, despite repeated requests from godly elders and persistent pleadings from concerned preachers to make regular attendance at all of the services of the Lord's church a priority in our lives, still far too many brethren miss far too many services without reasonable or justifiable cause. By the way, you know who you are, and fearfully so does God. Your failure to carry your part of the load hurts the cause of Christ, grieves your brethren, and endangers your soul, if you believe Hebrews 13:17. You ought to read the two Scriptures that headline this article, and then give some serious, soul-searching thought, to whether or not you need to publicly repent of your lackadaisical spiritual attitude and your lukewarm example towards your brothers and sisters in Christ.

Also, many brethren won't use their talents in service to the Lord, because they're satisfied "someone else will do it." Many are complacent about the importance of visitation because they are satisfied Christ wasn't really serious when He said our lack of visitation would be brought up against us in Judgment (Matt. 25). And, not many Christians are saying much anymore to their neighbors and friends about Jesus, because they're satisfied the world is not lost and going to hell without Christ.

Brethren, we must shake ourselves out of our spiritual lethargy before it's everlastingly too late. We desperately need to wake up and see ourselves as God sees us (Rev. 3:17). Honest self-evaluation will help us to tear off the façade of our self-satisfaction, so that zeal for Christ can once again fill our lives. We must rededicate ourselves to Christ, our first love (Rev. 2:4-5). We must recommit ourselves wholly to the spiritual task of taking the whole Gospel to the whole world in our generation (Mark 16:15). We must once again hunger and thirst for righteousness, where we can find true spiritual satisfaction (Mat. 5:6). We must study God's Word diligently, with a longing and a desire to know God, our Creator, and Jesus, His Son, who is able by His blood to save us, and to destroy our complacent self-satisfaction and replace it with zeal, faith, courage, boldness, and evangelistic love.

When we take a good hard look at ourselves, we'll see ourselves as the Lord truly sees us, and we will be driven to do one of three things. Either we'll be driven to despair, like Judas, and thus to give up thinking there's no hope for us. That's the "I can't" response. Or, we'll be hardened in our hearts like Pharaoh, and go right on in our spiritual blindness and our complacent self-satisfaction. That's the "I won't" response. Or, hopefully, we'll be like Peter, and feel genuine godly sorrow, and we'll repent and try to do better. That's the "I can by the grace of God" response.

So, which will it be? "I can't," "I won't," or "I can by the grace of God!" Don't let complacent self-satisfaction be the death knell that "tolls for thee." "It is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed" (Rms. 13:11). "...Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light" [Eph. 5:14). David McCain

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