Living Room
Notes
Transcript
ANNOUNCE:
Spanish Church Launch Team Meeting March 9 after church
The Scoop
INTRO:
Behind Closed Doors is a symbolic look at the depth of relationships and the brokenness that sometimes plagues people in ways that some people will never understand.
Last week we discussed the FOYER, which is simply an introduction to a larger environment. It’s a place to say hello and goodbye, a place to take your shoes off and go deeper into the home.
It surpasses the simple glimpse of surface level relationships.
MESSAGE: - Living Room
Close your eyes for a moment and think about how you would describe the use of your living room in the last 7 days.
What have the conversations in your living room looked like?
What has been done or been said that you wish would never have happened?
What do you wish would happen?
Are there new memories you would like to create?
Are there new Traditions you would like to develop?
Has your living room impacted anyone outside of your immediate family?
Cheerfully share your home with those who need a meal or a place to stay.
1. MY LIVING ROOM IS USED FOR RELAXATION
Sabbath (Allen Tennyson)
So there is a special rest still waiting for the people of God.
For all who have entered into God’s rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world.
b. Don’t get too B. U. S. Y. Being Under Satan’s Yoke (See the list of items Satan uses to distract us)
Satan's Plan for Christians
Satan called a worldwide convention of demons. In his opening address he said, "We can't keep Christians from going to church. We can't keep them from reading their Bibles and knowing the truth. We can't even keep them from forming an intimate relationship with their savior. Once they gain that connection with Jesus, our power over them is broken. So let them go to their churches; let them have their covered dish dinners, but steal their time, so they don't have time to develop a real relationship with Jesus Christ."
"This is what I want you to do", said the devil. "Distract them from gaining hold of their Savior and maintaining that vital connection throughout their day!
"How shall we do this?" his demons shouted.
"Keep them busy in the nonessentials of life and invent innumerable schemes to occupy their minds," he answered:
- Tempt them to spend, spend, spend, and borrow, borrow, borrow.
- Persuade the wives to go to work for long hours and the husbands to work 6-7 days each week, 10-12 hours a day, so they can afford their empty lifestyles.
- Keep them from spending time with their children. As their families fragment, soon, their homes will offer no escape from the pressures of work!
- Over-stimulate their minds so that they cannot hear that 'still, small voice.'
- Fill their commute with senseless, ungodly music...
- Fill their time with reels, videos, and news 24 hours a day. Invade their driving moments with billboards and useless music.
- Flood their mailboxes with junk mail, advertisements, sweepstakes, and every kind of newsletter and promotional offering free products, services and false hopes.
- Keep skinny, beautiful models on every screen and TV commercial so their husbands will believe that outward beauty is what's important, and they'll become dissatisfied with their wives.
- Keep the wives too tired to love their husbands at night. Give them headaches too! If they don't give their husbands the love they need, they will begin to look elsewhere. That will fragment their families quickly!
- Give them Santa Claus to distract them from teaching their children the real meaning of Christmas.
- Give them an Easter bunny so they won't talk about his resurrection and power over sin and death.
- Even in their recreation, let them be excessive...have them return from their recreation exhausted. Keep them too busy to go out in nature and reflect on God's creation. Send them to amusement parks!, sporting events, plays, concerts, and movies instead.
- Keep them busy, busy, busy! And when they meet for spiritual fellowship,
they will leave with troubled consciences.
- Crowd their lives with so many good causes that they have no time to seek power from Jesus. Soon they will be working in their own strength, sacrificing their health and family for the good of the cause.
"It will work!
I guess the question is, has the devil been successful with you at his scheme?
c. Jesus designed time with His disciples apart from the crowd. Time with the Lord included prayer, healing, humor, storytelling, music, and other relaxing activities.
2. MY LIVING ROOM IS USED FOR ENTERTAINMENT
Enjoyment
Friends and Family
Conversations
Games
Movies
Wrestling
God’s Creation
The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship.
For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God
Be Spirit Led
Living with Conviction
Be contentious of appearance and example
Be cautious of man made counterfeits
Time for Life
According to the authors of Time for Life, the average American has more free time today than at any time since 1965. Two time management experts studied the daily routines of Americans over the past thirty years to reach their surprising conclusion, which says that our leisure time has increased almost five hours per week in the last three decades. Knowing that most people feel more rushed today than ever before, the authors say more leisure time has actually accelerated rather than slowed the pace of life....
On an average, Americans spend nine-tenths of one hour per week, about fifty-four minutes, on religious activities. Compare this to fifteen hours a week that are spent watching television.
Today in the Word, November 16, 1997
Experience proves that most time is wasted, not in hours, but in minutes. A bucket with a small hole in the bottom gets just as empty as a bucket that is deliberately kicked over.
3. MY LIVING ROOM IS USED FOR HOLIDAY TRADITIONS
STORY:
Carol, was a tough country girl that said what she thought!
She stoped the UPS driver by standing in the middle of the road, throwing down her purse threatening to beat the driver down if he didn’t slow down. She had free range Guinness that she didn’t want to get hit.
Carol, we invited her over to the house for Christmas morning. She showed up all dressed up with full makeup on. I never imagined in a hundred years she would go to that extent to have a meal with us in our home. We cooked breakfast, open gifts, shared some laughs, and got to know Carol in a much different way that Christmas. It wasn’t very long after that morning we learned Carol had cancer and she passed away not long after that.
Duet 6 Remind children of reasons for seasons
Our living room has been the location of 12 morning Christmas’ complete with the Christmas Story and 3 gift for each kid (gold, frankincense and myrh.)
4. MY LIVING ROOM IS USED TO PROVIDE SAFETY
STORY:
Josh Kibby - youth ministry
Joel Alexander - photographer in NY
Adam Vance
Bianca Luna
Diaaron McAdams
STORY:
As a 6 year old, Nate saw both his parents die right before his eyes. His dad murdered his mom and then committed suicide.
He lived in Christ’s Home Children’s Services, until he ran away and began to live out of his car and then in prison. Then Stan Deen, an English teacher and theater arts director at Garden Spot High School decided to move him into his own home in 1980. , helping change his life for forever.
Nathan is now a filmmaker and advocate for the arts, he lives in Lancaster, PA, with his wife, Jessica. He has worked at Sight & Sound Theatres, located in Lancaster, PA, for over 30 years. Sight & Sound Theatres specializes in producing live plays based on biblical stories.
In 2022, Deen returned to Christ’s Home to share his inspiring story as a guest speaker at the organization’s annual Spring Dinner. During Deen’s testimony, he mentioned how getting a chocolate bar from Stan Deen gave him hope. “Our actions matter, no matter how small,” Deen said, “they have a ripple effect that can indeed change the world.”
5. MY LIVING ROOM IS USED FOR BUILDING FRIENDSHIPS
Sharing the gospel
We have had couples that were struggling in their marriage sitting in our living room sharing their most vulnerable thoughts.
Discipleship
Life Groups
Being a friend
Inviting over new friends
6. MY LIVING ROOM IS AS AN ALTAR
While entertainment, relaxation, traditions, and friendships can bring us joy and rest, we need to remember that no amount of entertainment or amusement can bring us ultimate fulfillment.
That is only found in walking with God. It is in knowing Him and keeping our thoughts and hearts in the Word of God that we can find a proper perspective on all of life, even our entertainment choices.
CONCLUSION:
CALL TO ACTION:
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction" this is a statement describing Newton's Third Law of Motion which means that when one object exerts a force on another object, the second object exerts an equal force back on the first object in the opposite direction; essentially, every action has a corresponding reaction force.
When we “do good” for others behind closed doors, you will see the good fruit produced as a result!
Stay away from every kind of evil.
Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them.
It is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly people do in secret.
But their evil intentions will be exposed when the light shines on them,
for the light makes everything visible. This is why it is said, “Awake, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”
