Protect the Testimony of My Church

On Monday of this past week, I received a phone call, and of course I have caller ID, so I know who's calling me, and it says Stacy. So I pick it up and say, hey, Stacy, how you doing? And the voice was, no, this is John. So I let you know that my dad's in the emergency, and things are not looking really good for him at this moment.

And so I thanked him for calling me and hung up the phone and told Lori, I said, I need to go to the hospital to see Stacy. And so I called my daughter, Ashley, because we were supposed to be at her house with Alan and some other people that night for the interview process, and told her that I would be late, because I was going to the hospital. She said, okay, Dad, I'm going to send you something, and I want you to show it to Mr. Berry.

I said, okay. So I get it on my way to the hospital, I don't know what she's sending me, I'm on my way to the hospital. And I get there, and they let me in, of course, and there's Stacy, and they're wrapping him up and keeping him all warm, because he's cold.

And I'm standing outside there in the emergency room, waiting for the nurses to get done with him. And he says, you know, Stacy is that big, gruff voice, come on in, Lance. And so I walk in, and I say, how you doing? He goes, I'm doing good, real good.

I said, you don't look good. He says, I'm doing real good. And I said, listen, I need to show you something, because my daughter sent it to me.

And so I opened my phone, and it was a video of Paisley, Paxton, and Parker. And so I showed it to him, and I held it up to his face, and Paisley, Paxton, and Parker were talking to Mr. Berry, thanking him for his ministry, and telling him how much they loved him, and were praying for him. So I'm holding this up to his face, and he takes his hands out from his covers.

And you know, Stacy's hands are huge, they're just mammoth, you know. And so he grabs the phone out of my hand, and he shoves it to his ear, so he can hear what they're saying. And as he's listening, the tears begin to fall down the side of his face.

Now I don't know what the kids are saying, because he's got it up to his ear, and it's not up to my ear, and I'm getting old, and I can't hear half of anything anyway. So I don't know necessarily what they're saying. But the tears are coming down the side of Stacy's face.

And when they were done, he handed me back the phone, and he said to me, these words, he says, I love my church. The church is my rock. Then he repeated it, the church is my rock.

I love my church. That's a testimony that's true. Everyone would attest to that.

Stacy loved Christ Community Church from day one, when he was here. Whether it was in children's ministry, or whether it was in release time ministry, or whether it was any other kind of ministry that he could be a part of, you know. He even gave gummy bears to me.

He had them in his pocket, and he'd wrap them in his big hands, and he'd walk up to me, and he'd say, hey, I got something for you. I said, you do? He said, yeah, this is for you. And he'd give me gummy bears, because he's always giving them to the kids.

I said, you've got to be my favorite church person, you know. But Berry, Stacy was always involved in the ministry of the church, our prayer ministry.

He loved his wife. When she went home to be with the Lord during COVID, he said, I just can't wait to be with the Lord. It wasn't too long ago when the doctor gave him only two months to live, and he told me, he says, what does the doctor know? I said, probably not as much as you and I know. I have no idea, but, you know, he died in less time than that, and he told the doctor, he says, I know, I know the Lord has my day planned.

He was in the hospital, and the nurse would come in, and she would say, Mr. Berry, your blood pressure's low. He said, that's good. That's good.

They said, no, it's not good. We need to raise your blood pressure, so give us a few minutes. And so they began to work on him, and they raised his blood pressure.

They come back in and say, hey, Mr. Berry, we've got good news. Your blood pressure's back up again. And he says, that's bad.

The nurse said to him, why do you say it's good when it's low and it's bad when it's right? He goes, because you're doing everything you can to keep me here, and I don't want to be here any longer. And finally, the Lord took him at the right time, but he loved his church.

He was committed to the church. He was all in at the church. You only get out of the church what you put into the church. It's like your marriage, right? You only get out of your marriage what you put into your marriage. You put nothing into it, you get nothing out of it. Same with your church. Put nothing into it, you get nothing out of it.

And Stacey, he gave to the ministry of the church. And I wonder today how truly committed you are to your church. The reason we've spent this month looking at our church covenant or our church promise is to remind every single one of us of our responsibility.

When you decided to make Christ Community Church your home, you made a promise, a commitment that says, I will do all I can to preserve the unity of my church. I will do that through personal examination, I'll do that through mutual submission, I'll do that through scriptural confrontation, I'll do that through beneficial conversation, but I will do all I can, I will endeavor to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. I will work hard, zealously, all my strength to preserve the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace.

That's a promise you made when you said, Christ Community Church is the place, is my home, is a church I want to be a part of. Then you made this promise, and that was not only just to preserve the unity of my church, but to pursue the strategy of my church, that is I will make it my passion to pursue the Christ, I'll make it my priority to portray the Christ, I'll make it my purpose to proclaim the Christ, and I'll make it my practice to praise the Christ. And then, you come to the third promise, that promise is simply this, that I promise to protect the testimony of my church.

I promise to protect the testimony of my church. These covenant cards are things that we make available to you, they're in the foyer, just a reminder of the promise that I make as one who says, Christ Community Church is my home. That's where I want to invest my time, my energy, my giftedness, my life, and I will do all I can to protect the testimony of my church.

Stacey fulfilled all those, by the way. That was his lifestyle, that was his ministry. And so, how do you protect the testimony of your church? Again, there are four ways in which we do that.

Number one is by attending faithfully, attending faithfully. The verse for that is found in the book of Hebrews, the 10th chapter. You know this well.

It says in verse 24, and let us consider, let us think deeply, let us be fully invested, let us meditate energetically, let us consider how it is we can stimulate one another to love and good deeds. Let's really think deeply about how it is I can stimulate you, I can motivate you, I can encourage you, I can move you toward love and good deeds. This is a strong admonition given to the church.

And then he says this, not forsaking our own assembly together as is the habit of some, but encourage you one another in all the more as you see the day drawing near. Even the writer of Hebrews recognized that there were some who had a habit of not attending faithfully even back in those days. Some things just never change.

People have a habit of not attending faithfully. Something comes up, something more important to them than coming to church. And they say, not this day.

Something else has taken a priority over the worship of the king. I don't have any idea what that would be. But for some people they have another priority.

And yet the writer of Hebrews says you need to think deeply about how it is you motivate others to love and good deeds. Well you can't do that if you don't attend faithfully. You got to be here so that you can move people on to love and good deeds. You can be an encouragement to their lives.

Well how are you going to do that? Well one way is through example, right? You come to church and you see other people, you see marriages that are flourishing, you see families that are flourishing, you see people who are walking with the Lord and their example just gives you encouragement. It motivates you and stimulates you.

I watch young moms come to church with all their kids because the fathers couldn't make it because they had to work that day. But they come walking in with all their kids. They get them all ready and they get them here all on time.

That's a motivating factor for me. That moves me. That intrigues me.

How a woman can come with all of her children, four, five, six, and seven, falling behind her, get here early enough to be on time, but others who don't have any children can't get here on time. How does that work? But see I'm motivated by that young mom. I'm motivated by the young mom who comes on Wednesday nights faithfully.

She has a special needs child. She comes by herself without her husband because her husband works every Wednesday night. She has two other children.

She brings them in her van, a special needs van, and that child is in there in a wheelchair and she by herself gets that child out of that van into our church. By the way, she's always on time. It's amazing.

And she wheels that special needs child into church with her other two children following her and she never misses. Talk about commitment. Talk about drive.

It's so easy just to stay home. She's special needs. Why go through all the work of getting her into the van, getting her out of the van just to bring your two other children to church? Why not just stay home? It's so much more simple.

But not this lady. She's here every Wednesday night wheeling in that special needs child. And I see them and talk about encouragement, talk about motivation.

I go up to her, see that young lady, and I put my hand on her shoulder and say, it's so good to see you. Thank you for being here tonight. You are an encouragement to me.

And she is. So is her mom. It should be for every one of us.

It should be a good swift kick in the rear to motivate us to action. How is it that she could be here every week and be here on time and we can't? How does that happen? But see, she is here to stimulate and motivate one another to love and good deeds.

She's not here necessarily to be motivated. She's not here to be stimulated. She's not here to be encouraged. But in her coming, she's doing all of that.

See? So the writer of Hebrews says, let us consider, let us really think deeply about how it is we are able to motivate others to love and good deeds by not forsaking the assembly of ourselves together, as some are in the habit of doing, even more so as you see the day approaching. What day is that? The day of the coming king.

Listen, my friend, as we get closer, the TV is off. That means there is no clock. That means there is no time. This is a great Sunday. I have no idea what time it is. Oh, man. Praise the Lord.

Anyway, all that being, don't be, where are you going? No. Don't turn it on. You're not going to motivate me to love and good deeds if you turn it on.

I'm just kidding with you. The bottom line is that as we see the day approaching where Christ is going to come again, things are going to get worse, not better. You're going to need the church more than you ever needed it before as time draws near to the coming of the king.

There was a study that came out this month, June 2026. It came out in an article called, Passing the Truth, How Faith Moves Across Generations. Unique article.

You need to read it. For in the article it says that in order to move faith across generations, it is imperative that parents bring their children to church. In fact, it says parents who bring their children to church on a regular basis, not an irregular basis, but on a weekly basis, have more than twice the opportunity to make sure that those children, once they reach adulthood, are still going to church. Versus those who come irregularly to church and bring their children.

Now I have told you for the years that the most important thing you can do as a father, as a mother, is to bring your children to church. That's just number one.

That's where it all begins. Bring them to church every week. Start there.

That is the greatest thing you can do for your children. I've told you that for years. Now there's an article that comes out and says, hey, this is the number one thing you can do for your kids.

If you want the faith to continue from generation to generation, parents who bring their children to church on a weekly basis are twice, twice as good as those who don't bring their children of having their children continue for the next generation in the faith. Attending faithfully. You want to protect the testimony of your church? That's where it begins.

By your attendance, by your coming, by your being here. There's a lot of people that only come twice a week, twice a month. Some only come once a month.

Why is it we don't have the need to be here? To fellowship with others. To listen to the words of the Lord as it's spoken through his word. To pray with other people. To serve alongside other people.

I mean, just to watch those 66 different people serving this past week in VBS and the camaraderie that they had with one another and the opportunity they had to encourage one another. And then to come back on Friday.

A lot of those people, they came on Wednesday and then they came back Wednesday night for church. Then they came all throughout the week and then came back Friday night for the closing ceremony. Talk about a lot of sacrifice and investment, but they were all here.

But there was a certain camaraderie that they developed among themselves as they prayed together, as they served together, as they worked alongside one another, which is something that you can't substitute. To protect the testimony of your church, it begins by attending faithfully. Number two, you want to protect the testimony of your church, it begins by praying fervently for your church.

Praying fervently for your church. Would you pray for your church? You should pray for your church every single day. Praying for your leaders, praying for those who serve alongside of you, praying for those who have special needs, praying for those who are just having a difficult time.

Let me add this before I forget. Have you ever watched Sandy sing? Have you ever watched Loretta sing? Because they're blind. They don't sing like you and I sing because we can see all the words at once.

So when the words come up on a screen, we can see the whole verse. They can't see the whole verse. They have to, with Braille, with their fingers, read each word, each letter, spell it out, then sing.

You want to be encouraged, you want to be motivated to love and good deeds, just watch them sing. That's all you've got to do. You watch them sing, you begin to realize how much we take for granted when we don't sing.

Or we don't sing like they sing with passion and drive because they have the words that are their feeling with their fingers in front of them and they begin to sing for the glory and honor of God. That's a motivating factor for anybody who watches them. They just by being here stimulate us to love and good deeds.

But not just attending faithfully but praying fervently. Paul says in Colossians 4 that we're to devote ourselves into prayer. In Luke 18, we are always to pray and not to faint.

Paul throughout all of his letters was vehemently praying for everyone in the assembly. And one of the ways that you protect the testimony of your church is to pray for your church. Pray for its purity, pray for its protection, pray for God to do a mighty work in and through the church.

But you should always be praying for the purity and the protection of the church of Jesus Christ that God would do a great and mighty work. That God would always provide the needs for the church. We should always be doing that because we want to protect the testimony of our church.

Told the kids last week, I'll remind you this week, that's the only thing the disciples ever asked the Lord to teach them was to pray. They never said, Lord, teach us how to do that miracle thing. Boy, if we can just heal people's lives, Lord, teach us how to do that.

Lord, teach us how to preach because we're not very good. We're just fishermen. We're not very good communicators. Teach us how to preach.

Never asked the Lord to teach them how to preach and never asked the Lord how to perform miracles. Teach them how to do that.

They said, Lord, teach us how to pray. Just teach us how to pray. Why? Because that's what they always saw them doing.

They wanted to learn how to pray. So the Lord taught them how to pray. Gave them a pattern for prayer in Matthew chapter 6 and Luke chapter 11.

It's a pattern for prayer. It's a great study. But do you pray fervently for your church? We have an opportunity on Tuesday evenings to gather together for prayer in homes.

Do you do that? We have an opportunity on Sunday mornings during both services to pray for our church during the service time. Do you do that? I mean, that's just a minimal commitment to say, I'm going to use the first service to pray for those in the first service and then I'll worship the second hour or vice versa. But I will invest that hour in prayer for the people of Christ Community Church because I want to protect the testimony of my church.

So I'm going to pray for my church. Would it be that the room that we have set aside for that would be too small? Would it be that all of you would be in that room and those who are praying now, the five or six or seven that are there would be in this room because everybody's over there praying and nobody's coming to worship the first service. Would it be that way? That would be great.

I would preach to the five or six if I had the rest of you all in the same, squeezed in that same room all praying for the five or six in this room. See, that's the heartbeat of the church is prayer. Do you pray fervently? Do you know why you don't pray fervently?

Number one is because your ego. That's number one. We're too prideful. We don't think we need to pray.

Number two is because of the enemy. The enemy is always against us. You know, watch and pray lest you enter into temptation Christ said to his men.

They couldn't even do that on the eve of the crucifixion. But you're fighting the enemy. You're fighting your own ego.

The effort involved is too much for most people, but the number one reason we don't pray fervently is because we don't expect God to do anything anyway. That's why we don't pray. Turn with me to Acts 12.

Acts 12. My time is fleeting, so quickly turn because the slower you turn, the longer I preach. Acts chapter 12, Herod beheads James. Peter now was arrested. Now that Peter's arrested, the expectation is James was beheaded. Now Peter's going to be beheaded.

And so what happens in verse number 5? So Peter was kept in prison, but prayer for him was being made fervently by the church to God. That's good news, right? If you were in prison, wouldn't you want the church praying fervently for you? Absolutely. So here they are gathered together to pray fervently for Peter, thinking that James has been beheaded.

Peter is next to be beheaded. We need to pray for Peter. So they gathered together to pray.

Little did they know that the angel came and broke Peter out of prison. And Peter has been released from prison. And he gets out and he goes to the house where everybody is fervently praying, listen, for his release.

And it says this in verse number 12, or number 11, when Peter came to himself, he said, Now I know for sure that the Lord has sent forth his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting. And when he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, who was called Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying. When he knocked at the door of the gate, a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer. When she recognized Peter's voice, because of her joy, she did not open the gate, but ran in and announced that Peter was standing in front of the gate.

Here is Peter being released from prison. He is knocking on the gate. And Peter says, Rhoda, it's me, it's Peter. And she is so excited, filled with joy, that she just leaves him there. And she runs back in to the prayer meeting.

Listen to this. This is so, so interesting. It says, when she recognized Peter's voice, because of her joy, she did not open the gate, but ran in and announced that Peter was standing in front of the gate.

They said to her, you are out of your mind. You're a crazy woman, Rhoda. We are praying in a prayer meeting for Peter to be released. And how dare you come in and tell us that Peter has been released and is standing at the gate. That's exactly what they're saying. But she kept insisting that it was so.

They kept saying, it must be his angel. Why? Because although they were fervently praying, they did not expect God to answer in the way they prayed. And so they weren't even expecting Peter to show up.

But Peter continued knocking. And when they had opened the door, they saw him. And they were amazed.

Do you know why you're amazed when God answers prayer? It's because you never expected God to answer in that way anyway. Because if you did, you wouldn't be amazed. You'd be saying, Yep, that's my God.

That's what He does. That's who He is. You see, the reason we don't pray fervently is because we don't have an expectation that God's going to answer.

We just expect that God's going to do what God's going to do, and whatever's going to happen is going to happen. But we really don't think that God's going to answer my prayer. I pray for my husband to be saved, and I pray expectantly, but do I really expect Him to answer the prayer of salvation for my husband or for my wife? I pray for my children to come to Christ, but do I really believe that they're going to come to Christ? Or do I live in a state of non-expectation? We pray for great things to happen, but do we really expect them to happen?

Acts 12 is such a classic illustration of the church. We pray for God to do great things. He does it, and we're amazed. I love what Jeremiah 33 says, call upon me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things which thou knowest not.

Isn't that good? Want to protect the testimony of your church? Pray fervently. Attend faithfully. Number three, give.

Give financially. Give financially. Proverbs chapter 3, Honor the Lord from your wealth, verse 9, and from the first of all your produce.

Solomon is a king, wisest man who ever lived, wealthiest man who ever lived, the greatest architect who ever lived. He says, Honor the Lord with the first fruit of your increase. The best of what you have.

Honor the Lord. Remember 1 Samuel 2:30? He honors me, I will honor. So honor the Lord with the first fruit of your increase.

So your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will overflow with new wine. And then he says this. My son, do not reject the discipline of the Lord or loathe his reproof.

For whom the Lord loves, he reproves. And even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights. Interesting that the Bible speaks about honoring the Lord with the first fruits of your increase, but then it speaks right after that about God disciplining his children.

Because when you do not honor the Lord with the first fruits of your increase, God says, I'm going to discipline you. So you will learn to give to me. Because what you have, you have because of me.

Your house, your clothes, your car, your bank account, your children. All that you have is from me. And I just want you to honor me with the best of what you have.

When you do that, you protect the testimony of your church. If time permitted, we could take you to 2 Corinthians chapter 8, where the churches of Macedonia gave out of their poverty. They gave liberally out of their poverty.

They were poor churches. But they gave liberally. Why did they do that? Paul tells us, because they first gave themselves to the Lord.

You see, giving has nothing to do with the amount of money in your pocket. Giving has everything to do with the condition of your heart. Because once your heart is right, giving is no problem.

You never give with a tight fist when your heart is committed to the Lord. But when it's not committed to the Lord, you're hanging on to every red cent you got. Because you think if you give it away, you're not going to have enough left to do what you want to do.

But you forget about the metaphor, the agricultural metaphor of 2 Corinthians chapter 9. That when you sow sparingly, you reap sparingly. But when you sow bountifully, you will reap bountifully. People forget that.

But you want to protect the testimony of your church? You attend faithfully. You pray fervently. You give financially.

And lastly, you live fruitfully. And by this is my father glorified, John 15, verse number 8. That you bear much fruit. In other words, fruit is defined by action and by attitude.

Attitude meaning the fruit of the Spirit. Right? Fruit of the Spirit is love and joy and peace. Right? It's all about gentleness and kindness and goodness.

Self-control. That's the fruit of the Spirit. That's the attitude that we portray.

I was reminded, Alan this past week reminded me, that you don't have to pray for patience. Why? Because the fruit of the Spirit is patience. We ask the Lord to unleash his patience through you.

You don't pray for self-control because you already have self-control. It comes through the Spirit of God. You see, live out the principle of controlling yourself based on the power of the Spirit of God in your life.

That's what you need to do. Don't need to pray that you would love your enemies. You're commanded to love your enemies.

The love of God's been shed upon your heart. And the fruit of the Spirit is love. So ask the Lord to enable you to portray that attitude of love to others because it's already there.

It's the fruit of the Spirit. Leading others to Christ is fruitfulness. According to Philippians 4:17. John 4, same thing. John 4 talks about the fruit of eternal life to those who come to saving faith. It's Philippians 4:17 that talks about giving to those in need is a fruit of action toward those in need.

John the Baptist would say bring forth fruit equivalent with repentance. In other words, when you repent, there's a fruit of holiness and righteousness and godliness that comes from your life. When you live fruitfully, you protect the testimony of your church.

You ever been to the grocery store? Excuse me, of course you have. You go to the grocery store and you go to the fruit section. And what draws you to the fruit section? The brightness of the red apple.

The brightness of the yellow banana. Or the brightness of the green grape. It's very appealing, right? You see it from a distance.

It's almost as if it's glistening there in the produce section. And you see that red apple glistening and you walk over to it and it becomes very appealing. And you take it and you bite into it and it's so juicy that the juice kind of runs down the side of your mouth.

It's so appetizing because it's so appealing. And you just want to sink your teeth into it. That's the way you protect the testimony of your church.

By being so shiny red, so appetizing from a distance, that when people come up and take a bite out of you, all it does is ooze the goodness of the fruit of the Spirit of God. That's living fruitfully. That's how you protect the testimony of your church.

How about you? Are you all in? Are you 100% in? Or are you one foot in and one foot out? A guy like Stacey Berry, man, he was all in. He should have been a testimony to every single one of us. And may God give us the grace to be 100% committed to the church that we say we call our home. Let's pray together.

Lord, we thank you for today and the opportunity we have to spend a brief moment in your Word. We are grateful.

Today, Lord, as we are reminded once again of how we protect the testimony of our church, may we be faithful to doing so for the glory and honor of your kingdom until you come again, as you most surely will.