A Matter Of Life And Death Series

ILLUS: One person compared the church to a bowl of grapes. Some congregations are like grapes that just sit there and jostle around in the same container. But other churches are like grapes that have been crushed together and whose juices mix with one another’s, so that they can offer a pleasing drink to their master.

A church should be a place where we care about each other enough to mix together.

ILLUS: Back in the first church I served, I got fired because I disciplined a Deacon who was committing adultery. At one of the Board meetings that followed my action, a man (I’ll call) Fred spoke up. Fred was a wealthy member who had committed adultery years before and left his first wife to marry the woman he committed adultery with. There was a troubled look in his eyes as he asked me “Do you mean you’d have done this to me when I committed adultery?”

I said “Yes Fred, I’d have confronted you as well.”

I was puzzled by Fred’s question and by the troubled look in his eyes. His adultery had taken place years before, and I thought he’d repented of that and had experienced forgiveness.

But just a couple years ago I discovered that something about Fred that I didn’t know before. Apparently, while I’d been a preacher there Fred was always going down to the local bar, getting drunk… and then he’d proposition the women there. And seemingly everybody in town seemed to know about it – and nearly everybody in church knew about it… except me.

And they all conspired to his death.

The whole congregation conspired to send him to hell because they DID NOT CARE where he ended up as long as his money was there to help them keep the doors open.

And it makes me furious.

I liked Fred. I didn’t and don’t want him going to hell… but those folks didn’t care.

ILLUS: Do you remember what Cain said to God when God asked him where his brother was?

“Am I my brother’s keeper?”

YES… YES YOU ARE!!!

Not because we’re more righteous than the next guy… but because we should care what happens to our brothers and sisters in Christ.

CLOSE: A famous preacher named Adrian Rogers once recalled hearing about a nightclub that was called “The Gates of Hades”. The story goes that a newcomer to the city was looking for this nightclub and stopped a policeman to ask directions.

It so happened that there was a church on that same street called “Calvary Church” and when the man asked the policeman for directions, the cop replied:

“If you want to get to the Gates of Hades, you’ll have to go past Calvary.”

You take that story and you apply it to us as a church filled with forgiven sinners.

If we see someone on the way to the Gates of Hades… we ought to say

“If you’re going to go to hell you’ll have to get past me and past the cross of Jesus Christ.”