The sermon discusses the example of the household of Stephanus, who were addicted to the ministry of the saints. It emphasizes the integration of households in both the Old Testament and New Testament, highlighting the importance of the family in the family of God. The speaker addresses the devaluation of the church as an institution and cautions against growing bitter towards it. A symbiotic relationship between the health of the family and the health of the church is emphasized, with the need for active engagement in the church's one another's. The sermon concludes by urging investment in the local church and the establishment of a different social situation where the church cares for the elderly and ailing, rather than relying on government welfare.

Praise the Lord. First Corinthians 16 verses 15 to 16. Today we're going to look at this passage. This is the household of Stephanus addicted to the ministry of the saints. I beseech you, brethren, you know the house of Stephanus that it is the first fruits of Achaia and that they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints and that you submit yourselves unto such, to everyone that helpeth with us and labors.

Amen. So, brothers and sisters, this is a great example of household that was integrated into a household economy. Again, we see so many instances in scripture of households that feared God together, believed together, worked together, ministered together, served together, and were baptized together. There seems to be an integration of the household in so many aspects of Old Testament and New Testament life. And I don't particularly see a huge difference between Old Testament and New Testament when it comes to the treatment of the household and the integration of the household in the family of God.

I just don't see a difference. Now some do, and I realize that. Some see there's more of a difference between Old and New Testament, But here we find the household of Stephanists that were addicted to the ministry of the saints together. Sometimes we're faced with the question, what do we do with our twenty-something daughters? If they're not yet married, they're still single.

So what shall they do? They don't maybe have an active role in a quid pro quo aspect of a family economy. Be aware the family economy is everything the family does. It's not just the quid pro quo aspects where we're pulling in an income source, it could be that we are involved in hospitality. Our household has been very much involved in hospitality over the years to the point where sometimes we would bring as many as 1,000 people into our house in a given year, provide them with a place to sleep, a meal here and there with part of accountonthewindow.com as well.

I mentioned that to his family over here. I highly recommend a candleinthewindow.com. If you don't know where that is, you need to go there at least one time to a candleinthewindow.com. It's a place in which God's people can go pretty much anywhere in the world. My children just went out to Europe and spent time with various families in Europe as well.

You need accountability with your own church or pastor to be able to join up with that Christian ministry, but I highly recommend it to you. There are households that have dedicated themselves to the service of the body of Christ. There are singles who have dedicated themselves to the service of the body of Christ. It's 1 Corinthians 7. So in some respects today, this verse is a non-starter.

And the reason for that is the idea of serving the saints is of very little value today. Comes from a devaluation of the church itself as an institution. Now occasionally people have grown bitter towards the church. We have to be cautious with this. Those children who've grown up in a church or been part of a pastor's family, perhaps they have been somewhat beat up in the satanic attacks that have come upon the church and upon the pastor's family.

But let's remember that Satan is very much involved. There's much spiritual warfare going on all the time, as my brother mentioned yesterday. Let's Remember, Satan is busy sifting people like wheat. But also remember that this is the precious body of Christ. Remember that Jesus sends fire into the church to test the church, to burn up the wood, hay, and stubble, and to make gold out of the rest of it.

We see that happening over a period of 20, 30, 40 years of involvement in the church. Be careful that we don't grow bitter against the church. That can turn into a full-fledged apostasy. You heard the story about the ship that comes upon a desert island and finds a man living there, three buildings on the island. The captain of the ship asks, what's the deal with the buildings?

Well, that's my house, that's my church, and that's the church I used to attend. Okay, so sadly that's the way it is with too many Americans today. That's because Americans are wandering away from the church and they become those who were not really of us, although they had been with us, they were not remaining with us and therefore they were not really of us. But there's a symbiosis between the health of the family and the health of the individuals that make up the church and the relative health of the church itself. We all have a vested interest in the health of the church of Jesus Christ.

Let me put it to you this way. If you are a thumb in a body, you're a thumb, and you have no interest in the health of the heart, the lungs, the kidneys, and the stomach, you are an idiot. You need to be very much concerned about every other part of the body because you are part of that same body. Spiritual anemia in the members is spiritual anemia in the church. Where individuals are not revived, the church is not revived.

Where the church is not revived, individuals are not revived either. So there is this symbiosis between your participation in the church and the relative health of the church. So if you're whining about the relative health of the church, you need to be contributing to the health of the church yourself. But What is there to do in the church? So briefly, let's take a look at some of this.

I think everybody has a job today. Everybody's making money. The state provides welfare, and the church is pretty much irrelevant. Just a place to attend once a week, and everything should be okay. But that's not really the scriptural vision for the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The church is the body of Christ, and everybody needs to be active within the body. If the pastor and maybe another one to 2% of the body are the only real active members of the church, the body will be dead. Ideally, we need at least 60% of the church actively engaging in the one another's in order for the church to be a healthy body. So that is the responsibility of all of us, to engage the one another's in the church. In fact, I think we should continue in fellowship with the church throughout Sunday and be sure that we've had a couple of hours at least to interact with members of the body.

And that includes all the young people, I'd say anybody under or over 13 years of age needs to be involved in building up the body of Christ, praying with one another and performing the one another's in the church. There should be a vital interest in the health of the body, loving the body, carrying the body, and building up the body of Christ. The bodiness of the body is so essential. I think one of the reasons why the church has been so derelevantized is because we don't see it as a real body of the real Christ. We tend to reduce the church to an invisible body.

It's not a good theology. The Bible has nothing to say about the invisible church. The brother you can see is the brother you need to love. The brother you can see is as real as Jesus and we reach out and touch the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 12, for the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many are one body, so also is Christ.

But now God has set the members, each one of them in the body, just as he pleased. And if they were all one member, where would the body be? Now verse 20, 1 Corinthians 12, now indeed there are many members, yet one body, the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, nor again the head to the feet I have no need of you no much rather those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary But God composed the body having given greater honor to that part which lacks it that there should be no Sism in the body so the body is not invisible the body is not hypothetical and And to the point that we can become covenantal enough to recognize The reality of the visible body of Jesus Christ, I think will begin to see a reformation of the church in our day. So treat your brothers and sisters as members of the real body of Christ. When you touch your brothers, Jesus can feel it.

He can feel you touching himself. Treat each member with honor, treasure one another, treasure each other like you would treasure the feet of Jesus Christ. How did the sinner woman treasure the feet of Jesus? How did Mary Magdalene treasure the head of Christ with the expensive ointment that costed her $40,000. We need to be pouring our money and our resources over the feet of Jesus.

If you're tempted to take a hatchet to the body, if you develop a negative view of the body, evilsomizing, et cetera, remember that's the devil. So at the end of your life, may you find that you have strengthened the body, you've resisted the impulse to weaken the body relationships every time. You love the brothers and sisters, every time you have communion, feel the oneness, you identify the body. Every time you feel the pain of an attack on the body, oneness, and cry out to Jesus for help, you've identified the body of Christ. Okay, so that's it.

I have a few applications here, but there's a lot to do in the body. And I encourage you to invest yourself, invest your family into the body of Christ and there's much to do. I would recommend at least 15 to 20 hours a week invested into the church, the local church outside of attending the service. So whereas you know we put so much money into quid pro quo, we're trying to make, earn a bunch of money, we're trying to feed the socialist monster with our tax money, and then we run off and receive social security, I would much rather we rely upon the church for Social Security, and that our daughters are helping out with the young mothers in the church. We have four or five children under six years of age.

I think it's much, much better if we buy into a completely different social situation, abandon social security entirely, and begin to establish the church as a place in which we are caring for the elderly, caring for the ailing, and when we have a 724 situation where little baby Charlie needed care for a year, It was a 724 sort of thing where my wife and Mrs. Eden took shifts and by the way, some of the members of our church did the same thing with Brenda's mom towards the end there. So again, we don't need the government paying for hospitals. We don't need the government paying for the elderly. What we need to do is bring the deaconate back and as Social Security is failing and we will run out of other people's money, it's time right now for churches to completely abandon welfare and wean ourselves off of Social Security such that the homes of deacons and the homes of some of the leading families in the church will open up an entire wing of their homes and their children will provide for the the elderly, wash their clothes, prepare their meals for them and Of the 80 million baby boomers that are retiring over the next 20 years, the churches represented by those of you in this room today will be taking care of these and we will not be turning our people over to the government for their euthanasia programs.

So that's the vision and we have a lot of work to do. So, encourage you to engage the local church in some of these areas, and I could give you a list of another 30 or 40 ways in which our daughters, our sons, our entire families can be integrated into building the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's worth it. The church is worth it. I know it's been despised, abandoned, displaced by status systems, but it is so worth it to bring the church back in the 21st century.

It is the body of Christ. Jesus gave his life for it, and it will remain into eternity. What you invest in the local church, the visible church, the love that you show the church of Jesus Christ will never be wasted. Thank you.