PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 39 – How Can We Change the World – Part 5
FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell
Episode 39: How Can We Change the World? Part 5
Rocky: Welcome to the podcast, FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy: Hello ladies, it's so good to be with you again today or this evening, whenever you are listening, and you are listening. You wouldn't be here if you weren't listening. I'm so glad you are listening. I think listening is a very important thing, but then again, we've got to listen to the right things, don't we?
I was reading the other day, in John 10, the beautiful words of Jesus. Of course, this is the shepherd chapter. Jesus, who is the Good Shepherd, is speaking and says: “The sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but they will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.”
I was thinking again about this Scripture; if we are His sheep, we will hear His voice. I do trust, as you listen to these podcasts, you will listen for God's voice, that you'll listen for the voice of Jesus. Yes, you'll be hearing my voice, but I pray that you'll hear His voice and that you'll listen for His voice. If there's anything that you don't feel is quite right, check it out. I love to do that. I'm one of those people who is called a Berean. Do you remember Bereans in the Word of God? In the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 17:11), it tells us how Paul spoke and preached, but the Bereans didn't just listen to them, they checked out what Paul said. They got into the Scriptures to see “whether those things were so.”
Of course, when you hear truth, it burns in your spirit, doesn't it? I love that Scripture when Jesus met the two disciples after He had died and after He had risen from the dead. They were walking down to their little village of Emmaus, and they were so forlorn, and unhappy because they thought Jesus was dead. He came alongside them, and He began to open up the Scriptures and then eventually, they got to their little town and invited him in.
The Bible tells us, as Jesus broke the bread and gave thanks, that their eyes were opened. They realized it was Him, and He vanished out of their sight. Then they said in Luke 24: 32: “They said unto one another, 'Did not our heart burn within us as he talked with us by the way and while he opened unto us the Scriptures?'”
When we hear truth, it burns in our spirit. It witnesses in our spirit, doesn't it? We have to get used to listening to His voice and discerning the voice of the stranger because Jesus said in John 10 that His sheep will not listen to a stranger. That word in the Greek is allotrios, and it means “someone who isn't one's own. they are not your kin, they are foreign, alien, hostile” and they are voices that are hostile to God's words. They are alien to God's Word.
The sad part about it is that I hear many people who say they are Christian who actually listen to the voices of the strangers more than they do to God Himself. I find most Christian young people today know more about the current movies and more about movie stars, and they talk more about them than they know of God's Word. I'm amazed so many times of how little they know of God's Word. If you start a Scripture, a very familiar Scripture, they can't even finish it.
Really, if we are listening, if we are listeners, if we are His sheep who listen to His voice, we'll know the Scriptures, and even us adults.
It's the same with adults. Often, their talk is no different than young people. Most families today are more familiar with the voices of feminism and humanism than they are of the Scriptures. Most people in the church today have the mindset of limiting their families to one or two children, and this is in the church I'm talking about. Where does that come from? That's the voice of feminism. That's the voice of humanism. That's the voice of the stranger to the Word of God. That's strange, that's alien to the Word of God because the Word of God is opposite.
The Word of God reveals God's heart. Over and over again, we read of how God wants to bless and then it tells us how he wants to bless us. “I will bless the fruit of your womb. I will do you good, and I will multiply you.” Over and over again, we read these words that reveal the heart of our Father and His plan for us. This is the voice of God, the voice of the Word of God, opposite to the voice of the stranger.
What does it say? When they hear the voice of the stranger, they won't listen to him, “they will flee from him.” They will run from him. Do we really run from the voice of the stranger, from the voice of the world, from the voice of feminism and humanism and socialism that's all around us? It becomes so part of us, we get so use to it. That is the voice of the stranger.
Let's truly be His sheep who hear His voice, and we are prepared to obey His voice. Everything else is alien, hostile to us; it doesn't belong to us. Amen?
Well, before we get on with our points today, I thought I'd love to read you a poem. It's an old poem. I used to recite this poem when I was a young girl. I think some of you may know it. It's called: If Jesus Came to your House.
“If Jesus came to your house to spend a day or two,
If he came unexpectedly, I wonder what you’d do.
Oh, I know you’d give your nicest room to such an honored Guest,
And all the food you’d serve to Him would be the very best,
And you would keep assuring Him you’re glad to have Him there
That serving Him in your own home is joy beyond compare.
But when you saw Him coming, would you meet Him at the door
With arms outstretched in welcome to your heavenly Visitor?
Or would you have to change your clothes before you let Him in?
Or hide some magazines and put the Bible where they’d been?
Would you turn off the radio and hope He hadn’t heard?
And wish you hadn’t uttered that last, loud, hasty word?
Would you hide your worldly music and put some hymn books out?
Could you let Jesus walk right in, or would you rush about?
And I wonder if the Savior spent a day or two with you,
Would you go right on doing the things you always do?
Would you go right on saying the things you always say?
Would life for you continue as it does from day to day?
Would your family conversation keep up its usual pace?
And would you find it hard each meal to say a table grace?
Would you sing the songs you always sing, and read the books you read,
And let him know the things on which your mind and spirit feed?
Would you take Jesus with you everywhere you’d planned to go?
Or would you, maybe, change your plans for just a day or so?
Would you be glad to have Him meet your very closest friends?
Or would you hope they’d stay away until His visit ends?
Would you be glad to have Him stay forever on and on?
Or would you sigh with great relief when He at last was gone?
It might be interesting to know the things that you would do?
If Jesus Christ in person came to spend some time with you.”
Wow, would we really love to have Him in person all day, every day, with us because He wants to be with us every day. He's in us if we have invited Him in, and He wants to be in our homes and be a part of everything we do.
Remember, we are doing Podcast 39, although we will be doing 59 next week. This is a recap of a podcast that disappeared. You never got it unfortunately, but we want you to have it because it is part of the series: HOW DO WE CHANGE THE WORLD? I did 24 podcasts on this series, and I want to make sure you have them all. The points on this one are eleven and twelve.
No. 11. PASSIONATELY LOVING
God not only wants us to love but to love passionately or love fervently. You'll remember that this is what we are finding out in this series of HOW DO WE CHANGE THE WORLD?. We are finding that God has all these adjectives. We don't do things normally when Jesus lives within us. We do them ultra-normally, extraordinarily; we do them abundantly and exceedingly.
We read these Scriptures:
1 Thessalonians 3:12: “The Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another and toward all men.”
2 Thessalonians 1:3: “The love of every one of you all abounds toward each other”
1 Peter 1:22: “Love one another with a pure heart fervently.”
1 Peter 4:8: “And above all things, have fervent love among yourselves, for love shall cover a multitude of sins.”
We see that God wants our love to be hot, fervent, not just loving but fervently loving. Isn't it wonderful, ladies, to have the Scriptures? I need the Scriptures because if we didn't have the Word of God encouraging us and telling us how it's meant to be, we would live sub-zero level. I know I would. I'm encouraged, and I'm stirred on; I'm spurred along by the Scriptures to love more fervently because I can just get along with my life and love the people I love, but there is more than that.
You see, Romans 5:5 says: “But the love of God is shared abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost who has given it unto us.”
When Christ dwells in us by His Holy Spirit, we have the love of God being shared abroad and poured out in our hearts. We need to be reminded of this because we can live so normally, but God wants us to live above the normal, so we are encouraged and reminded to do this.
Where does our love start? It's very easy to love people we barely know because you haven't really had to find out what they are really like and all their idiosyncrasies and the things that get on your nerves. You can say, “How lovely to meet you. Oh, I love you.”
Where does it really start? It starts in your home, of course. Everything starts in our home, with our husband. How do you love your husband? Do you just love him, or do you love him fervently? You see, my lovely ladies, we've got to get past the normal, the mediocre, and go beyond that to love fervently.
Maybe your love is in a bit of a rut. I know what that's like. I've got into that in my own marriage. You know you love one another, and life goes on, I mean, you don't have any problems with your husband, and yes, you love one another, but it’s just pretty normal. No, God wants us to go beyond that. He wants us to love fervently, to be thinking of extra ways to show our love beyond the normal.
Of course, love is not just a feeling, lovely ladies. No, love takes work, hard work. Love is serving. Love is often doing the duty, but it's love. We can get into the grind. Instead, we realize sometimes the grind can be part of our loving. We do the grind, but we do it with love because it's for our husband, it's for our family, it's for our home, and we are building a strong and godly family.
There may be some of you where you feel your love has gone out the door. You don't feel love anymore. Once again, can I encourage you? Love can be a great feeling. There are times when you do really feel love, but you can't base your love on feeling. No, because sometimes you don't feel, and you have to love anyway. That's where you know the Scripture: “The love of God is spread abroad in my heart by the Holy Ghost that is in me.”
If my love has gone out the door, it doesn't matter, because God's love is pouring into my heart. I can still love even if mine is gone. I love with God's love. You have to do that with faith. You haven't got a feeling about it, but you do it anyway. You love even when you don't feel like loving. That's true love, that's powerful love, that's real love, when you love when you don't even feel like loving. I want to encourage you in this: love your husband fervently. If you haven't done anything fervent or passionate for a while, think of something you can do that is passionate, that is fervent, that is over the top, that's more than necessary, that's above the normal. C'mon lovely ladies, don't stay in the rut. Don't stay in the boring normality. Get out of that. Amen?
What about your children? Of course, you love your children but sometimes you know, you don't show it. You may be frowning more than smiling at them. You may be in that self-pity, “Poor me.”
Poor children. Oh goodness, they've got to put up with that? That's not love. Love has to go beyond ourselves. The trouble is, many times, we love ourselves the most. It's all “poor me “and looking after me and how everything affects me. No, God's love goes beyond us. It pours out for others. Even when you are feeling lousy, you don't give into that self-pity, poor me, lousy, down in the dumps depressed feeling. No, you rise above that and once again, you claim the promise: “The love of God is spread abroad in my heart.” You think of the other Scripture where it says when we lay down our life for ourselves, we hold it for ourselves, we are going to lose our life. When we lose our life for others, we find it (Mark 8:35).
True love is in pouring out our lives for others, serving others, giving to others. This is what true love is, and this is what brings joy. Then, as we have the love of God filling our homes, we are going to take that out to others, and we are going to love the brethren and love the people around us. It’s spreading love abroad wherever we go, isn't it?
Now, I love this Scripture in Psalm 16:2, 3 where David says how he showed his love for God by loving the saints. Here's what it says: “O my soul, thou hath said unto the Lord, 'Thou art my lord. My goodness extendeth not to thee; but to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent, in whom is all my delight.'”
David understood and David realized that when he was filled with love and praise to God, the greatest way he could show his love to God was to show it to His people around him because God is in His people. When we love His people, we are loving Him; we are loving His body. He said, this is how I'm going to show my goodness unto the Lord. I'm going to show it in delighting in the saints, the excellent in the earth who are all around me. This is another beautiful way to show our love, to show it to God's people.
How can we show it to God's people? We show His love to His people by praying for them as God puts them up in our hearts. We show it by doing something good for them as God puts it upon our hearts. When we know someone is sick or hurting or in the hospital or whatever, we'll go and visit them because we want to show God's love for them.
HOSPITALITY
I think a very practical way that we can show the love of God to His people is by hospitality, having them into our home. Some people love to hear that, some people don't. Some people think, “Oh goodness me, hospitality isn't really my gift.”
Well, lovely ladies, I know that there are some families who have that gift of hospitality, and it is something special in their lives, but I can't let you off the hook. I'm sorry, but the Bible speaks about hospitality for everyone, not just the people who think it's their gift or love doing it. No, it's to the whole body of Christ. You see, our God is a hospitable God. He loves to say, “Come.”
Come is one of God's favorite words. He says, “Come, come unto me, come all ye who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Come and take of the water of life freely. Come, Come, Come. Go out onto the highways and byways and compel them to come in that my house may be filled.” God wants a full house, and He's saying, “Come onto me, I want to bring you into My kingdom. I sent My Son to die for you so that you could come and be part of My family and inherit all that I have given to My Son. You are not only my heirs, but you are joint heirs with Christ.” He’s invited us in.
This hospitable God lives in you and me. If He is in your heart, if He abides in you, this One who lives in you is hospitable, and He wants to say ”Come” through you. He wants you to invite people into your home.
As we invite people into our homes, we are inviting them in to get them into God's home. Often, that's how God gets them into His home. It's not just taking people to church and hoping they'll get saved. No, it's inviting them into our homes, sitting them down at our tables where it is the most wonderful opportunity to speak about Jesus to the unsaved and of course, to fellowship in the Word and with kindred spirits amongst the saints of God.
Let me see if I can give you a few Scriptures.
Romans 12:13. In this Scripture, Paul is writing, and he exhorts to all the saints, not just to a specific few. It says we are to be “given to hospitality.” Now, that word “given” in the Greek is dioko, and it means “to pursue, to follow after, to seek after eagerly, to press toward, to earnestly endeavor.” Now we see this same word, “given,” where we are to be given to hospitality, we see it in Philippians 3:6 where it talks about being persecuted. Wow, we've got to persecute people to hospitality. We don't even give up until they come. We invite them for a meal, and they have excuses, but we don't give up. We persecute them with love and kindness until they come.
“Follow after.” That Scripture is in Philippians 3:12-14 where it says we are to “Press toward the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” “Press toward.” Well that's the same word, dioko. When it says we are to be “given toward hospitality,” we are to press toward making it happen in our homes. We are to go after it, pursue it.
Here's some other translations.
The Living Bible says: “Get into that habit of inviting guests home for building or if they need lodging for the night.” Get into the habit. It actually should be a habit of our lives. Now, it used to be more in the church than it is today. Somehow, hospitality is kind of fading away, yet it is meant to be part of our lives. In fact, in the early church, do you remember? It was part of their everyday lives.
Let me go to Acts 2 and we read about what they did in the early church, the early believers. Acts 2:46: “And they, continuing daily, with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat (that means their food), did eat their food with gladness and singleness of heart.” Now, that's a beautiful picture. What were they doing? Were they going around and having communion from house to house? No, this was talking about their daily meals because breaking bread is the way they used to speak about having a meal. They broke bread together. Especially in the Middle East where they break the pita bread and dip it in the dish, they dip it in the hummus, they dip it in the baba ganoush, and they dip it in the foods they have made. They call it the breaking of bread. It was their eating of their meals together.
All of the sudden, when the Holy Spirit fell, thousands were saved and came into the kingdom, and they were filled with God and the revelation of their newfound faith. Because they were Jews and they had been daily used to the sacrifices in the temple and all the ritual of the temple, which all speak of Christ, then for the first time in their lives they began to see what it was all about. These sacrifices of the lamb morning and evening, they all pointed to the Lamb that was slain once and for all because He was the purest, sinless Lamb who was able to take our punishment and die once and for all for our sins.
They began to see all the different meanings of everything that happened in the temple. Can you imagine when they met together? They couldn't wait to get together. They worked during the day, so they would have to get together at suppertime. They would bring their food and they would eat together, and they would talk and fellowship. “Did you realize this? Did you understand this? Oh, I understand this now, this revelation. Isn't this incredible? Everything we've done for years and generations past has all pointed to Jesus.”
Their fellowship was rich, and they gathered daily in one another's homes and breaking bread and eating their evening meal together and praising God and having favor with all the people. I'm always challenged by these words: “And the Lord added to the church daily, such as should be saved.” Do you notice the correlation there? They continued daily breaking bread from house to house and then daily, the Lord added to the church such as should be saved. I believe there is a great correlation there. As the people around saw their lifestyle, saw their love for one another, and it was said of them, “Look how they love one another,” and the richness of their fellowship, they looked on and wanted it.
As they daily showed hospitality, daily the Lord added souls to the church. How often do we have souls being added to the church today? Not so often these days which is so sad. I wonder if it comes back to our hospitality. How often do we have hospitality?
Now, during the course of our lives and our marriage, we've been married, I keep forgetting, I think I said in the other podcast 55 but I think it's 56 years (yes, it’s 56 years). Anyway, we've either done two things when we've been in a church.
We have a fellowship meal which we currently do with our church fellowship here. We have a fellowship meal after the service. Everyone brings a dish, so we eat together, we fellowship together which is so wonderful. I believe, my precious ladies, that church is far more than going to a church, listening to a message, and going home. Church is fellowship. It's the meeting of the saints together. It's encouraging one another and having that fellowship of kindred spirits, even those who are not so kindred, encouraging and inspiring them. You can't do that by driving up to a church, walking in, having some worship, listening to a message and going home. That's not real fellowship. It’s not koinonia.
I do believe that we need this because this is how we show our love to one another. In fact, even the fact of coming to church shows our love for the brethren. What does it say in 1 John 3:14? “We know that we have passed from death onto life because we love the brethren.” We love them. If you love them, you want to be with them. If you love them, you're going to be there, Saturday or Sunday, whenever you worship, you're going to be there because you love them.
You stay away, what does it say? You don't really love the brethren. You want to do your own thing. You've got other things to do. No, we show our love by being there and then we show our love by going further and showing hospitality. At the moment, we have our fellowship meal and that sometimes carries on into the afternoon, and it's so wonderful.
In times when we didn't have that, we would always invite people back to our home after Sunday service and have people around our table. I can remember when our children were still home with us, we would often end up with 30 or more people around our table or around the deck or around somewhere, all eating, because not only would Colin and I be inviting folks home, but our teenage children would be inviting their friends home, and it was wonderful.
It was a continuation. It wasn't just we go; we listen to a service. No, we come home, we continue that dialogue. We talk about that revelation that we got from the Word, and people can ask questions. Oftentimes, people would even come to Jesus around our table, or we'd be praying for them or praying for someone to be healed, praying for those who need encouraging. It is wonderful. Why do we do this? Because not only does the Word say so, but because we love the brethren and we want to love them fervently.
Some other translations of Romans 12:13:
New Living Translation (NLT): When God's people are in need, be ready to help them, always eager to practice hospitality.”
The Passion Translation (TPT): “Eagerly welcome people as guests into your home.”
The Holman Translation (HCSB): “Pursue hospitality.”
Do you remember about the house of Stephanas in 1 Corinthians 16:15? It says of them: “You know the house of Stephanas, they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints.” Addicted! They were addicted to blessing and serving and showing hospitality to the saints.
Hospitality shouldn't be a haphazard occurrence of our lives but the habit of our lives!
1 Peter 4:7-9 says: “But the end of all things is at hand; therefore, be serious, watchful in your prayers and above all, have fervent love to one another and be hospitable to one another.” Here, the Word is showing us how to do it. How do we have fervent love? Inviting people to our home, without grumbling.
I'd love to talk to you so much more about hospitality because I know you have lots of ifs and buts and questions. Maybe you could go back and have a look at the TEATIME AND TALK SHOW that I do with Erin Harrison. We ended up doing twelve live talk shows, where you can see us, on the subject of hospitality. We didn't exhaust it, but we answered lots of questions there and all the excuses we have about hospitality, we answered those. You can find those if you go to my Above Rubies Facebook and look for the videos, or you can go to Erin's Facebook, Keeper of the Homestead blog, and you can find them there. There's twelve of them you could look at about hospitality.
Time is running out for this podcast and I've got to do number 12 because we have to fit it in number 39 podcast. I'll tell you what it is.
No. 12 EXCEEDINGLY GROWING IN THE FAITH
God not only wants us to have faith in Him but to exceedingly grow in the faith. We've got to grow, ladies. Never stay the same. Grow, grow, grow. One Scriptures says that “all may see your growth in the Lord.” The RSV says: “That all my see your progress.”
Colossians 1:22, 23 says: “To present you holy and unblamable and unreprovable in His sight: If ye continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel.”
2 Thessalonians 1:3: “We are bound to thank God for you always, brethren, because your faith grows exceedingly and the love of everyone of you toward each other abounds.” Did you notice those words? Your faith grows exceedingly. How are you growing in the Lord? A little wee bit or exceedingly? Come on now, if we are going to change the world, we've got to grow exceedingly.
Now remember, that word exceedingly is huperauxano in the Greek, and this is what it means: “to increase above the ordinary degree.” Isn't that amazing? God is always looking for more, above the normal, above the ordinary degree.
One of my favorite Scriptures is Proverbs 4:18: “But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” Dear lovely ladies, our Christian walk is a more and more walk. It's always more and more. When you wake up in the morning, say, “Thank You, Jesus. I belong to You. Thank You that I'm walking on the journey of a more and more walk. I want to know more of You today. I want to learn more and more. I want to show more and more of You to my husband and to my children.”
Always be seeking for more and more. As you read the Scriptures, be looking for more and more, listening. As we started this podcast, listening for His voice, never to the voice of the stranger. I think I said on one of my other podcasts that line from a song, “I don't want to miss one word you speak.”
I actually looked up the song because I love those words so much. It's from the song, “I'm Listening” by Chris McClarney. The chorus says:
“I don't want to miss one word You speak
'Cause everything You say is life to me.
I don't wanna miss one word You speak,
Quiet my heart, I'm listening.”
Keep listening to the Lord, and as you do, you will grow more and more.
“Dear Father, I pray that You will bless each one listening personally in their lives. Give them such a passion to seek after You more and more. Give them a longing for prayer more and more. Give them a heart to read Your Word more and more and more. Lord God, fill them more and more with Your love and with Your Spirit. Lord, fill their homes more and more with Your love and Your joy and the manifestation of Your presence and the atmosphere of heaven. I ask this in the precious name of Jesus, Amen.”