Gospel Patrons 2 : Keep Promises
In this sermon, we emphasize the importance of transitioning from being mere fans of Jesus and the church to becoming devoted patrons. Drawing from Nehemiah 10, the message challenges believers to make a promise not to neglect the house of the Lord, highlighting the need for active participation through serving and giving. The sermon concludes with a call to action, encouraging individuals to make a promise to support Jesus and His work, ensuring that both the collective and personal "house of God" are blessed.
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Well, hello, everybody. How y' all doing? You guys good today? So great to see you guys. It's good to be in the house of the Lord today.
Right? How many of y' all are excited to be at church today? Right? You with me? So it's good, good, good.
It's good for me to be back. If you didn't notice, last weekend I was gone, I had to go to this little place called Omaha. And, guys, I'll tell you, it was awesome being there. It was exciting. Obviously, being with the team, just being on the bus, being around them, hanging out at practice, being at the games, the excitement, the cheering, the crowds.
It was awesome. All right. And thoroughly enjoyed the time there. And what was interesting is, every day that we were there, each day, it just grew. And the more and more people I would come across would say things like, go chants or chants up or things of that nature.
Like, there was a lot of teal. Obviously you knew the people who were Conway based or Horry county based who understood Coastal Carolina, but it was random people I would start to cross paths with. And then last Sunday, I actually preached at a church in Omaha. Let's see, I have a buddy who preaches at a church there. When he heard I was coming to Omaha, he said, you're gonna be in Omaha on Sunday morning.
I said, yeah. He goes, well, you're preaching for me. It wasn't like, well, hey, since you're here, would you like to preach? I wasn't even really given an option. He just said, oh, you're in Omaha.
You're preaching for me. I was like, okay, you got me, right? And so I get there, and I had a decision to make because I knew I was staring at a church that had no clue who the Chanticleers were. And if you follow on X, you saw Coach Nahl do his. Everybody get it.
It's Chanticleers, right? I did that five hours before him because I was at church Sunday morning. I said, let me help you guys be better supporters. I literally started the message like this. I said, is anybody here from Oregon?
You're an Oregon State fan? There was one person I said, you get a pass. I later found out he was the chairman of the elders. So I'm glad I gave him a pass. All right.
But I said, you don't have to do this, but the other 99%, I helped them understand how you say Chanticleers, and I helped them understand how you do chant's up and things like that. So they became fans, like many people have become fans. Fans are fine. But what's better than a fan? A patron.
Right? Because a patron. What a patron does is a patron not only cheers for the team. A patron doesn't just say, oh, yeah, I'm with them. A patron supports the team.
A patron says, I am in through thick and thin. I am with you no matter what. I am here to support the team. Support. And so for me, like, when it comes to coastal moved here 10 years ago, I was a fan.
And then the more and more I lived here and the more and more work I did there, I became a patron. So much. So y' all might not know this, but I left Omaha two days ago. But before I got to Conway, I had to stop in a little city called Louisville.
Now, you might not know this, but I had scheduled. Six months ago, I got an invite to play a very prestigious golf club in Louisville. And I couldn't change the tee times. So yesterday at 12 o' clock, I had a tee time at a really nice, prestigious members only type club. And the only clothing I had with me was Coastal Carolina Chanticleer clothing.
Like, that was it. And I could have went in and bought something, but I'm like, no, I'm not a fan of Coastal. I'm a patron. So I walked into that clubhouse wearing my coastal gear, bringing my coastal golf bag that has coastal head covers, and I had some people look at me and they said, you know, we're getting ready to play you. I was like, yep, sorry, bro, this is who I am.
And one of the other guys goes, well, that's okay. Cause I'm a UK fan. But you're only from if you're from the Midwest. You get that. But here's what I'm trying to say is I could be a fan of Coastal, or I can be a patron.
I can be a fan of Jesus, or I can be a patron. I can be a fan of the church or I can be a patron. And listen, Jesus isn't looking for fans as a church, we're not looking for fans. We're looking for people who are patrons. Because a patron isn't just there to celebrate every.
Excuse me. A fan isn't just there to sell. A fan's there to celebrate. Occasionally, a patron is there through the thick and thin and says, I'm with Jesus no matter what. I'm with the church no matter what.
And that's what this whole series is about. It's about being a gospel patron, which, remember the word gospel, it just means good news of Jesus, and patron means supporter so when we say that we're saying we're a supporter of Jesus, that that's what we wanna be. And that's what we talked about the last six weeks. And we've more weeks of this series that we want to dive into. And so I want us just to keep going just a little bit further, a little bit further and a little bit further.
And today, as we talk about being a patron of Jesus, being a supporter of Jesus, I've got to ask this question of when it comes to being a patron, will you make a promise to support Jesus and his work or will you neglect it? Let me ask you a question. Have you ever told somebody you'd do something and then neglected to do it? Anybody? Yeah, I see the head shaking.
Right? Right. Like maybe you're a student and you told the teacher, oh, I'll do my homework, and you neglected to do it. Maybe you told your parents, oh, yeah, I'm gonna get around to doing my homework, but then you neglected to do it. Or maybe you told your parents, yeah, I'm gonna clean my room, but then you neglected to do it.
Or maybe you told your spouse, I'm gonna take out the trash, and then you neglected to do it, or I'm gonna do the dishes and then you neglected to do it, or I'm gonna throw away my toenail.
Some of you know that story and I neglected to do it. Right. Like there's things that we say we're going to do, but then we neglect to do them. That when you do that, I mean, that's kind of bad. But you're like, ah, it'll be okay.
How about this? Let's go a step further. Have you ever made a promise and then broke the promise?
See, when we say to somebody, hey, I'm gonna do that, but then we neglect. We're like, ah, yeah, my bad. When you promise somebody something and then you neglect to keep the promise, all of a sudden it feels real. Well, here's a challenge. I'm gonna challenge you to make a promise to God today.
And I'm only doing that because I'm gonna read it straight out of scripture, that I want to challenge you to make a promise to not neglect the house of the Lord. That's the challenge today. Will you make a promise not to neglect the house of the Lord? Because unfortunately, sometimes we treat the Lord the work of the Lord and the house of the Lord. Like we're fans of it, but not supporters of it.
We're like, oh, yeah, I enjoy going to church. Oh, I Want to go to church? Oh, yeah, I want to celebrate what's going on. Well, actually, I got a chance to go here, so I'll catch church next week. Like, well, I want to do that, but, man, I got an opportunity to spend some money over here, so I'm going to do that.
Instead of taking care of the Lord, oh, I've got an opportunity to spend some time here. And that's when we're neglecting the house of the Lord and the work of the Lord. And so I want to challenge you with this today. And I know some of you, this might be your first time ever at church. Listen, I want you to hear what I'm going to share today because I want you to understand fully what we challenge people to.
And if you call the rock home, I want you to say, as the people of the Israelites said when they said it to Nehemiah, we promise together not to neglect the house of the Lord. Well, like, you gotta understand the situation that they had spent 52 days building a wall, and then once they got this wall built around Jerusalem, it's like they accomplished it. And then Nehemiah's like, all right, now let's bring up the Word of the Lord. And they read the Word of the Lord like, through half of the day. Kevin on this campus talked about that last week.
All right. When they got done reading it and Nehemiah and Ezra had challenged them, it says this, that the people came together. Like, all the people. Not some of the people said all of the people came together and they said, we promise together not to neglect the house of the Lord. Are we willing to make that same kind of promise?
Are we willing to say, God, I want to promise to support you. God, I want to promise to support your work. God, I want to promise to support your church. Or will we neglect him? Will we neglect his work?
Will we neglect the church? It's a decision each of us get to make today. So what will you do? Will you make a promise or will you neglect? Well, okay, if I'm going to promise, how do I do that?
Or maybe I could ask it this way. Like, how do I support the work of the Lord? How do I support Jesus? How do I support the work of the church? Well, Nehemiah, chapter 10 tells us it's a real simple message today.
You wanna be a gospel patron, serve, give. Nehemiah, chapter 10. It's around verse 32 through verse 39 in there. It just basically says, serve and give that. If I want to be a gospel patron, I Serve.
And I give that. It starts with this idea of serving. Let me read it to you. We see it in Nehemiah, chapter 10, verse 34. It says the families of the priests, the Levites and the common people should bring wood to God's temple to be burned on the altar of the Lord our God.
All right, now let me break this down for a second. We'll leave the scripture up there for you. That you'll see it. It says the priests, the Levites and the common people. All right, guys, that takes care of everybody.
The priests that was the ones who were working, like, were charged to work the temple. The Levites would have been. Anybody in the family of priests like, to be a priest, you had to be a Levite. So it took care of the person who was working for the temple at that time. Then it took care of his whole family.
And then it said, and everybody else. So everybody got their turn to serve. And the way they served is they went and they grabbed the wood that at certain times of the year, they would kind of roll dice and they'd say, all right, it's your turn, Keith, your turn. You gotta go get the wood. All right?
And it wouldn't mean go to the backyard and grab the wood. They were in Jerusalem. There wasn't a lot of wood that you would typically find in Jerusalem, especially at this time in the history of Jerusalem. You got to remember it had been ransacked and all that. So to get wood, they would have to travel, they would have to go.
They would have to cut it down, they would have to get it on the cart, they would have to get it back. All right, now, I know we live in South Carolina. I know we don't do this a whole lot, but did anybody grow up
in an area of the country where you had to go out and cut wood for the wood burning stove in the wintertime? Right, West Virginia, Absolutely. You get it right.
Like, that was work. But you knew winter is coming, so we gotta go get the wood. Guys. What was happening for the temple back then, the church that would have been their church, is that they had to go and cut down wood, do the work, sweat, put in the time and bring it back. So everybody could offer sacrifices.
Certain people would have to go serve so that everybody could worship. Guys, it hasn't changed. It hasn't changed that. If we want to come together and worship, if we want to help people find what matters, if we want one more to meet Jesus, then each and every one of us has to be willing to do our Part that we've got to be willing to step up and serve and go the extra mile because we want someone else to meet Jesus. I mean we got some people around here that do that.
I can't help but. Two weeks ago, it was two weeks ago from today, I was sitting in a meeting. It was a Thursday. And if you know anything about Thursday, typically it seems like we have thunderstorms and it rains on Thursday. Like there was a rule around the rock for a long time.
Well, it's Thursday. It means it's gonna rain right before church. Well, sure enough, it was 4:30 in the afternoon and it was like the big biggest storm I have seen in a long time. I was in a meeting in one of our classrooms and we were sitting there meeting with the family, having a good conversation. But where I was sitting I could see out the window and it was just like raining cats and dogs.
Like horrible thunder crashing lightning flashing like to the point, like the big booms that like, you know, scare you, you know what I mean? And I'm trying to find, focus on this family yet. I look out into the parking lot and I see a guy carrying 12 foot flags over his shoulder with a poncho and rubber boots going, I gotta set up the church parking lots, right? Because if you've noticed, every time you come into the Conway campus, there's always flags out along the road, there's always cones directing people where they can park. And sure enough, a guy named Mark who's been working and running and leading our parking lot ministry.
Like I'm sitting there watching, going, what is he doing? Like, this is crazy. Later on that night I saw him, I'm like, mark. He's like, well I signed up to serve, I gotta keep serving. That's what I'm called to do.
And I love his heart because he said, I'm going to support the work of the Lord. I'm going to support the work of the church. I'm going to do it. And listen, that's what we're called to do. I think of people like Mark, I think of Phil, who you can't even see Phil right now.
He's behind a wall back there. But I've been preaching here for 10 years and for nine years we've had Thursday night service and 99% of the Thursday night services. Phil's back there in that room running a switcher so that our friends at J. Rubin can listen to the message and so that people online can listen to it. You see what I'm saying?
He signed up to serve. He said, no, I'm gonna do my part that I think about. And I know you'll hate it when I say this, but I think about Robin, who cleans toilets, right? Like, you just go, yeah, somebody's gotta clean the toilets. So every week, Robin cleans toilets.
Somebody's got to do it. They've all stepped up. And I could go on and on about more people in this room, but can I be honest? You know, we run metrics right now. 25.4% of our adults serve at the church.
Thank you, Terry. That's low. That's low. Here's what that really means. Three out of four people are saying, you do the work so that I can enjoy the worship.
That might sound a little harsh, but it's just true. It's just true. There is a spot for everyone to jump in and serve. When they did this, they didn't sit there and say, all right, well, somebody's gotta go get the wood. Who's gonna do it?
No, they said, everybody's gonna take their turn. So I wanna challenge you. Will you step up and support the work of the gospel and make a promise to say, I'm in, or will you neglect. Because gospel patrons serve, and gospel patrons give. The gospel patrons serve, but gospel patrons also give.
Let me go on just to another verse. It says this in verse 32, it says, we promise to obey the command to pay the annual temple tax of one eighth of an ounce of silver for the care of the temple of our God. All right? So here's what this means. I'm gonna break down serving real, or, excuse me, giving real simple.
That gospel patrons give. And they give by giving simply. They give by giving sacrificially. They give by giving scripturally. Okay, Simply is this.
That the Israelites, they understood, man, I just. I gotta give. So they had a temple tax. It was kinda put in place back in the time of Moses when they had the tabernacle. And everybody was supposed to give half a shekel.
And I know we don't understand shekels, right? I don't understand shekels, all right? A shekel was a piece of silver. And it was asked of everybody in the community, everybody to give half a shekel. Well, by the time they got to Nehemiah, they said, hey, we know we've been.
We've been slaves. We know we've been in captivity. So we're going to reduce that down to a third of a shekel, all right? And the request was made of everyone. Nobody got off the hook.
Everybody had to do it. If I was looking at this crowd right here, this is what I'd say that everybody should give everybody, right? If everybody here was to give half a shekel, or, I'm sorry, a third of a shekel, here's what it would be in Today's dollar amounts. $3.90. Now, here's reality.
Everybody in here can give $3.90. Everybody can. You can pull out the cushion of your couch and you can find $3.90. You can open up the dryer and find $3. Like, there's enough.
Like, little places in your house, you can find $3.90. That's not hard for everybody to participate in. Anybody can do that. The idea was not the amount. The idea was, everybody, do your part.
Everybody do your part. Everybody step in and at least give a little. Do you know what would happen if everybody in our church this weekend gave $3.90? It would be well over $12,000. Like, we hear $3.90, that's nothing.
But if everybody gave $3.90, it'd be $12,000, right? Like, when everybody does their part, it adds up. Now, again, I can just give you metrics. Right now in our church, 29% of us give something. Something.
Okay? So 29% of the body has said, I'm gonna get behind the rock. And God, financially, that's not enough.
We've got big dreams. There's things we want to accomplish here in Conway at our other campuses. But even if we didn't have big dreams, doesn't matter. Because it's not just about giving so we can accomplish something. It's about giving because God tells us to.
That's it. Like, I shouldn't have to stand up here and cast a big vision to get us to go, okay, I'm gonna give to the Lord. No, we're actually just going to say, I'm just going to do what scripture tells me to do. And I'm going to first, just give simply. I'm going to do my part because I want everybody to do your part.
Secondly, I'm going to not just give simply, but then I will give sacrificially that I will just say, God, how can I really honor you? We see that in the Scripture. It says this. It goes on to the next scripture. Verse 35 and 36 says, we promise to bring the first part of every harvest and to the Lord's temple year after year, whether it be the crops from the soil or from our fruit trees or our oldest Sons and the firstborn of all of our herds and flocks.
That what they're saying here is, God, we promise to give to you. God, we promise to give sacrificially, that we're going to honor you. Not just by giving, simply by giving a shekel. God, we're going to. We're gonna go above and beyond and give you the best of what we have.
The best of our fruit, the best of our grain, the best of our cows, the best of our family. That when you think about this, you see the story of Cain and Abel. That Cain gave a portion of his things, that Cain gave a portion of the ground, a portion of his grain, and of his fruits. Abel said, man, I want to give God my best, and gave God the best of his livestock. And it says that God was more pleased with Abel because Abel gave of his best of his first fruits, where Cain gave of his leftovers.
And if we're not careful, we'll give God our leftovers if we're honest about it. If we're not careful, well, give God our leftovers. God, I don't have anything to do this Thursday, so I might as well go to church. That's a leftover mentality. God, I got a little bit of time, so, yeah, I guess I can serve.
That's a leftover mentality. Here's one. This will be a little snarky. I hope you understand. Hey, I just bought a new tv.
So you email somebody on staff and say, hey, I just got a new tv, so I have an old tv. Does the church want it? I can't tell you how many emails I've gotten like that. Hey, I just bought a new couch. Does the church want my old couch?
You think about it now, I know sometimes there's the proper heart in that. Do you know a family that is in need who needs a couch or needs a washing machine? All right, so I don't want to discredit that, but oftentimes it's, I got something great, so I'm just passing my leftover down. Let's make sure when it comes to God, that's not how we treat our giving. That.
God, I got this much money. I have this much left over. Let me just give that to you. No. What would it look like if I looked at my giving and I said, with the very first fruit, I'm going to honor you, God, and I'm going to make a promise to you rather than neglect you.
I'm going to give simply. I'm going to give sacrificially I'm going to give scripturally. Let me move on to the next one. It says this. It says, and we promise to bring to the Levites a tenth of everything our land produces.
For it is the Levites who collect the tithes in all of our rural towns that in this scripture, it talks about the tithe. And a lot of people have misunderstandings of the tithe that we say, well, I'm going to give to the Lord. We give, or I'm gonna tithe to the Lord. When you tithe to the Lord, it means you're giving 10%. Tithe simply means 10%.
Tithe doesn't mean 3%. Tithe doesn't necessarily mean $3. Tithe means 10%. What we're seeing in the text is a way, maybe I could say it this way, a systematic way that God says to give. It was a systematic way that God first instituted with Abraham.
When Abraham gave a tenth to the king, he said, I gotta give a tenth. I'm giving a tithe. It's a systematic thing, because here's the reality. Every one of us can give a tenth. Now, you might say, oh, you haven't seen my struggles with finance yet.
I get that. I'm not gonna say it's easy. I'm not gonna say you don't have to make some cuts. I know when Chris and I made a decision to start tithing, we had to budget different, we had to spend different.
But here's why I think God says a tenth. There's a lot of reasons. Reasons like to build our trust in him, to understand that it's actually his, not ours. We're just owners. Excuse me.
We're just managers of what he owns. So we're just giving back to him. I think there's a couple reasons like that, and I could go deeper in that, but here's a simple reason. Because a 10th 10% of your income is the same for everybody. You might go, josh, I know that guy makes a lot more money.
His 10%'s more my. No, it's 10%. His 10% is 10% of his income. Your 10% is 10% of your income to a middle schooler who's here, who gets 20 bucks a week, maybe doing some chores or whatever. Your 10% is your 2 bucks.
And God will honor that $2 giving. I promise you. You tithe off your 20 bucks, God will honor it. You get paid $200. God will honor your $20 gift.
You get paid $2,000. God will honor your $200 gift. You see what I'm getting at? It's the 10% is saying this. That the ask is the exact ask of everyone.
See? Big gifts, great. Like, we honor them, we're thankful for them. I don't want to ignore them. That's awesome.
But the gifts that really say, man, I am a partner. I am a supporter of the work of God, is the person who says, I'm going to participate because God's asking for everybody to jump in. And the way I'm gonna do it is sacrificially and scripturally, by giving at least 10%, I'm gonna honor him that way. It's scripture. And some people would say, how is it scripture more than that?
Well, Malachi says this in the Old Testament. In Malachi, it says, some of you have robbed God by not tithing. God says, test me in this. It's the only place in scripture where God says testing. But God says, test me in this and see that I won't throw open the floodgates of heaven and you move on to the New Testament.
Cause some people, they like to argue with me. And if you want to argue with me, you're welcome to. Happy to talk with you in the lobby.
But people argue and they'll say, well, the tithe, that's Old Testament. Well, if that's true, then why did Jesus, in Matthew 23:23, when he was debating with the religious leaders and the religious leaders, they were tithing and they were not giving mercy and justice. Jesus didn't say, stop tithing and start giving mercy and justice. He said, no, you should tithe and give mercy and love and forgiveness and act in a way that is just. Jesus said, no, no, do this.
And here's what I found. That we can either promise God and say, God, I'm in. I want to be a supporter of yours. I'm going to serve and I'm going to give. Or we can neglect him.
We can neglect his work. We can neglect the church sometimes. We'll say, oh, God, I promise. But then we just don't do it.
But I want to show you one last thing today. Here's what I want you to catch when you say that. I promise to not neglect the house of the Lord when you serve in this capacity. Whether that's giving a cup of coffee to somebody, whether that's greeting them at the doors, whether that's rocking a baby, whether that's helping a child with special needs, whatever it might be, when you serve and when you give the way God asks Us to give. You don't only take care of the house of God.
He takes care of your house of God. Right?
See, I want you to see how this works, that we are out the house of God, right? We're at church, and we're talking about this as a house of God collectively. But when you surrender to Jesus, when you ask Jesus to be your savior, when you accept the fact that he died on the cross, rose from the dead, and you invite him into your life, you become the house of God. Like, you are literally the walking house of God. I am the walking house of God.
We are the walking house of God. So collectively, we're the house of God. And we need to serve and we need to give, because God will bless this house, but he'll bless this house by blessing this house. And I'm not pointing at me like as the preacher. I'm pointing as me as the one who Christ lives in.
And Christ lives in you. And Christ lives in you, Lou. Christ lives in each one of us. So, man, I want to honor. I want to promise to not neglect the house of God, because when I live that way, then he blesses your house.
He promised it. So here's the challenge as we go into this simple time of response. Will you make a promise and keep it, or will you neglect what has been shared and neglect the house?
It's your decision. I know so many of us, man, we really care about Jesus. We really care about helping one more. We really care about the church. I'm gonna challenge us, man.
Make a promise to say God, I'm all in. I'm not a fan.
I'm a patron. I'm a supporter. And I promise to not neglect the house. What I don't want to see is you over on this side going, I'm going to neglect what I heard and neglect the house. Because what I want in your life is for you to be blessed.
What I want in your life is for God to bless your house. I'm not talking necessarily about your physical house, although he will do that. I'm talking about your spiritual house, talking about the house where he resides in your heart and in your life. So why don't you do me a favor? Let's stand up.
We're gonna go into this time of response. And if you need to respond to Jesus tonight, if you're ready to accept him into your house, if you're ready to say Jesus, I want you to take up residence in me, then I want you to pray. I want you to receive him. I want you to ask him to save you. But as we often say, man, don't do that.
Just privately. Also go public with it and go back to our prayer corner. Right in the back. They'd love to pray with you right back there by our sound board, by our sound booth. Maybe today it's taking that step of baptism, man.
We're ready. We're ready to see you get baptized tonight. If you want to do that, just go to the prayer corner and they'll take care of you. Use this time as we sing. Use this time to make a promise to God and then to keep it and not neglect what he's calling us to do.
Let's do that right now.
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Gospel Patrons Keep Their Promises
Week 6 Small Group Guide Download Here
Connect
Objective: Begin with a simple icebreaker. Ask each group member to share about a time they were a fan of something (a sports team, a band, etc.) and what it meant to them. Then, ask if there was ever a time they moved from being just a fan to being a more committed supporter or patron of something or someone. How did their actions or mindset change?
- Discussion: Transition into discussing how this concept of moving from fan to patron can apply to our faith. What does it mean to be a fan of Jesus versus a patron of Jesus?
Discover:
1. Read Nehemiah 10:32-39.
- Question: What commitments did the Israelites make regarding the temple? How does this reflect the idea of being a patron rather than just a fan?
2. Explore the Concepts of Serving and Giving.**
- Question: How does serving in the church demonstrate a commitment to being a patron of Jesus?
- Question: What does it mean to give simply, sacrificially, and scripturally? How can these principles guide our financial support of the church?
4. Reflect on Personal Promises.
- Question: Have you ever made a promise to God or the church that you found difficult to keep? What were the challenges, and how did you address them?
Respond: Practical Steps to Live Out the Sermon
Objective: To identify actionable steps that group members can take to move from being fans to patrons of Jesus and the church.
1. Commit to Serve:
- Action Step: Identify one area in the church where you can begin serving or increase your involvement. Discuss with the group how you can support each other in these commitments.
2. Evaluate Your Giving:
- Action Step: Reflect on your current giving habits. Are you giving simply, sacrificially, and scripturally? Consider setting a goal to increase your giving to align with the biblical principle of tithing.
Encourage group members to reflect on the sermon throughout the week and to seek opportunities to live out their commitments. Remind them that being a patron of Jesus is a journey of faithfulness and support, both to the church and to one another.
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COMING SOON