Tonight is full of anticipation, and that's because my three day men's golf trip begins tomorrow. 12 of us are headed to Tennessee to hit 72 holes over 3 days. But it's not about the golf, as we always say, "It's about the food and fellowship." I'm excited about this trip because of how I will bond with these men, and be encouraged by them. I won't remember the golf details, but I will remember our time spent together. Well...the first century church models for us the importance of spending time together in food & fellowship. That we not just merely worship together, but that we also spend time bonding and growing with each other in our homes and throughout the week. If we want to grow in our relationships with each other, we must strive to spend time together.
#SetYourMindAbovePodcast
Tonight is full of anticipation, and that's because my three day men's golf trip begins tomorrow. 12 of us are headed to Tennessee to hit 72 holes over 3 days. But it's not about the golf, as we always say, "It's about the food and fellowship." I'm excited about this trip because of how I will bond with these men, and be encouraged by them. I won't remember the golf details, but I will remember our time spent together. Well...the first century church models for us the importance of spending time together in food & fellowship. That we not just merely worship together, but that we also spend time bonding and growing with each other in our homes and throughout the week. If we want to grow in our relationships with each other, we must strive to spend time together.
#SetYourMindAbovePodcast
Hey everybody, and welcome back to the Set Your Mind Above Podcast! I’m your host BJ Sipe – I’m a Christian, a preacher, a husband, and a father. In this podcast we take everyday, ordinary events and explore how they can teach us extraordinary, eternal truths. I’m so glad that you joined me for this episode. Now, let’s open up our minds, our hearts, and our Bible’s together.
Tonight is an exciting night, which is part of why I put the podcast off just one day so that I could talk a little bit about this. I feel a little bit like a kid does on Christmas Eve, the anticipation of what begins when I wake up in the morning. But tonight is not Christmas Eve, it’s Men’s Golf Trip Eve! For months now, a trip with myself and 11 other Christian men from our church and nearby has been carefully planned out. I myself have done none of the planning, I need to give that credit to Damon Stewart for getting all of this organized. We will be headed down to Northern Tennessee for 72 holes of golf over a period of 3 days. Tomorrow, we will do 18 holes of golf. Friday, we will do 36 holes. And then Saturday before coming home we will do another 18 holes. We are going to be dog tired when all is said and done on Saturday night, but it is going to be so much fun! Now, for those of you that don’t know me, I am not much of a golfer. In fact, I am a terrible golfer. I’ll give you a for instance – about 10 years ago I cut my ear in half playing golf. Yes, you heard that right. My golf outing ended in the hospital with a plastic surgeon working on my left ear. I’ve gotten a little better since then, but you know, not a whole lot. Now days the only slice that I have to deal with is not my ear, but my ball veering way right after contact on the course. We are playing 72 holes, and I am bringing around 80 balls – because the chances of me losing at least 1 ball per hole is really not that slim. But I digress. You might be wondering to yourself at this point, “Well, if you’re such a bad golfer, why are you even going on this trip?” or perhaps, “Why are they letting you come on this trip?” Well for starters, my competitive days are long behind me. I don’t have to do exceptionally well in order for me to enjoy myself, and luckily all the guys that I golf with feel the same. In fact, we have a motto (at least I think it’s our motto) because I’ve heard it over and over again from all the guys I golf with. And the motto is, “It’s about the food and fellowship.” And I couldn’t agree more. 5 years from now, I’m not going to remember what I shot on hole 16. I mean, I’m not even going to remember how I did overall. I’m not going to remember which clubs I used or how many balls I lost. But you know what I am going to remember? I’m going to remember the time I got to spend for three days straight with my brothers in Christ. I’m going to remember the uplifting, spiritual conversations we have on the drive down and in the golfcarts going from hole to hole. I’m going to remember the way these fellas make me feel, and how they encourage me more than they could ever know. That’s why I’m so excited about this trip. It’s not at all about the golf – it’s the time that I’m getting to spend with so many men that I love and respect in Christ.
This is going to be more of a lighthearted podcast, a reminder for us to do something that is so extraordinarily important: the need for us to spend time together outside of worship with our brothers and sisters in Christ. From the very conception of the church, we see that a great emphasis and effort was placed upon doing this very thing. Let us examine the text of Acts 2:41-47, “So those who accepted his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand people were added to them. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles. Now all the believers were together and held all things in common. They sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds to all, as any had need. Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. Every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” Notice what the church was doing together right from the very beginning. Obviously, they were spending time together devoted to worship and the Word. They were studying, sitting at the apostles’ feet, and growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. But that is not all that they were doing. Look at the text again – they were daily devoting themselves to one another. They were breaking bread from house to house, in other words, food and fellowship. But it wasn’t even about the eating together, it was about those conversations – the encouragement and the love. When they were together, they were joyfully praising God with one another. I can just imagine sitting around the table in the first century listening to some of these conversations. Sharing connections they were making for the first time about how Scripture has been fulfilled by Jesus. Listening to the accounts of the eyewitnesses who saw Jesus risen from the dead with their own eyes. Encouraging one another to stand firm in the face of persecution that was promised to come. These moments would have been so precious. Five years later, I doubt that many of them would have remembered exactly what songs they sang together in worship in the days following Pentecost. They perhaps had forgotten the exact content of the apostles’ sermons in the weeks preceding. But they would never have forgotten those moments spent together in each other’s homes. The encouragement they received, the way they felt, and the way they grew closer together. My friends, we’ve got to do more than just see one another for an hour or so a week for worship, say our quick hellos, and then leave each other. The church was never designed to function this way. We’ve got to get out of our routines and spend time together as families should. It doesn’t have to be golf. It doesn’t have to be food. But it does have to be often. Can I challenge you to do something? Be hospitable this week. Have someone over you’ve not had over yet, or just organize a get together and spend time with other Christians. When you start making a habit of doing this, we will start building the kind of relationships that Jesus has always intended for us to have with our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Thank you for tuning in for this week’s episode, and I would invite you back every Tuesday for a brand-new episode each week. If you haven’t already, be sure to find us on Facebook for occasional announcements and special video sessions. If you have benefited from this podcast, please if you’re able to be sure to share it with someone else that you think could benefit from it as well. Until next time, know that I love you, that God loves you, and may we all each & every day set our minds above.