Rebuilding Together #8: Rebuilding Healthy Community
Opening: Healthy spirituality leads to healthy relationships and community.
Marriage & Family (v.28-30)
Sabbath & Workplace (v.31)
Worship & Offering (v.32-39)
I. HEALTHY FAMILY
“We will not give our daughters to the people of the land or take their daughters for our sons.” (v.30)
Alice Bailey (1880 -1949)
The 10 Point Plan to destroy Christianity
1) TAKE GOD AND PRAYER OUT OF THE EDUCATION SYSTEM.
2) REDUCE PARENTAL AUTHORITY OVER THE CHILDREN.
3) DESTROY THE JUDEO-CHRISTIAN FAMILY STRUCTURE OR THE TRADITIONAL CHRISTIAN FAMILY STRUCTURE.
4) IF SEX IS FREE, THEN MAKE ABORTION LEGAL AND MAKE IT EASY.
5) MAKE DIVORCE EASY AND LEGAL, FREE PEOPLE FROM THE CONCEPT OF MARRIAGE FOR LIFE.
6) MAKE HOMOSEXUALITY AN ALTERNATIVE LIFESTYLE.
7) DEBASE ART, MAKE IT RUN MAD.
8) USE MEDIA TO PROMOTE AND CHANGE MINDSET.
9) CREATE AN INTERFAITH MOVEMENT.
10) GET GOVERNMENTS TO MAKE ALL THESE LAW AND GET THE CHURCH TO ENDORSE THESE CHANGES.
“If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is mad holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.” (1 Corinthians 7:13-14)
II. HEALTHY FINANCE
a. Healthy Earning
“And if the peoples of the land bring in goods or any grain on the Sabbath day to sell, we will not buy from them on the Sabbath or on a holy day. And we will forego the crops of the seventh year and the exaction of every debt.” (v.31)
b. Healthy Giving
“We obligate ourselves to bring the firstfruits of our ground and the firstfruits of all fruit of every tree, year by year, to the house of the Lord; also to bring to the house of our God, to the priests who minister in the house of our God, the firstborn of our sons and of our cattle, as it is written in the Law, and the firstborn of our herds and of our flocks.” (v.35-36)
“Visions thrive in an environment of unity; they die in an environment of division.” (Andy Stanley)
Closing: The restoration of God’s Kingdom takes place in near and most tangible ways.