Homemade! Week 1: Homemade is Better than Store Bought | 2 Timothy 1:5

Hi, it's Pastor Jonathan, and thanks for downloading the FBC El Dorado Sermon Podcast.

In today's sermon, we begin a new series called HomeMade.

This series will examine the partnership that exists between your family's home and your church home as they work together to make disciples.

I hope this series encourages you to fulfill the command of Jesus in your own life.

Like many of you, many of my best childhood memories center around the time that I spent with my grandparents.

I love the stories that my grandparents told me.

I benefited from the nurturing care that they offered to me.

And well, all the time that I spent with my grandparents meant that I was fattened up by the food that they liked to cook.

In middle school and junior high, my granddad picked me up most mornings to deliver me to the middle school in Benton.

And in many of those mornings, uh he would have on the front seat of his truck this homemade breakfast sandwich.

It was two pieces of Texas toast with a fried egg and like three pieces of bacon and a piece of cheese.

And like my grandpa knew how to cook bacon and eggs, which meant he used a cast iron skillet and he cooked the bacon, then he cooked the egg in the same skillet that he cooked the bacon, right?

Okay, and so like every morning on the way to middle school, I'd have this delicious homemade breakfast sandwich.

And like you can keep your egg McMuffin and your bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit from McDonald's.

You can have that all you want, because I want my granddad's homemade breakfast sandwich every single morning to this very day.

Or I think about on the Sunday afternoons after church, many times we would go to his house, and my grandmother uh would cook us this homemade Sunday lunch.

And my favorite homemade Sunday lunch would be something like fried chicken and mashed potatoes and fried okra.

You get this like common theme: fried, fried, fried, and then there would be this cast iron skillet with some homemade cornbread in it.

It was like the most delicious meal.

I don't argue about politics from the pulpit, but I will argue till I'm blue in my face that my grandmother's fried chicken and cornbread and fried ochre is better than anything you can buy in a restaurant.

To this very day, I'll still argue that.

It was life-changing.

And that's not to forget my grandmother's mother, my great-grandmother, and she was known at the holidays for the pies that she would make.

From scratch in her kitchen, there would be this crust and the filling and the meringue that would all go together.

It was all homemade.

Like Thelma Clift put Marie Callender to shame.

And I'm just talking about all this homemade food, and I can hear this rumble fill the room this morning.

And you're starting to think, why did I skip breakfast?

He's talking about food, and I'm really hungry.

Here's the thing, though, you're not hungry for fast food.

Like this morning, you don't want to go through the Wendy's drive-thru.

You don't want to go to Brookshire's and get something pre-packaged.

You want some food that's homemade.

Food that came straight out of the kitchen from scratch with fresh ingredients that were brought together to create this memorable meal that you can share with your friends and family.

And the reason I think that we prefer homemade meals to those pre-packaged fast food meals is because of this simple, universal fact, what we all know to be true, is that homemade is better than store-bought.

It just always is.

Homemade is better than store-bought.

And I'm not just, yeah, amen.

Like, y'all, this all isn't necessarily always a very vocal crowd, but I've clearly touched a nerve this morning.

But I thought we'd like put that to the test, right?

This little statement, homemade is better than store-bought.

Um and we're gonna compare some uh store-bought foods with their homemade counterparts this morning with a little taste test comparison.

And and just so you know, I I don't have enough for everybody, and I don't feel bad about either.

I didn't eat breakfast.

So I've got enough for myself and for my taste testing companion, my son Spencer.

Come on up, Spencer.

So when I told Spencer what we were doing this morning, yeah, pull your mask down.

Can't eat through it.

Yeah, so I told him what we were doing this morning, and he said, I do like to eat.

And uh to that I say, you come by that quite naturally.

So on this plate, my my friend, my buddy, um, we're gonna start.

We've got we've got store-bought bread and homemade bread.

We've got store-bought cookies and homemade cookies, and we've got store-bought brownie and homemade brownie.

We're just gonna have a little taste test and make sure, like, I'm not just making this thing up this morning.

So here we go.

We'll start with store-bought bread.

Here's a little square for you.

So it's been sitting out for maybe 30 minutes and it's already stale.

Um, I mean, that's not to say if you like pulled it right out of the bag, right?

We can make a turkey sandwich that we send you to school with every morning, but I mean, it's okay.

Not spectacular.

Homemade bread.

Hmm.

Okay, here you go.

Little piece.

Yeah.

See, here's the difference.

This bread you like when you pull it, you yeah, like that.

And you still smell the yeast in it.

Isn't that amazing?

Whenever you get these bags of bread at the store, never smell the yeast.

And that's part of the best part of bread, isn't it?

Like the yeast smell, that's what you know it's homemade.

So I've actually got this entire loaf in my office.

So um, I just need a toaster and like this big thing of butter, right?

And just go at it all afternoon.

And really, what I'm doing by tasting these things for you, I'm I'm saving you all the carbs and the extra sugar in your life.

Okay?

So don't worry, I'm helping you out.

Um, so I think the clear winner, right?

This homemade bread, definitely better.

He agrees, good.

He did tell me on the front row that he would make sure and be very honest in his evaluation.

So I don't know how that could turn out any better than this.

So, okay, so this is a store-bought cookie.

There.

Just and like I've never had a chocolate chip cookie that I turned down unless Lauren told me to turn it down.

So, same for Spencer.

So this morning you have my blessing, son.

Let's have a chocolate chip cookie.

All right, just this little bite.

Okay, so it's kind of your classic, like uh chocolate chip store-bought cookie.

It's just dry and kind of mealy, you know?

If you put it in my lunch, I wouldn't reject it, but let's try this homemade cookie now.

Okay.

Oh yeah.

Did you see that?

So let's like, we all like Food Network.

Like, this is the store-bought crunch, and then this homemade cookie, like, oh, like there we go.

All right.

Let's have a bite.

What do you think?

Hands down, homemade, right?

Homemade, yeah.

He wants the rest.

I can tell it.

I can see it in his eyes.

All right.

Maybe later.

All right.

So now we're gonna move on to the the brownie.

Um, so we're we're uh two two points homemade.

You know, store-bought brownie.

Here we go.

And just so you know, whenever my birthday rolls around every year, I never want a cake.

I just want brownies.

Like brownies are my thing.

I love brownies.

Here we go, store-bought brownie.

And as much as I love brownies, this is terrible.

Um it's super dense, and it does not taste like a brownie at all.

It's not saying I wouldn't eat it, but all right, homemade brownie.

Here we go.

All right.

All right.

Better?

Yeah.

I think it's a lot better, don't you?

Yeah.

It's considerably better.

You your sister made these yesterday, and so they they seem to have turned out just fine.

Good job, Evelyn.

Way to go.

Thanks, ma'am.

Yeah, you do love to eat, and I love to eat too.

Um, so I I think it's true, right?

It's true.

Homemade is better than store-bought.

Bread, brownies, cookies, you you name your favorite item, your favorite type of food.

You'd probably say homemade is better than store-bought.

And you know, there are all sorts of reasons why that's the case.

Um homemade is better because of the ingredients that are used, like they're a higher quality.

Um, homemade is better because it doesn't sit on a shelf and grow stale, it's fresh.

Uh, homemade is better because it's often connected to a recipe that's been passed down generation after generation.

And so when you you take that bite, it's a recipe that stood the test of time and it's been a part of your family uh for so long.

Homemade is better because it was prepared with love and care, it was prepared with you in mind.

Um we know homemade is better than store-bought.

And listen, what's true of our kitchens is also true in our churches.

What's true in our kitchens that homemade is better than store-bought, it's also uh true in our churches.

Here's what I mean.

At the conclusion of Jesus' earthly ministry, um, before he ascends into heaven, he he tells his disciples, he says that he wants them to make disciples of all nations.

You are my closest friends, my closest followers.

I'm sending you out to make disciples of all nations.

And where did those disciples make more disciples?

Within the walls of homes.

It was within the family's home that the church first gathered, and those earliest followers of Jesus fulfilled his command to make another batch of disciples and another batch of disciples and another batch of disciples.

It just so happens that the wisdom of our grandparents is also the wisdom of Jesus.

Homemade is better than store-bought.

Of course, we know what makes food store-bought.

It's pre-packaged, it's mass-produced, it's mass-marketed.

And store-bought discipleship, it's also pre-packaged, mass-produced, and mass-marketed.

It's the discipleship you buy on Amazon.com.

It's the discipleship you buy at your local Christian bookstore.

Or it's the discipleship that is a curriculum or another program that we become involved with.

And listen, there is a place for books that talk about Christian living.

There is value in curriculums and programs.

Those books on Christian living, they can be an encouragement in our lives.

Those programs and curriculums, they can provide structure for our church and for groups that meet.

But it's important to remember that store-bought discipleship, if it's nothing more than a book on Christian living, if it's nothing more than a curriculum or program, then there is a missing ingredient.

And without that ingredient incorporated back into the mix, discipleship becomes stale because it's unable to connect the gospel to our everyday life.

Storebought discipleship, if it's just the curriculum that we're studying, it struggles to connect what you know with how you live.

Maybe that's one reason that about 50% of students after graduating high school struggle with their faith.

We've served up store-bought discipleship.

One recent high school graduate puts it this way: listen to this heart-wrenching description of her relationship with God.

God is not the friend he was in high school.

He is now more like the grandparent in the home that I visit only on holidays or special occasions.

Or maybe our reliance on Storbot discipleship is one reason why the fastest growing religious group in the United States are people who categorize themselves as none.

They have no particular religious affiliation because they see religion as irrelevant.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't change my life.

He leads a church in the DC metro area, puts it this way.

We learn more and do less, thinking all the while that we're growing spiritually.

In other words, we've studied the curriculum, we've read the book, we've even taught the lesson, but nothing about our lives is different.

Nothing has changed.

We know all sorts of information.

We know more information than any generation of Christians who've ever walked the world, walked this earth.

We know it all, but there's no transformation in our lives.

Because why?

There's a missing ingredient.

What is it?

Here's the missing ingredient.

And we're going to talk more about this study in weeks to come.

A study conducted by Kara Powell at the Fuller Institute for Youth and Family says this is the missing ingredient for discipleship.

Intentional intergenerational relationships.

She sees that primarily in kids who post-high school continue to grow in their faith.

It's because in high school and as children, they had intentional intergenerational relationships, both in their home and in their church home.

Intentional, that means we need relationships in our lives that are purposeful.

We need relationships in our life that are spurring us on to love and good deeds.

Disciples are not Lone Rangers.

They don't follow Jesus all by themselves.

They follow Jesus alongside one another.

Intergenerational, that means we need people in our life who are outside of our season of life.

It means if you're young, you need people in the generations ahead of you in your life in intentional ways.

You need older, more seasoned followers of Jesus speaking into your life, whether you're a child or a young adult or a median adult, like you just need someone older than you because there are certain things when it comes to following Jesus you will not know until certain amount of years have passed in your life.

So Job chapter 12, verse 12 says that wisdom is with the aged.

Job 12:12

But listen, we not only need people in our life who are older than we are, we need people in our life who are younger than we are.

We need young, new Christians in our life because they bring an energy and an excitement to the faith.

We need children in our life because they bring a wonder and a joy that some of us as adults are missing out on when it comes to following Jesus Christ.

We need someone in our life who that's the first time they heard the story, and it's changed their life.

Because if you're being honest, you've heard it too many times and you're kind of bored with it.

And you do be reminded of the power of the gospel message, the power of every story told in the pages of the Bible.

Ultimately, listen, homemade disciples need intentional, intergenerational relationships, both within the family home and within their church home.

Not one or the other, we need both.

Intentional, intergenerational relationships within our family's home.

So think the relationship between a parent and a child and within our church home.

People across generations who are members of First Baptist Church.

If we want to become mature, multiplying disciples of Jesus.

That's the sort of relationships we need as we study God's Word, as we pray and as we fellowship.

So, friends, listen, it's past time for the church to get back in the kitchen and start cooking again and to make some more batches of disciples that are homemade.

That are the result of these intentional, intergenerational relationships.

So today we're beginning this new four-week series called Homemade.

In this series, we're going to examine the role of your homes, your family's home, and your church home in the role of discipleship.

And those two homes are our focus because those are the primary God-ordained locations in our life where we have relationships that call us and can promote within us growing in an image and likeness of Jesus, within our family's home and within our church home.

And so in the series, you're going to receive some really practical tools, but also a compelling biblical vision of how your family's home and your church home must be in partnership with one another.

How we must work together for this end if we are going to fulfill the command of Jesus.

So for us then to begin to live according to this piece of wisdom that homemade is better than store-bought, here's what we have to realize and learn in week one.

We've got to learn how to add back in that missing ingredient of these intentional intergenerational relationships.

And the way we do that is we realize and we look back to those first disciples of Jesus, and we want to look at the action that defined their life.

Here's how they did it.

Homemade disciples are devoted to God and to one another.

Homemade disciples are devoted to God and to one another.

Listen to this story told in Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Beginning in verse 42, it says, They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts.

They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts.

Praising God, enjoying the favor of all the people.

The first thing Luke tells us in recounting this story about this first disciples is they are devoted to the apostles' teaching.

That is one way, one sign of their devotion to God is they listened to what the apostles had to say.

And the subject of the apostles' teachings was primarily Jesus.

The apostles were convinced that Jesus was the long-promised Messiah of Israel.

The apostles were convinced that Jesus was the only Son of God and the Lord and Savior over all of creation.

Everything about Jesus had captured their imagination, his teachings about the kingdom of God, his way of life, the way he loved and forgave, the way he died on a cross, and then three days later rose again from the grave.

And listen, it's because they were so enamored with Jesus that they devoted themselves to God's word, to hearing God's word explained to them.

They were devoted to the apostles' teachings.

Now, here's one important word of clarification.

Because in this moment, when we hear that phrase, they were devoted to the apostles' teachings, it's really easy for us to read 2021 back into the first century.

And when I hear the phrase, and I think many of us hear that phrase, devoted to the apostles' teachings, the first thing we think is the person who is most devoted to the apostles' teachings is that person who every morning wakes up first thing in the morning, cracks open their Bible, and has a personal quiet time.

That person is more devoted than another person who waits later in the day or who doesn't do it at all.

That person who starts their day in God's word, they are devoted to the apostles' teachings.

Now listen, there's nothing wrong with a quiet time or a time of personal devotion.

But listen, that's not what the first disciples did when they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching.

Remember that that first batch of homemade disciples, they didn't have God's word sitting on their nightstand.

That first batch of homemade disciples, they didn't have God's word on their phone where they could scroll through it and find a daily Bible reading.

That first batch of disciples, even if they had a scroll, even if they had a portion of the Old Testament, even if they had a portion of a saying of Jesus, guess what?

Most of them couldn't read.

So how did they devote themselves to the apostles' teaching?

They had to gather with the church.

They could not read or meditate on God's word apart from gathering with God's people.

They knew that if I want to uh hear God's word, I have to be with God's people.

If I want to hear the story of Jesus told over and over again, and I want to understand what it means, I have to gather with God's people.

And the blessing of that was this.

They always heard the Bible in the context of intentional, intergenerational relationships.

They never read or heard the Bible in a prison of their own life experience.

They heard it alongside other people who had different family dynamics, who had different situations going on in their life, who were older and younger.

And we know those relationships were intentional because every day they made the decision to do what?

To gather together.

And those relationships were intergenerational because from the very outset of the church, God called people from across the generations.

And it's vital for God's people to hear his word in the context of those intentional, intergenerational relationships because we have so much we can learn from one another.

In those spaces, you can hear how God spoke to a person through a passage you thought was irrelevant to your life and irrelevant to anyone's life.

Or you may have the opportunity to share with someone who's in the group how you're applying that story in their life, and they never thought, oh, I never saw how that applied in that way.

Or you may be encouraged to move forward in your walk with Jesus, to take that next step in a difficult season because someone who is more seasoned than you are, who's lived a little bit more life than you have, tells you God is faithful and he will keep going forward with you.

So let's read God's word together.

Or maybe just your love for Jesus is rekindled through the wonder of a child.

And that's the first time they've heard that story in their life.

And they're blown away by who God is and what God has done.

And since that first batch of homemade disciples heard God's teaching, God's word, in the context of these intergenerational, intentional relationships, the next part of verse 42 makes complete sense.

They are people who are not only devoted to God, they are devoted to one another.

They fellowship, they break bread, and they pray.

You hear the word fellowship, and what do you think of?

You think of food, right?

You hear the word fellowship, or you think of like Christian small talk.

But in the New Testament, fellowship is describing these spirit-formed, spirit-infused relationships that are at the very foundation of the church.

How the church operates is through a fellowship that is empowered by the Holy Spirit.

So those relationships in that moment, they are intentional because why?

The Spirit is at work and God always works with a purpose and an intentionality behind how he operates.

They're intergenerational because the Spirit calls together people of all ages into one place under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

And when they gathered for that fellowship, they broke bread together.

They ate.

Probably means they observed the Lord's Supper together.

They took the bread and the cup, which also tells us that was a moment when they worshiped.

And as they gather for a time of worship and of food, you have to imagine that conversations occur.

You know what the gift of a conversation around a table is, as food is shared.

You get to know people, you get to know what's going on in their life, and then you know how to pray for them.

And that's what they did.

There's fellowship, like they come together, there's breaking of bread, they eat together, they worship together, and then through conversations that occur along the way, they know how to pray for one another.

You see, among the earliest Christians, their church family gathered in the family home.

And within those homes, they showed their devotion first to God and then to one another.

In each moment of their devotion, paying attention to the teaching of the apostles, fellowship, breaking of bread, prayer.

At each moment was present these intentional intergenerational relationships.

They were truly a family.

A family that was so in love with Jesus, they wanted to spend time together so that they could encourage one another as they tried to follow Jesus alongside of each other, help each other along the way.

That was their secret ingredient.

They didn't say my family can follow Jesus by ourselves.

No, we have to be a part of a church family.

They didn't say children have nothing to teach older adults.

No, children, they're just a part of the family that's marching forward behind Jesus.

Teenagers didn't say, oh, there's nothing the old folks can teach me.

I've got it all figured out.

No, we pay attention.

Because they have wisdom about what it means to follow Jesus.

And they made the intentional decision every day to be with those people.

Because we need them.

I need them in my life.

If I am going to follow where Jesus is, it's telling me to go.

That was their secret ingredient.

And so now these intentional intergenerational relationships, here's how we as a church family are going to add them back into the mix.

Okay?

And it all boils down to what's coming up on Wednesday nights beginning September the 8th.

So as a church family, we are going to begin gathering across the street in the fellowship hall at 5 o'clock for our fellowship meal.

Sheila Crosslin will be cooking up the dinner.

It'll be five bucks for everyone who eats.

Or if you have a child who doesn't like what she's cooking, there will be pizza available for them.

Okay?

Five to five forty-five will eat.

And here's our goal, okay?

Our goal is this your family would eat with someone who is not in your season of life for an intergenerational relationship.

Okay?

And I know here's the thing.

My kids like to eat, but they like to eat fast.

Okay?

My kids don't take 45 minutes to eat.

Probably your child doesn't take 45 minutes to eat.

So if you have a child in your home, here's what we're gonna be doing in the fellowship hall.

We're gonna set up some activity stations for kids that they can go to once they've eaten.

They can play tabletop games, they have blocks to build with, things to draw, crafts to make.

There'll be things for them to do with their hands, and it'll be okay for them to get up and move, all right, after they eat.

We're gonna stay in that room, though, as a church family, all right?

5 to 545.

Um, if you have a child who is in the preschool or nursery age, the nursery will open at 5:30.

All right?

So at 5:45, we'll wrap up dinner's over, and worship begins.

Because we're gonna follow kind of the timeline of that early church.

We're gonna worship together.

We're gonna have a time of breaking bread, we're gonna eat, but then we're gonna worship.

And I want you to know this again.

Um, this worship service is going to be informal and casual.

It is not gonna be buttoned up.

It's gonna be a place for relationships to be formed and for our kids to be welcomed.

And so if you've got wiggleworms like I've got wiggleworms, listen, the the worship will be a time that's planned that will be um engaging, interactive, and it's okay if people get up and move.

Right?

We'll have times when we sing, times when we pray, we'll have a memory verse that we work on, and a Bible lesson, and times for questions to occur around the table.

And so what we envision is one family, a family with kids sitting with senior adults or uh those who are maybe just a little bit ahead of them.

Like there's people of different generations at a table, and so in conversations, when we ask y'all to discuss something, different perspectives are brought to bear, and these relationships form as we talk about what it means to follow Jesus together.

So we'll have that time of worship, and then uh we'll dismiss at 6.15, and that is when we kind of do some transitioning.

Our kids are from there will go to um some breakouts.

Uh they may do uh recreation one week, they may do a craft one week.

Okay, so we'll have a 25-minute breakout for our kiddos.

Uh, our choir members will be dismissed to choir.

Um, and then the remaining adults, we will stay in the fellowship hall and we will um spend the next 25 minutes in a variety of ways.

Some weeks we may just devote ourselves to uh digging a little bit deeper into God's word.

Uh we may have weeks that are primarily about prayer.

Uh we have may have weeks when uh because of our partnerships at places like Mermill or Barton Junior High where we just write prayer grams or work on gift baskets that we're gonna give away to teachers and to administrators at those schools.

We're gonna use those 25 minutes for a variety of purposes as adults, right?

More Bible study, more prayer, or opportunities uh for missional kind of outreach that we work on together for those 25 minutes.

Um then we will dismiss, our children will dismiss, and our adults will dismiss from Bible study as our choir continues their rehearsal.

Now, how do students fit into that?

Our junior high and high school students, the doors at 252 continue to open at 5 o'clock, but we also want to encourage you, if you have um children in your home who are in junior high and high school, we'd love for you to join us for at least a portion of what we're doing across the street in the fellowship hall.

Right?

At the transition time or before you can go back across the street to 252, and then collision will begin with worship in their time of small groups in Bible study at 7 o'clock that night.

So that's our upcoming schedule for Wednesday nights here at First Baptist Church beginning September the 8th.

That's our schedule, but the question goes back to just that first statement of Acts chapter 2, verse 42.

Acts 2:42

Will you be devoted?

Is this going to be something you will put on your family's calendar?

Because you want to make homemade disciples.

You want your family's home and your church home to work in partnership with one another so that disciples are made, that people who love Jesus, who think like he thinks, who walk like he walks, who uh speak like he speaks, would come out of our church and just rush out into our community and into our world.

Like God is calling us in this moment to what?

To make another batch of homemade disciples and another batch of homemade disciples and another batch of homemade disciples, these disciples who are Jesus-loving, neighbor-serving, spirit-empowered, followers of King Jesus.

And for too long we've thought I can do it on my own.

Like my family doesn't have to be a part of the church.

We'll just figure it out on our own and we'll show up when we can.

Or we've thought the church will do it all for me.

I'll drop them off.

And the church will work out all the details.

No, like it's a partnership between your family's home and your church home.

Whether you're a child, a teenager, or an adult.

It's always a partnership.

Because all of us are still growing in our ability to faithfully follow Jesus every single day.

So let's get back to the kitchen.

Our grandparents were right.

Homemade is always better than store-bought.

Let's pray together.

Almighty God and loving Father.

We thank you for how your word continues to speak clearly to us at this hour.

And first, I want to say thank you for this church family.

To be in a room surrounded by people across the generations who love Jesus.

What a gift that is.

And I pray, God, that you would give each of us ears to hear.

As they speak and share what Jesus has taught them, is teaching them.

And Lord, I pray for this room to be a room of people who are devoted, devoted to you and devoted to one another.

For the sake of making disciples.

Pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.