If you want to turn there, Acts chapter 20, as we are moving through a study in the life of Paul on Wednesday night. It's been a while since we've been in this study because of sickness and because of our revival meetings. But we want to get back to it. Paul's on his third missionary journey. He's actually bringing it to a close. He's heading back to Jerusalem. He has been in Ephesus for most of the time. He had gone back over the churches that he established in his first and second missionary journey, Galatia, and over in Macedonia and down in Nicaea. But he primarily spent his time in Ephesus preaching and teaching, and the church was established there. God worked in mighty ways, did a great work there. But then Paul determined it was time to leave Ephesus, and it was time to make his way to Jerusalem, although he wanted first of all to go back over to Macedonia and Achaia. And so for about a year after he finished up his ministry in Ephesus, he went back into Europe to Macedonia and Achaia and spent time there. And then the Bible tells us in verse 4 of Acts chapter 20 that they accompanied him into Asia. So he's been at Ephesus, he's crossed over into Europe, he spent about a year there, now he's heading back to Asia and he's going to just kind of skirt the coast of Asia. and make his way to Jerusalem. And as he goes, Sopater of Berea, and of the Thessalonians Aristarchus and Secundus, and Gaius of Derbe, and Timotheus of Asia, and Tychicus and Trophimus are going with him. Because Paul has gathered an offering from the churches, the Gentile churches, in Galatia, and in Asia, and in Macedonia, and Achaia, and he's taking that offering back to Jerusalem to help relieve the poverty of the believers in Jerusalem. And all these men are representatives of the churches that have given to that offering. They're going along as representatives. They're going along to give accountability. This is a lot of money. And Paul is careful to be sure that there's no question about how that money is handled. And so these men are going along to give accountability, but they're also going along because that's a lot of money. And in those days, travel was dangerous. And so the more people you have, their safety in numbers and so for those reasons they're going with him. And so it says in verse 5 that they went to Troas and waited there and then Paul says in verse 6 we and Luke is writing the book of Acts And he now rejoins Paul. He had dropped off it when Paul had left Philippi in his second missionary journey. We don't read about Luke again. It's they, they, they. But now we pick up Luke again. So as Paul comes back to Philippi on his way to Jerusalem on this third journey, Luke rejoins them. And after the days of unleavened bread, they come to Troas. It takes five days to sail from Philippi to Troas, and they spend seven days in Troas. Now, let me just stop and make a note here. They sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread. So what time of year is this taking place? In the spring, March or April, in that time frame. So it's spring of the year. It's believed that Paul had initially intended to be in Jerusalem for Passover, but he's not made that, so he's heading there, trying to get there for Pentecost, to be there for that feast. But as we, and so then we have this account of, let's just go ahead and read it, it's just a few verses and then we'll dwell upon it, think about it. But upon the first day of the week, verse 7, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them ready to depart on the morrow and continued his speech until midnight. And there were many lights in the upper chamber where they were gathered together. And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus being fallen into a deep sleep. And as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep and fell down from the third loft and was taken up dead. And Paul went down and fell on him and embracing him said, trouble not yourselves for his life is in him. And when he therefore was come up again and had broken bread and eaten and talked a long while, even till the break of day, so he departed and they brought the young man alive and were not a little comforted. The Holy Spirit gives us a glimpse into a gathering of the church at Troas. And I've entitled the message tonight, Simple Church, as I think about it, and I think you'll understand why as we go along. Someone wrote this little ditty years ago. I don't know if I've shared it with you before or not, but it says, there was a simple man. He had a simple wife. She gave him simple children. They lived a simple life. The moral of this story, if you should care to know, is keep it simple, stupid, while living here below. Well, simple church. I actually have a book in my study entitled Simple Church. It was written by a couple of men who did a study, a survey of some churches, and they looked at churches that were complex, And then they looked at some churches that were simple, and by simple meaning they had really refined things down to the very basics of what a church should be. Matter of fact, the one church that they set as an example is their whole ministry functioned around this one statement, love God, love others, and serve others. And every ministry in their church had to help further that purpose, either helping people to love God, which was their main worship service. They looked at that as this is our opportunity to gather together and to help us worship God and come to love God better, to love others. They had small groups. and you were, as you got saved and you came into the church, you were plugged into a small group, and that was your connection with other people, to learn to love other people and connect with them, and then there was a ministry opportunity. They wanted you to serve in some capacity, and that's it. And everything was just that simple, and there was not a lot of programs, there was not a lot of activity beyond those basic things. Simple church. Now, I'm gonna say some things tonight that may be controversial. I don't mean to be controversial. Whatever I say, I say because I believe it's biblical. But also, let me start this way. We tend to be traditional and pragmatic when it comes to church. And by that, I mean simply, there are many things that we do because it's just the way we've always done it. Now that's not necessarily bad or wrong, but I think that we have to acknowledge that and be honest if we are in danger of worshiping tradition if we're not honest that there are things that are traditional. But again, there's nothing wrong with traditions. And many of them, you know, they have been helpful. However, I think we do need to also acknowledge this, that if something is traditional and it is no longer helpful, that we need to be willing to abandon it. That was one of the things that was talked about in that book on simple church was the willingness to let go of ministries that had a purpose and were helpful in the past. but they're no longer helpful. They actually are a hindrance, but we can't stop doing this because we've always done this. We gotta hang on to this ministry because this is part of who we are, but it becomes a hindrance. We have to be careful that we don't let those traditions get in the way of effective ministry. But we do tend to be traditional. There's things we do because this is the way we've always done it. And the reality is the church in America and where we have taken our model and transposed it into other countries and the church in Europe would be very similar because what we have in America is based on what we brought over from England. But there's a lot of things that are just, they have become a part of the church over the years that aren't necessarily biblical. They're not unbiblical in the sense they are not anti-biblical, let's put it that way. And I think that's why we can say that it's not wrong. They're not, not all tradition is wrong. Okay. Does it violate the word of God? If it doesn't, even though it's not specifically stated, you have to do it this way. If it doesn't violate the word of God, there's nothing wrong with it. If it's helpful, if it continues to help. I believe that the day is coming in America where a lot of our traditions are going to be jettisoned out of necessity. Because the persecution or the opposition to the church, unless something changes, the opposition and persecution of the church is going to increase, and we're going to be forced to change the way we do some things. Matter of fact, one of the things that is traditional, I think we could say it that way, is the building. And I firmly believe, I don't know if it'll be in my lifetime or not, But if things continue, America continues, and things continue in the direction they're going, one day the government will confiscate church buildings. They'll just take it. And then what do we do? We lost our building. Oh, no, we've lost our church. No, we haven't. We just lost one of the tools that we have to do ministry. We've lost the church. So things like that. And I'd say we tend to be pragmatic also, not only traditional, but pragmatic because, again, some of those traditions work, and so we just do it. But again, I think we need to understand and we need to be committed to the very basics of what really is the church or what makes up the church. What are the basics? And we really boil it down to the simplicity of the church and the word of God. What did that look like? And that's what I want to see as we look at what happened at Troas. Now, there's two things here. And I want to focus on the idea of, as the Holy Spirit has given us in this account, a picture of the early church ministry or their gathering together. There's also the matter of Eutychus dying and Paul raising him from the dead and there's some truth there that I don't know that we'll get into tonight. Maybe we'll come back to it and talk about that next Wednesday night. But the first thing you want to see in looking at this is when did the church meet? Because it tells us, in verse 7, that upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, this was a regular, normal thing. When did they meet? They met on Sunday, the first day of the week. And the church meets on Sunday because it is the day that Christ rose from the dead. In the Old Testament, under the law of Moses, they met on Saturday in the synagogue. But Christ rose from the dead on the first day of the week. Christ instituted the new covenant. And in the new covenant, we don't worship on Saturday. We worship on Sunday. I won't get into this, but there are those today that want to teach and preach that Sunday worship is heresy. And that even that it is the mark of the beast and that only those who worship on Saturday as God intended it in their minds, are the true believers and everybody else is just part of the Antichrist and the world system. But the Bible's very clear. The early church did gather at other times, but they regularly came together for worship on Sunday. In Acts 2 and verse 46, we're told that they continued daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house. So they did early on, they would gather even daily. In Acts 5 and verse 42, they, and daily in the temple, in every house, they cease not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. In Acts 19 and verse 9, Paul, he is at Ephesus, he's preaching and teaching in the synagogue. Finally, the Jewish opposition is so strong that Paul separates the church from the synagogue and disputes daily in the school of one, Tyrannus. So there was that daily meeting. But there's also this emphasis that the church came together to break bread the first day of the week. And Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, he's on the same missionary journey, he's collecting this offering for the saints in Jerusalem, and he writes this to them, he says, concerning the collection for the saints as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do you upon the first day of the week. let every one of you lay by him in store as God that prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come." That was the first day of the week, because that's when they would come together. And they would collect that offering on the first day of the week. And by the time that John is writing the Revelation, it is called the Lord's Day. He says, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, Revelation 1 and verse 10. And so the Sunday became the day for the church to worship. It becomes the Lord's Day, the day when the church would gather together. But I think something that we don't often think about, in the early days, Sunday was also a work day. Of course, obviously for the Jews, their Sabbath was, what, Saturday. So when Sunday came, this is the beginning of a new work week. The Gentiles didn't have the Mosaic Law. They didn't have a Sabbath, a Saturday day of rest like the Jews did. And so Sunday was just another work day for them. And so I believe that that is why that they are gathering at night. It would be after the day's work was over. And they had come together, as was their custom, at the end of the day, after the day's work. It also could account for Eutychus falling asleep. You know, there's a lot of ink spilled about Eutychus, and many condemning him or criticizing him. Eutychus, you shouldn't have fallen asleep. You should have gotten rest, and you should have come refreshed. Well, most likely, Eutychus has worked all day. Now, he's a lad. He may be even a young teenager. There's two different words that are used to describe him. A young man, in verse nine, and then in verse, I think it's verse... Verse 12, it says young man, but there's two different words in the Greek for young man. One would be anybody up to 40 years of age. The other would be somebody in their early teen years. So probably he's a teenager, but he still could have been a slave. It's believed that that would be the case because many children would have been slaves in that day. And so he probably has worked all day. He's tired. And not only that, but Paul continued his speech until midnight. Paul's preaching till midnight. And he's in the window. They're in the third level of probably the house. We'll come back to that in a moment. But they're up in the third level, third floor. There's no air conditioning. It's nighttime. They got all these lights going. They got the torches and the candles or whatever. There's many lights in the upper chamber. Those are not electric lights. So it's hot up there. You got a bunch of people gathered in this upper room. It's probably not well ventilated, and so it's even possible that Eutychus is sitting in the windowsill because he's trying to get air, because he's hot, and he's trying to stay awake. Matter of fact, the implication is that when he says in verse 9 that he sunk down with sleep, that he was trying to stay awake and finally he just couldn't do it any longer and he succumbed to his weariness and fell asleep and because he's sitting there in the windowsill and there's no glass in these windows so he just falls out and falls down three stories and dies. But it very well may be that because this is a work day, and he's worked all day, and he's tired, and then Paul continues his speech till midnight, that though he tried to stay awake, it just, the sleepover came in. But let me share a statement with you. I thought this was interesting. Warren Risbee said, Christians who slumber during one hour in church somehow manage to stay awake during early morning fishing trips, lengthy sporting events and concerts, or late night TV specials. How true. How easy it is to stay awake for something else, and then come to church, and fall asleep. But he said, and he went on to say, we need to prepare ourselves physically for public worship to make sure we are at our best. And then he quoted, he said, remember, said Spurgeon, if we go to sleep during the sermon and died, there are no apostles to restore us. But it is true that, I mean, we can learn a lesson from that, that we ought to do what we can to be awake when we come to the house of God, to be alert, to be tuned in, to be keyed in, to be wanting to hear what God has to say to us through his word that, you know, it used to be back in the old days on Saturday night, many times Christians would, they wouldn't read the paper, they wouldn't back in those days listen to the radio, they wouldn't watch TV, they would prepare their hearts for Sunday. And they would get a good night's rest and they would prepare their hearts on Sunday morning. They'd be in the Word, they'd be in prayer, they'd come to church already in fellowship with God, already in tune with the Holy Spirit and ready to worship God and to listen to God and And there's no, again, there's no mandate in scripture that we have to do that, but we ought to try to come ready to engage in worship and hear from God's word and be alert and be awake and be focused on what is going on. But it was a work day. The Jews observed a Sabbath on Saturday and they, um, it was a sign between the Lord and the Jews, it says in Exodus 31, throughout your generations. It was a covenant that God made with Israel, but that didn't carry over into the New Testament age. We don't observe a Sabbath today. Sunday is not the Sabbath. And I know sometimes people refer to Sunday as the Sabbath, and if you want to do that, that's fine, but understand, it's not like there was the Old Testament Sabbath and the Law of Moses, and we just changed it. It's still the Sabbath, still the same thing, but we just changed it to Sunday instead of Saturday. No. That Sabbath of the Mosaic Law is done away with in Christ. It was all a picture, it was a shadow, a picture of the rest that we have spiritually in the Lord Jesus Christ, and the rest that we're going to enjoy eternally in heaven. But it is very clear in the scriptures that it was to be a sign between God and Israel, that it was a shadow, a foreshadowing of the rest that we would have in Jesus Christ. And so we don't observe a Sabbath today, though we may choose to observe a day of rest. And there is a precedent in the creation account where Christ Our God created in six days and rested on the seventh, a day of rest every week. And our weeks, our seven-day weeks, are based on the creation account, the fact that God took seven days to create. And so we may choose to observe a day of rest, and there's validity to that, but we have to be careful that we're not legalistic in that. One day, the Lord was with his disciples, and he's walking through a field, and the disciples are plucking grain and eating it. And the Pharisees rebuke Jesus, and the disciples are, you know, Lord, how can you let your disciples do that? And Jesus said, first of all, I'm the Lord of the Sabbath. And if I say they can do it, they can do it. I created the Sabbath, and if I say they can do it, it's okay. But the other thing he said was the Sabbath wasn't made for man. The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. So to put these legalistic restrictions that make the Sabbath actually a burden instead of a blessing is to miss the whole purpose of a day of rest. So we're not commanded to set apart Sunday as a day of rest. We're not commanded not to work, although you may have a conviction that way, and if you do, that's fine. And if you do, you ought to abide by that conviction. Personally, I don't have a conviction against it, and I guess technically as a pastor, I work on Sundays, but I would not want to work a secular job on Sunday. I don't necessarily think it's wrong, but I wouldn't want to do it, and in this country, we have the right even not to do it. You can go and say, hey, I'm a Christian, and we worship on Sunday, and I shouldn't have to work on Sunday, and you have a legal right to do that. But we're not commanded to observe a Sabbath. And for the early church, the day upon which they gathered was just another work day, and either they gathered before work or they gathered after work. and gathered together. So when did they meet? They met on Sunday and it was a work day. But where did they meet? We've kind of alluded to this already, but let me ask this question first of all to kind of set the stage for this. How many were in the church at Jerusalem just a few weeks after Pentecost? How many people were in the church in Jerusalem just a few weeks after Pentecost? At least, well at least 8,000. Because there were 3,000 on the day of Pentecost, and then we read just a few days or weeks later, another 5,000 got saved. There's more than that, but we know of at least 8,000. Where are those 8,000 people going to meet? There's no church building in Jerusalem to hold a church, a congregation of 8,000 people. You know, when we were, Debbie and I were in college, we went to Bob Jones University, they have an amphitorium that seats like 7,000 people. But there was no amphitorium in Jesus' day. There was no amphitorium in Peter and John's day. They didn't have a church building where 8,000 people could meet. So they scattered throughout the city of Jerusalem. Sometimes they gathered, but again, it wouldn't have been all 8,000 people at one time. Sometimes they gathered in the temple. But they met in homes. I think that's what is said in Acts 8.3. It says Saul made havoc of the church, entering into every house. and hailing men and women and committed them to prison as Paul was persecuting the church, or Saul, before he became Paul. I think when it says every house, it's talking about the churches, that when they gathered together on Sunday, he found out which house they were meeting in, and he went in, and they're all gathered there together to worship the Lord, and Paul arrested them and hauled them off to prison, and many of them were killed. When Peter was released from prison, He came to the house of Mary where many were gathered together praying. They were meeting in that home. In Romans 16, Paul talks about Priscilla and Aquila and the church that is in their house. And again, in 1 Corinthians, he writes about Aquila and Priscilla, the church that is in their house. In Colossians 4 and 15, he mentions Nymphos and the church which is in his house. As he writes to Philemon, he writes to him and his wife, and probably his son, and he says, enter the church in thy house. One of the places where the early church met was in Holmes. By the way, one of the places where they met was in Holmes. And again, in Jerusalem, 8,000 plus people, more are getting saved every day. And so, the church is growing. They're not able to meet in one location, so they're scattered in houses throughout Jerusalem. And each one is technically a church. There was a church at Jerusalem, because there wasn't the Baptist Church in Jerusalem, and the Methodist Church in Jerusalem, and the Presbyterian Church, and the Christian Church. There was the church in Jerusalem. They all believed the same doctrine, the same practices, everything. It was all the same. They met in different homes and so it would be like all these different local churches in these different neighborhoods where they met. But it was the church at Jerusalem. From time to time the pastors of those house churches would come together, the elders of the churches would come together to discuss the church and the needs of the church and the ministry of the church and make decisions about the church at Jerusalem. The elders of the church at Jerusalem because each one of those houses had a pastor. I firmly believe that is the plurality of elders in the New Testament, is in every city, you've got a church that is too massive to meet in one location, so they're meeting in many different locations, and each location has a pastor. And that's the elders. So the church at Ephesus, because again, there's not all these different denominations, there's the church at Ephesus, and they all believe the same thing, they practice the same thing. But they can't all meet in one place because there's so many of them. So there's, there's house churches throughout the city of Ephesus and all those churches have pastors. And so when Paul, and later on in chapter 20, he calls together the elders of the church at Ephesus, it's the pastors of all those house churches. Now you can disagree with me and you can believe that every local church should have a plurality of elders. That's fine. I'm not going to argue with you and we can be friends and just agree to disagree. But that's what I believe you see when you see this, plurality of elders in the New Testament. I think it's those different churches have their own pastors. But they met in houses. But they also, they did meet at the temple in Jerusalem. Daily in the temple and in every house they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. Obviously not the whole church, but they would go to the temple to preach the word of God to the unbelievers there. In Acts chapter 5, again, the Lord told Peter and John, go stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life, and so they entered into the temple early in the morning and they taught. They preached the word in the temple. They also met in the synagogues. Paul always went to the synagogue first whenever he went to a new town. If there was a synagogue there, Paul went there. Again, in Ephesus, that's where the early church, the church early on in Ephesus was meeting in the synagogue. And then eventually, Paul pulls it out because of the opposition, and they end up meeting in, I suppose, a rented space. It was the school of Tyrannus, I assume, that probably they paid some rent. Maybe he just made it available to them rent-free. But it was not their own church building. There were no church buildings back in those days. They met wherever they could meet. And so, again, simple church. We're gathering together on the first day of the week, and we're meeting where we can. For now, in America, we can meet in a building of our own. Praise the Lord for this building. When we were in Mississippi, we went there, most of you know, to rebuild the Bible Baptist Church there when we went because of the things that happened at the church. They had to sell their building. They were meeting in rented facilities. They were meeting in a community center. We were paid $100 a month. We had unlimited access to the community center. But it was hot in the summertime. It was cold in the wintertime. The mice were running everywhere. When we're having church, you can see the mice running around. And the children's Sunday school classroom and the nursery was a metal storage building out back of the community center. But we owned three acres of land right across the road. And the church had saved up, before I got there, $50,000 in a building fund. So within a couple of years, we built a building. and by the grace of God we had our own building and it was paid for. We paid cash for the whole thing. We expanded it a few years later and paid cash for that. The Lord provided all of that. We didn't have to borrow any money to do any of that. And it became a valuable tool. And the church did grow when we got our own building. Because today in America that's what people think. They think about a church, they think about a building. A building is a wonderful tool. But again, a building is not essential. And the day may come when We have to meet other places, and that's okay. And there are those today that say, well, you know, the early church met in Holmes, and so the only right place to meet is in a home. But there's nowhere in the Bible that it says you must meet in Holmes. And again, that's not the only place the early church met. There was a group there in Mississippi near us, they believed that. They believe the only biblical way to meet in a house. But the interesting thing to me was their house where they met was not somebody's home, it was their church building, but it happened to be a house. So they're meeting for church in a house that is dedicated to church. So it's basically a church building, it just happens to be a house. But they felt like, I mean, they were adamant. You meet in a home, and if you don't meet in a home, you're not biblical. But the early church met in different places, but most often they did because that's what was available to them. Now, Let's see if we can do this real quick. Why did they meet? They met on the first day of the week, which for them was a work day. They met in a home, in this case, as was often the case, but not exclusively. But they met, first of all, for fellowship. There are several things here that indicate they're meeting for fellowship. By the way, they're coming together, it says in verse 7, they came together, that is the word that we get our word synagogue comes from the Greek word that is translated came together and again this the emphasis there is not this gathering is not just a few believers who casually get together and have some fellowship okay or have even have some Bible study or whatever that's good that's fine you know you want to get together with some other Christians in your home or in a restaurant you want to study God's Word together you want to have some fellowship you want to have some prayer together that's great but that's not the church That's not the church coming together as God intended it to be. I mean, again, there's nothing wrong with that, but that's not all. When the Bible says we're not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, it's not talking about that. It's talking about the church, the identified church, coming together for the public worship service, and that's what they're doing. It would have been very different for us going into that worship service because it is so simple and it is in a home, but they're doing in that home what we do here. They're just doing it in a home and it's a little more informal than we do here. But they're having church just like we have church here. They're coming together, they're assembling together. The first day of the week, the church is coming together. And they are sharing conversation, Christian fellowship, and verse 11, After Paul raises Eutychus from the dead, he comes up again, that is Paul, and breaks bread and eats, and then talks a long while, even till the break of day. Now, Paul did not preach all night. When it says he talked a long while, even till the break of day, the word talk there is not the word for preaching, it's the word for conversation. They're just enjoying being together. And Paul knows this is, he's leaving and he doesn't expect to ever go back to Troyes again. So they're just enjoying being together as Christians. They're having Christian fellowship. They're just talking together. Now, no doubt there's probably, because Paul was the apostle and these are first generation believers, there's probably some teaching going on in those conversations. They're probably asking him some questions and he's answering their questions about doctrine or about practice or teaching of the Word of God, but there's a conversation going. It's not Paul standing up, or in that case, in those days, teachers sat. It's not Paul formally teaching, it's just they're sitting around having a conversation. They're enjoying fellowship. They also enjoyed fellowship in the sharing of communion. Not only conversation, but communion. Verse 7, when it says that they broke bread, that is the idea of communion. It is probable that the early church had communion every Sunday, that when they came together every week, they observed the Lord's table as part of their worship service. There are churches that do that today. We're not commanded to observe the Lord's table at any definite interval. Jesus just said as often as you do this. He didn't say how often. Every church has to make up its own mind as to how often that would be. There's nothing wrong with having communion every Sunday. The challenge we know is that it becomes ritual, it becomes routine, and it loses its meaning. We here choose to try and do it about every couple months. We kind of get away from that for some reason in the last six months, and we're going to have communion this Sunday and try to get back on track. I'm not sure why we got off track, but we did. But we're going to get back on track, and that's what we try to do about every two months. Enough to keep it fresh. and to do what God commanded us to do. And by the way, we are commanded to do that. We ought to want to be in the house of God when we observe the Lord's table together. There's more I could say there. Maybe I just need to come back to this. I need to come back. I've just got too much to do and not enough time to do it. Which is interesting because Paul continued his speech until midnight and then he was there all night and we're talking about winding this down because we're running out of time. But they shared a conversation, they shared communion, and they shared cooking. Because when it says in verse 11 that when they had broken bread and eaten, that is a meal. So at first they're observing the Lord's table and afterwards they're eating a meal together. And, um, let me just throw this out because we're doing this Sunday and we'll come back to it next, next Sunday or next Wednesday night. But, but I do want to note this, that when the early church gathered together, they ate a meal together. It was a potluck meal. They all brought food as they were able. Some were rich, some were poor, some were masters, some were slaves, but they all brought what they could bring, whatever they could afford, they all brought it, and they all ate together. Nobody was left out. I am a firm believer because of this truth that I see in the word of God, not just here, I see it throughout the scripture when the early churches come together and they're having a fellowship meal. A fellowship meal, a church fellowship meal should never exclude anybody. to ever knowingly exclude anybody. First of all, nobody in the church should ever feel like I can't come because I can't bring a really, you know, a fancy meal. I can't bring, you know, I can only bring rice and beans. So what? Bring rice and beans. It's not about the food. And we forget that sometimes because we like to eat. But we need to remember, it's not about the food. If you want to eat, come enjoy the fellowship and then stop at McDonald's or stop at Burger King or wherever on the way home and satisfy your belly. It's not about the food. It's about the fellowship. So that's why we have kind of moved away from. And here, I have done this intentionally. And I'm careful. not to try and dictatorially impose my will on the church, but I really believe that charging for a church meal is wrong because it's naturally going to exclude some people. And we ought not do that. Now, some people may just not come because, hey, I don't go out to eat. I don't pay for a meal. I'm not going to pay for a meal to come. I'm not going to come to church and pay for a meal to eat there. I don't do that. I buy groceries, but I don't go out to eat. I don't pay for a meal out there, so I'm not going to pay for a meal at church. Some people just, there's just something about it. I'm just not going to pay for a meal to come to church. Some people can't afford it. And we can say, well, somebody else will pay for it. Yeah, but nobody who's in that position where they can't afford it wants to be in that, wants to, first of all, have to say, I can't afford it. And number two, to be obligated or beholden to somebody who's going to pay for their meal. It is pride. And it is wrong, I grant you. But the simple solution is just don't charge people for a meal, a church meal. Let's just come together. If we need, if the church needs to help provide it, then we'll provide it out of the general fund. We'll buy the food, as they're gonna do someday, and everybody else can bring what they can, and we're gonna eat together, and we'll eat, and if we run out of food, and you don't get enough, then stop somewhere on your way home and finish it off, and let's just enjoy being together. Because that's what it's about. It's about fellowship. And so let me just quit with that, okay? All right, well, let's close with prayer. We'll come back to this next Wednesday night. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for its clearness and in the simplicity of it, Lord. And we tend to sometimes just create confusion and unnecessary baggage. Lord, help us to be discerning as to what is really helpful to us as a church. and what is just dragging us down or hindering us, Lord, that we would have the focus of ministering to people and that everything that we do would, first of all, consider what Your Word says, and secondly, consider what will be the greatest help to the people that You have put in our care. Help us to love one another and to encourage and help one another. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.