FBC Morning Worship Service

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, good morning to you who are moms. Happy Mother's Day. Say more about that in just a few minutes, but glad you're here today and trust you're going to have a good day celebrating mom.

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If you are a mom, that you are duly honored today for the very, very important critical role that you play in our lives.

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So welcome moms and everyone else. We've come together today to worship the Lord and that's the main thing, and that will be the main thing of our service today.

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But also, before we begin, I want to express appreciation to all those who came and helped yesterday.

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We had a really good turnout for this workday and got a lot of stuff done.

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One of the some of the obvious things, if you look around, replace the roof on the garage, put a new metal roof, steel roof on the garage out there, finished up the new bathrooms, the remodeled bathrooms in the back.

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Those are fully functional now and ready to be used finally, and thank the

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Lord for that. I've got some windows washed and power washed the siding.

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I finished setting up the parents lounge and did just a whole bunch of other little detail stuff too.

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So let me do this. I was going to rattle off the names of people who helped, but I knew

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I was going to forget somebody. So if you came yesterday and helped even for 15 minutes, would you just stand and let us, come on, go ahead, come on, don't hesitate and stand, let us say thanks.

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So appreciate it so very much. You guys, you worked hard and we got a lot done and we're done for most of us before noon.

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So that was a wonderful day, very good day. So a couple of other things to bear in mind today, we get back to the six o 'clock evening service schedule.

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So this evening we'll be back here for evening service. We plan to begin a new series in the book of Mark.

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The Gospel of Mark and I enjoy the Gospels and each has its own unique flavor, if you will, but we'll introduce the

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Gospel of Mark tonight in the evening service. Then a week from Wednesday.

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So May 19th is the next gathering of the young married single adults time.

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That'll be here at the church on the Wednesday night time. But we originally were going to have a light supper for that group, but the light supper is going to be for everybody.

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Anybody who wants to participate, Wednesday night at six o 'clock on May 19th, we'll serve a light supper and then go into our midweek times together with our different groups.

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So plan on that. If you would like to join the supper time, let us know, there's a sign -up sheet on the foyer bulletin board, and obviously we need to know how many to plan for for that.

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So again, this is Mother's Day and we like to recognize moms in different ways, and we're not going to do any of the funny stuff today, like who's the oldest mom, who has all that kind of stuff.

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I'm not going to do that. But as you leave today, we have the traditional flower for every mom and for everyone who has a mom, and ladies, today we have that for you.

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Then I got a book for some young moms that I want all the young moms to have and take home with you.

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You say, don't give me a book because I'm a young mom and I don't have time to read. Yeah, I get that.

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But nevertheless, this is a short one. It's only 158 pages long and the last several pages are notes.

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So you're in good shape. But anyway, this is entitled, Created to Care, God's Truth for Anxious Moms.

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So all the young moms. Now, I thought after I got this, I said, I got to find a book.

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If someone has written one somewhere, I got to find a book for moms of adult children.

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You know, I see some adult moms or moms of adult children saying, yeah, you wouldn't shake your head like this because your kids are sitting right next to you.

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But nevertheless, if I find one of those, we'll have books for everybody then.

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But anyway, so young moms, please pick up a copy of this on your way out. All ladies, take a posy home and enjoy the added color to this drab, dreary day.

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Well, we have come together to worship the Lord today. Psalm 85 verses 7 and 8, the psalmist implores the

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Lord, says, show us your mercy, Lord, and grant us your salvation. I will hear what

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God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace to his people and to his saints, but let them not turn back to folly.

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I will hear what God the Lord will speak. He will speak peace to his people and to his saints.

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Let's worship our God who speaks. Jim, please come and lead us. Thank you,

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Pastor. It's on page number 57 in your blue supplements, your song books, number 57.

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Speak, O Lord. Let's all stand together and sing all three verses together. Stand. Deep in us, shape and fashion us in your likeness, that the light of Christ might be seen today.

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In your acts of love, in your deeds of faith, speak,

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O resist, for your glory through humility.

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Test our thoughts and our attitude to see your majestic love and authority.

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Words of power can never fail. Let their truth prevail.

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Speak, O Lord, and renew our minds. Help us grasp the height of your plans for us.

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True sun changed from the dawn of time that will e 'er face.

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We'll stand on your promises, and by faith we'll walk as you walk.

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Speak, O Lord. The earth is built, and the earth is built with your glory.

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Remain standing. Dan, would you come and lead us, please? Father, again, we thank you.

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We praise you for your grace and your mercy this past week. Father, we're so thankful that we can come and worship you to hear your word,

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Father, your word which gives us light unto our paths, gives us purpose, gives us direction.

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Father, we need to hear from you today. We thank you for our pastor. Help him,

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Father, as he brings your word. May the Spirit go forth boldly, and Father, may we be receptive of the blessings this day.

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We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. In the back of your bulletin is a psalm we want to read,

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Psalm 95. And then following the reading of it, we'll sing it from the psalter.

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As you notice, the tape is gone from the different pews. I do want to encourage you to continue spreading out as much as possible.

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One of the things I kind of liked about the taping of some of those pews is that it compelled some to move forward.

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That's a pastor's thing, isn't it? Everybody sit up to the front. Anyway, so we kind of spread those psalters out.

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Make sure there's one near you that you can use here in just a few minutes. Psalm 95. Follow along as I read this psalm together.

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The psalmist writes, So come, let us sing to the Lord. Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation.

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Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving. Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.

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For the Lord is the great God and the great King above all gods. In His hand are the deep places of the earth.

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The heights of the hills are His also. The sea is His, for He made it, and His hands formed the dry land.

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O come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker. For He is our

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God, and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. Today, if you will hear

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His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, as in the day of trial in the wilderness.

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When your fathers tested me, they tried me, though they saw my work. For forty years

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I was grieved with that generation and said, It is a people who go astray in their hearts, and they do not know my ways.

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So I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter into my rest. So in the

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Psalter, 203, Jim's going to come and lead us with that song. 203 in the

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Red Books, the Psalter. We'll sing all four verses together now with joyful exultation.

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Now with joyful exultation, let us to the

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Lord take praise. To the Rock of our salvation,

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Thou, Hosanna, let us praise. Thankful tribute gladly is coming,

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For endless psalms and praises singing,

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Joyful in His presence bound. For how is the

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Lord of whom we sing. His head our earth's deep places,

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His the strength of our races,

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His the land of our birth.

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To the worship at His feet,

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Be our spirit great.

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Well, as we pray together today, let's continue to pray for Jodi Knapp. Jodi's been transferred.

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I guess most of you probably got that prayer update the other day that she was transferred to a rehab facility in Sycamore.

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When I got the word of that from her daughter, I wrote back and said,

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I assume this is a positive development. She wrote back and said, Absolutely, it really is.

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There's a lot of firsts, if you will, in her care.

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One of them is that she has survived when most others who got that sick have not.

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She's the first one that received a tracheotomy at CGH and has been moved out to continue the facilitation of her recovery.

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The Lord has been very gracious in answering prayer for Jodi and we want to thank

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Him for that. But continue to pray for her. She's got a long road to go yet in her recovery, obviously.

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But pray for her, pray for Bob, that God will continue to give him strength and encourage him in this whole ordeal in their battle with COVID.

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We also want to pray today for Chuck and Ruby Kemp from Missionaries of the Week. Chuck serves as an evangelist and Ruby herself has chronic ongoing health concerns.

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I'm going to pray for that couple. Let's look to the Lord, shall we? Our Father and our

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God, we're thankful that somewhere in our nation's history it was determined that we should set aside a day where we honor our mothers.

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It is certainly a worthwhile thing to do, to consciously set aside some time where we honor our mothers and their sacrifice of life and effort and time and energy for the care of their children, for all that they do in the home.

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And we are so grateful for them, for the roles that they've played in our lives. Those of us who are married to women who are mothers, they have contributed so greatly to our families, to our marriages, and we are deeply indebted, the men here today, to the wives and mothers that are part of our families.

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We thank you for the gift that they are to us, to our homes. We thank you for how you have, in your word, lifted up and elevated the role of motherhood and highlighted many mothers in the

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Bible who are praiseworthy and honorable.

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Thank you even especially for the mother of our Lord who showed such a wonderful example of submission of life and carried that throughout her earthly life and caring for and then submitting to her

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Son as her Savior. Now, Father, we pray for moms today, those that are new and new to motherhood.

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We pray that you would give them strength and energy, wisdom, understanding, patience.

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We pray also for mothers who are old, whose children are grown and have left the nest, living their own lives and pursuing their own families and their own careers and so forth.

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And I pray that all moms today, young or old, would be remembered and respected by their children.

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Father, we also pray today, though, for moms who are lonely. There are some who are confined in nursing homes today and they will not be able to be visited by their children.

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I pray that you would encourage them and give comfort to their lonely hearts.

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There are moms who are longing, longing for repaired relationships, longing for their children who've been estranged to return to them and to the

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Lord, to you. There are moms who are grieving today because their children have hurt them deeply.

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Maybe they're grieving because they've had children that have outlived and it weighs heavily on them on this day.

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I pray that you'd give comfort to those hurting hearts. But, Father, we also pray for moms who are joying and rejoicing today and thank you for them.

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And I pray that their joy would be directed to you, their praise and delight would be turned to you, would not just be joying in their children, but be rejoicing in the

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Lord who gave them their children, this heritage from you. I pray for moms that are well satisfied and just very contented in their motherhood.

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And thank you for them. Thank you for that gift that you've given to them to just find a great joy and satisfaction in this indispensable, vital role of a mother in the world as well as in the family.

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So, Father, we pray for each one and ask your blessing upon each mother today.

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We pray especially today for one mom whose life is still hanging in the balance.

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We pray for Jodi and we just pray that you'd continue to strengthen her. Thank you so much for answers to prayer regarding her life.

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Thank you for sparing her for the successful procedures that she's gone through that have allowed her to continue living.

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And I pray that as she continues into this rehab phase, that as sedation is further reduced, you would give her calmness from restlessness.

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I pray that she would be understanding and be able to respond well to directions.

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I pray that she would be encouraged by just the answers to prayer that you've already shown in her life as she comes to be aware of them.

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I pray also for Bob, that you would bless and encourage him and give him strength, and not only physical strength, but strength emotionally as he has been through so much in these last several weeks.

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I just pray that you would meet the needs of this family in a special way. I also pray for Chuck and Ruby Kempf today, and thank you for Chuck's faithfulness in preaching through these years.

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I pray that you'd use him even this year in the different meetings he can get to, and pray that there would be much fruit from his labor.

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And give grace to Ruby as well. Strengthen her in her infirmities and her affliction, we pray.

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So, Father, we commit these things to you today, and we ask for your grace and for your blessing and your meeting with us in the remainder of this service.

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And this we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. In your regular hymnals, page number 385,

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My Life is Thine, the forepastor comes with the morning message, also a reminder to those who have young children, and we have children's church if you desire for your children to be there.

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You've dismissed on the third verse to go there. And also we have the finished, what we call,

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I guess, the crying room. I'm not sure what the politically correct one is. The parents' lounge. Oh, the parents' lounge, yes.

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We have that finished. Parents' lounge, yeah. I might go back there myself. It sounds very comfy looking.

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And I walked by there just yesterday morning during work day and saw a pastor installing the brand -new whiteboard, and so it's really all complete and ready to go.

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So keep those things in mind if they concern you. But let's all stand together, please.

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Number 385, My Life is Thine. My Jesus, I give to Thee every day,

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My Lord Jesus, unto Thy cross I cling, My Savior, I humbly pray,

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Receive the gifts I bring today. Lord Jesus, my life is

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Thine, My will, my talents, and my time.

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Lord Jesus, I need Thee every day, Lord Jesus, control my thoughts,

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I pray, My Savior, to Thee I bow,

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Come melt me, mold me, use me now. Lord Jesus, here is my heart,

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Oh, cleanse and fill it in most part. Lord Jesus, although my flesh is weak,

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Lord Jesus, it is Thy will I seek,

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My Savior, my God and King, Accept the simple gifts

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I bring, Lord Jesus, I am

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Thine own. Come rule this King on my heart.

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Please be seated. So for our scripture reading this morning,

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I want to turn to Romans chapter 12. Romans 12.

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We will likely deal with this entire chapter, but I want to read verses 1 through 8.

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Romans 12 verses 1 through 8. The Apostle Paul is writing to the church.

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This is a local church in the city of Rome. We have no idea how large that church was.

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We don't know a lot of details about that church, but it was a local church.

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And he says to this church, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.

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And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

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For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God hath dealt to each one the measure of faith.

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For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another.

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Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them.

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If prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith. Or ministry, let us use it in our ministering.

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He who teaches in teaching. He who exhorts in exhortation. He who gives with liberality.

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He who leads with diligence. He who shows mercy with cheerfulness.

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Brief word of prayer. Father and our God, I pray that we would realize the incredible importance of life in the body.

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Open your word to us today to see this importance. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.

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I realize that what I'm about to say is to relegate myself to a period of ancient history in this world, but here you go.

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Do you remember the television show back in the 1960s called The Addams Family?

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Some of you are going, yep. Most of you are going, the what? Because I'm relegating myself to ancient history.

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I mean, that television show was so old, it was in black and white, but I still remember some of the jingles associated with that.

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And there was one, I don't know if it was actually used, that television show's jingle to create a commercial or if we did it in school, but it went like this.

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They're creeping and they're crawling and Uncle Fester's bawling. He's bawling because he lost his favorite

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Parker pen, his Parker tee ball pen. I think it might even have been a commercial, but it had to do with The Addams Family.

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Well, there were a lot of creepy characters in The Addams Family. The main parents,

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Gomez and Morticia, were themselves a little off, although they looked sort of semi -normal, but then there were others in the family,

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Cousin It. Cousin It was like a big ball of hair.

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And then there was Lurch, big, tall, creepy kind of guy,

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Lurch, and then there was Uncle Fester. He was a little different as well.

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But really, the creepiest thing, the creepiest thing in The Addams Family was

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Thing. Thing. Could you imagine if you came to my house and we're having a little conversation in the living room and you're sitting in the couch by the end table and there's a box on the end table.

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And we're just chatting away and all of a sudden, out of the corner of your eye, you see the lid on that box open by itself.

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I mean, it just opens up. And you're a little startled and you turn to look and as the box opens up, a hand comes out of that box and offers you a piece of candy.

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Or worse, wants to shake hands with you. I mean, that would certainly knock you off the couch.

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That was Thing. Thing was this disembodied hand that would do different things to help out around the house and so forth.

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I even had, when I was a kid, I had a bank. I think it was a battery -operated bank, but it had a bank that was a

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Thing bank. And you would put a coin on this little slot at the top of the bank box, it was like a box, and when you put the coin in that slot, the lid would open up and Thing would come out and grab the coin and take it back and drop it into the box.

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Now look, if I had such a thing in my home, you would not want to hang around there.

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Because you would recognize that a hand, a disembodied hand that functions by itself, running around a person's house that's stored in a box, you would rightly conclude there's something wrong with that house.

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There's something wrong with those people. There's definitely something wrong with Thing. No, we understand and we recognize that hands belong connected to a body.

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And ideally, normally, that hand would operate in orchestration with the rest of that body.

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It would be orchestrated by what happens with the rest of that body. We understand that.

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But look, this is the way it is with the church. One of the three main images of the church is that of the body of Christ.

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It comes out in this passage that we just read a minute ago. And remember we said there are three main images that the

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New Testament presents of the church. And each of those images has to do, or emphasizes, a different relationship that the church has and a different role or function of Christ in that image.

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So, for example, we said first of all that the church is the bride of Christ.

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And the emphasis in that image of the church as the bride of Christ is our relationship to Christ himself.

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And Christ in that relationship is the bridegroom. So the church is the bride of Christ.

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But then another image of the church is the building of Christ. And the emphasis of the church as the building of Christ is the relationship of the church to the world.

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And the role that Christ plays in that image of the church as the building is he,

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Christ, is the chief cornerstone. But then this third image of the body of Christ, the church as the body of Christ, it emphasizes our relationship to each other.

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And in this image, the role of Christ is that of the head of the body to which all the members of that body of Christ are connected and are controlled.

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So Romans 12, this passage that we read part of it, read about half of it,

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Romans 12 elaborates on life in the body. Life in the body.

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And what Paul makes clear in this chapter is that for you as a believer, you are not to be a thing.

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You're not to be a thing. Functioning as some kind of disembodied appendage doing your own thing.

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No, you're not to be a thing. Instead, you and I are to be consecrated, integrated members of the body of Christ functioning in loving harmony with the rest of the body.

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This is the thrust of Romans 12. Now, I may not actually get through this whole chapter this morning.

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I kind of am doubting that I will. But if not, then you'll have to come back tonight to get the rest of it.

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But anyway, and then I'll put Mark off for a week. But anyhow, let's notice first of all that the foundation of life in the body is personal consecration.

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The foundation of life in the body is personal consecration. This comes out in verses 1 and 2.

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These are probably two of the most familiar verses in the book of Romans and certainly in the

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New Testament when talking about the subject of the will of God. I want to know what

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God's will is for my life. And you get taken to Romans 12, verses 1 and 2. And it's important to go there.

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But I want us to realize that these two verses are not in isolation.

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And we can tend to do that when we zero in on favorite or popular verses of the

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Bible. We can lift them out of the context. We memorize them. And we can then apply them in different ways.

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And sometimes when we do that, we end up applying those verses, not necessarily in wrong ways, but not in the primary way in which the writer, in this case

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Paul, intended it to be understood. So let's look at this foundation of life in the body because, look, from verses 3 and following,

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Paul is addressing life in the body. So verses 1 and 2 are just kind of setting the stage or laying the foundation of actually being a productive, integrated member of the body that is living in harmony with the rest of the body.

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Personal consecration. What is involved in that? Well, let me suggest a few things.

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Obviously, the first thing is presentation because he says, I beseech you by the mercies of God that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice.

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That sacrifice, obviously, is the idea of consecration. Presenting of your body.

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And this presentation of your body is a response to God's infinite mercies.

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Paul has been really just elaborating on and laying out the infinite mercies of God in the first 11 chapters of the book of Romans.

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In fact, look at how chapter 11 ends. Oh, the depths of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God.

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How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out. And he ends in this expression of praise and exaltation to God for his ways, his marvelous ways, his incredible, incomprehensible ways.

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Ways that are expressions of his mercies and so forth.

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So Paul says on the basis of those mercies or as a response to those infinite mercies, present your bodies and do so, he goes on to say in this presentation, as a living sacrifice that is pleasing to God.

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Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, which means this is an ongoing thing.

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Be presenting your bodies as a living sacrifice, as an ongoing sacrifice, as a day by day, moment by moment, sacrifice to God.

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Present your bodies as a living sacrifice. And in this presentation, he ends verse one by saying that this presentation of your bodies as a living sacrifice that is holy and acceptable to God is your reasonable service.

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That could be translated as your logical worship. Your logical worship.

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I like to think of it this way. This presentation of your body as a living sacrifice to God, set apart to God, it's pleasing to God, this is the logical starting point in your spiritual service.

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In your relationship as an integrated member of the body of Christ.

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This is the logical starting point. This is what Paul is saying. That word that's translated service here is not talking about what a bunch of people did yesterday in serving the

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Lord. Coming here to the church and doing a bunch of work and so on and so forth. And by the way, as I think

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I mentioned last week, serving the Lord isn't limited to that kind of thing. I mean, it's a broad topic and I'll save that for another time.

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But nevertheless, what you who came here yesterday did was,

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I believe, this is your heart, you came serving the Lord. You helped out with things that need to be done here at the church.

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But you did this because you love the Lord and you were serving the Lord. But that's not what this word is talking about.

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It's not talking about some kind of work. The word that's translated service is really a technical word that has to do with worship.

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It's the kind of activity that would be engaged in in a worship service, if you will, in a time of worship.

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So what Paul is emphasizing is that your worship of God as part of the body of Christ begins here.

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It begins with personal consecration, the presentation of your body.

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Well, this personal consecration secondly involves separation.

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Separation. Because verse two says, and do not be conformed to this world.

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So you begin with this, this personal consecration begins with the presentation of your body to God, but then also involves separation from the anti -Christ and anti -God system that functions dominantly in this world.

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You could literally translate the beginning of verse two in this way. Stop being assimilated into the world system.

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Stop being assimilated into the world system. Stop being assimilated into the way the world thinks, into buying into the values that the world holds dear.

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Stop assimilating yourself to the norms of the world.

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What the world says is, these are the standards, this is the standard, this is the normal way of thinking, the normal way of living.

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Let me apply this in one particular way. Because I think this particular influence of the world system is subtle and has made its way into the thinking of many in the church, broadly speaking.

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So in your bulletin there, there is a little blurb about a new book that we put out on a bookshelf.

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I'm trying to remember the name of it off the top of my head. It's something about being bad people. That we are the bad people.

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The point of that book, the idea of that book, is that Christians, that used to be thought of as being good, contributing members to society, are now looked at as being the bad guys.

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We're the bad guys. Well, in that book, one of the things the author brings out is the dominant idea that authenticity or being, quote, true to myself has become one of the highest, quote, virtues in our day.

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I just want to share with you what he has to say here. Then I want us to draw a parallel and a connection.

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Help us understand how that has affected the church. Here's what he says. He says, authenticity, that idea of being true to myself, is a solo game.

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It's a thing. It's a thing. It's a disembodied member thing.

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It's a solo game. Here's what he writes. He says, in our culture, being true to oneself is the goal of life, the pathway of happiness.

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Now, having just said that, are you like, well, yeah, of course it is.

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If that's your response, then what I want you to get is you've assimilated.

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You've assimilated into the world's way of thinking. Let me continue on and help us understand this.

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He says, we have developed this a priori conviction that self -fulfillment is our highest good.

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Such a view would sound strange, indeed almost incomprehensible to someone from, say,

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Eastern Africa, where, listen, individual desires are subordinated to social, religious, and family commitments.

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Authenticity is about fulfilling one's duty to one's community.

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He goes on to report that missionary friends among Mozambique's Yao people report how even walking alone is not a thing there.

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When I asked him how an introvert could exist within such a culture, I was told that if you are walking along the road in a group, you don't have to speak, and people will respect that.

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But the thought that you would walk alone would not even cross the most introverted mind.

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Why? Because of that commitment to the community. He says even in the

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West, such community bonding was evident until quite recently.

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Christianity, rooted in less transient communities than we have now, Christianity assumed that self -denial, not self -expression, was the path to social cohesion and common good.

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To refuse self -denial was to refuse life. He says, he asked, why am

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I making so much of this? He said, because this, because we too, Christians, who sign off on the creeds, who recite the prayers of confession and share communion and the occasional lunch, we

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Christians are steeped in the individualistic narrative of the authentic self.

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Now, what I want us to understand is that this thinking has resulted in what is really an unprecedented situation in relationship to church.

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We are living in an age now, in an era now, where for the first time in our nation's history, fewer than half of the people of this nation identify with a local church.

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That's unprecedented in our land. And so what has developed in this way of thinking, that I live for myself,

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I live for myself, self -fulfillment is the greatest good, it's the highest good in all the rest of that. This way of thinking has resulted in an unprecedented, listen, it's resulted in an unprecedented isolation from the local body of Christ, while at the same time using it for personal self -fulfillment and not engaging in any self -denying commitment.

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Do you get that? Let me say that again. This idea, this notion, that being true to myself and self -fulfillment's the highest good and I'm committed to myself, what this has done in so many of even professing believers' minds is it has resulted in the unprecedented isolation from the local body of Christ while using the church for personal self -fulfillment and there is little if any self -denying commitment.

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We just don't do that. Now see, to the extent that believers in Christ have come to think that way, because remember that statistic

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I mentioned a minute ago that fewer than half the people of our land, far fewer than half now, are members of a local church, there's still far more than that 40 -some percent, far more than that, who attend church.

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So what they're doing is they are using that place, that body, for personal self -fulfillment but not committing themselves to it.

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Well, this is the way of thinking that has crept into the church from the world and we have assimilated ourselves to that way of thinking.

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Consecration of the self, personal consecration, involves presentation, it involves separation, and thirdly, thirdly in our text, beginning of verse two, it involves the transformation of our entire worldview.

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It says, Stop being conformed to this world and be being, literally here, be being transformed by the renewing of your mind.

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The ongoing, the ongoing, present tense, transformation of the mind that results in a completely different worldview from that of the rest of the world that is trying to squeeze you into its mold.

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But this aspect of personal consecration, the transformation of your entire worldview, is what's behind the motto of our church.

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It goes, one of the things we say a lot here, that we seek here at Faith Baptist Church, we seek to discover what

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God is like and what God likes. Why? For personal self -fulfillment or whatever?

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No. No, we seek to discover what God is like and what God likes so that we might love

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Him and love others more deeply and live for Him more faithfully.

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Transformation of your entire worldview. And then, fourthly, consecration involves not only presentation of myself, the presentation of my body, separation from the world, transformation of my entire worldview.

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It involves, in the last part of verse 2, a demonstration of God's will.

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We present ourselves to the Lord, our bodies, in response to the mercies of God as a starting point, a logical starting point for our spiritual service.

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We reject conformity. We don't let the world squeeze us in its mold.

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And instead, we're transformed by the renewing of our mind so that we might demonstrate what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

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Now, what I indicated earlier about verses 1 and 2 is that we generally tend, and I'm speaking broadly here in Bible -believing churches that are interested in what

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God has to say, we generally think of Romans 12, 1 and 2, and especially this last part of verse 2, from the standpoint of God's will as the framework of my life.

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But this, what Paul is talking about here, he's not so much talking about what

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God's will, now let me get this distinction here, what God's will is for my life, he's concerned about what

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God's will is for my living. Here's what I mean by that, that distinction.

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Our cultural American interpretation of Romans 12, 1 and 2, and especially the end of verse 2, is that God's will has to do with the framework of my life.

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The framework of my life. I want to know what is God's will for my career?

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What career does God want me to pursue? And the younger we are, the more interested we are in figuring that out.

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What is God's will for my career? Does God want me to be a businessman? Does God want me to be a homemaker?

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Does God want me to be in full -time Christian ministry? What is God's will for this big framework decision that I have to make for my life?

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What is God's will for me regarding marriage? Does God want me to be married?

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Does God want me to stay single? Well, if he wants me to be married, what is God's will for me for a spouse?

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Whom does God want me to marry? Now, I'm not suggesting for a moment that those are not important questions to ask, but those aren't the questions that Paul is concerned with here.

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These big framework of life questions. What Paul is really zeroing in on with the will of God is not so much the framework of life, but the living of life in whatever framework

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I'm in. You see, are you married? God has a will for your living in the framework of married life.

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Are you single? God has a will for your living in the framework of singleness.

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Are you a homemaker? God has a will for your living as a homemaker. Are you a teacher, an instructor?

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Are you a businessman? Are you a... Whatever the framework of your life is,

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God has a will for your living in that framework, and that's what he's focusing on.

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That's what he's concerned about. He wants you. He's exhorting you. He's beseeching you on the basis of the mercies of God, his abundant mercies.

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He's exhorting you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice to God, this ongoing, everyday sacrifice of your body to God.

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That is the starting point of your spiritual service for God.

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Stop allowing the world to squeeze you in its mold. Don't live in the framework of life, whatever that framework is, being squeezed into the world's mold.

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Instead, let your mind be transformed by the renewing of that mind through God's word so that whatever your framework of life is, you can know how you ought to be living in that.

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Now, here's the thing. He answers that question of what is

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God's will for my living. He answers that question in relationship to life in the body with the rest of this chapter, life in the body of Christ and the rest of this chapter.

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And he moves here from an exhortation to the individual.

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Each of you present your bodies as a living sacrifice to God to then living in the framework of the body of the church in the rest of this chapter.

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So you notice how he says at the beginning of verse three, for I say, for I say, what

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I have just said now has bearing on what I'm about to say. And what is he about to say?

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That the form of life in the body is that of integrated members, integrated members.

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He says this here in verse five, verses four and five, as we have many members in one body, physically,

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I'm not a thing, a disembodied hand. We have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function.

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So we, being many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another.

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So we are integrated members. This is the form of life in the body of Christ.

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So what is God's will for life in the body as integrated members?

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Well, in the first place, we can say in verse three that integrated members, integrated members humbly evaluate themselves.

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They humbly evaluate themselves, avoiding the pitfall of prideful self -evaluation.

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Paul says in verse three, I say this through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.

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Humbly evaluate yourself. This is God's will for you in the body of Christ, where you avoid the pitfall of prideful self -exaltation, thinking more highly than I ought to think about myself.

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This can come in a lot of different ways. It can express itself in a lot of ways. You know, like, one member of the body has struggles with a particular kind of sin that you don't struggle with, and you can look down on them because you don't struggle with that sin.

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You struggle with the sin of spiritual pride, but, you know, no, you don't struggle with that sin, so that makes you better.

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Does it? Or, you know, I'm the pastor.

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I'm the pastor teacher. So, therefore, I'm superior. No. Any kind of attitude like that is prideful self -exaltation.

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Paul says, look, life in the body does not allow for that. There's not to be any prideful self -exaltation.

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Instead, what you need to do is consider the big picture. Consider the big picture and do so carefully.

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Don't think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but think soberly. Think soberly.

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Get a look at the big picture. And when you think soberly, then you start to think, you know, yeah, you know,

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I have some gifts, but, you know, so what? So does everybody else.

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Everybody else has some gifts. Or, to turn it around, to use the illustration I did a minute ago, yeah, you know what?

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He struggles with that. She struggles with that area of life. I don't struggle with that, but, boy,

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I've got this struggle over here. I really struggle with this. Yeah, I'm getting a bigger picture.

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I'm looking soberly. I'm looking soberly. And when I think about, okay,

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I have this gift, but I don't have that gift, I have this gift, he doesn't have this gift that I have, and so on and so forth, and I think soberly about it, then

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I realize, you know what? The giftedness or lack thereof does not determine the superiority of anybody in the body.

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None whatsoever. What I need to do in thinking soberly is

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I think soberly as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.

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I could translate it maybe better. God has dealt to each one the measure of faith.

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Definite article isn't there in the Greek language, but the point is that there is a standard that God has given, and we evaluate ourselves against that standard of the faith.

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What is that standard? It's not a what. It's a who. Who is that standard?

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It is Christ. I don't measure myself against you.

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You don't measure yourself against me or against the person sitting next to you or behind you or in front of you.

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We don't measure ourselves against one another. We measure ourselves against Christ.

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He is the standard. That word measure could be translated standard. He is the standard. He is the rule.

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When we measure ourselves against the standard of Christ, it puts a whole lot of things in perspective, and it destroys any notion of prideful self -exaltation, doesn't it?

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Kent Hughes put it this way. He said, A clear focus on Christ is the key to thinking rightly about ourselves, and it should be the goal of our spiritual practice.

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Look to Christ, and that'll decimate prideful self -exaltation.

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Integrated members will humbly evaluate themselves in light of Christ. But then in verses 4 and 5, notice secondly that integrated members will also deeply appreciate others in the body.

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They'll deeply appreciate others in the body. Why? Because I'll recognize I'm not an island.

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As he says in verses 4 and 5, As we have many members in our body, and not all the members have the same function.

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So in the body of Christ, we being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.

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I'm not an island unto myself. I don't live for myself. My chief end in life is not self -fulfillment.

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I have a role to play in the body of Christ. I recognize

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I'm not an island. And then I also recognize the valuable diversity in the body.

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As he says at the end of verse 4, Not all members have the same function. There is a diversity in the body that needs to be appreciated.

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It needs to be valued. I recognize that valuable diversity in the body, but I also recognize, as in verse 5, the vital unity of the body.

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We are one body in Christ, and individually we are members of one another.

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Now Paul wrote about this in more picturesque language in the book of 1

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Corinthians 12. When he wrote to the local church in Corinth, in 1 Corinthians 12, listen to what he says in verse 12.

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He says, For as the body is one and has many members, sounds familiar, but all the members of that one body being many are one body, so also is

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Christ. And in verses 15 and following he says this, If the foot should say,

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Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body? Or if the ear should say,

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Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, or a thing, where would be the hearing?

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If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body, just as he has pleased.

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I need to deeply appreciate others in the body, because I am not an island unto myself.

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There is in the body of Christ a valuable diversity that comprises a vital unity.

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Now I'm not much of one who likes paraphrases, typically, of the scriptures, because I oftentimes,

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I don't find them altogether helpful, usually. But I do appreciate the paraphrase

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Eugene Peterson wrote of Romans 12 verses 3 through 5 in his paraphrase,

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The Message. Listen to this, and I think maybe you'll understand why. He says, paraphrasing 3 through 5, he says,

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I'm speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially that I have responsibilities in relation to you.

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Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it's important that you do not misrepresent yourself, misinterpret yourselves, as people who are bringing goodness to God.

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No. God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what

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God is and by what He does for us, not by what we are and what we do for Him.

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In this way, we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around.

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The body we're talking about is Christ's body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of this body, but as a chopped -off finger or a cut -off toe, we wouldn't amount to much, would we?

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So, since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ's body, let's just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other or trying to be something that we are not.

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Yes. Integrated members humbly evaluate themselves and deeply appreciate others, and those integrated members faithfully participate in body life.

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Isn't this the point of verses 6 through 8? It says, okay, you who are in the body, what is your gift?

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What is your gift? Use it. That's what he says. We have gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us.

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Each of us does. So, if it's prophecy, preaching, the word, then preach in proportion to our faith.

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Or if it's ministry, this is, the Greek word is diakonoi, diakoneo would be the verb, doing, serving stuff, ministry stuff, just helping out with others.

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It's the word behind, it's the Greek word behind our word deacon, minister, ministering.

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And it can be in any way, any form. It says, then let's use it in our ministry.

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You have the gift of teaching, then teach. If you have the gift of exhortation, then exhort. You have the gift of giving,

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God has blessed you and prospered you in wonderful ways and you have a generous heart, give. Give with liberality.

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If God has given you a gift of leadership in a particular way, then do it with diligence.

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God has particularly blessed you with a gift of mercy showing. You have this very compassionate, tender heart of empathy toward others, then show mercy with cheerfulness.

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This is not an exhaustive list, anyway, by any means. This is a suggestive list.

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And Paul's point is simply this, however you're gifted, in the body, use it.

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Use it. Faithfully participate in body life. Now this

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I have to close, because the rest of this would take about as much time as it would have already taken and I'm not going to do that to you.

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Because you have Mother's Day celebrations to go deal with and enjoy and so forth.

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But let's get this. Let's get this. As a believer in Christ, you're to be a part of the life of the body.

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And it is God's will for you to function within the framework of that body of Christ.

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Begins with personal consecration and then vital integration in that body.

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Our Father in Heaven, I pray today that by your grace we would see the blessing, the blessing that is ours of participating vitally integrated in the body of Christ.

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And I pray that, I pray that we would begin with that point of personal consecration.

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There's one here today who has never even come to faith in Christ and is living outside of Christ.

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Oh, I pray that this morning you would so open the eyes to see, open the heart to believe and that that one today would trust

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Christ as Savior and Lord and become a part of your body, the body of Christ.

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And then there are those who are believers here today. I pray that each one of us will personally, deliberately consecrate ourselves to you and live in that consecration and then be part of a vitally integrated body of believers.

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We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, let's take our hymnals and turn to number 400.