What is the Church?

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Hey everybody, I'm Pastor Jeff Durbin with Apologia Church. I wanna thank you all so much for watching the content right here on Apologia Studios channel.

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What you're about to watch is a sermon, a message from Apologia Church's worship service. And again, I wanna thank you all so much for watching, for liking, for commenting, for sharing the sermon itself.

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We truly believe that it's important for the Christian church to have an engagement in the public square with the word of God.

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So we thank you so much for partnering with us to send this out across the world. I just wanted to say something before you actually watch this, and that is that I'm not your pastor, though I'd love to be,

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I am not your pastor. And it's very important as you're watching this, you know that it's

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God's design for individual Christians to be part of a local Christian church under the care of qualified, faithful, biblical elders.

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And so as much as we love all of you watching these sermons and we're thankful to God that God uses them to bless you, to encourage you,

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I do wanna encourage you as a minister of the gospel to get plugged into a local body of believers, particularly,

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I think important, a reformed church would be best, but we wanna encourage you to get plugged into a solid biblical church where you can fellowship, where you can worship, where you can serve, where you can be connected.

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That is vitally important and actually a biblical command. And so as much as again, as we love for your participation, your partnership, and we are so thankful to God that he's using these in your lives, we wanna encourage you to get plugged into a local church.

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You can though, actually partner with Apologia Church as we proclaim the gospel and provide a defense of the biblical gospel all around the world.

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You can do that by going to apologiastudios .com. You can partner with us by becoming all access.

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When you do, you help to make all of this possible and you get all of our TV shows, our after shows and Apologia Academy, all of that.

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And you're a part of all that God is doing with us in the world to proclaim, herald the gospel of the kingdom.

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You can partner with us. And I wanna say one last word about that. Do make sure that none of your giving and partnership towards Apologia Church interferes with your giving, your worship, your tithes, your offerings to a local body of believers in your area.

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So thank you again so much for watching these and sharing them. God bless you. All right, so we're gonna take a little bit break.

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We've been going through the Kingdom of God series for a while now in the book of Matthew. And tonight we're gonna get a little off subject.

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I was given an assignment by Pastor Luke and we're just gonna kind of talk about the local church. We're gonna talk about kind of an in -house sermon.

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We'll get back to the Kingdom of God series soon. But I just wanna talk tonight about, and I got a lot to say,

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I got a lot of notes, so I'm gonna be as quickly as I can. We're not gonna really stop on one specific verses.

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There's a lot of verses that we're gonna move in and through. But we're gonna talk about the healthy and the effective local church.

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What do we do as God's people? What do we do as the sheep to make our church as healthy and as effective as we possibly can?

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We can be an asset to the church or we can be a burden to our church. And I don't know about you, but I think we got a pretty good thing going here at Apologia.

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It's amazing to see God's hand of blessing upon us and what he's doing day in and day out, week in and week out.

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Blessing the socks off us. There's so much we have going this year, so much to do. So I just wanna look at, what do we do as brothers and sisters?

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What's our part to play in the overall health of a church? Because it takes all of us, right?

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Takes all of us working together to do all that we can to make this church as healthy and as ministerially effective as possible.

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If we work together and relate to one another as a family and obey and support our leaders, we'll have an increasingly healthy and effective church.

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Let me say that. This is kinda, if I can kinda smash or smoosh everything I'm gonna say down into one cohesive thought, it'd be this.

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If we work together and relate to one another as a family, obey and support our leaders, we'll have an increasingly healthy and an even more effective church.

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And that's what I want. We wanna reach more people with the gospel, right? We wanna take more dominion for Christ in this little space of Phoenix that he's called us to live in.

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Ephesians 4, 15 through 16 says, "'Rather, speaking the truth in love, "'we are to grow up in every way into him "'which is the head, into Christ, "'from whom the whole body joined and held together "'by every joint with which it is equipped.'"

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And that's you and me, right? "'When each part is working properly, "'makes the whole body grow "'so that it builds itself up in love.'"

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So I wanna kinda talk about maybe four main points, four main thoughts that all work together to kinda unravel what it means to have a healthy and effective church.

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We're gonna talk about the glorious church. Is it really worth all of my effort? Is it worth all of my resources, putting everything

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I have, doing my part? Is it really worth it? Then we're gonna talk about a right mentality. I think who you are upstairs, your mind drives your actions.

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And unless we have the right mind about the way that we see church, the way that we see ourselves, the way that we see the mission that God has given us, it's not gonna really play out in real life.

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We have to have the right mentality. Then we're gonna talk about how do we work and relate with one another, and how do we obey and support our spiritual leadership to create the biblical church, the healthy church that God wants us to have.

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Like I said before, this church has been such an answer for Jess and I, my wife and I, and the kids.

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We've been seeking God for a spiritually healthy atmosphere, and I can go on and on about how

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God has blessed us so tremendously, just with you, just being here, serving with you, helping you.

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And I don't know, it's just so much in my heart, I don't even have words to explain it. But the church, this church for us, in so many ways, has been the answer that we're looking for.

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I'm thankful to God that continually, that we can stand shoulder to shoulder with you in going about fulfilling the great commission that God has called us to do, your blessing.

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The church isn't a four, it's not four walls. It's not a place here in Tempe. The church is the people.

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I think one of the greatest things about God saving you and giving you a new heart is this love for the brethren, this spiritual camaraderie that we have here.

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Just this, just this environment. It's an incredible blessing. So the church, this church has been an answer, and I want to do everything

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I can with all the strength that God has given me for as long as he gives me to only contribute to the health and the life of the church, to only serve you the best that we can and I can.

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That's my whole goal, and I'll be here until I die. The church has always been the answer.

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If we're gonna talk about what do I do to help make this church as healthy and effective as possible, we need to talk about, like I said, is it worth my effort?

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You know, the church has always been the answer. The world cries out, and the

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Christian church answers. We've been doing it for thousands of years. And we lead in every single aspect of serving our world and serving our neighbors, whatever ailments, whatever issues that are going on in the world, they cry out, we answer.

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We've been doing that for thousands of years. They can, like Jeff said, they can have us to thank. You think of issues like global starvation, we lead the way in giving.

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We've given billions to the world to help people eat. Global sickness and suffering, the church has built thousands upon thousands, probably 10 ,000s of hospitals all throughout our history.

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We've sent thousands of medical personnel all throughout the globe to care for people who are sick and people in need.

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We win there. You know, dirty, disease -infested water, it's a huge epidemic, especially across Africa.

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What is the church doing right now? We just dig thousands of wells to provide fresh water to deal with that infectious disease that's spread through dirty water.

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Yeah, we're there. I mean, the list goes on. Proper government, the church supplies that.

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Technological advancement, we win, industrial expansion. I mean, the list goes on. We are there to answer the world's issues.

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We're there to bind up the brokenhearted. We're there to help and to serve. And like I said, the whole world down through the millennia has us to thank.

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This is a really good quote. It says, Christianity is responsible for the way our society is organized and for the way we currently live.

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So extensive is the Christian contribution to our laws, our economics, our politics, our arts, our calendar, our holidays, and our moral and cultural priorities that historian

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J .M. Roberts writes in The Triumph of the West, we could none of us today be what we are if a handful of Jews nearly 2 ,000 years ago had not believed that they had known a great teacher, seen him crucified, dead, buried, and then rise again.

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The church has always been there. Their church will always be there. That's just on the natural realm. Jesus calls us to love the

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Lord our God with all of our strength, heart, and mind, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. And that's what we do, pouring out into the world, serving the world, loving them the best that we can.

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That's just the natural aspect. Think of the spiritual aspect of how important the church is.

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The church is the most powerful and unstoppable force on the face of the planet and will continue to be.

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We will continue to expand. We will continue to gain ground for Jesus. More and more people will be saved.

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Jesus will continually trample under his feet and continue to do that, his enemies, until he comes.

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We're taking this globe. We're taking dominion. That is the testimony of the scriptures.

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Why? Why is the church powerful? Why is the church unstoppable? Why can't the church be defeated?

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Because resident in the lives of the people of God is God himself. Ephesians 3 .20

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says, now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we can ask or think, according to the power that works within us.

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What is that power that works within us? That's God himself in our hearts doing his work through us.

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One of my favorite scriptures is in John chapter 14. Jesus saying, I and the Father will come and make our home within you.

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Romans 8 .31 says, what then shall we say to these things if God is for us? Who can be against us?

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The church possesses the only saving message that is the sole power to bring the spiritually dead to life.

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It is not messages found in any other religion, any other holy text. We have that message, and it's the only power unto salvation.

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Romans 1 .16, you guys know it. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes to the

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Jew first and also to the Greek. So what I'm showing you is the church is worth it because the church pours out itself and its life into the world to serve the world.

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And what's more important than the world's ailments and the world's issues being solved is the spiritual side of the things that we need to be concerned about the state of our neighbor's eternity.

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And God has created the church to get the gospel out. Church is the only source of spiritual light in this world.

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Matthew 5 .14 -15 says, you are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.

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So I said all that really quickly. Just to say the church is glorious. The church is wonderful.

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I love the church. Like I said, soon after God saved me, gave me a new heart, about 18 or 19,

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I just fell in love and I immediately knew that my life was to be with the people of God. My life was to be in the house of God, pouring everything

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I have out for Him. It's worth the toil. It's worth the challenges because we're all sinners in here.

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It's worth the blood, sweat, and the tears. It's worth all our effort, all our strength, all our time, all our resources.

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So the question is, have you come to that conclusion in your own life? As God has saved you,

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He immediately connects you into His family. Isn't that amazing? God saves us by His grace. And He doesn't just consign us to a different part of the universe that you think

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He would do because we're all rebels against Him. No, He adopts us into His family, brings us close to Him, and then connects us one with another.

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I think we're gonna be the biggest possible asset we can to our local body and the church at large.

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We have to determine within our own mind, within our own self, that this is worth it. And what that takes is it takes mentally breaking away from the mind of the world.

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It's being transformed by the renewing of your mind and the trajectory of life that you're going and what you see valuable in the goals that you pursue.

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It's all about kingdom -minded focus now and not selfishly focused.

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It needs to go, I think, for us to really work together and play the roles that God has given us from an intellectual ascent, just some static intellectual knowledge about the church being worth it and about my role in it to a primary conviction that totally runs my life.

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It's how I see everything. I go to work. I go to work because this is what

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God has called me to do. I lead my home because this is what God has called us to do, to be a part of this community.

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When I was 19, God saved me, maybe 18 or 19, there was a specific day when I was thinking about my own life and what

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I wanted to pour myself out into. My dad is a really successful general contractor, so I was thinking about maybe

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I'll just take over in my dad's shoes. I was thinking about being a cop. But it was just a certain day after God had saved me that he had brought me through the scriptures, and it was at that time when he opened up my mind to not only his will, but what he's doing here on the earth.

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I wanna share with you just a couple scriptures that God really brought me through to get into my heart and get into my mind, that he wanted me to be with the people of God, that he wanted me to plant myself in the community of God, that he wanted me to do everything

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I can for his purposes. That first scripture that he brought me to is Proverbs 9, 10, and it says this.

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The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

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So at that time, you're thinking about, God, what is your will for my life? What am I doing upon this earth? What do you want me to do?

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He brought me to this scripture that talks about we don't look inward to find the will of God.

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We don't look inward to find the will of anything. There's no information inwardly, and that's what the flesh wants to do.

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That's what the world wants to do, is you discover self to figure out what you wanna do, what you wanna set your heart to.

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But that scripture right there says it's the knowledge of the Holy One that is insight. It's actually not the knowledge of self, it's the knowledge of God, and when we seek him to understand him, then he's gonna enlighten our mind.

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Then he's gonna tell us about who we are and the path that he'd want us to walk down. And then he brought me to Isaiah 46, 9 through 10.

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Says, remember the former things of old, for I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things not yet done, saying my counsel shall stand and I will accomplish all my purpose.

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So that previous verse says, man, it's not about you, it's not about your plans, it's not about my purpose, it's not even about my will, it's all about him.

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God says his counsel will stand, his purposes will prevail. So we're thinking about our lives, if we wanna do something that has eternal ramifications, if we wanna do something that's worthwhile, it's all about discovering his will.

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Then Proverbs 19, 21 says this, many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the

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Lord that will stand. We can have many plans, and at that moment I was making plans for myself.

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And just thinking, wait a second, no. I don't wanna do, I don't wanna do something just out of my own whim.

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I just don't wanna look into self, as I said, and do whatever it is I wanna do. I wanna do something that has eternal value to it.

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And so the question through all of that was Lord, what is your purpose? Your purpose is gonna stand. Nobody's gonna thwart your purpose.

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You're gonna do everything that you wanna do and accomplish, what are you doing? And then finally, the last verse in this kind of just like trek through the scriptures that God brought me through was

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Matthew 16, 18. We all know it, it says, I tell you, you are Peter, and on that rock

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I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. So at that moment, after reading that scripture and having

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God through his scriptures speak and say, I'm building my church, this is what

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I'm doing. This is the purposes that no one will thwart. This is the plan that I have. I am building my church,

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I am building my people, and nothing is gonna stop that pursuit of his. Nothing is going to stand against him and resist his will.

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And so that was it for me. I was totally solid. I mean, I was solidly fixed that God, I understand what you want me to do.

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It's not about me, it's not about you revealing your will for me. It's about me joining into what you're doing and becoming all that I can to support you and to care for the church that you've given us.

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If I desire a worthwhile life's pursuit, then investing all of my heart, mind, and soul into the people of God is the right choice because it's investing in the work of God himself on this earth.

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Stuff is gonna be in the dump. Accomplishments that we have that we kind of pile up for ourselves, isn't it gonna be forgotten?

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Money will be gone. And so you have to really determine for yourself, are you really pouring all of your energies out for your own self -exaltation, your own self -advancement, for what the world is running after, the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life?

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Is that what you're doing? Or are you seeking to build the kingdom of God?

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Are you gonna play the role that God has given to you? Like I said, our mentality, the way that we see life, the way that we see self, it drives everything we do.

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Our actions proceed from our words, and our words from our thoughts, the way that we are upstairs, the way that we look at life, the way that we think about things, the way that we relate with one another.

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It absolutely has an incredible effect on how we function in the church, how we function in life.

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If we're gonna have, really gonna contribute to the health and the effectiveness of apologia, and play the roles that God has called us to do and be, then it starts upstairs.

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You gotta have that right mind about it. Your mentality is gonna dramatically affect the way that you relate, the way that you cooperate, the way that you serve.

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Philippians 2 talks about, I mean, you look all throughout the New Testament, when the

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Apostle Paul, the other writers are talking about the church, the mind comes up so much. Have this mind in you.

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Be of one of the same mind. We know that if we're gonna transform the way that we live, we're gonna start doing the will of God practically, applying the scriptures to our life.

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It begins in the mind. Philippians 2, four through seven says, let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

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It says, have this mind among you, which is yours in Christ Jesus. Although he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, listen, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of man.

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Of course, Philippians chapter two is absolutely loaded, talking about the mind of Jesus, his condescension,

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Jesus coming in the incarnation. But really, the mind of Christ, the servant heart or servant mind of Christ, it covers everything.

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It applies to every area of life. We're talking about church life. Tonight, he talks about, you know, of course, dealing in all issues of family life, your role as a wife, your role as a husband, your role as a coworker.

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The mind of Christ is the right mentality that we need to assume to live out the life that God has called us to do.

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You know, we're either, you think about ministry, if you think about church and being involved here, we are either gonna have a self -centered mentality, a servant -centered mentality, or we're gonna have a me -centered.

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Or a mission -centered mind. So you're gonna have a self -centered mentality or a servant -centered mentality or a self -centered mind or a mission -centered mind.

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I think, you know, if you think about it, the me -centered mentality or the self -centered mentality asks things like this when it comes to life in the church.

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How can the church and its leaders fulfill all my wants and my desires? How can the church promote my agenda that I have?

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I have a way, I have a plan, I have a path for myself, and how can the church and everybody

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I'm around fulfill those desires and actualize my own plan? How can

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I use the church and its resources for my own self -exaltation? One guy in scripture, it's in the third book of John, the little third book of John, is a guy called

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Diotrephes. And Diotrephes got everything wrong. And sometimes

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God puts people in our life, and especially in the scriptures, that teach us how to do the right thing by them doing everything wrong. But Diotrephes, he was just horrible.

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He came into the church, I don't believe he was actually born again, but he is an example of what not to do and how not to interact with your brothers and sisters and your leaders.

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But third John 1 .9, we're gonna look at Diotrephes a little bit later down the road, but third John 1 .9 says this.

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I have written something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority.

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So Diotrephes came into the household of faith, crept into the household of faith only thinking about himself, looking at the church, looking at everything that the church was doing and trying to promote his own self, trying to self -exalt.

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But that's not what God has taught us to do. That type of mentality is super destructive to the forward momentum, the movement of the house and the family of God.

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I think the mission -centered mind or the servant -centered mind that Jesus so typifies is how can

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I serve my brothers and sisters, my leaders, to accomplish the mission Christ has given me?

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Not my own mission, not my own desires, not my own wants, but how can

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I serve, how can I lay myself down? We're gonna use people in life as stepping stones for our own promotion.

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That's what the flesh does, that's what the world does. Or we're gonna lay our lives down to use our own selves as a stepping stone for our other brothers and sisters, for their maturity, for their blessing, for the overall health, for the overall advancement of the church.

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That's something that we have to decide. We gotta decide if we're gonna do it or not. Are we gonna have a mission -centered mind?

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Are we gonna have a me -centered? How can I serve my brothers and sisters, my leaders, to accomplish the mission

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Christ has given us? How can I contribute my resources to best strengthen the church?

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How can I give it all so that we can move farther, go larger, and do all that God has called us, really die for Christ?

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That's the role of the Christian, laying yourself down, spending everything you have for the glory of God, and then go to heaven forever.

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That's what it's all about, right? Philippians 2, one through three says, so if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the

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Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord, and of one mind.

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You see that word mind, the mentality, always comes up in Pauline teaching. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

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It's about Christ. It's about my brothers and sisters. It's about giving everything

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I have. Now, here comes an important, I think, caveat in all of this. Maturity in the

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Christian life is all about balance, right? We do come to church to be served.

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We do come to church to receive. I've been talking all about pouring out your life as Christ did, pouring out your life into the people of God, looking past you and your desires and your wants and your aspirations, but we do.

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I don't wanna falsely represent this here, that the key to it is not one with the exclusion of the other.

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It's not a if and, or it's not an either or, but it's a both and, right?

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Now, I come to the church, I'll tell you one thing, the greatest thing in my life is coming to church, is going to Reach Group, is going out to the mill with you, is just being in community with the people of God.

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I love it. Spiritual equipping comes, fellowship, love, camaraderie, care, joy in the presence of God.

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We come here to receive. So I'm not saying it's all about pouring out. You really, you have to come to get.

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You have to come to receive, but not to the exclusion of the giving that God has called us to do.

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Not just coming to receive only and to keep it there, but to the pouring out of yourself.

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You know, this kind of thought, and it's really super prevalent, this kind of personally centered, self -centered

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Christianity that excludes everybody else is actually super prevalent all throughout the

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Christian church, is something called false pietism. I don't know if you ever heard of that, because pietism is actually a good thing.

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Pietism is really synonymous with godliness, becoming more like Jesus Christ. But this kind of false pietism, it came about in about the late 18th century, and it was really rooted in this teaching that had infected the church and began to infect the church at that time.

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But it really has infected all of the church, a lot of the American evangelical church. But it's main emphasis was to separate the personal

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Christian life from the public Christian life. That its whole intent was to get you focused on self, and that was the pious or the right thing to do.

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And any involvement in the culture, any involvement really outside the doors of the church or away from the assembly of God was something that was wrong, was we were not called to do that.

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We're not called to make an effect on the culture. We're not called to change things. That's what false pietism is.

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It's a church and a body of believers focused inwardly on their own selves, their own activities, creating within them a subculture within a culture that really has no effect.

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And don't you see that a lot in the American church? I mean, you can go to a church and walk through the doors, and I've done it a lot.

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It's like you walk back in the 1970 or 1980, this church has become a complete subculture within itself that has no effect on the culture around it because that's false pietism, because we believe it's all about the personal.

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It's all about the self. I'm just here for me, myself, and I, or us four and no more, just me and my immediate family.

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That is really, that thought has bred itself into the life of the American church at large, and it has made the

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American church so increasingly ineffective. You know, the state of the nation is such a barometer and such a test of the way that the church has gone, and because that false pietism has crept all throughout our church and this nation, nobody thinks it's worthwhile to get out there and preach the gospel or to bring the word of God to the marketplace.

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Now, this is false pietism. How does it rear its face? Building in budgets and people become the standards of success.

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Worship songs, if you see it, are centered on the personal. It's all about me and Christ.

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It's all about emotion and experience and sensationalistic activity. It's all centered on me.

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Jesus has gone from our captain leading us out of the church into the fields to preach the gospel, our king of kings, to my boyfriend, right, that just wants to send me love notes and maybe give me some flowers on my birthday or something like, you see what we've done is it changes everything.

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It changes the way we see everything. All discipleship in this environment, discipleship is focused on just us, our own operation as a church.

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Now, remember what I talked about, balance. We do come together to worship. We do come together to break bread and to have community and to study the word of God.

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It is about our local flock. It is about us coming together and learning and growing and serving one with another, but not to the exclusion of our public ministry, not to the exclusion of going outside of the four walls and making an impact into our nation and into our city and changing things with the power of God in the power of the

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Holy Spirit with the word of God. But we need to really, I think we have to do, and I know

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I was a part of this type of thinking, this mentality for so long. We really need to self -evaluate and take an internal inventory.

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Are we carrying that kind of baggage that we've learned inside of our church experience, which is keeping us from serving, which is keeping us from connectedness to the house of God because you've been taught that it's just all about you, all about the personal.

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You have to confront that false thinking, that false pietism in your own mind and heart and understand, no, you've been called to greater things.

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You've been called to more glorious things. You've been called to victory in Christ, to lock arms and arms with your brothers and sisters in this house, gaining ground for the kingdom of God.

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Every single one of you, all the regenerate. So a

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God -centered, others -centered, mission -centered perspective enables us to view ourselves and our brothers and sisters and our leaders in a biblically balanced way that affects how we interact and how we work together.

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It starts in the mind. If we have a servant -hearted, mission -centered mind, we'll function well together and continue to produce for the kingdom of God.

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I kind of already said that. So how do we function? How do we relate one with another? Now, the church is described as many things in the scriptures as sheepfold, building, flock, bride, spiritual stones.

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But I really wanna focus on two descriptions of the church, two classifications of the church and really unpack these and they're gonna help us learn how we relate and function one with another in order to be as healthy and as effective as we can.

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The church is the body of Christ. That talks about how we function together. But the church is also the family of God and that speaks to how do we relate with one another.

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How we relate with one another, how we function together weighs heavily on our health and our effectiveness.

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So we're gonna talk about the church is the body of Christ. First Corinthians 12, 27 says this. Now, you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

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One of Jesus' purposes, Jesus had manifold purposes as he came in his first incarnation, right, was to do so much to defeat the works of the devil, to do all the work of redemption that will ever be needed for the salvation of all those that are

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God's, all of God's sheep. But he also came to glorify the Father in every single way, shape or form.

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He was the perfect God -glorifying man. John 17, four through seven says, I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you have given me to do.

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And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.

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Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Jesus says, I have come, and Father, in his high priestly prayer, back to the

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Father, I have glorified you. I have manifested your name. Glorifying God is representing him on the earth by putting upon his characteristics.

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God, Jesus completely did that, explaining to God fully. He's the final and full revelation of God the

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Father. God the Son gave perfect glory and honor to the Father by perfectly representing his character.

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Hebrews 1, three says, he is the radiance of the glory of God. Now, we glorify and honor the

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Father by being daily conformed in likeness of his Son, and by playing our part and fulfilling our role in the body of Christ.

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So think about it, Jesus came, and one man, the perfect God -man, perfectly radiance the glory of God, giving him all of it, perfectly describing him, perfectly revealing who he is, but we don't do that as just one man.

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My glorifying of God, of course I glorify him in and through my life, but now it's not about one man, one body, one person.

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It's about all of us becoming one man. That's what the scriptures say. It's about all of us playing our role and being a certain body part that God has given us, has made us to be.

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Christ is most, listen, Christ is most clearly glorified on earth in the context of a body of believers.

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That is how he shines forth. Psalms 52 says, out of Zion, right? Out of the presence of the people of God, the perfection of beauty shines forth.

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And so when people say that, and I don't know about you, but many people have said to me, I don't need the church. I don't need the institutional church.

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I don't need the organization. And then they'll just go on to blast everything about the church, right? I've just got me, myself, and I.

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But you understand, no, that's not the way God has designed us to operate. We glorify

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God in the context of one another, with connectedness to one another. God has designed us to give him glory in and through the body of believers.

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The God -glorifying life is found exclusively in and through the church, in and through involvement, in and through serving the church, in and through playing your role practically, day by day.

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1 Corinthians 12 talks all about the body of Christ.

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1 Corinthians 12, 12 through 27. Paul says, for just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many are one body, so it is with Christ.

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For in one spirit, we were all baptized into one body. Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and we were made to drink of one spirit.

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For the body, listen, does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, because I am not a hand and do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body.

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And if the ear should say, because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body.

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The whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? The whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?

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But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them as he chose. And if all were a single member, where would the body be?

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As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, nor again the head to the feet,

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I have no need of you. On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, hold on to that word, indispensable.

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And on those parts of the body that we think less honorable, we bestow the greater honor. And our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require.

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But God has composed, so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care, one for another.

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If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together.

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Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. Hear that? Hear that if you've never belonged to a church and you're here today?

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You are part of us. God has sovereignly called you to be here and we just have to kind of own that, that you just didn't happen to walk through the doors, that this is no accident that you're here.

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The Bible says that God works all things in conformity with the purposes of your will. You're meant to be here and you're meant to be with us.

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You're meant to be planted in here. If we are truly a body, if that's who we are as God's people, we're the body of Christ.

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Listen, the Christian has no purpose or no functionality outside of the body of Christ. You have no purpose outside of it if that's who we are.

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If we're supposed to be one cohesive body, you cannot function in the Christian life at all unless you're connected to the body.

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Just think if you cut your arm off right now and you threw it away from yourself, what would happen to your arm?

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Well, your arm would be useless, it would be purposeless, it would be lifeless and it would just start to stink, reek.

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That's what happens. That's what happens when people, when Christians begin to disconnect themselves from the body from giving and loving and being connected, you become useless.

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I've seen it, it's horrible, but you see it in so many ways. I've had so many friends and so many close associates, whoever that I've dealt with that have had an initial

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Christian experience, but then they disconnect from the body. And what happens?

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Everything tanks, everything goes downhill. I'll say it again, there is no purpose or functionality outside of the body.

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We cannot, we must not be divided. If we're really gonna have this mission mind, if we really wanna see

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God continue to move in and through us saving babies and saving souls and going all over the world for the glory of Christ and for the advancement of the kingdom of God, we cannot divide.

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We have to strengthen our home base so that we can be stronger in whatever it is

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God has called us to do. But division is something that just cannot be in the language of the Christian man and woman, just like divorce, right?

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It's just something that we cannot, it cannot be a part of our thinking, cannot be a path that we can take down.

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First Corinthians 110 says, I appeal to you brothers by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be what no divisions among you, but that you may be united in the same mind and in the same judgment.

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If we're truly a body, can't function outside of the body of Christ, but if we're truly a body, then everyone, like Paul said, is absolutely indispensable to the overall functionality of the church and the mission of the church.

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You are absolutely indispensable with what we're doing here. You're not me,

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I'm not you. We all have different giftedness. God has put us all in different roles. We're all fingers and toes and butts.

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Yeah, I'm a butt. You see what I mean? We all are ears and noses and whatever it is that you may be.

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You're not called to be me and I'm not called to be you, but understand that the spirit of God has given you giftedness.

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He's called you here specifically to play your own role. Are you doing that?

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Are you doing what God has created you to do and commanded you to do so that we can be stronger, so that we can be more healthy?

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You need to kind of own that. You kind of have to let that sink down into your heart. You're absolutely indispensable to us.

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Every Christian, if we're a body, is mutually dependent on one another to accomplish the goals of the church.

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It's not just one person doing it. It can't be. That's not the way it works. We move together as one or not at all.

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We move together in a united way or not at all. It's just not the way God has designed it to work, this

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Lone Ranger type of Christianity, this I'm just gonna do something great for God so people can just know who

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I am, sing my praises. That's what the flesh wants, right? That's what the flesh wants to do. That's not genuine

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Christianity. It does nothing for the glory of God. And in the end, it's just gonna be all burned up. I don't want on that day when

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I stand before God for all of my work to be burned up because it was really all about me and all about my own glory, guised in spiritual

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Christianity, guised in I'm doing this for the Lord. But we know that we humble ourselves and become a part of a body and serve, play out our role.

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It's not gonna be all for his glory. It's gonna be all for his namesake. Think about a second baseman is only effective in the context of a team.

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He can't play third base. He can't be the pitcher. He can only play his part and he has to depend on his fellow ballplayers and those ballplayers have to depend upon him to accomplish the goal of winning the game.

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You see what I mean? You see what I'm getting at? We're the body of Christ. This is how we function together. We depend on one another so that we can go about accomplishing what

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God would have us to accomplish. Every Christian must be inseparably connected to one another.

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A disconnected body is a non -functioning body. So if your heart is for the glory of Christ, if you really wanna do the will of God on this planet, then you don't separate.

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No matter what, come hell or high water, if you get offended, you can go ahead and cry about it for a little bit, right?

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But you don't just blow out. You don't do that. We see that there's so much church hopping because of false pietism, because we come into a church and we immediately think it's, how are they meeting all of my needs?

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When the proper Christian mentality, the mission mind, the servant mind is, no, I'm here for them.

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I'm here for us. And no matter what, I'm gonna stay. No matter what.

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Disconnecting, leaving is just, I can't do it. I wouldn't cut off my leg and chuck it away from me and just say, oh,

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I can just go about doing all that God would have me to do with a missing leg. So we have to see not only our own lives and our own goal, our own role, but we have to look at one another in that same vein, treating one another with honor, treating one another with respect and love because we need one another.

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See how it all works together in the will of God. Every Christian must be,

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I think I just said that, inseparably connected, a disconnected body is a non -functioning body. We have to rest in the fact that God has sovereignly chosen us to be here right now, functioning together as a body.

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So like I said, just ask yourself questions. What's your role in this body? What's your role here?

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You're valued. You're absolutely needed. Know that. We can't accomplish the goals without you.

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I think a good response when you think about you being the body of Christ is, how can you get connected if you're not?

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Because once you get connected, it only strengthens us. Once you get connected, we only run farther and do more for God.

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True Christian living is always in community, connectedness with the church. So we're not only the body of Christ, that's how we function together, where the church is the family of God.

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First John 3, one says, see what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God and so we are.

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Matthew 29, 49 through 50 says, and stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, here are my mother and my brothers.

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For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.

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We have to relate one to another as if we're brothers and sisters. And that's a game changer too, if we really saw each other as spiritual brothers and sisters.

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Because you think about your own family. I mean, family is huge. Family comes first. Just think of some implications of relating one to another as actual brothers and sisters.

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One of the greatest things I said about being saved is the love of God that he pours out into our lives, the

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Bible says, and you have such a love for your sisters and brothers, regardless of who they are.

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I mean, you can go all around the globe and you have this immediate spiritual connectedness because the Bible says we've been given all of one spirit.

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It's the spirit of God within us that connects us and that is just so amazing. It's just, there's nothing like it.

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I love the family of God. I love the house of God. There is that spiritual connectedness, but we need to see each other as brothers and sisters.

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Think about it. A family works together for the good of the family and their purposes in life. That's what families do.

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They work together for the overall big picture of the good of the family. You know, we have our kids do chores every single day.

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And just like I did to my dad, I complain about it. I just wanna go do my own thing. But what we try to instill into our kids when we're telling them to do chores is, hey, we're a family here.

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We're a team here. Let's think about the health and the overall good of our family and what

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God has called us to be. And that's the right mentality. That drives good behavior. That drives not just this begrudging spirit to go about the tasks of the family member, but you wanna.

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You wanna do it. You wanna do well. You wanna excel for your family. Family members don't tear each other down, but we work to build each other up.

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We don't use our words to destroy. We use our words to build up and give life. Family members, important, don't gossip about one another.

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Well, they do, but we shouldn't, right? We don't gossip. A gossip is just like a grenade going off in the life of the church and your family when you tear down your brothers and sisters with your words.

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It's something that cannot be a part of the household of faith. Family members serve and care and protect one another.

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All that is done for the big picture and the health and the mission of the family. Family members play their role, do their part, share the load of responsibilities, and your family, like I said, is your family whether you like it or not.

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Can't get a new family. That's the same thing with the Christian church. You can jump and hop from church to church, but understand when we do that, it's all about us.

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We're really just seeking something that we need, seeking something within the church that is fulfilling our own desires, but that's not what it means to be a part of the family of God.

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Like I said, we are here for the benefit of the family, laying our lives down for one another. If we look at each other as brothers and sisters, immorality and impurity, they kinda go out the door, right?

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Because we don't do those things with our brothers and sisters. You can see this understanding of family and this appropriating that into our lives changes everything.

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It's a game changer. Body of Christ, the family of God, loyalty, loving brotherly fellowship, joy, togetherness, strength, they all flow out of the family of God only if we relate to one another as spiritual family members.

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A healthy church has members that function together as a unified, cohesive, and loving, lovingly relate to one another as a family.

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Now, do you do that? Do you see us as your family? Do you see yourself as an integral part of the family of God that is absolutely needed here?

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Do you see yourself like that? Do you relate one with another? I am kind of an introvert. I like my own time.

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I'm kind of an extrovert introvert, but don't excuse yourself. A lot of times we say, you know what? I like my me time.

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I like my own time. So therefore, I don't want anything to do with the people around me. I just, it's just me.

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I like my time. I like my time at the house chilling. You know, I'm kind of that introvert, but I don't want anything in my own heart and mind to make an excuse not to be a part of the family of God and connect with my brothers and sisters all throughout the week because it's not about me.

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What God wants to do in and through us, it's bigger than me. I want to lay my life down through it. I want to get past challenges that keep me from doing all that I can do to create the healthiest church that I can because it's my family.

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It's a body that God has called us to belong to. The last section we're going to talk about before I wrap it up is that a healthy and effective church obeys and supports their elders and spiritual leaders relating to one another and serving one another is absolutely integral.

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It's absolutely crucial to a healthy church. It's absolutely crucial to the effectiveness of church. What is even more crucial is how you relate and how you function with your spiritual elders and with your deacons.

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A healthy and effective church obeys and supports their elders and spiritual leaders.

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It's what Hebrews chapter 13, 17 says. It says, obey your leaders and submit to them for they are keeping watch over your souls and those who will have to give an account.

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Let them do this with joy and not with groaning for that would be of no advantage to you. Now question, when you hear that verse and you think about obedience, obeying men that God has placed in your life, that God has ordainly called to serve this church, what were the first thoughts that came up in your mind when you hear the word submission and obey?

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Well, sometimes we cringe, right? Because obedience and submission, they're not the way the world works. Obedience and submission are the way of the spirit.

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Rebellion is the way of the flesh. So we immediately, because we're sinners, still dealing with our sinful nature, we immediately will recoil when we think about obedience to anyone or anyone at all.

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In our sinfulness, we see obedience as weakness, subjugation, manipulation, enslaving, totalitarian.

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When in actuality, and this is so important, submission and obedience are empowering, liberating, life -giving, the means of increased blessing.

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And what the biblical writers say in relation to us and our spiritual leaders, it's advantageous.

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It's to our advantage that we obey those that God has called us to submit to, the qualified elders and the qualified deacons that God has placed before us.

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It's to our advantage. The world won't tell you that. They say, oh, I remember when we got married and we had obey in our vows.

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Was it our vows? I think so. And people just recoiled when they heard that word obey. And that's what we do in our flesh.

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Who are you to tell me what to do? I'm my own man. I walk down my own course doing whatever

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I want. That is the way of the flesh, but that's not the way of the spirit. That's not the way of the

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Christian. We are called to obey. Then all the realms of government that God has placed in our lives is only for our advantage and it's only for our blessing.

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You think about civil government. The Bible says that let every person be subject to the governing authorities.

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There is no authority except from God. And those that exist have been instituted by God. This is civil government.

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Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed. And those who resist will incur judgment.

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For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority?

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Then do what is good and you will receive his approval. For he is God's servant. Listen, for your good.

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But if you do wrong, be afraid for he does not bear the sword in vain for he is the servant of God and an avenger who carries out

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God's wrath in the wrongdoer. Civil government submission to our governing authorities is to our advantage.

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Family government, Ephesians chapter five talks about the wives submitted to their husband. Wives submit to your own husbands and to the

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Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body and is himself its savior.

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Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything to their husbands.

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Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. That's why wives are to submit to the authority and the leadership of the husband.

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So in the same vein, the husband can pour out himself, his whole life, everything that he is for the benefit of the wife and the family.

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So submission to the husband only brings about blessing, only brings about everything that God would have for us.

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Self -government, 1 Corinthians 9, 25 says, every athlete exercises self -control in all things.

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It's talking about the government of self. They do not receive a perishable wreath but an imperishable wreath as we would govern ourselves the way that God would have us to be.

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And lastly, church government. Ephesians four, eight through 13 says, therefore it says, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men.

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That's so important. In saying he ascended, what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth.

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He who descended is the one who ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things.

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Listen, he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and the teachers to equip the saints for the work of the ministry for building up the body of Christ until we all attain the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the son of God.

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To the mature man, to the measure, the stature, the fullness of Christ. Did you see that there when it comes to the gift of God's giving his gifts to the church in the way of the fivefold ministry offices, our pastors and our spiritual leadership are gifts given to us.

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Ruling elders are our gift and submission to them is always to our advantage.

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But in a big but, we can make the lives of our leaders difficult.

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And in so doing, it's not advantageous for anybody. It dramatically affects the health of a church.

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It dramatically affects the goals that God would have the church to accomplish if we as the body make their job harder.

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It can alter our own spiritual health, the health of the church and everything else. Hebrews 13, 17 says, again, obey your leaders and submit to them for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account.

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Listen, this is to us, let them do this with joy and not with groaning for that would be no advantage to you.

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I don't know about you because my mind is mission centered because my mind is about the family that God has called me to be and I want everything,

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I want the family of God and the church of God to be as healthy and powerful as possible. That is why I obey.

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That is why I do all that I can to be a functioning member of the body of Christ. You see that, that the motive is bigger than me.

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It's outside me, it's about our mission. It's about the battle that God has called us to. We want our spiritual leaders all the time to lead with joy and not groaning because of us.

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So an important question is how can we make our leaders groan? How can we make it hard for them to rule and to lead?

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How can we be, how can we inhibit what God is doing here? How can we frustrate that?

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How can we clog the hose of all that God wants to do? Well you know what we do to leaders is we dehumanize them.

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We do it on two extremes. We elevate them in our own minds and hearts to a position only reserved for God and treat them like that or we lower them to a position and we don't obey what they'd have to do with us.

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So we either exalt them to a position that they're not supposed to be at, only reserved for God or we devalue them and demote them to a position that they shouldn't be at either.

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This is what happened in the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 3, one through five. It says, but I brothers could not address you as spiritual people but as people of the flesh.

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As infants in Christ, I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it.

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And even now you are not ready, you are still of the flesh. While there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?

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Well when one says I follow Paul and another I follow Apollos, are you not being merely human? What then is

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Apollos and what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed as the Lord assigned to each one of us.

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So of course the Corinthian church was in a bad way. Now we're not the Corinthian church.

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We got a great church going here. I'm not saying that we're the Corinthian church. But what they were doing is they were exalting the

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Apollos. They were saying, you know what, you might be of Paul but I'm of Apollos. So they were putting their spiritual leaders in a position that they weren't supposed to be in.

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And we can treat our leaders that way to their detriment. Things that we do when we have that type of mind, that unbalanced mind, looking at our leaders as we can flatter them, worship them, envy them, obsess over them.

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We can become very self -righteous too with them because we put them up on such a pedestal and then we hang out with them and we see that these guys are just sinners like me.

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These guys are not the gods that I had thought that they were. They sin, they're jars of clay like the rest of us and we can become very self -righteous and we can become very gossipy about our leaders, tearing them down with our words because we have put them on a place of exaltation that they shouldn't be.

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We learn they're human and then we tear them apart. Do that to leaders all the time. So God does not want them to be in the place of God.

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They're not in the place of God. Are we to revere them? God has built into each one of us a proper reverence for our spiritual leaders and that's a good thing to honor their position, to honor who they are and the men that God has called us to be but never to worship them.

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Or we can devalue them and that's going to the other extreme by not submitting to their leadership and counsel and rule.

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Coming to church week after week and hearing them challenge us and hearing them lead us as they pour into our lives and look into our lives and the

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Bible says care for our souls. We can take their counsel and we can take their authority and we can just dismiss it and not doing anything about it, not applying it to our lives, not bringing it home into the heart and actually doing what they have called us to do.

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That's how we devalue them. Like I said, Diotrephes is a perfect example of what not to do.

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Third John 9, 10 says, I have written something to the church but Diotrephes, who likes to put him first, does not acknowledge our authority.

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So if I come, I will bring up what he is doing, talking wicked nonsense against us and not content with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers and also stops those who want to and puts them out of the church.

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You see, Diotrephes completely encapsulates everything I said not to do, right?

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He did not submit to the authority of the ruling elders. He talked wicked nonsense and gossip about them and he refused to look at his brothers and sisters as brothers and sisters and not welcome them.

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So a rebellious, non -submitting spirit and talking poorly against our leaders is destructive to them and to you.

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Works against everything, like I said, God wants to accomplish in your life spiritually and in us as a community together.

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Just something that cannot be a part of our lives. I've seen, and I'll tell you, man, with some ministry friends and pastors,

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I have seen this happen in their lives. God had put me in different roles all throughout my

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Christian life of youth pastors and associate pastors and just working in different positions in the church and I just make friends with church guys next to me and just hear them tear down their spiritual leadership.

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And from an early age at 19, I actually saw these guys begin to do that with their mouths and their actions and it would just absolutely self -destruct each and every single one of them.

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I remember sending them messages, just telling them, begging them, don't, stop what you're doing here.

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You're not looking at this the right way. This is only gonna be detrimental for you and your spiritual walk.

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But when we do these types, when we take that role of diatrophies and we begin to tear down with our words and not value our leaders, it always destructs, destroys ourselves.

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Running a church is so super hard. I mean, you have to be an absolute moron to run a church if you're not called to do it.

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If you are not called to do what God has called you to do, it is almost spiritual suicide because of the difficulty of what

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God has called a spiritual leadership in our church and all the churches around the earth to do. It's so absolutely rough and it's difficult and in light of the weightiness of the responsibility that God has given our wonderful pastors and leaders and deacons, we wanna do everything that we can to support them.

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We wanna do all that we can to where they won't have to groan when it comes to leading us and caring for us and shepherding us.

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We want them to be full of joy, full of strength. First Timothy 5, 17 through 19 says, "'Let the elders who rule well "'be considered worthy of double honor, "'especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.

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"'For the scripture says you shall not muzzle an ox "'when it treads out the grain "'and the laborer deserves his wages.

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"'Do not admit a charge against an elder "'except on the evidence of two or three witnesses.'" So it says, "'Let the elders who rule well "'be considered of double honor.'"

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And then it shows you practically how you can honor your elders. And it says, "'The laborer deserves his wages "'and do not admit a charge.'"

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So what does that mean practically for us? Is that we support our church through our giving.

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We give of the finances that God has given us, we give. Like Pastor Jeff says continually, we don't wanna sin in the offering, bribing

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God and withholding what God has commanded us to give for the betterment of the church, right?

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Giving is so crucially important. We support them by giving to the church, baptizing our officers so we can go about doing the work of the ministry in the strength that God has called us to be.

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We all have that mind that God has called me to give for the strength of the church and this is a way I honor

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God, obey his word and honor my spiritual leadership and help them to be as healthy as possible.

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That motive will help you to give what God has commanded you to do. That's just what the scriptures say here.

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We also support them by not allowing any gossip or negative talk. Now, there are times when a charge can be levied against an elder or somebody in spiritual leadership.

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The Bible says there has to be two or three witnesses and we'll deal with that. But to ensure your leadership is as spiritually healthy as possible, you don't let people talk badly about them.

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You don't let that gossip happen in the house or outside of the house or wherever it may be. You don't let that unless it's a legitimate charge.

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These are just the practical ways that we relate with our leadership. These are the practical steps that we can take personally as part of the body of Christ to honor them, to ensure health in the church, to ensure increased effectiveness.

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Why honor again? In support, in submit, in obey, ultimately we have to look at the big picture of the mission that God has given us.

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We don't want what God is doing to be hindered. We only want what he wants to do and continues to do to be even more successful, even more fruitful.

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Exodus 17, eight through 12 says, then Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim. So Moses said to Joshua, choose for us men and go out and fight with Amalek.

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Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand. So Joshua did as Moses told him and he fought with Amalek while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill.

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Listen, whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed. And whenever he lowered his hand,

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Amalek prevailed. But Moses' hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it while Aaron and Hur held up his hands one on one side and the other.

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So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun and Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword.

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This is such an incredible picture of a leader who grows weary in the battle and what does he need?

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He needs his brothers to come up, right one to the right and one to the left to steady his arms so that the victory can be won.

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So think about that as it relates to your own life, as it relates to how you function in the church and you play out.

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Do you want to see the mission accomplished here in Apologia? I do. I want to see more.

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It's glorious what God is doing. The amount of babies that God is saving, the gospel going all throughout the world through YouTube, people being saved out of cults.

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This is why we do it. This is why we give. This is why we come and get connected and let our roots go down deep into the body of Christ because it's all about the mission.

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It is not about me. It's all about the glory of Christ. It's all about the advancement of the church who knows what

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God can do with us. I'll tell you one thing, I am stunned at the giftedness of the people in this church.

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The quality of you stuns me, every single person that I talk to. It's like I can't believe the amount of loving relationships

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I have with so many of you and I want to have more with you. God has given us, you are just an indispensable asset to this church and I pray as I go through maybe some difficult subjects about the health and the life of the church that you can just see this as a brother who loves you and all these words are spoken in love and all

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I want to do in the days that God has given me here is to serve you and to help us to become more strong and it desperately takes change.

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It desperately takes self -inventory. It desperately takes you looking inward just to see whether or not you're obeying the scriptures and being that part of the body of Christ, a family member that God has called you to be.

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Our health and effectiveness in the battle that God has for us is determined on how strong and how healthy and supported our elders are.

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If they're weak physically, if they're beaten down because of our inactivity in supporting them, it's on us.

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But I don't know about you, I want them to serve well, joyfully, in strength.

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But we gotta do it together. Gotta give all of us, gotta serve every single one of us. If you don't know what it is that God has called you to do, talk to your pastors.

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Make an appointment, they're fun. A little crazy, but they're fun, right? Talk to them, know where you need to go, what you need to do, serve, love.

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Look at each other as brothers and sisters. Have you resolved to give your whole heart and strength to the betterment of a church?

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Have you made that resolution? Has it gone from just an intellectual understanding of biblical knowledge to a primary conviction that runs your life?

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Have you let your roots go down deep to a place when you let those go down, you say, I'm here for good, nothing is gonna move me.

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Of course, the Lord would have to move you, that's the only thing, but I'm good. Come hell or high water, offense, no offense, praise, no praise,

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I'm here, this is my family, I'm a part of the body. Are you connected to your brothers and sisters in loving community and service?

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Go out to dinner with your brothers and sisters, go to reach groups, come serve with them. Do everything that you can do to practice and connect, because in so doing, you will grow spiritually and we will grow even stronger as a household of God.

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Are you honoring and supporting and obeying your spiritual leaderships? That is absolutely crucial for your own spiritual life and for us as a body.

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As I said, man, I love this church, I love you guys deeply, even though you might not know me up here,

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I do, I'm sold out for Christ, I'm sold out for the kingdom of God.

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I only want to serve, I only want, like I said, to see

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Christ glorified in his church, move forward powerfully. So I hope, as you've heard all this, that you know it's spoken with love and a lot of humility.

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Let's just think about our life and let's move here, thinking about ways that we need to change and some practical steps that we need to take on our own.