Just As I Am

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Don Filcek; 1 Corinthians 7:17-24 Just As I Am

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak preaches from his sermon series titled 1
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Corinthians, Sinful Church, Powerful Gospel. Let's listen in. Recast Church, I'm Don Filsak, I'm the lead pastor here, and I'm glad we can all be together here in this place today.
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I say this frequently, but I am routinely amazed by the way that God brings us together as a family of faith.
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It is a glorious thing. We all come from a variety of different backgrounds and different places, and that's kind of going to tie in with the message this morning.
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But we come from a variety of places. We have varied callings. We have a wide array of gifts and talents represented in this room.
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But yet, all of that is driven, and the gathering is driven by the fact that we have one Lord. We have one faith.
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We have one baptism into the life of Jesus Christ our Lord. There is one spirit, and we have one goal of glorifying him above all else.
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And that's a glorious thing when you think about the purpose of the church and the gathering of God's people, that you can look around and you can say,
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I'm not alone in this world. The world has a variety of different values that are not consistent with lifting up Christ our
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Lord. Right? Like, how many of you know that? Like, when you're out there in the world, they don't have that in common. But here we've got a lot in common.
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And so a church is a glorious thing when we take the time to think about what God is doing in our midst, bringing us together for his glory and honor.
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And we are a variety of people brought together to exercise and grow our faith. We are brought together to practice
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God's love toward one another in community. And we are brought together to serve God and one another, what we call growing in faith, growing in community, and growing in service, the kind of the heartbeat of Recast Church.
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Our passage this morning is going to lean into the uniqueness of each and every one of us in this gathering.
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A church is kind of a paradox of sorts. We could speak all day about the things that we hold in common, but we also know that we're not all the same, right?
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We have a lot in common, but we are not all the same. What we have in common matters a ton.
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Obviously, Jesus Christ is what we have in common. But scripture also takes time to emphasize that we are not, that rather we are all different.
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We often miss the side of God's teaching because it doesn't seem helpful to emphasize it. But we are not all called to be clones of one another.
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We are not all called to look alike and say the same things and do all the same things. Our culture will drive toward conformity, everybody looking the same, everybody acting the same.
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Our hearts even drive towards conformity to some degree. In the darkest applications, what do
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I mean by conformity? Well, in the darkness of a fallen human heart, it takes the form of segregation, like even
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Sunday morning segregation, where we only worship with those who look like us. We only worship with those who school like us.
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We only worship with those of the same socioeconomic class as us, and on and on you could go.
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And so this passage in 1 Corinthians is declaring that we need not be little clones of one another.
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While we are all called to conform to the command of Christ through an obedience from hearts that are given to him, many things in our lives do not need to be changed to conform to man -made rules or man -made expectations within the body of Christ.
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This passage will answer the question, a question that I think maybe the Corinthians were asking, do
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I need to change everything in my life when I come to faith in Christ? What can stay the same? Am I allowed to be myself?
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How much change is necessary? How much conformity is required?
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That's where we're going this morning. We are those who obey Christ and what he has revealed, but in all else, we are those who express freedom.
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So let's open our Bibles or your scripture journals or your devices or your apps to 1 Corinthians 7, starting in verse 17.
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We're going to read that paragraph through verse 24. So 1 Corinthians 7, 17 through 24, recasts probably one of the most beneficial things that we do in the gathering of God's people every
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Sunday is to read his word. We get an opportunity to hear from him through what he wants to say to us this morning.
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1 Corinthians 7, starting in verse 17. Only let each person lead the life that the
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Lord has assigned to him and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches.
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Was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised? Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision. Was anyone at the time of his call uncircumcised?
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Let him not seek circumcision, for neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God.
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Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called. Were you a bondservant when called? Do not be concerned about it.
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But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity. For he who was called in the
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Lord as a bondservant is a freedman of the Lord. Likewise, he who is free when called is a bondservant of Christ.
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You were bought with a price. Do not become bondservants of men. So, brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank you for the gathering together of your people, a bunch of backgrounds, a bunch of histories, a bunch of brokenness, good weeks, bad weeks, and everything in between.
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Fear about the direction the business is going. Fear about layoffs, excitement about raises and promotions, and just a whole bunch of things going on in everybody's life right now.
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You call us together, and it's a glorious together. It's a together for faith.
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It's a together for community. It's a together for service. It's a together for your glory, and I pray that you would indeed be glorified as we take in this word and understand the freedom that we're given and the freedom we are in turn to give to others, that we would be a place of grace, a place of kindness, a place giving each other the freedom to honor you as our
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Lord, even as individuals who are seeking to walk in the way that you have for us. Father, I do pray that you'd be dealing with sin in our midst.
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You'd be dealing with sin in our hearts, but that you would also give us delight and joy in the sacrifice that's been made for those very sins, that Jesus Christ took that penalty for us on the cross, and I pray that that would give us joy and gladness as we have an opportunity to sing in the gathering of your people, that our voices mingle together in praise and worship to you, our great
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God, the only one who is worthy of our praise, the only one who is worthy of a life and a very lifestyle of worship.
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So, Father, I pray that you would receive these songs as worship to you, in Jesus' name, amen.
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All right, yeah, you can go ahead and find your seats and reopen your Bibles or your devices to 1
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Corinthians chapter 7, verses 17 through 24. If at any time during the message, like I say every
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Sunday, if you need to get more coffee, juice, or donuts, or need to use the restrooms, you're not going to distract me, so take advantage of that, but the remainder of our time is going to be in 1
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Corinthians 7, 17 through 24. God in his great grace calls real people in a real world with real struggles and real gifts to walk with him by faith in his son,
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Jesus Christ. That's real people who have real circumstances, real things going on in their lives, and this passage deals with what it looks like to walk with him in a community full of a variety of different people.
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Now, how many of you already knew that we live in a community of a variety of different people? Did you already know that? We have a lot of differences in the way that we look at the world around us.
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Our passage this morning is going to answer an important question that we would probably spend a little bit more time thinking about if we just thought a little more introspectively, a little bit deeper about our lives together in Christ, and particularly our lives, the way we live in Christ.
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We all have a walk with God, and we might be tempted to think it's very similar to the person sitting right next to us. They struggle with the same things.
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They think the same way we think. They do the same things that we do day in and day out, and they're right there, and everything is just similar and the same.
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And so our outline will speak into this expectation with permission to be ourselves.
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That's part of what this point is here this morning, is the permission to be ourselves while pursuing
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Christ together, the freedom for you to be yourself, but also the freedom to let others be themselves as well.
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I put ourselves in air quotes there because whatever is of sin will be excluded in our text in the clear command in verse 19 to keep the commandments of God.
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There is an area that's out of bounds for ourselves. How many of you know that if you are just true to yourself, you're going to get yourself into trouble pretty quick?
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Did you already know that? So this is not a message about being true to yourself, but it, I mean, in every area or every facet of our lives, but there's an area in which we are designed differently, and that's okay.
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We are not free to remain in sin, but we are free to lean into the uniqueness that God places in each and every one of us.
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Different hobbies, different roles, different jobs, different focuses, different emphases in our lives.
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So our outline this morning is going to look like this. Everyone has their own road to walk, verse 17.
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Everyone has their own road to walk. The second part of the text is external conformity isn't the point, verses 18 through 20.
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The third point is external circumstances are not the point. So external conformity isn't the point. External circumstances are not the point.
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And then the fourth is what is the point? Embrace God's ownership of you, verses 23 and 24.
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So Paul begins this section identifying very clearly that everyone in this room, every single one of us, everyone he calls to himself has their own road to walk.
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Not every single one of us has been granted the same perspective, the same experiences, the same giftings. He says, only let each person lead the life that the
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Lord has assigned to him and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all of the churches.
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We don't have the same perspective, the same experiences, the same giftings. And in this sense, we're looking down the throat of a snowflake message.
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It's a little bit about snowflakery. You are a snowflake. You are unique, one of a kind.
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But before we let all that uniqueness go to our head, don't forget that snowflakes are beautiful for a short time, and then they melt, or worse, they are turned yellow by the neighbor's dog.
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So, I mean, I don't know how special snowflakes really are when you really think about it. But I mean, each one of us, a unique creation of God, that's absolutely true.
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But all joking aside, in context, Paul is likely answering concerns for what is the most blessed state of a follower of Jesus Christ.
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I remember that the Corinthians were writing to, had written a letter to Paul. We don't have access to that letter, so we don't know what they wrote, but that's not that significant.
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It's not that big of a deal knowing what he, what they wrote to him, because we do have what he wrote back.
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And that's what's proactive. That's the stuff that we need to take on as scripture, so we can get all nuanced in our head about what was the question they asked.
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And although it's kind of interesting to speculate by the answers that he gives, the fundamental thing is that the answers that he gives are through the
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Spirit, scripture to us. Corinth has written to Paul and likely asked Paul, could you just tell us questions like this that we see answered in the text.
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Is marriage or singleness better? The text has addressed that. Should slaves run away and work toward their freedom?
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Should all new Greek Christians be circumcised? These are the kinds of thoughts that they had. What it really amounts to is,
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Paul, just tell us what to do. Just tell us what to do. Tell us what, what does a spiritual person do?
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What does a Christ follower do? Now, I want to be honest that this level of conformity is a temptation in every church and in every
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Christian's heart, or most Christians' heart, the temptation to just say, just tell me what to do.
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Have any of you ever just been in a conundrum like that where you're just like, I don't know what the next pathway is. I don't know what's most
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God honoring. I wish somebody could just step in and say, here's your next step. Raise your hand if you've been there. I have.
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It's like, man, it would be really nice if God would write me a letter, if he'd call me on the phone or send me a text, just tell me what he wants of me.
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I think all of us have been in phases of life like that. And it's tempting in a church to just kind of say, give me a one -size -fits -all answer.
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Pastor Don, could you just get up and tell us, give us a list of songs and music, artists we can and can't listen to?
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Can you give us an approved movie list? Can you give us all, I mean, not many people really want that, but I mean, there's a part of us that's just kind of like, okay, just if you can clarify.
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And how many of you know churches go down that road where there's literally like do's and don'ts and a bunch of rules and a bunch of things like that?
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And so we know that that's a real temptation at churches, but further, there's a significant temptation for every single spiritual leader and pastor to take on the authority to tell others what to do in order to conform to what the leader thinks is best.
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I'm going to suggest to you that I have opinions, and they matter very little. Where I understand
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God's word, that matters a lot. Do you understand what I'm saying? And so you can come to my office and you can ask me, and I like to hear stories,
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I like to hear what's going on in your life, I like to talk with you, and you can come and meet with me and ask me my opinions about what you should do for schooling for your kids next year or, you know, what do
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I think about this TV show? Is this inappropriate or is that inappropriate? I've got opinions about it all. You can ask my wife.
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I've got opinions about everything. There's very few things that I don't have, I'm not settled on, okay? But you're going to be hard -pressed to get the answer out of me.
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Because I'm going to say, you ask me, what should I do for my kids' schooling next year? I'm going to ask you, what's best for them? And we're going to go around and around in circles, and you're going to be like, but just give me the answer.
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And I'm going to be like, but you are going to have to work through that. Do you get what I'm saying on that? I'm not quick to tell you in your circumstance what
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God thus saith done or thus saith the Lord. Do this. This is your next step. But I can tell you what
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Scripture has to say, where it bears out principles and ideas and thoughts leading you into these areas.
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People will ask me to tell them, and that's happened over the 14 years as a pastor here. Just come to my office and say, what do
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I do next? Well, the truth is that God doesn't have a one -size -fits -all plan for every single life, and I don't have a flowchart of if this, then that.
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He has principles for these gray areas of life where the Scripture doesn't land on this is sin or this is not sin.
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It's in those areas of the gray in between where it's kind of like neutral life. There's a
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Greek word for it, a diaphor, the things that are neither here nor there. And it's used in Scripture in multiple places, but it's those gray area issues that we desire more concreteness in.
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Some of us, the way we're put together, we want a more concrete answer, and I can tell you that God never desires you to sin, amen?
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The next step for you is never sin, but aside from that, you get to make a lot of decisions.
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You get to make a ton of decisions, right? You know it. Sometimes that's comfortable, sometimes it's not.
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Lots of choices that face us every day. This passage is primarily about those gray area issues of our everyday circumstances.
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Verse 17 starts us off with a view of God's sovereignty over our walk and our circumstances. He's guiding,
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He's directing, He's put us where we are, He's given us our parents, He's given us our height, He's given us our gender,
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He's given us a lot of things about us that He has declared for us, right?
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Paul is commanding the church here in this verse to chill out about others in the gray area issues of life though.
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He has already commanded them to be very involved in each other's lives. When sin is at issue, be involved.
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There is such a thing as a biblical rebuke where Scripture says this, you're doing this, you should stop doing this because God's word is clear about it.
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But here He's talking about the external circumstances and issues of external conformity. Everybody has a different walk.
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Everybody has a different journey in life. Let each person lead the life that God has assigned to them.
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God called us all to faith in Himself out of a whole host of circumstances. I mean, you can just think back to your own conversion experience.
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When did you accept Christ as your Lord and Savior? Some of you were college students when you first heard the call of Christ and you responded.
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Some were down and out at rock bottom. Some were atheists who were opposing
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God and He rescued you out of that. Some were raised and born in Christian homes and were in church the first week after you came home from the hospital.
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So we all have different, we all come from different places, different contexts, saved at different times of life, saved in different ministries and all of that.
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And each one will have a unique road ahead of them that is at least in part made up of those circumstances that defined our lives when we heard, first heard the voice of Jesus Christ calling to us and we responded by faith and said, yes,
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Lord, I'm yours. Paul issued this rule. He says, this is my rule.
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This is the way I roll. This is the way that all the churches should respond with this kind of freedom to be yourselves.
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And it amounts to this. What is he getting at? Let doctors be doctors. Let UPS drivers be
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UPS drivers. Let teachers be teachers. Let the upper class be the upper class. Let the tattooed be the tattooed.
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Be okay with God saving people out of a whole host of social places. And don't expect everyone to change to your preferences.
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Let me say that again. Don't expect everyone to change to your preferences.
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This is a starting place of a radical call to grace as a church. How are we supposed to live in community with one another?
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A radical grace that gives each other, that allows God to work in each other's lives. And I would just encourage you to look around you.
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We are not all the same. Now we're eerily similar because West Michigan's a vibe, right?
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But not all the same. And a good starting point for church 101 is this instruction.
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Take this on. If you're taking notes, write it down. Be okay with different.
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Be okay with different. Now what I didn't ask you to write is be okay with sin. Don't write that down.
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That's not right. Not be okay with sin, but be okay with different.
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How many of you know that the most different people on the planet are Christians? I mean, you could change the word different to weird and it would still work.
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We're awkward to the world around us, are we not? If we're really following Christ, the world is like, what?
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You guys are weird. Be okay with different. Be okay with different Christians. But also don't be quick to make the differences of others.
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And here's where sin creeps into this entire equation, where we will make the differences of others to be sin, right?
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I think we can play mental games off of this passage without even thinking about it. You see, if I can make my personal preferences righteous and your personal preferences sin, then
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I don't need to even heed this passage. Now this isn't even talking to me because you're sinning and I'm righteous.
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So I can demand conformity to my preferences because I've now made it into an issue of sin.
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Do you get what I'm talking about there? Do you know the game I'm talking about? Have you seen it played in churches? Have you seen it played among Christians?
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But God is calling us all to a radical life of grace toward one another in these gray area issues.
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What's he calling us to? What's he calling the Corinthians to? More grace, more grace, more kindness, more letting each other lead the life that the
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Lord has assigned to them. Save your concerns for those areas that are absolutely clear sin against God.
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The application. Some of you might actually take this first point and go do something about it this week.
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I would recommend this. Find someone that isn't like you and get coffee and get to know them. Get together with them.
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Have them over and learn each other's stories. I'm at a stage of ministry right now where I'm hearing a lot of stories and I love it.
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I'm getting an opportunity to sit down with many of you and get to know you and hear how God has worked in your life.
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And that's one of the perks. That's a privilege of this role as a pastor is I get a chance to hear.
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I get a chance to see and know. And some are going through hard times and you come into my office for spiritual direction. I love those kinds of meetings where I'm getting an opportunity to invest and hear and listen and get to know you guys better.
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But listen to the ways. I'd encourage that among you as well. Listen to the ways that God has worked in someone that is not like you and then rejoice with them.
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Rejoice with them over what God is doing in their lives. The second point here is that external conformity is not the point.
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Verses 18 through 20. Our fallen human hearts are not faithful.
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They are not unchangeable. They are not holy. They are not consistent like our God is consistent.
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This means that we are in our very natures changeable, routinely fickle, and inconsistent.
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But our God, church, our God is never inconsistent. His integrity is faithful and complete and righteous and holy through and through and all that he ever has done, ever will do, ever says, ever communicates.
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Faithful, faithful, faithful. God is never inconsistent. And what this means for each of us is that we, unlike God, know what it means to do one thing while thinking or feeling another way.
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We know hypocrisy because our hearts are by nature of the fall hypocritical.
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We can do all kinds of things that are inconsistent with our hearts. We could externally do things to put on airs, for example.
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We can buy a car we can't afford or dress and clothing we can't afford in order to just look a certain way on the outside.
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We can act apart. We can spend years wearing masks, pretending that everything is going on okay in here, where it is really broken and corrupt in here.
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Whitewashing the tomb where there is decay and brokenness inside. And yet I would suggest to you that this is very, very dangerous in a community of faith.
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Verses 18 through 20 are all about the role of external conformity in the community of faith. Looking around and just mimicking each other.
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Looking at the person next to you and just doing what they do. Just act the part, play the role. That's what, unfortunately, many,
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I think, in churches were doing before COVID, right? And a lot of people don't go to church anymore.
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That's what happened to a lot of people who have deconstructed in their faith. They were looking to others. They were not looking to Christ.
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Their eyes weren't fixed on Him and love for Him, but rather, how can I fit in here?
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And that hasn't gone well. Let me be clear and concise. External conformity to a pattern of a way of life that you're trying to mimic has no role in the life of a genuine follower of Christ.
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Just conforming, just acting, just doing things. A man or a woman of faith who desires to walk in integrity will obey
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Christ out of a love for Him and never merely out of a desire to look apart or fit the mold of external social pressures.
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A Christian is never, ever, ever to be a person who is playing a part. Rather, a
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Christian is to be a person loving his or her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Affection for Christ is the follower of Christ motivation.
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Love for Him is our motivation. Not to look like the person next to you, only do it a little bit better.
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How many of you know what that looks like? How many of you have felt that in your own heart? At least I'm better than all y 'all. Right? You can think that way and you can start to feel that way.
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But no, where is affection for Christ in that? Where's the motivation of love for Him in that?
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It's not there. No, external conformity has no role in the life of a genuine follower of Jesus.
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Paul starts talking about a very external sign. Awkward external sign given in the Old Testament.
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And you might even go like, okay, we could have just kept it at theory. Why do we have to get down into the details? Sign given in the
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Old Testament to the Jews is a sign of the covenant. The covenant was circumcision. Circumcision was a religious ritual applied to all males on the eighth day after they were born according to the law of Moses, according to the very commands of God.
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And every single man who came to faith in Christ in the early church fell into one of the two categories.
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One of two categories was true of every male that came to faith in Christ under Paul's ministry. Either they were circumcised or they weren't.
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Only two options. This line cut down the line, divided down the line of ethnicity.
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Little circumcision humor there. I don't know. Oh goodness. Okay, at least we got that out of the way now.
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The line divides down ethnicity. Jews were circumcised. Gentiles and pagans were not.
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And as awkward as it might seem, we kind of go like, in our, I'm gonna say something that's like radical until you think about it, but we live in a fairly modest culture.
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You're going, modest? Are you kidding me? Have you seen any of the Greek statues? Have you been to the Louvre? They were not a modest culture.
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We are a much more modest culture than they were. And so to be clear, this mattered because it mattered in their culture.
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It was visible and there. Athletic events and Roman public baths were conducted naked.
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And this made it possible and obvious for all who were born Jewish to be seen as Jewish.
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It became an issue in the early church only because it was known to men. Who were the Jews among them?
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Obviously, because their parents had performed this ritual on them at eight days. They had no choice in the matter.
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And now they are marked for life as a Jew in public, in all of these public men's gatherings.
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And they were treating each other accordingly. The Gentiles looking down on the
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Jews. The Jews looking down on the... Looking down on? Oh my goodness. Sorry, everybody.
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Oh my goodness. That was not anywhere in my notes. I didn't even say that the first service. You guys are getting the bonus material here.
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Oh, wow. Some during this era were embarrassed of their Jewish background. They were embarrassed of it.
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They were like, I don't want to be seen. I don't want to go to the Roman baths. I don't want to participate in the athletic events.
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And they would even go so far as there is documentation of a medical procedure that is still actually used today.
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I talked with a surgeon that was here and he said, yeah, that's actually still on the table today. It is a reverse procedure that can make a circumcised man look uncircumcised.
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And they were actually doing that. So when it says in the passage that they would... Why would you remove the marks of circumcision?
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You're kind of going, how do you do that? Don't think too hard about it, but it's there. And some were wondering, and the reverse of that is,
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I mean, some were saying, like, how can I look uncircumcised? Others were saying, must I get circumcised?
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Because I'm not sure I'm in with the church if that's required. So, whoa, is that a requirement to follow
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Christ? And as weird as this conversation may feel, it was a significant issue in the early church.
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We can't, I don't think I can overplay how significant this was because circumcision was a very, very, very, very, very central command in the
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Old Testament law. In the commandments of God, it was commanded. As a matter of fact, even preceding the giving of the law to Moses, it was given to Abraham.
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And Abraham was told that he and all of his descendants were to be circumcised as a sign of entering the covenant with God.
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That was a way of showing that they were God's man. Okay? And so, what
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Paul says in verse 19 is very shocking to most scholars, all the way down to, like, reading people this week who were like, there's no way
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Paul wrote this. He was trained as a Jew. He was trained as a Pharisee. Something so radical that he says in verse 19 that people are doubting whether he actually said it.
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Look at it. For neither circumcision counts for nothing or for anything, nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commands of God.
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Neither circumcision counts for anything. Could a guy trained in Jewish seminary say something like this?
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For one trained in Judaism like Paul to write down verse 19 just shows how radical his departure, the departure between Judaism and Christianity was for this apostle of Christ.
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For Paul, he says, we're not going that way. We're not going the Jewish way. To say that circumcision or uncircumcision is nothing and that it doesn't even matter, this shows he had no desire to offer concessions to the
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Jews or make faith in Christ more Jewish. The weirdest thing that's going on right now is
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I'm actually, by the way, encountering some things, talking with some other pastors, and there is a movement right now that you need to get the
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Jewish understanding of a passage. Have you, has anybody encountered that? It's all over Google right now.
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It's, it's a dangerous thing. Because what is really absolutely happening is that some people are trying to muddy and muddle
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Christian theology with Jewish theology and say, yeah, you've got that whole Jesus thing, but you also need law.
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You also need rules. You also need this. You also need that. And, and that's where Paul is radically, he's radically departing from Judaism.
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Christianity is not Judaism 2 .0, okay? It's not Jewishness with Jesus.
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It's Jesus. Amen? Jesus Christ alone. That's what you're following, church.
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If somebody comes along and says, but Jesus, and run. It's a clear sign that, you know, it's good that you've got
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Jesus, but you need just a little bit more from me, and of course, I'm the one to teach you, says every blog and every podcast, right?
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No. This is a radical departure. He's not recommending,
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Paul here is not recommending any external conformity for the sake of appeasing others.
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Instead, he does hold up a standard at the end of verse 19 that can be confusing. As a matter of fact,
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I think it was intentionally kind of like a little bit of like whiplash for what he says in verse 19.
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Neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God.
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Now, if you come from a Jewish background, that is nonsensical. It makes zero sense. Don't worry about circumcision.
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Just keep the laws and the commandments of God. How can somebody do that, Paul, would be the logical question from a
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Jew. But to be clear, Paul's no idiot. He's not writing a sentence that makes no sense.
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He's not writing a sentence that has no structure and no teeth to it. He knew that circumcision was given to the
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Jews in the commandments of God, and so I believe that his statement here radically drives home his point against mere external conformity.
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He's opposed to any law or any rule that just merely marks the outside of you as belonging to God without your heart belonging to God.
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Amen? Anything that others can see on the outside that identifies you as a follower of Christ, be that wearing a necklace with a cross on it or wearing a nice, bold Christian tattoo with the
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Lord's gym on it or something like that. Like whatever it might be that would mark you as a Christian is insignificant in comparison to Christ owning your heart.
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Amen? That's where it's at. Him owning your heart. The law of Christ is a law of grace and love and mercy working out in the power of his spirit within us.
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We do, hear me church, we do keep the commands of Christ. We do. Those who love him, he said, those who love me will keep my commandments or obey his commandments other translations have.
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And that that will only be motivated out of an obedience from the heart. Gift of a new heart, says
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Paul. He says that in Romans 6, 17, one of my favorite passages about my interaction with the rules.
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How do I relate to God now that I'm a believer? And he says this, but thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from where?
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From the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed. Where does obedience come from in the life of a
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Christian? From the heart. In case there's any doubt about the way, this way of understanding this call to keep the commandments of God is more heart and less external.
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Paul uses the same structure in other places of his writing to speak about the same issue of circumcision. He mentions it a couple of different times and the parallels of the way that he talks about this in other passages are extremely informative to what he means here.
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In Galatians 5, 6, he writes, remembering we're talking about verse 19, for neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God.
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In Galatians 5, 6, he writes, for in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision or uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
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He puts something new in there. Not obeying the commandments, but faith working through love, he says, is the standard.
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It's not external conformity, it's faith working through love. Notice that Paul is making the exact same point, discarding circumcision as nothing while holding up the alternative of keeping commands.
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In other words, he also says it elsewhere, faith working through love. The way that Paul uses these phrases as interchangeable shows that he's not trying to get people to merely conform to externals of the law, but quite the opposite.
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He's excluding the external actions from the law that merely conform the outer self to a standard of obedience.
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And even more to the point, Paul says it again. He repeats himself three times regarding circumcision.
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He says it in Galatians 6, 15. Another passage altogether, same letter as the previous one, but Galatians 6, 15, for neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision.
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But he puts new words in there this time, but a new creation. What are we to make of this?
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This understanding of Paul? Paul's saying the externals don't matter at all, but what does matter is keeping the commandments.
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How are you to keep the commandments? Faith working through love. How are you able to have faith keeping through love? A new creation.
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The new heart is the key. A new heart given to you whereby you want to love him.
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You want to honor him. It's like the operating system of you has been transformed by faith in Jesus Christ.
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And what you want deep down in your heart is honor and glory to him above all things.
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He says, jump. You want to be in the air. Do you know what I'm talking about? Like that kind of love for him, like whatever you ask,
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I want to do it in your name. Now, are we perfect at that? Of course not. That's why we need a grace. That's what the cross was all about.
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But these are all parallel. Keeping the faith, keeping the commandment, faith working through love, a new creation parallel in Paul's writings as the alternatives to externally marking oneself as belonging to God.
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Merely externally marking oneself to belong to God. Mere external conformity is not what
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God desires from us. Remain as you are on the outside church, even as you allow God to work out the new creation in your heart.
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And you are increased, not only is he working out the new creation in your heart, you are increasing in faith, working itself out in love because your heart truly loves
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Jesus because of what he has done for you. Having covered religious externals here and saying that's not the point,
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Paul moves along to more of a question of status and station in life. Something that we have a little less control over.
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And that leads to the third point. External circumstances are not the point. Dave mentioned between the songs that many of us would like the circumstances changed.
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Amen? You pray and you ask God to change the circumstance. But how many of you know that most often in prayer he's faithful to change you, to give you peace, to ride out the storm.
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He doesn't remove the storm. External circumstances are not the point.
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Verses 21 and 22 address slavery. Bond servant is the ESV's translation. But that's just being gentle.
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It is absolutely the word slave. Verses 21 and 22 address it in a way that seems maybe way too nonchalant to our ears.
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But whether it helps you to understand it or not, please know that the people to whom this letter was written would have been glad for the address of a topic that affected their lives daily.
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So for them in their context, this is a natural conversation. For us it's squeamish and it's uncomfortable. But for them they're like, oh good, you're going to address that too.
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It's estimated that at least a third, it's a conservative estimate that a third of the people who first heard this letter read in Corinth were slaves.
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And it's a conservative number because that's kind of going with the way that the Roman Empire looked versus actually the acknowledgement that the majority of the church, the church advanced among marginal people quickly.
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And so it's quite possible that there was a higher percentage of slaves in the church in Corinth during this time. And in verse 21 he makes two things clear.
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The Christian life, here's where he's going with this, there's a point beyond the shock factor of slavery mentioned in the text.
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The Christian life can be put into practice in any circumstances, in any circumstances.
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From the king's palace to the lowliest of slaves, one need not change circumstances in order to live for Jesus.
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He can meet us right where we're at, whatever our circumstances, however abused or downtrodden we are, how pushed down.
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Amen, that God can meet us in those circumstances, that he meets people where they are at. See, because there's a question mark over that.
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I mean, there's a question mark, as you can imagine, in that culture. Can slaves be saved? The answer is absolutely.
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To the slave who came to faith in Christ, he says, don't live a troubled life. A weird instruction, he says, were you a bond servant when called?
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That's when you became saved. Do not be concerned about it. How many of you think that sounds a little nonchalant and flippant?
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Anybody? Sounds a little nonchalant and flippant to me, but he says, don't be anxious, don't live a troubled life.
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He's by no means saying, be glad for your condition, be glad that you're owned by another person or celebrate your circumstances, but rather, he says, don't be anxious about it.
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Don't let it trouble you. You're okay with Christ. Paul does declare a preference, and it's helpful.
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I'm glad that he does, because it certainly, I don't have to soften this. I don't have to soften Paul's view of slavery.
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He does it for us at the end of verse 21. It says, if you get a chance to change your circumstances from slave to free, go for it.
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Hurry. Take care of that. Now, you might be even confused about how in the world is that possible? I am not going to be an apologist at all for slavery, but I am going to say that slavery in the
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Roman Empire was different than slavery was in America. In the 1700s, 1800s, it was a totally different thing.
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It was not racially driven, and many people would, in exchange for starvation, like you're about to die, and you're holding your baby, and the baby has no food, and everybody is, everybody, and there's drought, and everything.
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People would sell themselves into slavery, basically indenturing themselves to somebody in exchange for food. So, it was actually, there's a bit of dignity in that.
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Alternative, die, or go work for this person for food. How many of you are like,
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I'm probably going that way? Right? So, people would do that during this era and during this time, and they could actually work off their debt.
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They could actually, I mean, there was a timeline to it after I've worked for so many years. Slaves during the Roman Empire were allowed to own property.
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As a matter of fact, some slaves own their own slaves. That's documented for us. And so, they were able to save a little bit of money off to the side and put away some money, and eventually, many would buy their own freedom.
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And so, he's saying, if you can do that, if you've got means to be able to do that, do it. It's very clear what
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Paul's preference was in this situation, freedom. This shows that Paul is not being radically opposed to change in life for the believer, but rather, he is against forcing or commanding change among believers, or even further, relegating specific people.
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Probably our more sinful tendency is relegating specific people to lower status within the churches, and I'm sure the
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Corinthians were struggling with that. Even in that context, the church was elevating slaves to the status of brother and sister in Christ.
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And the historical facts, the facts are, you'll hear all different kinds of things said, but the historical facts are that the seeds of the abolition of slavery were founded in the
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Bible and the church. There's an entire book of the Bible, Philemon, is written and recorded for us to highlight the calling of a
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Christian named Philemon to emancipate a slave named
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Onesimus. It's in the pages of Scripture. Releasing, emancipating, manumitting slaves is a biblical idea.
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And Paul's attitude about Christ and the slave and how the church should treat them is found in verse 22, the slave who comes to faith in the
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Lord is set free in Christ, and the one who is saved as a freed man comes into slavery to Christ.
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Consider what a radical juxtaposition that is. The gospel benefits the slave as spiritual freedom.
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The gospel benefits the free man by making him a slave. We need to grasp that the greatest freedom possible for our human hearts is found in slavery to Christ.
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That's the place of greatest freedom, to be loved by him, to be owned by him, to be controlled by his life and his love.
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For those bound in this present life to hardship, Christ is freedom.
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For those free in this life, Christ is a much -needed slavery.
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Much -needed slavery. Despite the very ancient cultural illustration that can take us down all kinds of rabbit trails, as soon as slavery is mentioned, our minds kind of turn to mush and we go all over the place.
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But the point Paul is making is simply this, one need not change their external circumstances in order to live the
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Christian life. You don't need to change jobs, get a white -collar job.
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You don't need to go to college. You don't need to move to the city or move out of the city. You don't need to start homeschooling your kids or sending them to public school or sending them to Christian school.
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You don't need to quit your teaching job. You don't need to quit your job at all unless it's immoral, which
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I don't think anybody here is probably selling drugs or doing prostitution or anything like that. Maybe, are there any pharmacists here?
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Because that actually might be, maybe some of you are selling drugs, I don't know. Different though, legal, right?
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But you're free in the areas and circumstances that Scripture does not declare as sin. That's the point.
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If you need some clarity on what does and doesn't constitute sin, I would love to sit down and look at Scripture with you for spiritual counsel and direction.
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I won't be quick to give my opinion unless you ask, but I will gladly declare what Scripture says, what
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Scripture says about where you're at and the decision that you're faced with. All of this argument toward freedom reaches a metaphorical crescendo in verses 23 to 24.
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Embrace God's ownership over you, God's ownership of you.
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This is the fourth point in verse 23, keeps with the concept of slavery and ownership from verse 22, but every commentary
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I consulted with this week agrees that Paul is stating something deeper and more metaphorical in verse 23 where he says, you were bought with a price, do not become bond servants of men.
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He's not merely telling Christians to not sell themselves into slavery through the process that I just mentioned.
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You know, you're poor and you don't have money and you just don't do that, but it's more metaphorical than that.
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Rather, over the course of this entire passage, he's been making a case to quit enslaving each other to your own rules.
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Quit allowing others to dictate how you walk with Christ. Christ alone is your master.
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The word alone is your knowledge of the desires of your master, right?
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I saw a clip recently of Pastor John MacArthur out in California. How many of you have ever heard of him?
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Do you know who Pastor John MacArthur is? I saw a clip of him recently answering a panel, a question from a panel on a panel discussion that took a lot to get that out.
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He was on a panel and there was a person who asked a question. There we go. And the question was this, describe your authority.
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Like, on what basis do we follow you? On what basis do you claim authority over your church? And he emphatically declared that he has none.
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This is the surprise of the person asking the question. He said, I got none. I don't possess authority. I have no authority over my church and I wouldn't want it.
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Rather, he said, I sit under the word just like everyone else. This message is preaching to me.
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Sits under the word. I echo his response with the same conviction. Never, ever, ever do something simply because Don told you to.
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Never, ever, ever do something simply because the elders told you to. Rather, go back and check us with God's word to see if it's in here.
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Now, if it's in here, it's now go time, right? And I mean,
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I will do the best that I can to try to back up anything that I encourage you to do from God's word, but I'm going to try my best to not abuse that.
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Do what God has spoken in his word to us. Why? Text tells us.
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You were bought with a price. Did Don bleed for you? No, he didn't.
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Were you bought by any of the church leaders? I hope not. We belong to Christ.
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We have a road to walk that he has called us to. So walk your road with confidence in him.
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Studying his word to know what your Lord and King and Master desires of you. We live in a time when everyone is telling
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Christians how they ought to walk, right? I don't know if you're hearing it. Are you hearing it? The world telling you?
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Christians are supposed to act this way. Christians are supposed to act that way. Someone will tell you what you're supposed to believe about climate change.
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Somebody is going to tell you that you have to drive an EV. Someone will tell you that you should choose what you should choose for schooling your children, but only if you love them.
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Someone will tell you what to wear or not to wear. Someone will tell you what to drink or not drink. Some will tell you which version of the
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Bible you must read. Some will tell you that you need to be more Jewish, like that weird thing that I'm encountering.
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Some will tell you you need more law and less grace. Some will tell you where you should live, where you should work, where you should go to school.
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Are you getting it? Do I need to keep going or are you getting it? I think you're getting it. Look at the ending of verse 24 to lay in this argument, church, to land us all in grace.
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Recast, church, let each other remain with God.
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Let each other remain with God. Give each other room to be themselves in relationship to their
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Lord, their King, their Master. This is a call to grace. This is a call to embrace
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His ownership over us and over His people. Let's not be guilty of turning His people who report to Him into our people who report to us.
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You see the danger in that? Study His word to know what He desires of you.
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And be wholeheartedly His. We were indeed bought with a price. We cannot leave the idea of our slavery.
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I mean, we'd be guilty if we leave the idea of our slavery to Christ in some kind of dark corner, a foggy thought like, yeah,
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I'm a slave. He owns me. And then just slavery's bad, right? And it kind of gets muddled in our mind.
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Why keep using the word slavery? Because those who are His are owned by Him. See verse 23, you were bought with a price.
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But we were bought by His blood. We were bought by His love.
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A love expressed in His body broken for us there on that cross. His love was squeezed out of wounds in His hands and feet and side as His blood was shed in our place.
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He was wounded for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. But by His wounds, we are healed and made whole.
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If Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior, and if as much as it's up to you, you're at peace with others here in this congregation, then come to the tables this morning.
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Take the cracker and the juice to remember His body and blood shed for you. And you can take that back to your seat and take it after a time of prayer and thoughtfulness.
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But embrace His ownership over you. Embrace His ownership over each other. And then let's live this week in more wide open spaces of freedom in Christ.
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Be mindful as we do life together that everyone has their own road to walk. External conformity is not the point.
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External circumstances are not the point. But embracing God's ownership over us is the point.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank you for a word of grace over us.
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We can have a tendency in our hearts and minds to want to make everything law, to make everything clear -cut, even so far as to make our preferences the law and the rule of the land.
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Father, I pray that you would protect us from this kind of division that can well up within a church, especially in our very, very, very divided cultural context right now, where everybody here, probably to a person in this room, has some kind of a radical opinion that could get in the way of the fellowship that you desire to have happen here.
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Where everybody has some nuance of doctrine, some nuance of thought that would say, it's my way or the highway on this.
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It's the way we're put together. It's the way every one of our hearts rolls. So, Father, I pray that you would work in our midst your love, your care, your grace, your ownership over us.
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And I pray that everybody would walk this week according to that grace. And everybody who lines up to walk their own road towards that table this morning, walking these aisles to come to the tables to remember how busted and broken up we actually are.
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Each one of us just shattered with different pieces that you're putting back together.
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None of us broken and none of us breaking in the same ways, but all of us by your grace being put back together.
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So, Father, I pray that that would be a reality that we would not make this an internal, isolated thing as we take communion, but we would take communion together with our eyes lifted up, seeing that we are not alone in our brokenness, but everybody who gets up and goes to these tables acknowledges, so busted that I needed the
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Son of God to die for me. I pray that that becomes a fuel for us and a sustenance for us as we partake of this bread and this juice together in Jesus' name.