Sunday, July 23, 2023 AM

Sunnyside Baptist Church

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shall be established forever and we know that God had ordered and ordained and promised the

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Lord Jesus Christ the Messiah would be would come to he would send his only begotten son to be our savior to be our

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Lord to be the Messiah and that he will rule and reign his father on the throne of David and he as Christians today he rules and reigns in our hearts so if you're able let's stand at this time and we'll continue

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Psalms chapter 89 verses 35 to 37 read with me together once for all

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I have sworn by my holiness I will not lie to David his offspring shall endure forever his throne as long as the sun before me like the moon it shall be established forever a faithful witness in the skies and our psalm of response is in our psalm for worship hymnal page 89 e and we'll be singing these very words that we just read we're singing verses 18 19 and 20 is is is shall never be established for then our hymn of praise is in our regular hymnal page 234 crown him with many crowns with many and see of him who died for thee ♪

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Matchless king through all eternity ♪

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Crown him the Lord of love ♪ Behold his hands and side ♪

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Rich wounds yet visible above ♪

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In beauty glorified ♪ No angel in the sky ♪

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Can fully bear that sight ♪ But down where Beth's is wandering

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I ♪ And mystery so bright ♪

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Crown him the Lord of life ♪ Who triumphed o 'er the grave ♪

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Who rose victorious to the strife ♪

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For those he came to save ♪ His glory's now we see ♪

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Who died and rose on high ♪ Who died eternal life to bring ♪

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And lives that death may die ♪ Crown him the

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Lord of heaven ♪ One with the

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Father known ♪ One with the

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Spirit through him give ♪ From yonder glorious throne ♪

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To thee be endless praise ♪

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For thou for us has died ♪

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Be thou, O Lord, through endless days ♪

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Adored and magnified Thus says the

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Lord God, Behold, I will lift up my hand to the nations and set up my standards to the people, and they will bring their sons in their bosom, and your daughters will be carried on their shoulders.

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Kings will be your guardians, and their princesses your nurses. They will bow down to you with their faces to the earth and lick the dust of your feet, and you will know that I am the

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Lord. Those who hopefully wait for me will not be put to shame. Can the prey be taken from the mighty man, or the captives of a tyrant be rescued?

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Surely, thus says the Lord, even the captives of the mighty man will be taken away, and the prey of the tyrant will be rescued.

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For I will contend with the one who contends with you, and I will save your sons. I will feed your oppressors with their own flesh, and they will become drunk with their own blood as with sweet wine, and all flesh will know that I, the

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Lord, am your Savior and your Redeemer, the mighty one of Jacob. Let's pray.

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Heavenly Father, we're so grateful for the opportunity to come and spend time with each other around your word and learning about you.

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Just thank you for Michael and his diligence to study your word. I pray, Lord, that you would give him the freedom and the strength to open that to us as you've shared with him this last week.

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I pray that our hearts would be receptive to hear what he has to say and to obey your word. Just bless us for being here, and thank you for all of your other blessings.

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In Christ's name, amen. You may be seated. Our last two songs are gonna be

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Breathe on Me, O Breath of God, and Forever, Jesus. So Breathe on Me is on page 259.

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And then there was a handout in the back for Forever, Jesus. ♪

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Breathe on me, breath of God ♪ ♪

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Fill me with life anew ♪ ♪

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Bless, love, and do what thou wouldst do ♪ ♪

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Breathe on me, breath of God ♪ ♪

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Until my heart is pure ♪ ♪ Until my will is won with thine ♪ ♪

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To do and to endure ♪ ♪

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Breathe on me, breath of God ♪ ♪

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Until this earthly part of me ♪ ♪

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Glows with thy fire divine ♪ ♪

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Breathe on me, breath of God ♪ ♪

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Shall I never die, but live within a perfect life of thine eternity ♪ ♪

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My hymn of praise shall be forever, Jesus ♪ ♪

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My communion in shifting sands ♪ ♪ My strength and hope through many fears and failures ♪ ♪

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The disappointments of the past ♪ ♪

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His constant love has held me fast ♪ ♪

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So for all my days I will sing my praise to the

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King forever, Jesus ♪ ♪

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Though the storms may rage, he is strong to save ♪ ♪

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He's my King forever, Jesus ♪ ♪

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My song of joy shall be forever, Jesus ♪ ♪

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Who bore the suffering, who made a way ♪ ♪

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Is life a gift, is death a precious ransom ♪ ♪

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That wipes the sinner's guilt away ♪ ♪

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And turns our night to glorious day ♪ ♪

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So for all my days I will sing my praise to the

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King forever, Jesus ♪ ♪

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Though the storms may rage, he is strong to save ♪ ♪

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He's my King forever, Jesus ♪ ♪

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Shall be forever, Jesus, when shadows lengthen ♪ ♪

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And friend, companion through the valley ♪ ♪

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Where dearest loved ones left behind ♪ ♪

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His hand will lead me to the light ♪ ♪

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So for all my days I will sing my praise to the

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King forever, Jesus ♪ ♪

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Though the storms may rage, he is strong to save ♪ ♪

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He's my King forever, Jesus ♪ ♪ When I meet his gaze, I will sing my praise to the

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King forever, Jesus ♪ ♪

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All my sorrows pass, I am home at last ♪ ♪

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With my King forever, Jesus ♪ ♪

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With my King forever, Jesus ♪ ♪

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With my King forever, Jesus ♪

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Let's go to the Lord together in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the day.

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Thank you for your many blessings upon us, gathering us together for what we so genuinely and deeply need.

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We thank you for your love for us that you have poured out upon us through your Son, Jesus Christ. And I pray that you would help us this morning to look upon the truth here in your word.

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That you would warm our hearts to what you have to say.

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That we would rejoice in it. That you would have your way in our hearts by your word.

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That you would change us and shape us for your glory. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.

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I want to invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to Acts chapter 9. Book of Acts chapter 9 and verse 31.

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We began to look at this verse last week. And the title of the sermon is, The Church's Churches.

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There's one church, but there are many churches in that church. And understanding that grammatical theological word has everything to do with who

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Jesus is. Has everything to do with the kind of savior that he is. The kind of king that he is.

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Acts chapter 9 and verse 31. We begin to hear about the church as a unique, identifiable, separate, special people.

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In the parables of Jesus, the teachings of Christ. Anticipated, of course, in the promises of the new covenant in the

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Old Testament. But the first time we actually have the word church being used of the followers of Christ.

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There in Jerusalem was in chapter 5 of Acts. And in chapter 5 of Acts, after the incident with Ananias and Sapphira.

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Where they had lied to the Holy Spirit and God struck them down in judgment. We read in Acts 5 verses 11 through 14 that great fear came upon all the church.

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There it is, that's the first time we have the word used in that way in the book of Acts. So great fear came upon all the church.

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The ecclesia, those who have been called out from and then gathered to Christ. Fear came upon all the church and upon all who heard these things.

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So there's the church and then there's everybody else. They all heard about these things and had a similar response.

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Verse 12, and through the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were done among the people. And they were all with one accord in Solomon's porch.

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This is where the church was gathering at that time. Big area, they had thousands of people. Verse 13 says, none of the rest dared join them but the people esteemed them highly.

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There again, there's the church and then there's the rest. There's the church who are the people of Christ and then there's the rest of the people.

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And believers were increasingly added to the Lord multitudes of both men and women.

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There's the defining characteristic of the church, the defining community of the church.

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They were added to the Lord. God was saving them.

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Christ was saving them. They were being added to Him. This is the church. When we come to chapter 9, we've looked at the great persecution that broke out against the church, against the followers of the way.

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Saul of Tarsus, the point man of that persecution, the sharp end of the spear.

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And yet God confronted him, saved him, turned him around completely so that now

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Saul of Tarsus is the greatest champion of Jesus of Nazareth. In fact, he's preaching so loud and so hot that they have to keep on sneaking him out of town lest he be killed by those who just don't want to hear it anymore.

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So now we come to chapter 9 and verse 31.

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A verse that is a summary of how things are going. The acts of the risen

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Lord Jesus Christ in building His church. It's a summary of how things are shaping up, but it's also a segue moving into further acts of the risen

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Lord Jesus and what lies ahead for His community, what lies ahead for His church. More glory ahead.

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Well, I invite you to stand with me as we read God's word. We're going to read verse 31. This is the word of our

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Lord and Savior Jesus Christ by His Holy Spirit through His servant Luke. Then the churches throughout all

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Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and were edified. And walking in the fear of the

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Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were multiplied. This is the word of the

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Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. Well, I got my four -year degree in five years.

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I got my three -year seminary degree in eight and a half. So, it's been a long time in education, religious education, education for pastors.

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Just doing what I could as I went along. One of the major themes that kept on popping up again and again in classes was church growth.

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Church growth. And there was a lot of intense focus on how to get more nickels and noses.

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And I read many books where the entirety of each chapter would be concerned about different ways, proven ways to increase those nickels and noses.

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And then there would be a paragraph, I'm not kidding, a paragraph at the end. And, oh, by the way, you need the Holy Spirit. Leave the last paragraph out, it works just fine.

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I think it's really funny that the Unitarian church, you know, that denies basically everything, they were having trouble, you know.

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Not many people like going to a church where they denied everything there was about God. And they were having trouble with their numbers.

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But you know what? They picked up some of these church growth techniques and, boy, they began to have more and more people come.

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You don't need the Holy Spirit to do these things. You can increase a personality -driven organization.

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You can bolster and increase a non -profit organization. But what we're concerned with in this verse is how is the...

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What about the church's churches? What about the way that Christ builds His church? What does that look like? What's involved there?

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Because that's what matters forever. I had a story in one of my classes where there was a cautionary tale.

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And you may have heard the quote from Charles Spurgeon that if you have to give a carnival to get people to come to church, then you'll just have to keep on giving carnivals to keep them coming back.

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And there was a story that was shared with us in class. I had a guest speaker and he came and he talked about how he was involved with some church growth schemes in his past that he wasn't too proud of.

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Like the time that they brought a circus on board to have a festival in their front parking lot and the premiere show was the pastor of the church was going to wrestle a bear.

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And the moral of the story that he shared was that the next week they had far fewer show up.

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And one of them complained about why are we not wrestling the bear again? So his point was you should probably just stick with hot dogs every week.

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Don't go up too high because then you're going to lower it and then the expectations will be disappointed the next week. Now the elders here, we've talked about church growth.

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We've thought about the way the Lord builds His church. And you know the way that we think about it is as follows, you know.

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If you can use the metaphor, it's a metaphor that's been used and it's been used in a book or two that we've looked at.

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But if you can think of a metaphor of the trellis and the vine. There's a vine, there's life, there's growth and that's what matters.

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And we want to see the vine grow. We want to see the life of the church grow spiritually.

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We want to see people grow up in Christ, mature in Christ, grow up in their love and understanding of the

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Lord. And that there would be a fruitfulness among us because of the Holy Spirit.

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And as that fruitfulness grows and as the vine increases and grows, and it will because God promised it would.

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We will see from time to time that we need to build a little bit more trellis to support the vine.

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But we don't want to build a bunch of trellis and ignore the vine, you see. I think that's what's going on here in Acts 9 .31.

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And we've already looked at some of the things going on here. We understand that Christ is building

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His church upon the rock of His own person. He is the cornerstone. The gates of Hades will not prevail against it.

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And He is building His church. And we've thought about their identity. Some translations say the churches, some say the church, but both are correct because we're one in Christ.

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We thought about the identity of the church. Who are we to our Lord? Number one question, most important.

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Who are we to Jesus? How does He think of us? And that informs how we think of each other.

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I should be thinking of you and relating to you in the way that Christ sees you. And then who are we to the world?

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Oh, that's last, you see. That's the last question we ask. Not because it's unimportant, but because it has to be listed last.

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Because it's what Jesus thinks is most important of all, and how we relate to one another. Because Jesus said, all men will know that you are my disciples by the love that you have for one another.

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And how are we going to love each other unless we see each other in Jesus? And then we think about who are we to the world.

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That's our identity. And it is not unique to just one place and one time.

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We have brothers and sisters, sister churches, all over this globe.

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Praise God. Praise Christ. He's building His church. The Bible has been translated into a vast majority of all languages and dialects.

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A few more to go. Over the course of history, the church has prevailed.

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If you've ever had the privilege of reading the sermons and the writings of our brothers from the past,

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John Christopherson, Athanasius, and so on, you will be so encouraged to see they worship the exact same

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Jesus Christ we do today. And so, it's not about a particular time and a particular place.

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It's not about just Jews or just Gentiles. It's not East versus West. We are one in Christ all over the place.

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Our brothers and sisters in Mongolia or in the Palika tribe in Ivory Coast, we worship the very same

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Jesus Christ. So, we thought about their internationality here. It's mentioned that there are churches throughout

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Judea, Galilee, and Samaria. But no matter who they were, they were in Christ. And they had peace and were edified.

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So, they had peace. That was their interaction. They were having peace in their church and in between their churches.

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The biblical peace is more than the absence of conflict. This is not saying that there was a ceasefire between churches.

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This wasn't saying that there was a ceasefire within a church. This was saying that there was communion. Biblical peace is more than the absence of conflict.

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It is the presence of communion. And Christ is the one who brings that.

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We are one in Him. Shiloh brings shalom. And shalom looks like faith, hope, and love lived out towards one another.

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When we come to their instructions, we see in the verse that the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and notice they were edified.

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Edified. That's probably not a word that's used very often in the world today. Probably not used in emails.

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Probably not going to see the term edified in some sort of human resource package.

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But you hear the term edifice, don't you? And you know that that means some sort of construction.

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You know that means some kind of building. And that's what this word means.

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It has to do with construction. They were built up, built out.

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They were being constructed. And remember that Jesus said, the wise man is the one who builds his house upon the rock.

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Well, Jesus is the wisest of all. He builds his church, his house, upon himself.

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Ephesians tells us that he's the cornerstone. That Jesus Christ is in the process of building his church as a temple, a temple of the living

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God. The new covenant temple is not made of dead stones, but of living stones.

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And he's building and he's constructing us as a temple of the Holy Spirit so that God indwells us and we dwell with God here in this new covenant.

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And what does he build on? He builds upon himself, the cornerstone. And what else does he use as a foundation? The prophets and the apostles.

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See, the cornerstone is the very first stone that you have to have laid. It has to be perfectly cut.

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It has to be straight, all three dimensions. And everything else is ordered according to that stone.

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So Jesus Christ is the cornerstone. And then all the prophets who prophesied of his coming, and all the apostles who preached his resurrection are ordered and aligned to Christ who is the cornerstone.

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And upon this foundation, Christ builds his church. He builds his temple. This is temple construction. When we see that they are edified, we see that they are being built up.

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That this is temple construction can be seen from 1 Peter chapter 2. 1

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Peter chapter 2. Peter, right? Same Peter that preached at Pentecost.

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Same Peter that we're going to read about here at the rest of Acts chapter 9. And what does he say? Well, let's just back up to chapter 1.

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Because it's really, really good. Verse 22.

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And he quotes Isaiah here. But the word of the

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Lord endures forever. Now notice at the very end of chapter 1, moving into chapter 2.

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Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you. In other words, the good news of Jesus Christ takes up the entirety of the word that was preached by the prophets, and it is applied to you.

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Peter says we take up the gospel, when we preach the gospel, we're preaching the entirety of the word of God to you.

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Paul was known to have said that he preached nothing but Christ and also the full counsel of the word of God.

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Those two go together. Verse 1 of chapter 2.

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The pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby. There's church growth. If indeed you have tasted that the

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Lord is gracious. Now what kind of, how does this growth manifest? What does it look like? Well, Peter begins to use the metaphor of construction.

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Verse 4. As we see that the

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Jews were rejecting the gospel of Jesus Christ. They had their temple. It was big.

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It was beautiful. It was covered in gold and silver. They had spent decades building their temple, and they weren't about to give it up.

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So they rejected Christ as the cornerstone of the new temple, but Christ is chosen by God and precious.

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Verse 5. So Christ is a living stone. You also as living stones are being built up edified.

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There's the same word that we have in Acts 9 .21. And they were being edified.

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Same word is here. Being built up into what? A spiritual house. A spiritual house.

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A holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

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Therefore it is also contained in the scripture. Behold I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone. Elect precious and he who believes on him will by no means be put to shame.

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Therefore to you who believe he is precious, but to those who are disobedient, the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.

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A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. They stumble being disobedient to the word to which they were also appointed.

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But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

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Who once were not a people but now are the people of God. Who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.

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So when we read that the churches were being edified, were being built up, were being constructed.

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We know the shape into which they were being constructed. It is being constructed into a temple, constructed into the very shape of Christ.

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The shape of the temple declared the glory of God. The very shape and structure of the temple was a message.

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Every bit of the architecture and every last artifact in the temple declares the glory of God in his redemption of all creation.

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That's what the temple was declaring through his chosen servant. So the new covenant temple is the same thing.

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However, the new temple is being constructed. It is about declaring the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

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The whole shape of it just screams Jesus. We have architecture from the medieval ages.

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Cathedrals that took generations to build. And how are they shaped? They are shaped to declare gospel messages.

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We think about who we are and how we're being edified and constructed. It is to be in the shape of Jesus Christ, the last

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Adam, who is the image of the invisible God. Now, what about the particular content?

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How is it that they're being built up? All we have to do is look in the book of Acts and see what it was that they were talking about to one another.

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How were they edifying one another? What was the content of that edification? It wasn't something where somebody said, you know,

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I had a thought this morning. Or, you know, I've got something on my heart

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I want to share. It's not that. Or, I heard this nifty thing.

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Or, I just read this bestseller. Have you watched the latest movie or show?

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Oh, it was so good. So, what are they using to edify one another in such a way that they're being built up into the temple, the new covenant temple?

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So, in Acts chapter 2, back where we see after Pentecost and the arrival of the

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Holy Spirit, and them first gathering together in these numbers, baptized, identified as the church.

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Verse 41 of Acts chapter 2. Then those who gladly received his word. Peter's preaching about how

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Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of God's promises, whether in Joel or the

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Psalms or Isaiah. Those who had gladly received his word were baptized.

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They were acknowledged and brought in as members of the church. They were publicly declared as members of Christ.

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These belonged to Christ. And that day, about 3 ,000 souls were added to them.

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Now, notice this in verse 42. They continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, in their teaching, in their declaration of who

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Christ is from all the scriptures, according to Luke 24. So, they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, in fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.

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So, their instruction has to do with the apostles' doctrine. That which Christ taught them and opened their eyes that they may understand the scriptures.

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And notice also in Acts chapter 4, another summary moment in Acts. And what it said here about how the church was doing.

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Acts chapter 4 in verse 33. Speaking of the multitude of the church and their unity and so on.

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Verse 33 says, And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the

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Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. They did not preach a dead Christ.

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They did not preach a theoretical Christ. They did not preach a Christ of myth.

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They did not preach a Christ of happenstance. They did not preach a

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Christ who was lowly and dead in the grave, who was merely human or a good teacher. They preached

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Christ who was raised from the dead, the living, reigning Christ.

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Now, that builds the church. When we put our eyes upon Christ, who is at the right hand of the

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Father, reigning, our living, risen Lord. The firstfruits of the new creation, and us raised in Him.

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So, their instruction has to do with the Word of God. It has everything to do with the

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Son of God taking the Word of God by the

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Spirit of God to remake the image of God. That's what's going on in our lives when we're being built up in Christ by His Word.

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This is His work. He is the Son of David, and so He is building the temple. It is

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His role, and He does so by the power of the Holy Spirit. Not by flesh, not by might, says the

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Lord, but by My Spirit the temple is built. But we see that that's not always welcomed.

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The cornerstone is also a stone of stumbling, a rock of offense. It doesn't make sense sometimes.

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It doesn't fit well with the worldview. Paul says that he was preaching

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Christ, but this preaching of Christ and His resurrection from the dead was what?

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It was a stumbling block and an offense. The prevailing worldview of his day said that you wanted to escape all things fleshly and material, and be delivered to nothing but ethereal, spiritual, mystical experiences.

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So why would you ever want any resurrection from the dead? It made no sense to the

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Gentiles. And it was a great stumbling block to the Jews because they didn't want to believe in a

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Messiah who was humbled and who was killed on the cross as a sacrifice and was raised from the dead.

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It was an offense and a stumbling block. This message still today is not accepted by many.

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It causes offense. It causes stumbling. And if there is one thing that those church growth books told me, it was you had better not offend anybody.

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That's not how you do it. But how does Christ do it? He's doing such a good job.

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Our great shepherd is doing such a great job. I just rejoice in the testimony of Christians all around the world and what

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God is doing there. We just heard from one of our missionaries that they're in the process of handing off all the future discipleship opportunities and the training of new pastors to the people who already live there, who are the natives there.

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Right? The Americans and the Europeans are going home. Who came in the first place?

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There are missionaries going from Venezuela to northern Africa to preach gospel to the

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Muslims. Missionaries pouring out of South Korea.

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Isn't Jesus doing such a good job building his church? And how does he build his church?

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He builds them up and edifies us through his word, through his scripture.

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Teaching us who he is and shaping us in his image. So that by looking in the scriptures and looking at our

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Lord from glory to glory, he moves us so that by looking in his word, we will look like him in this world.

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Now, why would we ever reject this kind of building and edification? Well, it's humbling, isn't it?

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Say, I'm not already a perfectly shaped stone. It is very humbling in our day, isn't it?

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To say, you know, I'm not fully accepting of myself. But how vital for the gospel.

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How vital for salvation. That a sinner will never come to Christ and be saved if that sinner says,

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I am fully accepting of myself. Jesus says, if any man wants to follow me, he must take up his cross denying himself and follow after me.

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To repent of all that which offends God that has brought us under the judgment of God and to recognize that he has given us a

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Savior who upon the cross for us and for our salvation died under the wrath of God. That we might be saved.

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That we might be transformed by his resurrection. The only reason why we would reject this type of construction and this kind of edification, this kind of building up into a new covenant temple is we're too busy whitewashing our tombs.

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I like my stone just the way it is. I'm just going to make it pretty.

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The unity of the churches, their interactions of peace, are entirely informed by this edification.

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If there is a church group over here and they're shaping themselves after this successful program, and there's a church group over here and they're shaping themselves after this really nifty philosophy, how are they going to have peace?

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How's there going to be unity? You see, our unity is in Christ.

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He builds us up into him. He's the head. Now notice also their illumination.

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What makes sense of everything. The churches throughout all

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Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and were edified. And notice, walking in the fear of the

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Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were multiplied. It's a fun thing to look at the similarity of each one of the carrying verbs in this verse.

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This is my translation of the verse. So it was, the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria were having peace, being built up, and being walked in the fear of the

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Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, being multiplied. They were being walked.

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You know why? Because we're sheep. Christ is the shepherd. He's walking us in certain ways.

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We have a good shepherd who leads us in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. And we are being walked.

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The way that Christ builds the church is to walk us in good paths, lead us in good paths, and what a good path this is to fear the

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Lord. To fear the Lord. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, the beginning of knowledge, the beginning of understanding.

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The fear of the Lord is life and health. The fear of the Lord is to depart from evil.

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How vital is the fear of the Lord? What does it mean? It means to think of him first and think of him most.

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If you are in a very frightening situation, there's a threat confronting you.

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Let's say you're in a vehicle in deep water and the water is pouring in and you're trapped.

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What you're thinking of first and thinking of most, well that's what you're fearing, correct?

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Fearing the Lord means thinking of him first, thinking of him most, fearing

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Christ, having this high reverence for Christ puts everything into perspective.

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Who am I to my Lord? First question. No matter where we are, we are in him.

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No matter what goes on, I relate to you as Christ has related to me. I love you as he has loved me.

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No matter where I am in the word, it's about my Savior, Jesus Christ. You see, we think of him first and we think of him most and we're walked in that way.

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This is why the word of God is a light to our path, a lamp to our feet.

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That's why because Christ is the light of the world and coming into the world he enlightens every man.

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He's the light for every person who has ever existed. By his light we are to live.

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Anything else is darkness. So we have a high reverence for Christ.

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We are being walked in the fear of the Lord. Fear is what you're always on about.

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You're afraid of something. That's what you talk about all the time. Can't get away from. It dominates your thinking, dominates your decisions.

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What is dominating your thinking? What is dominating your decisions? What is pulling you along and it seems like you just can't even help it go?

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Is it the fear of death? Missing out? Fear of death? Not having enough? Fear of death?

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Not living long enough? Fear of death? Is it fear of man? What do they think of me?

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How do I view myself? Is it fear of man? Fear of death is slavery, the

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Bible says, and the fear of man is a snare, but the fear of the Lord is life and freedom in Christ.

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We are to walk in the fear of the Lord. That's our illumination, the illumination of the church by which all of the work on the temple is to be done.

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What holds up construction, by the way? Number one reason for stopping construction is not the weather, although that's very common.

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It's the sun went down. It's dark out. Really, really hard to do construction 24 -7.

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But in the light of Jesus Christ, where there is no darkness, there is no need for the sun or the moon, but the light shines forever in the new

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Jerusalem. As this temple is being built, we have the eternal ever -shining light of Jesus Christ for this construction to continue.

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But also notice our indwelling. Not only our instruction and illumination, but our indwelling.

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In other words, being walked in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit. So this being walked informs the fear of the

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Lord. We're walking in the fear of the Lord and we're being walked in something else. The comfort.

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The comfort of the Holy Spirit. We have a good shepherd.

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He makes us to lie down in green pastures. He leads us beside the still waters.

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He leads us in paths of righteousness for his namesake. He restores our soul with his name. He puts us into the comfort of the

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Holy Spirit. This is the significant difference between the old covenant and the new covenant.

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Very significant difference. Before the Holy Spirit, he indwelt the tabernacle.

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Holy of holies. The temple. The holy of holies. But now, we're the temple in Christ, and he indwells us.

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And so we have a comforter. Jesus told his disciples, I must go away. I must depart. I'm going to go and prepare a place for you.

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And knowing that, I'm going to come again and take you to myself. So that where I am, you may also be. But I'm not going to leave you orphans.

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I'm going to send to you another comforter. Meaning a comforter that, like unto Jesus was for his disciples, so the

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Holy Spirit for us, comforting us. How does the

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Holy Spirit comfort us? He comforts us by his very presence that he indwells us.

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And by his presence, we may abide with God. We abide with the

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Lord. He comforts us by his power. The power of God is not millions of miles away.

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And here we are, hollering as loud as we can, and as plaintively as we can, hoping that his power will by some means reach all the way down to us to help us.

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No, the Holy Spirit, God himself, and all of his power, and all of his attributes dwells within his temple.

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His people, the church. The power of God is not far away.

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The Holy Spirit indwells us. He is right here. He comforts us in our prayers.

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Sometimes we don't know how to pray as we ought. Situations are just too painful.

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Too complicated. Too messy. I don't even know what to say.

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And yet we have the comfort of the Holy Spirit who intercedes with us with groanings far too deep to be uttered.

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We have the comfort of his proclamation. Every single one of the words of God here in these scriptures is,

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God breathed holy men born along by the Holy Spirit wrote down every word that God superintended with his truth.

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We have the proclamation of the Holy Spirit. We have a comfort. How much comfort do we receive from the word that God has given to us by his spirit?

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We have the comfort of the Holy Spirit's prompting because he brings to mind all that Christ has taught us.

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He prompts us with the word of God. He directs us according to the word.

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We are comforted by his purpose. The work that God has begun in us he's going to complete into the day of Christ Jesus.

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He has given us his Holy Spirit to purify us, to build us up, to bring us into unity and into love and to bring us and shape us for the glory of God.

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And we are comforted by his preservation. He's not going to fail.

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He's not going to lose us. So we are comforted by the indwelling of the

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Holy Spirit. On the wall outside of the chapel in my undergraduate, there was a picture of Jesus and his disciples, a couple of his disciples, and there they are in this setting that maybe possibly was

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Galilee. There's a tree. There's a bridge. And they've taken the time to stop and rest.

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Jesus leans there on the bridge and he's talking with his disciples and they're so focused on what he has to say.

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Their faces full of questions. His face full of love and answers. A little bit of amusement and challenge.

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I remember looking at that painting and thinking, that's how close I want to be in my walk with Christ.

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I want to know that. What would that have been like? And yet Jesus said, there's something better for you

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Peter and John. Something better for you disciples is that I go away and I give you the

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Holy Spirit. Let's rejoice in the comfort of the

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Holy Spirit. And lastly, well, I just want to ask you a question actually.

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Do you have that comfort? Do you have that comfort of the

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Holy Spirit in your life? Lastly, notice their increase.

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The churches throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and were edified, and walking in the fear of the

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Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were multiplied. It's an ongoing thing.

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They were being multiplied over and over again. What we find is

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Christ is building his churches, churches in his way, and he's building them unto his glory.

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And this multiplication, this increase of these churches, it's not being done by selfish, man -centered desires.

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If we only had brown carpet, we'd probably have more people here. You know?

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I like the stories about Jesus explaining how his kingdom works. The kingdom in which he's repent and believe.

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The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent and believe. Come in. The kingdom that he builds, this new creation, this church that he builds in the new covenant.

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His two little short parables, and one of them is about a mustard seed. That seed is so small.

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If you've ever seen one, hard to see. He said it's the smallest seed out of all these garden plants that you're accustomed to putting into your front garden there in your courtyard.

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Everyone lives in these one -room houses with a flat roof, stairs on the sides, you could hang out on top of the roof when it got cool at night.

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Maybe you have a little storeroom inside where you'd hide your treasures. Someone might break through a wall and steal it out of your storeroom.

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Have a little courtyard out front, and in there you would have some garden plants that you would help feed your family with.

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One of the plants in your front area, your courtyard, is going to be a mustard plant for seasoning.

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Jesus says, that's a tiny little seed, but there it grows, and he says, it becomes a tree. Everybody starts flipping open the

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Encyclopedia Britannica, going online, how big does a mustard plant get? And you realize very quickly, mustard seeds do not grow into trees.

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Especially not the size that Jesus said, because he said that this mustard tree would have the birds coming and making nests and living in this tree.

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What's he saying? Surprise! Something that's very small, that grows very slowly, eventually, and he borrows a metaphor from the

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Old Testament, is big enough for when the nations come in. Birds in the tree. A metaphor for the nations coming into his kingdom.

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He also told a story about a woman who was busy in her home and she was going to make some bread.

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She had some dough. In fact, she had a lot of dough. She had so much dough, she had dough for the whole neighborhood.

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That's how much dough she had. And she put a little leaven in there. A little yeast. And Jesus said, eventually that yeast will leaven the whole lump of dough, even though it's massive and she's going to have a hard time getting out the front door.

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Surprise! Look how big everything gets, but notice how silently and slowly these things work. And nonetheless, they were being multiplied.

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Now, as we think about these marks of the church's churches, their identity, our internationality, our interaction, our instruction, our illumination, our indwelling, and our increase, we can see how it's

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Christ building us, how Christ is doing his work. Where we see conformity in our church to these marks, we say we are what we are by the grace of God, and that's all that we are.

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Where we see non -conformity to these marks, we say, Lord, help us, and we repent.

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Ask for forgiveness and grace to grow. And where we see these things continuing on, we give all the praise to our

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Lord. Father, I thank you for the time that you've given us in your word. I pray that it has been a blessing to our hearts.

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Thank you for bringing clarity to us about who you are and who we are in your sight. We pray that you would continue to bless this church and build it.

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Bring us along and help us for your glory and for our good. We pray these things in Jesus' name.

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Amen. You stand at this time for our song of benediction.

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You've been singing this month Oh, How Good It Is. Oh, how good it is

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When the family of God In faith and unity

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When the bonds of peace Of acceptance and love

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Are the fruits of his presence Here among us

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So with one voice we'll sing To the

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Lord And with one heart He has come

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For he dwells in the presence Of his people

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It is on this journey

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We share to rejoice With the happy And weep with those who mourn

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For the weak find strength The afflicted find grace

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When we offer the blessing Of belonging

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So with one voice we'll sing

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To the Lord And with one heart We'll live out his word

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Till all the seas The Redeemer has come

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For he dwells in the presence Of his people

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Oh, how good it is

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To embrace his command To prefer one another

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Forgive as he forgives When we live as one

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We all share in the love Of the Son with the

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Father And the Spirit So with one voice we'll sing

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To the Lord And with one heart We'll live out his word

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Till all the seas The Redeemer has come

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For he dwells in the presence Of his people

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May the love of the

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Father and the grace of the Son and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all.