Latest / INSIGHT FOR LIVING: Biblical Wisdom For Everyday Living / Strengthening Your Grip on Involvement │ Msg 216 - Pastor Chuck Swindoll Insight for Living

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Strengthening Your Grip on Involvement │ Msg 216 - Pastor Chuck Swindoll Insight for Living · INSIGHT FOR LIVING: Biblical Wisdom For Everyday Living

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  Speaker 1: God has not made all Christians the same. He never
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  Speaker 1: intended to. All of us have our own set of
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  Speaker 1: abilities in which we naturally excel. God planned that there
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  Speaker 1: would be differences, unique capabilities, and variations in the church.
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  Speaker 1: Understanding how God has uniquely gifted each one of us
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  Speaker 1: is essential to getting a grip on our involvement in
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  Speaker 1: the Church. I believe this is as helpful as any
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  Speaker 1: truth that believers can ever know, perhaps more. In a nutshell,
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  Speaker 1: here's the scoop. God has placed us in his family
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  Speaker 1: and given each of us a certain mixture that makes
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  Speaker 1: us unique. No mixture is insignificant. Nobody else is exactly
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  Speaker 1: like we are, and that pleases Him completely, and it
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  Speaker 1: should bring us pleasure as well. When we operate in
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  Speaker 1: the realm of our capabilities, we will excel, and the
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  Speaker 1: whole body of Christ will benefit and we will experience
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  Speaker 1: incredible satisfaction. But when we compare ourselves with others, or
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  Speaker 1: force ourselves to be like others, or entertain expectations that
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  Speaker 1: reach beyond our God given capabilities, we can count on it,
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  Speaker 1: mediocrity or even defeat is likely to set in. God
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  Speaker 1: is so concerned that we realize these truths that he
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  Speaker 1: spelled it out several times in the New Testament. One
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  Speaker 1: of those sections is First Corinthians, Chapter twelve. Listen as
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  Speaker 1: I read verses twenty through twenty seven from the New
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  Speaker 1: Living Translation First Corinthians twelve, beginning at verse twenty. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: there are many parts, but only one body. The eye
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  Speaker 1: can never say to the hand, I don't need you.
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  Speaker 1: The head can't say to the feet, I don't need you.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, some parts of the body that seem weakest
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  Speaker 1: and least important are actually the most necessary. And the
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  Speaker 1: parts we regard as less honorable are those we clothe
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  Speaker 1: with the greatest care. So we carefully protect those parts
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  Speaker 1: that should not be seen, while the more honorable parts
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  Speaker 1: do not require this special care. So God has put
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  Speaker 1: the body together such that extra honor and care are
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  Speaker 1: given to those parts that have less dignity. This makes
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  Speaker 1: for harmony among the members, so that all the members
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  Speaker 1: care for each other. If one part suffers, all the
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  Speaker 1: parts suffer with it. And if one part is honored,
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  Speaker 1: all the parts are glad. All of you together are
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  Speaker 1: Christ's body, and each of you is a part of it.
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  Speaker 1: I read an article a number of years ago written
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  Speaker 1: by a psychologist the writer was attempting to describe the
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  Speaker 1: relationships that Christians have with one another. He compared us
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  Speaker 1: to porcupines on a cold winter night. The porcupines, because
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  Speaker 1: of the cold, are drawn together to get warm, and
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  Speaker 1: when they get really really close together and begin to snuggle,
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  Speaker 1: then outcome the quills, those little sharp spines that push
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  Speaker 1: at one another, and they separate, only to get out
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  Speaker 1: into the cold again and feel the need for warmth
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  Speaker 1: and be driven by the cold back together, only to
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  Speaker 1: start again jabbing at one another with those sharp quills,
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  Speaker 1: back and forth, in what the writer calls a sort
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  Speaker 1: of slow religious dance that Christians call fellowship. I think
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  Speaker 1: what he was trying to say is that we need
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  Speaker 1: each other, but we needle each other when we get
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  Speaker 1: too close. Who hasn't smiled understandingly at the ditty that says,
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  Speaker 1: to dwell above with saints we love all that will
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  Speaker 1: be glory. But to live below with saints we know, well,
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  Speaker 1: that's another story. It is a devastating thought to realize
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  Speaker 1: that God is going to have you spend eternity with
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  Speaker 1: people you won't even talk to here on earth, and
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  Speaker 1: knowing the Lord as I do, it would be just
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  Speaker 1: like him to put you your mansion in the form
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  Speaker 1: of a duplex, and have you live right next door.
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  Speaker 1: Throughout eternity, we are one in the bond of love.
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  Speaker 1: Where the spirit of the Lord is there is peace. Really, really,
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  Speaker 1: we are one in the spirit. We are one in
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  Speaker 1: the Lord. Others will know we are Christians by our love. Really, Tertullian,
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  Speaker 1: one of the church fathers, said, as he watched Christians
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  Speaker 1: departing from a secret place of worship, behold how they
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  Speaker 1: love one another. Really, One sage in the seventeenth century wrote,
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  Speaker 1: no man is an island in tire of itself. Every
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  Speaker 1: man is a piece of a continent, a part of
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  Speaker 1: the main. If a cloud be washed away of the
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  Speaker 1: sea Europe is the less. Any man's death diminishes me
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  Speaker 1: because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send
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  Speaker 1: to know for whom the bell tolds, it tolls for
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  Speaker 1: thee five words spell the secret of John Done. I
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  Speaker 1: am involved in mankind, how much more so in the
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  Speaker 1: body of Christ. My phone rang l late last evening.
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  Speaker 1: On the other end of the line was the familiar
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  Speaker 1: tone of a close friend who lives many, many hundreds
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  Speaker 1: of miles away from me in another state. He wasn't laughing,
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  Speaker 1: he was hurting, and he poured out for just a
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  Speaker 1: few moments. The story of his son in law who
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  Speaker 1: accidentally on a hunting trip, shot himself in the lower abdomen,
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  Speaker 1: and the anguish of his life was communicated over a
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  Speaker 1: plastic telephone device. And my heart was moved as if
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  Speaker 1: I were standing right next to him, because I love
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  Speaker 1: my friend, and he knew I did, and it was
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  Speaker 1: the most natural thing in the world to share the grief,
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  Speaker 1: the horror of the story that the boy may not
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  Speaker 1: live if gangreen sets in. Because I am involved in mankind, involved,
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  Speaker 1: Webster states, means to draw in as a participant, to
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  Speaker 1: relate closely, to connect, to include. As I study in
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  Speaker 1: my mind the involvements of a Christian, I think there
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  Speaker 1: are at least four that are intense in our lives
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  Speaker 1: on this earth. First, we are involved with God vertically.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, that's first. He met us at the Cross.
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  Speaker 1: He loved us through his son, He brought us eternal life,
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  Speaker 1: eternal forgiveness, a position with him in the eternities. He
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  Speaker 1: has guaranteed our home throughout eternity. I am vertically related
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  Speaker 1: to God. I also, however, have three other relationships that
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  Speaker 1: are also intense, and they are all horizontal. Second, I'm
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  Speaker 1: involved with other members of my family, in my case,
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  Speaker 1: the Swindall family, the tentacles that reach out to the
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  Speaker 1: Parker family, my wife's family, our children. Those children are
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  Speaker 1: relatives the parents that still live. I have a relationship
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  Speaker 1: with a family tie. Third, I'm involved with other members
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  Speaker 1: of the Family of God, not related by blood, but
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  Speaker 1: related by faith. And Fourth, i am to be involved
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  Speaker 1: with people of this earth who have never met the Savior,
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  Speaker 1: the people of the world. I am not to be
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  Speaker 1: out of touch with them. The involvement will be different,
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  Speaker 1: not nearly as intense, but it will be there if
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  Speaker 1: I am living a healthy Christian life. Our attention in
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  Speaker 1: this message falls upon the third of those four relationships,
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  Speaker 1: and one that is often strained frequently. It is not
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  Speaker 1: characterized by an intense love of which Tertullian once spoke,
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  Speaker 1: or which we often sing as we talk about being
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  Speaker 1: one in the bond of love. First off, I'd like
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  Speaker 1: you to stop with me at Acts chapter two, following
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  Speaker 1: that great, great sermon Peter preached on the day of Pentecost,
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  Speaker 1: there is the climax to the sermon, where about three
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  Speaker 1: thousand people respond positively to the claims of Christ, three
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  Speaker 1: thousand souls that have never before that moment turned their
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  Speaker 1: lives over to Jesus Christ, three thousand brand new believers.
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  Speaker 1: And Peter stands before them no doubt, as we would
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  Speaker 1: be in his own human flesh, amazed and must have wondered,
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  Speaker 1: what do we do now? There was no building in
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  Speaker 1: which to meet, There was no completed Bible, there was
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  Speaker 1: no manual, there was no pastor, there was no organization
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  Speaker 1: called the church. There had never existed such a thing before.
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  Speaker 1: Suddenly he's standing with three thousand brand new believers, and
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  Speaker 1: we are told in verse forty two what they spent
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  Speaker 1: their time doing. Now these are the outworkings of a
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  Speaker 1: local assembly. Last time we studied this subject, we thought
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  Speaker 1: about the internal priorities. You may remember them. A ministry
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  Speaker 1: is to be biblical. A ministry is to be characterized
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  Speaker 1: by authenticity. A ministry is to be gracious in its style.
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  Speaker 1: Ministry is to be relevant, always on the cutting edge
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  Speaker 1: of its time. But what about the outworkings of those things? Well,
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  Speaker 1: the early Church devoted themselves verse forty two to four
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  Speaker 1: things to the apostles, teaching to fellowship, to the breaking
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  Speaker 1: of bread, and to prayer. Four things marked the early
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  Speaker 1: church they gave attention to. They devoted themselves to teaching,
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  Speaker 1: good teaching, consistent teaching, continued teaching from day to day,
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  Speaker 1: as the apostles fed them the good Word of life,
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  Speaker 1: how important it was. They also had the ordinances of
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  Speaker 1: baptism verse forty one. The Lord's table was observed, verse
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  Speaker 1: forty two. They had times of prayer Verse forty two
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  Speaker 1: closes with that. It's the fellowship part that interests me,
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  Speaker 1: the involvement part that they had. They were three thousand large,
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  Speaker 1: and they had no tradition. They didn't have nineteen centuries
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  Speaker 1: to look back on of the development and cultivation and
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  Speaker 1: growth of a ministry. There was no such thing as
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  Speaker 1: the church. But they had fellowship. Coin onea coin onea.
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  Speaker 1: The root word means common. You'll see it in verse
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  Speaker 1: forty four. All those who believed were together and had
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  Speaker 1: all things in coin onea in common. They shared in
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  Speaker 1: common things verse forty five. They began selling the property
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  Speaker 1: of all things and possessions, and they were sharing them.
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  Speaker 1: They were coin oneoing them. They were commoning them with
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  Speaker 1: one another, as anyone might have need to borrow from
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  Speaker 1: John Fawcett's words. They shared their mutual woes, their mutual
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  Speaker 1: burdens they bore, and often for each other, flowed a
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  Speaker 1: sympathizing tier. A man shared with me last Sunday, who
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  Speaker 1: had the previous week gone through a tough time, and
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  Speaker 1: I agonized with him through it. And he leaned over
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  Speaker 1: as we sang a hymn together, and he said, thanks
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  Speaker 1: for the sympathizing tear last, and he named the day
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  Speaker 1: fellowship with my brother. When I shared in that hurt
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  Speaker 1: with him, say, well, it goes on for a while,
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  Speaker 1: but you know, as the church grew and they began
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  Speaker 1: to spread and all it finally left you. No, it
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  Speaker 1: didn't leave Chapter four, verse thirty two. You'll see it's
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  Speaker 1: now larger in a number, and yet it's still there, strangely,
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  Speaker 1: four thirty two. The congregation of those who believed were
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  Speaker 1: one hard, and so they were singing those great hymns.
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  Speaker 1: They were sharing in those experiences, if for no other
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  Speaker 1: reason than just basic survival. Not one of them claimed
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  Speaker 1: that anything belonging to him was his own. They had
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  Speaker 1: all things in common with one another. There was a
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  Speaker 1: common property that they shared in A man didn't stick
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  Speaker 1: his hand in his pocket and say, no, that's mine.
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  Speaker 1: I'm keeping that to myself. It's just for me and
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  Speaker 1: my family. There was a sharing in it. Friends. They
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  Speaker 1: were meeting in caves and dens of the earth. They
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  Speaker 1: were under arrest. If they met as we would meet today,
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  Speaker 1: their lives were at stake. They entered into the hurt
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  Speaker 1: of that. They entered into the death of one another.
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  Speaker 1: As someone said, following the Christian in the first centuries
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  Speaker 1: like following a wounded hair across the snow, just constant
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  Speaker 1: trails of blood. It was operations survival to fellowship then,
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  Speaker 1: not now. I mean, who really needs it now? If
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  Speaker 1: I read these passages correctly, I read that they all
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  Speaker 1: entered into them, that they were held together by them,
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  Speaker 1: that it was a genuine expression of love and harmony.
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  Speaker 1: That's coynonea expressions of authentic Christianity freely shared among members
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  Speaker 1: of the Family of God. Maybe that was too fast,
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  Speaker 1: expressions of authentic Christianity freely shared among members of the
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  Speaker 1: Family of God. As I read my New Testament, I
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  Speaker 1: noticed that coin onea, that same strange sounding word is
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  Speaker 1: found no less than twenty times in the New Testament,
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  Speaker 1: not once is it something that you do alone. It
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  Speaker 1: is invariably something done with someone else. In fact, as
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  Speaker 1: I categorize the events of that word, as I trace
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  Speaker 1: it through the New Testament, it means one of two things,
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  Speaker 1: sharing something with someone else or sharing in something with
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  Speaker 1: someone else. If I take this magazine article and I
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  Speaker 1: share it with you for the purpose of helping you,
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  Speaker 1: I have coinneod. I have entered into a common interest
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  Speaker 1: and need, and as you enter into it with me,
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  Speaker 1: we have shared in that together. But it's something much
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  Speaker 1: deeper than the giving and receiving of an article out
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  Speaker 1: of a magazine. It's the giving and receiving of life,
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  Speaker 1: of emotions, of care and hurt, and laughter and honor
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  Speaker 1: and grief and loss. Something I don't do alone. Ever
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  Speaker 1: suffered alone? Who hasn't? It's devastating. Ever talked with someone
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  Speaker 1: who has suffered through something all alone? They change? Most
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  Speaker 1: don't do it and remain healthy. Something seems to change.
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  Speaker 1: Now why should I? Why should I connect with another person?
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  Speaker 1: Or why should my family connect with another family? I mean,
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  Speaker 1: after all, it's not the mark of our times. We
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  Speaker 1: don't do that as a people. You question that, stop
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  Speaker 1: and see how much talk goes on in the aisles
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  Speaker 1: of a grocery store. Ever done that. It's a funny
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  Speaker 1: thing to watch. I love to tell the true story
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  Speaker 1: of the time I was having the time of my life,
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  Speaker 1: visiting with various people I had never met before. And
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  Speaker 1: I came to the meet counter and there was a
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  Speaker 1: lady looking for some meat, and I was standing there
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  Speaker 1: and I was smiling, and she looked at me. She said,
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  Speaker 1: what's wrong? I said, nothing is wrong. What have you done?
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  Speaker 1: I haven't done anything. I I'm just enjoying myself. You know,
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  Speaker 1: I'm having a good time. I'd like to talk with you.
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  Speaker 1: She thought, I was weird. What in the world are
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  Speaker 1: you doing talking to somebody in a grocery store? Think
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  Speaker 1: there are mutes that stand in the line that wait
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  Speaker 1: to come to the final checkstand. Ever seen anything meaningful
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  Speaker 1: talked about in a checkstan? I love to talk to
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  Speaker 1: those gals at the checkstan. The all they ever asked
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  Speaker 1: is did you ring that upright? That's the deepest level
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  Speaker 1: of conversation at the check stand. Every once in a while,
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  Speaker 1: it's fun to say, Hi, how are you. I did
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  Speaker 1: that recently and the girl said why. It's a great moment.
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  Speaker 1: One of the great moments in life is to have
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  Speaker 1: the gal at the checkstand say why, you're not supposed
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  Speaker 1: to talk. You're supposed to do your thing, and she's
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  Speaker 1: supposed to do her thing. And never will your eyes
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  Speaker 1: meet unless it relates to a grocery store price. How
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  Speaker 1: dumb can we get? And you know what, she has
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  Speaker 1: to wrap things up at ten o'clock, pack her things
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  Speaker 1: in the car, and go home, often to an empty room.
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  Speaker 1: And yet you don't talk. Why Because the name of
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  Speaker 1: the game and our society is isolation. Keep it to yourself,
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  Speaker 1: don't share it, don't open up, you get hurt. Furthermore,
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  Speaker 1: nobody really cares operation porcupine dance back and forth. And
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  Speaker 1: so we think, well, with us, there's one thing place
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  Speaker 1: I'll understand. It's at the church. And so we come
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  Speaker 1: together and we begin to open up. Outcome the quills,
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  Speaker 1: back away, and then it gets cold out there. Come
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  Speaker 1: back together, outcome the quills. I'll tell you he was
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  Speaker 1: more right than wrong who wrote of us as a
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  Speaker 1: slow moving religious dance. The involvement of Acts chapter two
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  Speaker 1: is described in chapter twelve of Romans rather vividly. Rather vividly,
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  Speaker 1: I invite you to turn to Romans twelve. I want
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  Speaker 1: to answer the question why why should I be involved?
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  Speaker 1: Why should I take the risk? Why should I open
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  Speaker 1: up my life and my concerns, either to share or
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  Speaker 1: to listen in to someone else? Why? Verse one, Paul
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  Speaker 1: is on his knees. I urge you, I plead with you.
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  Speaker 1: I beg of you. Please please listen to me, says
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  Speaker 1: the apostle. Verse two. Don't let the world around you
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  Speaker 1: squeeze you into its own mold is the paraphrase of
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  Speaker 1: phillips New Testament. Don't be conformed to this world. Let
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  Speaker 1: me narrow it to one particular conformity, and that's isolation.
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  Speaker 1: Paul says, I beg of you, I plead with you,
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  Speaker 1: please listen to me. Don't let the world around you
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  Speaker 1: squeeze you into its mold of isolation, but be transformed
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  Speaker 1: by the renewing of your mind that you may prove
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  Speaker 1: that the will of God is all it claims to be.
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  Speaker 1: The First reason I should be involved with people is
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  Speaker 1: that God commands it, he says. In verse nine. Let
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  Speaker 1: love be without hypocrisy, he says in verse ten, be
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  Speaker 1: devoted to one another in love. That's a command. That's
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  Speaker 1: a command. Of people that attend big churches or little churches,
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  Speaker 1: who aren't even in churches, but are in the family
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  Speaker 1: of God. A close friend of mine in the church
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  Speaker 1: told me of the August nineteen eighty edition of Psychology Today,
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  Speaker 1: and it is a fabulous article entitled The Age of
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Indifference by Philip G. Zimbardo, prophe of psychology at Stanford
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  Speaker 1: The Age of Indifference. Accompanying the article is a street
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  Speaker 1: scene of two people walking past one another. The man
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  Speaker 1: is walking in this direction and the woman is walking
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  Speaker 1: in this direction. And do you think they're looking at
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  Speaker 1: each other? Not on your life. I'm going my way,
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  Speaker 1: he's going his way. Don't bother me, don't take my time. Zimbardo,
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  Speaker 1: something of an expert on the subject of being shy,
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  Speaker 1: realizes that it isn't a result of being shy. He says,
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  Speaker 1: I believe that the basic quality of our social lives
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  Speaker 1: is being diluted, distorted, and demeaned by a host of
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  Speaker 1: profound structural changes in society. The consequences are serious. I
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  Speaker 1: know of no more potent killer killer than isolation. There
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  Speaker 1: is no more destructive influence on physical and mental health
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  Speaker 1: then the isolation of you from me and us from them.
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  Speaker 1: It has been shown to be a central agent in
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  Speaker 1: the etiology of depression, paranoia, schizophrenia, rape, suicide, mass murder,
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  Speaker 1: and a wide variety of diseases. Where do we witness
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  Speaker 1: displays of strong emotion anymore except at sports events and
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  Speaker 1: rock concerts? Good question. And even when we witness them,
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  Speaker 1: how many of us will acknowledge as much or dare
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  Speaker 1: to share the emotion? On my way, he writes, On
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  Speaker 1: my way to visit my sister because she is dying
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  Speaker 1: of cancer, I explain the reason for my absence to
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  Speaker 1: student assistants. Have a nice trip, chortles. One, see you
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  Speaker 1: when you get back, says another. And that's all they say.
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  Speaker 1: That's all they say. I expect that in the world system,
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  Speaker 1: that's the mold in which the world has squeezed itself.
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  Speaker 1: That's the safe way to live. Hard, difficult, lonely, despairing
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: as that may be, it's still the safest. Because you
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: reach out to a whirling you might very well get
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: ripped off. But it has come into the church, and
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: the family of God is in the same category. We
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: come together not as grapes, We come together as marbles.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: We make noise, we pour in but the hundreds sounds
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: come out of our mouths. But the closest we know
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: of one another is the hairdoo on the back of
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: our head. I mean, a person is a little bit
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: unusual to turn around directly and speak directly to you.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, after all, you're sitting behind them. We arrange
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: it that way. We think at times, how can we
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: get people acquainted? What a strange thing to say. But
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: unless it is somehow put together, almost in a contrived manner,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: it won't happen. You can come, sit, listen, and leave
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: for months and never be impacted by one other life.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: If you don't want to be used to be, you
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: could hide behind the columns or up in a balcony.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: We have neither columns nor a balcony, but we can
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: pull it off, even here in front of everybody else.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: Just don't touch. I'm going to ask you. Is that
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: verse ten of Romans twelve written in this age to
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: this body of believers, not of Rome, but a Fullerton,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: or whatever city you may live in. He says, be
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: devoted to one another in brotherly love, give preference to
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: one another in honor, not lagging behind in religence, fervent
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: in spirit. Look at the spontaneity of it. The word
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: means boiling. There's a boiling as you would boil water,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: a bubbling of spirit, rejoicing and hope, persevering in tribulation,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: practicing hospitality. Wow. The New International version says love must
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: be sincere. The Living Bible says, don't just pretend to
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: love each other, really love them. Philip says, let us
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: have no imitation Christian love. You know what. He's describing
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: a religious dance that Porcupines are involved in, which leads
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: me to Romans fifteen, verse seven. Does God command it?
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: Look at verse seven? I mean, really command it? Wherefore command?
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Put it in your Bible? Command right there in the margin,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: command from God? Accept one another? Well, I accept everybody here.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: I accept this person sitting next to me. I don't
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: know his name, but I accept him. Wait a minute,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Hold it can't let you off that way. To be
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: true to the text, the original Greek word means to
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: lay hold on You want to do that now? No,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: not right now, maybe a little later, to take to oneself.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: In fact, it is used extra biblically to describe what
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: you do when you come to the door of your
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: home and invite someone in. It's an invitation, saying you
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: are welcome. It's used in military outfits of making a
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: person feel the spree decore of the military outfit. The
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: new guy that comes in with a sea bag over
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: his shoulder and he doesn't know his way around, it's
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: the making him feel welcome, and a part of it,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: it's a reaching out of acceptance. Without that zero, there
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: isn't involvement. God commands it, just as Christ accepted us
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: to the glory of God. And aren't you glad? When
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: he did it his arms were out and not behind
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: his back. Does it seem significant to anybody else that
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: on the cross, Christ's arms are out, and that the
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: continued gesture you see of him in your mind's eye
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: when you think of Christ, you never think of him
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: with his arms folded. You always think of him with
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: his arms out, because that's where he found you in
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: the streets, stooping, lifting you up, holding you close, loving
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: you through it. Never with hands in his robes pockets. Never.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: And I frankly cannot I do not mean to be
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: cute in saying this. I can't imagine his greeting any
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: one of us in Heaven's glory with a handshake. I
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: am confident it will be an embrace. Why do I
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: get involved? Because God commands it. There's another reason. I
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: close with it. It'll take a while, but I'll close
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: with it. First Corinthians Chapter twelve turned to First Corinthians twelve.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: The second reason is the body needs it. The body
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: needs it. I hear someone say, who hears that answer?
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: The body needs it. I don't need it. I am
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: a self sufficient person. I was raised that way. I'm
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: independent by nature. I'm an isolationist. Actually, I didn't say
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: you need it. I said the body needs it. The
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: body needs it. You know who understands that is the wife,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: the mother who's hearing me right now, who fixes meals
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: every day for a starving bunch of kids, and she
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: doesn't need it. They need it unless I miss my guests.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: There are some others that are hearing me, that are thinking, oh,
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: that is right. Tell them about it. I'm not hungry
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: half the time. And their favorite question is who are
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: we gonna eat? And what are we gonna have? And
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: have you ever had this happen? You're eating lunch and
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: they're talking about what are you gonna have for supper?
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: You ever had that happen? They're already telling you Thanksgiving
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: meal that's four days away, and they're already planning the
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: menu for you. Who are we gonna eat? When are
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: we gonna eat?
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: You?
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Fixed meals all the time because you need it. No way,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: no way, you fix it cause your kids need it,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: the body needs it. You talk about self sufficient. In
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: my own strength, I'm the most self sufficient person I've
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: ever met. I'm as independent as a hog on ice.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: Honest to Pete, I don't need people until I heard then,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, I wonder where they are. Let's see. I
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: cultivate them while I'm healthy. That doesn't come naturally. I'm
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: not talking to you, I'm talking to us. We're in
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: it together. And I hear some healthy, strong, willed, capable,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: and I might add prosperous, financially successful businessmen and women
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: thinking who needs all that stuff? Chuck get onto the
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: deep things of God. People around you need it, My friend,
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: At times I need it. May I be bold enough
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: to say, when the slats come out from your bed,
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: so will you? So will you? One Corinthians twelve verse
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: twenty There are many members, but one body. I need
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: that reminder. Self sufficient people need that reminder. There are
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: many people in the family of God, not just one.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: There's one body, but many people. Now the eye cannot
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: say to the hand, I have no need of you,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: or again the head to the feet, I have no
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: need of you. We laugh about that verse, but there's
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: more than just a little humor in it. No healthy body,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: if it could speak on the part of the head,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: would say to the feet, I don't need you. No
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: healthy I would ever look at the hand and say
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: I don't need you. A hand is terribly tough, an
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: I is terribly tender, and I need tough and tender
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: parts of my body to make it healthy, make it whole.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: I need the sensitivity of seeing on a face just
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: a flicker of chains that my hand never could see.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: But then my eyes at a loss to reach out
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: unless I have a hand to reach and embrace. We
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: need each other. On the contrary verse twenty two, it
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: is much truer that the members of the body which
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: seem to be weaker are necessary, and those members of
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: the body which we deem less honorable. On these we
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: bestow more abundant honor and our let me use the word,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: our insignificant members come to have a more significance about them,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: whereas our significant members have no need of it. God
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: has composed the body, giving more abundant honor to the
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: member which lacked. Why does the body need it? Number
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: one to dispel division verse twenty five, that there be
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: no division, and number two to cul debate compassion verse
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: twenty five that the members should have the same care
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: for one another. When you work your way through this text,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: you come to the purpose clauses of verse twenty five.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: The reason, the purpose behind God's saying the body needs
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: it is number one to dispel division verse twenty five,
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: that there should be no division. It's the whole idea
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: of breaking down clicks, of mending wounds between members, of
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: stopping the spread of diseases. You take away involvement in
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: this ministry and I don't give it five years five
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: years and will be empty. We'll be shut through with divisions,
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: strong clicks, weak clicks, loud clicks, quiet clicks, bitter clicks,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: critical clicks, and we wonder where's the body gone? Single cliques,
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: married clicks, divorce clicks, never married cliques, retired clicks. We
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: would wish for something as simple as a theological problem.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: That there be no division, That the single see himself
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: a part of the marriage, that the marriage see himself
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: as a part of the single, that the hurting with
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: the happy, and the happy with the hurting, the broken
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: with the healed, and those in process fitting in. We
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: need it so that it's not us in them. As
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Embardo puts it, it's we, it's our And it isn't
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: just a matter of good, strong preaching. It's the opening
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: of the heart door. That's as I need you, you
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: need me. What does involvement include? If I'm reading these
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: verses correctly, I find three simple ingredients. Number one, it
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: includes spontaneity. That there should be no division in the body,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: that the members should have the same care for one another,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: should should. It isn't forced, It isn't regimented. It isn't structured,
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: It isn't legislated. We don't hand out a list and
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: say here are the people that you answer to, or
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: here are the people you care for, here are the
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: three you're gonna love, or these are the hurts you're
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: going to listen to. You're in category one five zero Red,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: How would you like to be in a congregation like that?
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: What group are you in? Well, I'm in one five
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: zero read? Which one are you in? Two eight seven?
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: Green'd be exciting? Two eight seven Green? Sit over here
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: on the left left. You know that's ridiculous. You cannot
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: structure something like involvement. You naturally are drawn to certain
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: kinds of people. Let it be, Let it happen, Let
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: it draw. You're hurting you, you sense a need, you
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: pick up a phone and you make that call, and
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: you dispel the feeling. He's too busy, she's too busy.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: They don't care. I'm not in their group. They've never
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: been divorced, or they've never lost a mate, or they've
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: never had a wayward kid, or they've never had a
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: kid on drugs, or they've never had a mom. That
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: that we should, that we should we work against contriving
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: things like fellowship here. But I want to tell you
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: for sure that the congregation leadership in this place is
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: getting mighty concerned that it's not spontaneously happening. I lead
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: the pack in case you wonder where I fit into it.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: I care about that you attempted to legislate some things.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: What's it going to take to get some of you
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: to reach out? Well, what will it take? Spontaneous If
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: a dump truck at the end of your block just
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: happened to drop off, you know, a stack one hundred
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: dollars bills, would I need to legislate who's going to
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: go to the stack and pick them up? Oh? I mean,
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: ever kid in the neighborhood would invade that stack because
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: it's significant what's laying out in the street blowing all around.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: It's a spontaneous response because you see significance in it.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: You know what else it takes. It takes vulnerability. You've
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: heard about it in the Body of life world until
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: you're up to here with it. But where is it
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: verse twenty six? If one of the members suffers, all
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: the members suffer? Really, will you tell me a member
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: that's suffering. Oh, I don't know, Shuck. I get here
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: and fight for a parking place and show up, man.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's all I can do to get inside.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: I'm not talking about here. We're just in a huddle here.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: No game was ever won in the huddle. We're running
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: the plays Monday through Saturday. How about how about that vulnerability?
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: It means to be unguarded, to be open to attack
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: or damage, capable of being wounded. And that's what may
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: happen when you reach out. Anne Ortland has written some
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: good stuff. I think her best when is up with
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: worship in it, she writes a while back ray, that's
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: her husband preached on Mark fourteen to three. Here came Mary,
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: he said, with her alabaster of of Nard to the
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: dinner where Jesus was. She broke the bottle and poured
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: it on him. An alabaster vase, milky, white, veined, smooth,
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: precious and pure, Nard inside gone forever. According to John
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: twelve three, the whole house became filled with the fragrance.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: Some story Christians filed in the church on a Sunday morning.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: One by one by one, they march in like separate
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: alabaster vases, contained self sufficient, encased individually, complete contents, undisclosed,
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: no perfume emitting at all. Their vases aren't bad looking.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: In fact, some of them are the beautiful people. And
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: they become vase conscious, conscious of their own vase and
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: of another's. They're aware of clothes, of personalities, a position
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: in this world of exteriors. So before and after church
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: maybe during they're apt to talk vase talk? Your ring is, darling?
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: What stone is that? Did you hear? If Harry got
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: that job? What is Lisa's boy doing for the summer?
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: Is that all your hair? All your own hair? I
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: may take tennis lessons if George wants to Why Mary
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: broke her face? Broke it? How shocking? How controversial? Was
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: everybody doing it? Was it a vase breaking party that day?
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: No?
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: She did it by herself. What happened then? The obvious,
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: all the contents were forever released. She could never hug
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: her precious nard to herself again. It takes spontaneity, It
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: takes vulnerability, It takes you're not gonna like this. It
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: takes accountability. That's what it includes. It means I can't
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: get lost in the shuffle anymore. Verse twenty seven. You
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: are Christ's body. That means he's your head, and individually
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: members of it, implying one another one another. Christ is
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: the head. And as a member of that body of
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: which he is the head, I am a member with
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: somebody else, and I relate to someone else, and that
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: relationship helps me in my purity, or I will run wild.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: You can live like the devil and show up at
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: this place for worship every Sunday and nobody knows. And
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: if I confess the bottom line, nobody cares huge congregation huge,
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: but individually members of one another. What does that do
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: to my purity? A pastor perish that thought can live
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: like the pits and show up and preach if there
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: is no accountability and you'd never know it. I hear
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: some say, oh, oh, listen, we would know. You can tell.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: James Dobson writes, I was recently invited to conduct a
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: lecture series for faculty and students at a seminary. A seminary,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: it seemed appropriate that I talked to these future ministers
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: about the subject of inferiority, since they would soon be
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: dealing with many such problems in their own congregations. During
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: the course of my first address, I relayed a story
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: of quote Danny. Danny was a distressed high school student
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: whose grief over his inadequacy became intolerable and eventually turned
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: to anger. After I had spoken that day, I received
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: the following anonymous letter, Dear doctor Dobson, I am one
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: of the Dannies you spoke of in chapel today. I
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: have experienced this for as long as I can remember.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: It is a miserable way to live. Yes, I am
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: a student at this seminary, but that doesn't make the
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: problem any less acute, and he describes it in desperate terms.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: I want badly to be adequate so that I could
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: better serve God and others. I wish I could talk
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: with you, even for a short time. However, I realize
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: your busy schedule. At any rate, Thank you for coming
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: to the seminary, signed a troubled seminarian. Remember accountability now
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: for a moment. Since this broken young man had not
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: identified himself publicly, I read and discussed his letter with
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: the student body the following morning. Many of the three
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: hundred young men who were present seemed moved by his words.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: For some, it undoubtedly reflected their own predicament. Later, an
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: administrator of the seminary told me that this young man
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: was the last member of the student body whom he
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: would have expected to feel this way after the boy
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: had identified himself. Sitting in the audience the same day
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: was another student with the same kind of problems. However,
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: he didn't write me a letter. He never identified himself
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: in any way but three weeks after I left, he
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: hanged himself in the basement of his apartment. One of
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: the four men with whom he lived called me long
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: distance to inform me of the tragedy. He stated, deeply
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: shaken that the dead student's roommates were so unaware of
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: his problems. He hanged there five days before. He was missed,
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: no accountability, living with four seminarians, and they didn't even
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: miss him even though it was gone. In order for
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: there to be the same care for one another, there
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: has to be care for just one, just one. You
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: care for just one outside your family, so that you'd
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: know he's missing or that she's hurting. It's just so important. Lord, God,
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: you found us among the millions stumbling across life's landscape,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: and you came to us. You initiated the action. You
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: missed us somehow in the transfer of your life. There's
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: some stuff that hasn't made the journey from your heart
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: to ores. The pain and the stories that need to
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: be told in this congregation remain personal things. Assist us
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: as we attempt to turn a corner and put meaning
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: and caring back into the body guard us from foolish
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: extremes from contriving what we would call fellowship that isn't
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: that at all, are from a self sufficient smugness that
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: accompanies our faith. May we learn what it means to
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: honor other people, to take notice of them, and a
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: care in our isolated igloes of life. Through Christ, we
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: pray these things whose arms are outstretched Amen.
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: The preceding message, strengthening your grip on Involvement was copyrighted
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty nineteen eighty one, nineteen eighty five, nineteen
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: eighty nine, nineteen ninety five, twenty fourteen, and twenty twenty four,
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: and the sound recording was copyrighted in twenty twenty four
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: by Charles Rswindahl Incorporated. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibit