Latest / Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ) / "Be An Answer to Jesus’ Prayer" by Neal Pollard

Transcript

"Be An Answer to Jesus’ Prayer" by Neal Pollard · Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ)

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Good evening.
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His name was Theophilus Brown Larimore,
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and he made a pledge not to take up arms against the Union Army,
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and for this he was allowed to go home to the Sequatchie Valley
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of Tennessee. The year was in 1864. And there
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he went in that Chattanooga area, and he loaded
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up his mom's wagon, and they began their trip up toward Hopkinsville,
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Kentucky. And then about 3 weeks later,
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on his 21st birthday, July 10th,
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1864, T.B. Larrimore was baptized by
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an elder in the church there. A few short weeks after
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that, he was going to preach his first sermon, and he decided on the subject
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of Jesus' prayer for unity. The text was John
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chapter 17, verse 20 and 21. And so he gave much preparation
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to that and much study. And after he had preached that sermon, a local congressman's
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daughter was baptized into Christ. He continued
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doing preaching in the area and throughout the region. And 3 years
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later, he was in Burnet Chapel, I suppose it
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is, in Tennessee, how they call it. And he turned to John chapter
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17. And that page was missing. He panicked.
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He found the page much later. Of course, no other source. It was— Bibles not
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as prevalent then as they are now. And once he found that, he dedicated himself
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to preaching on that subject more often. And he would look back on this
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later in his life, and he said, since that time, I have dedicated myself
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to trying to answer Jesus' prayer for unity,
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peace, and harmony. I found that
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interesting as my text tonight is John chapter 17, verse 20
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and 21. And it seems to me that that prayer of Jesus
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on that night is as important today as it was on the
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day in which Jesus prayed that prayer. If we wanted
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a little bit of background with regard to this prayer, we take ourselves
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to that section of the book of John. We have done so recently, that is,
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in referencing the fact that John 13 through 16 is Jesus'
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final instructions to His apostles. He's preparing them for the mission
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that He's turning over to them, and He wants to make sure that they're ready.
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And as soon as this is done, we read in John chapter 17 that
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He goes over in toward the Garden of Gethsemane, and He prays a
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prayer that's recorded for us in John chapter 17.
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And we find that that prayer is divided into 4 parts.
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It would seem to me that Jesus begins that prayer by praying about
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His relationship with His Father. In verse 1 through
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5, talking about the relationship that they had enjoyed
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forever and now thinking about how He needed that relationship in these moments.
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In the second part of that prayer, we would see that Jesus prays
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about His relationship with His special followers,
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the apostles, John 17:6-12.
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In the third part of the prayer, Jesus prays about His followers'
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relationship with the world and how He wants them protected
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from opposition and difficulty verse 13 through 19.
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And then He prays for His believers' relationship with
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one another, and that's in verse 20 through 26.
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And it's in this particular section that we find our text.
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I would argue that this is, and I'm sure you would agree, the most recognizable,
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familiar verses in all of the prayer that Jesus prayed.
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But I want us to consider it again. Jesus has been praying about
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the apostles, and He shifts down through history, through the centuries,
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seeing over the hill of time to the
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present day. And He says, Neither pray I for these, the apostles alone,
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but for them also which shall believe on Me through
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their word, that they may be one as
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You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they may be one
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in Us, that the world may believe that
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You have sent Me. There in that text in John
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17:20-21, to me, is a remarkable thought and
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idea that Jesus knew exactly what was going
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to happen. And He looks across the centuries of time
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and He saw you and me as He prayed that night.
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Doesn't it humble you to think that Jesus looked through tear-filled
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eyes at us as He was facing His
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own arrest? And He was facing the next day His
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crucifixion on the cross of Calvary. And so
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what Jesus says and prays here must have weighed heavily
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on His mind and must have been important to Him.
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Now, when we think about a word that is sometimes used,
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I think we need to be very careful about using words if we cannot or
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do not take the time to properly define them. I imagine
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the word denomination or denominationalism is not a strange
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or peculiar word for you if you've been in churches for any length of time.
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Growing up in the body of Christ or wherever you may have gone. And it's
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a word that can be misunderstood. I want to define
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it as I believe it accurately reflects what the New
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Testament teaches on the unity that Jesus prayed for.
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And believe it or not, I looked a lot of different places for the definition.
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Wikipedia has actually a pretty good definition of what denominationalism
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is, and they call it a distinction group among
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Christendom that are bound together by
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a peculiar, or that is, those things they have in common
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with regard to their name, with regard
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to their founder, with regard to their worship and their doctrine
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and their organization and their leadership.
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That is a distinct group that has characteristics that you can look
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at and say, yes, this, generally speaking, it describes this
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religion If we define it that
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way, how many denominations are
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there? Studies abound. And out
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of that, different numbers are given. One of the most commonly cited
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statistics is by Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary,
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and it's one that's very vastly accepted, and the number they give
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is 45,000 denominations.
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And they list a denomination as a group that is held together by a
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certain belief in a country. In every country that it is in,
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they count it as a distinct denomination.
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But I wasn't satisfied with that. I don't think it reflects accurately
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the idea. And so again, I began to look and research,
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and I was surprised to find what seemed to be the most accurate statistic
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with regard to this. It came from an atheist, at least he's an atheist today,
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by the name of Bart Ehrman. And Bart Ehrman said
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that there are 46 major denominations
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in this country. He doesn't deal with the various splits
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that may occur within the major denomination,
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but that broadly speaking, in the way that we've defined it,
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they are bound together by their worship and by their organization
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and their plan of salvation and their view and ideas of the church.
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Now, while God doesn't want there to be 46,000
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or 45,000, he certainly can't be happy with that kind
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of division, it does lead us to think that Jesus' prayer is not
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impossible. Jesus prays that we all may
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be one, and I want us to see Jesus' prayer tonight. I only want
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to make 3 observations out of that prayer that will help
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us to see how we can be an answer to Jesus' prayer. There are
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3 elements, it seems, in this part of the prayer that we can actively
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try to be a part of to help Jesus' prayer come true as much as
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it depends on us. Here it is.
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Number 1, we must embrace His Word.
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Listen to what He says there in verse 20, starting off. He says,
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I don't pray for these only, but for them also which shall believe on
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Me through their word. Now, to understand what
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He's talking about here, we go back up to the earlier part of the prayer.
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And as Jesus is praying, He thanks God for these ones that
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God has given to Him out of the world, these ones that have been walking
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with Him for 3 and a half years in His public ministry. And He says,
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they have obeyed Your Word, verse 6.
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Jesus' desire for these apostles is, verse 17 and 18,
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that they will go out and they will spread that Word And he makes a
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statement about that Word in verse 17. He says, sanctify them through
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Your truth. Your Word is truth.
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This kind of reflects back on what Jesus had said earlier in
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talking about the establishment of His church. As He anticipated
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this, He also says in Matthew 16:19, and I will
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give unto you, speaking to Peter, also certainly applicable to those who are
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going to help him in that mission as the apostles, I give unto you the
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keys to the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall have
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been bound in heaven, and whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall
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have been loosed in heaven. Matthew 16:19. And so here
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we have this principle, this idea that Jesus
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had a Word. It was His Word. It was His group of teaching.
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And He says, I want you to carry that out, and I want you to
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teach this Word to everyone else, and you're going to bind what I have
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bound, you're going to loose what I have loosed. And this is going to be
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the one message that I want everybody to have. Now, here's an interesting question.
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If we were to ask any sincere believer in Jesus
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Christ, do you embrace Jesus' Word? I believe every
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single person would say yes.
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But how do we know that we embrace His Word?
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We have to see His Word as authoritative, and it has to be our rule
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for practice and our rule for faith in every individual
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thing that we do that matters to Him. If it's tied down
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in Scripture, His Word says something about it, and He's left it there
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for us to know and to understand and to be able to follow that.
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There are a great many passages that teach this, by the way. In 2 Timothy
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3:14, Paul is talking about the things that Timothy had
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learned wanting him to remember where he had learned them from.
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And he says that from a child you have known the Holy Scriptures,
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which are able to make you wise unto salvation.
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For all Scripture is God-breathed and is profitable for doctrine,
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for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,
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that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly furnished unto every
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good work. And he says some things about that Word. He tells us
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that this Word that is being shared leads to salvation.
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That this Word is from God and this Word
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is all sufficient. In 1 Corinthians 2:12-13,
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Paul talks about this Word that comes. It comes not through the wisdom of man,
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but it comes by the Spirit of God combining spiritual thoughts
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with spiritual words. And so God is laying out for us, 1 Corinthians 2:12-13,
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what the Word says so that we can know it, so we can
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analyze it, and so we can make a decision with regard to it.
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And then we think about Hebrews 4:12. The Bible there
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says that the Word of God is alive and active
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and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to dividing
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asunder of soul and spirit and joint and marrow, and is a discerner
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of the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
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We have here the power of a Word that God made sure
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that we had so that in understanding it, in binding us in the
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will that He expresses there, we can follow that Word.
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Or we think about passages like Ephesians 5:17,
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where the Bible tells us that we are not to be foolish, but to
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understand what the will of God is. How tragic that God would
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say, I want you to understand My will, and then say, you can
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interpret it any old way that you want to, even if it conflicts with what
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My Word reveals. These are
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only a few passages and there are many others, but if these
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were all the passages that existed on this subject, it shows us that
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God has revealed His Word plainly for us in
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such a way that we can embrace that. But here's the question,
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what if there is a doctrine or belief that I have that
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conflicts with what the Word reveals?
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If there is something that I do in faith, in teaching, in practice,
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in doctrine, and the Word has already
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revealed it for me, what is my obligation with regard to that?
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Now, I want to think about a few examples that make this real
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to us. What about in the matter of church organization?
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What if a church has this system of organization where
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one group of men are over several congregations?
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Or what if there is a man who is over all the congregations together?
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The Bible tells us how the church is to be organized.
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It's to be organized with elders who oversee the local congregation
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who are from among them, 1 Timothy 3:1-7,
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or 1 Peter 5:1-4, Acts 20:27,
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in verse 28, or Philippians 1:1.
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And so a pattern or a practice that is in conflict
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with that, or what if there is a man who is the
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preacher, who is the pastor, and he is the one who is over that church?
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If there is a pattern of organization that conflicts with
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what the Bible says, we've got to conform, we've got to change, we've got to
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align that if we are going to embrace His Word.
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Another real-life example would be with regard to male spiritual
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leadership. There's cultural pressure for us to change what the
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Word of God says. The Bible makes it very clear that God wants
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the Christian men to be those who provide the male spiritual
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leadership in the church and for women not to. In 1
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Timothy 2:11, God says that he wants the Christian woman
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to learn with entire submissiveness. Paul says, For I do not
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allow a woman to teach or to have authority over the man, but to learn
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in quietness. For Adam was first formed and then Eve.
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And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression,
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1 Timothy 2:11-14. And Paul in 1 Corinthians 14:34-35
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says almost the identical thing. And so, if a church
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is following a pattern other than this, what should it do?
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To embrace the Word of God. It's got to align and change
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to make it conform to what the Word of God has to say.
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And then there's the matter of how to be saved. You realize that
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the majority of the religious world teaches that one
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is saved at the point of and only through faith.
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Maybe you've heard it said that one is saved by faith only.
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I find it interesting that the phrase faith only is only found one time in
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the New Testament. It's found in James 2:17. You see that how
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that by works a man is justified and not by faith
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only. If the majority of the religious
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world teaches that when the Bible teaches, he that believes and
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is baptized shall be saved, repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of
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sins, Mark 16:16 and Acts 2:38, if one
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is teaching something different, what must be done? One must
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conform to what God's Word says. If we're going to embrace
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what the Word says, that means in practical
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terms that if our practice, if our teaching does not conform to the Word,
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then we must teach what it does.
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You know, I'm going to get on an airplane this Saturday, fly a good bit,
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and if you fly with any frequency, do you want a
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pilot who instead of trusting his instrument
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panel, and trusting the air traffic control says,
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I'm just going to do it the way that I prefer to do it.
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I think that'll be just fine. This feels right to me.
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Or maybe you go to a pharmacist and the pharmacist has been doling
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out the wrong dosage and then learns an accepted standard and
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continues to fill that prescription the way that she prefers.
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Or think about someone in the world of construction to build a wall for you.
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Do you want them just to eyeball it Or do you want them to use
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their square? And so it is with regard to the things
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that we do. We may have a practice, we may have a belief that
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we embrace because it's familiar to us, because it's
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our tradition, or we sincerely hold this belief.
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But if we want to answer Jesus' prayer, here's what he said.
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He says that they— these things— that
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these folks, these apostles who are teaching, he says,
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that they believe those whom you have sent. And that
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word that has been taught, John 17:17, is truth and must
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be embraced. You and I can embrace and accept Jesus'
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prayer, help it to be fulfilled by embracing his word.
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But a second principle that's true in this particular passage is that
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if we want to answer Jesus' prayer, we need to imitate the unity
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of heaven. Jesus doesn't leave it to our
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imagination. Here's what he says. He says, I want them to be one
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as you, Father, are in me and I
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in you, that they may be one in
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us. Now that's a tall order, isn't it?
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What Jesus is praying for is that all of
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his believers would reflect the level of oneness
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that He and the Father have. Now let's step back and
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let's impartially look at the religious landscape and picture. Is it
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your view that the world as it exists now in the religious
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world is as one as the Son and
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the Father are one? How is that
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going to happen? There has to be a
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desire to imitate the unity that exists within the Godhead.
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But if we look at how unity is being attempted today,
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we find a completely different pattern altogether.
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What will typically happen is if there is some means to
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be one, it's called the ecumenical movement.
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And in the ecumenical movement, there is the idea that religious
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groups, various distinct groups get together and they talk
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about the things that they think that need to stay and the things that need
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to be changed and the things that need to be eliminated. And that's how they
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come to a oneness. Is this heaven's way to
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achieve oneness? For people to get together and say, really, all religious
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ideas are equally valid. You can keep your doctrine,
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your teaching, and your practices, and we'll keep
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ours, and we'll join hands together to try to do various
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parts of God's will that we agree upon. That is not
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heaven's pattern. And I see some problems with that. First of all, in our
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prayer, we see that unity cannot be had at the expense of
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truth. It is not biblical unity if
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we conform, if we discard truth.
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Jesus said, sanctify them through Your truth. Your Word
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is truth. But also, agreeing to disagree where God has spoken
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is not possible. Think about what the matter
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of salvation as an example. If someone teaches
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what the New Testament teaches about the plan of salvation and another
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group does not, but teaches something different or something that conflicts with that,
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then are they to hold hands? Can they have unity
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at all costs if that's the case? If God has
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spoken about it and has made it clear, unity is not
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possible. We also can't have fellowship with unresolved
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doctrinal differences. John's going to write about this at
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the end of the first century when he writes 2 John and he says,
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whosoever transgresses and abides not in the doctrine of Christ has not
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God. Whosoever abides in the doctrine of Christ, he has both the
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Father and the Son. If there comes one to you and doesn't bring this
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teaching, don't bid him Godspeed or allow him into your house, for he that
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bids him Godspeed is partaker of his evil deeds. Paul says,
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note those who bring doctrines contrary
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to the doctrine that you've been taught. And avoid them, Romans 16:17.
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And also, unity and uniformity are not the same
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thing. We can get all of our
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ideas in a pot together and say, this is the way that
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we're going to do it, but that doesn't reflect heaven's mentality.
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Can you imagine the Father saying this,
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that worship ought to be in these specific ways?
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This is my will. And then the Son coming along and
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saying, no, this is the way that it ought to be, and all that I
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say is in conflict with what the Father says. We're not going to see
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that. And so, if we want to answer Jesus' prayer,
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we have got to pursue the unity that they pursued.
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But then third, and perhaps this is a surprising one, if we want to answer
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Jesus' prayer, then we've got to prioritize the perception
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of the world. Now, here's how Jesus
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says that, that the world may believe that
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you have sent me. The world is watching.
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And what a powerful witness it is when believers are submissive
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to the will of God and who take the Bible and say, this is going
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to be our pattern. This is going to be our guide in everything.
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We're not going to go beyond that. We're not going to go short of that.
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And if the world sees that, that's got to be a powerful attracting
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force. At least that's what Jesus thought. That when they see us one,
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they'll be drawn. But if that's the case,
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when the world sees us divided, what kind of an
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impact must that have on them? When they talk about art imitates life
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or life imitates art, and what's the answer to that? It was interesting that in
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Louisville, Kentucky, about a
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decade ago, a fellow by the name of Lewis Hanath
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wrote a play called The Christians. And this play
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actually took off and became an award-winning off-Broadway
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production that went throughout the 2016 season.
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And here was the gist of the play, the plot.
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The lead pastor, whose name was Paul,
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came to believe, in fact, he taught that there is no hell.
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And he said that God gave him that revelation.
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The assistant pastor, whose name was Joshua, believed that there was a hell,
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and the end result of that was a nasty split. And this
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being an off-Broadway production, it comes before the eyes of reviewers,
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and a very famous review of this said, I think all of
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us can relate to that because if we've had any exposure to church,
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we've seen the schisms and the divisions, and we can
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relate to that being the case. You think about Jesus as he's
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about to go to the cross. Is that what he desired?
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He wanted us to be sensitive to how the world was going to be looking
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at us. And you think about the study we're doing on Sunday mornings
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in 1 Corinthians and how much this mattered to God that Paul would say,
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I exhort you, brethren, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that you all
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speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you, but that you
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be perfectly joined together in the same mind and the same judgment. For it has
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been declared to me of you, my brethren, out of Chloe's household, that there
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are quarrels among you. For this I say, that every one of you says,
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I am of Paul, I am of Cephas, I'm of Apollos, I'm of Christ.
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Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you
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baptized in the name of Paul? These rhetorical questions have the answer,
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no, they weren't. Don't be
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divided among yourselves. 1 Corinthians 1:10-13.
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And when the world sees us dividing, In leaving
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and departing God's Word and teaching as doctrines the commandments of men,
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it's a repelling force. But look at the other side of that. Do all things
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without grumbling and disputing, that you may be blameless and harmless, children of God
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in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights,
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holding forth the Word of life. Philippians 2:14-16.
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And so when we determine to care, listen, this is what Jesus is
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saying. I want you to care about how the world sees you
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as the church. Now, it could be that we
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all as believers unite and the world may reject us and the
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Word. Jesus says in John 15:18,
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if they hate you, know that they hated me before they hated you. Or 1
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John 3:13, do not be surprised, my brethren, if the world hates
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you. But what we're talking about is something far more common.
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The world looking at us and saying, you want me to become a Christian and
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you can't even decide that among yourselves. That's why Jesus would say in
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John 13:34-35, a new commandment I give unto you,
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that you love one another as I've loved you, that you love one another,
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that the world may believe that you have sent me.
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Got some questions for you.
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Napoleon Bonaparte, was inordinately short.
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True or false?
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Starve a fever, feed a cold.
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True or false? Discharge a battery to 0% before
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you charge it back up again. True or false?
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If you touch a frog, you'll get a wart.
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True or false? If you chew a piece of bubble
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gum, it'll stay in your stomach for years. True or false?
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And on and on we could go. You know what those all have in common?
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These are things that you were told by trusted people, friends,
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teachers, family, that they're true. The other
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thing they have in common, as you've already said, is that all of them are
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false. But the fact that they're false, does it keep them from being
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retold and believed? And that's okay with
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matters like that, but not when it comes to
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Jesus and his prayer. It matters so much to him that
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this is what is on his mind at the end.
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You know, there are surely some things that are believed among us, and in consequence
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of what we're talking about here, I want us to think about a few thoughts.
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That first of all, in closing, as we think about the idea of
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undenominational Christianity, Do we believe
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in undenominational Christianity, that we don't have to denominate
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ourselves, but we can be the church of the New Testament?
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Do we believe if that's the case that Jesus Christ
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speaks of the church that He shed His blood and died
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for, the body, the one body, Ephesians 4:4,
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which He calls the church, Ephesians 1:22-23?
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Do we believe that baptism is essential to salvation?
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If we do, do we believe that God is going to save those who
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have not conformed to His Word and have believed but have
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not been baptized? Do we
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believe that there's moral decay in this world?
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Do we believe that it is sinful in the eyes of God for
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people to live together without the benefit of marriage?
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That adultery is sinful, that it is sinful to
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practice homosexuality or to expose one's mind to pornography?
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You see, as we think about the things that we believe, God has given us
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His Word. The question is, when Jesus prays what He prays in
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John 17, how does He expect us to respond?
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He expects us to respond, number one, by embracing His Word.
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Number 2, by imitating the unity of heaven,
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of the Father and the Son, and by prioritizing the
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perception of the world because it matters
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to Him. God wants us to be
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an answer to His prayer. He believes that we can be one,
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not 46, not 45,000,
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and He has left His Word plainly for us Look,
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something that we say, and I feel like I can't preach this sermon without saying
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it, that's certainly true. It's not a matter of who's right,
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it's a matter of what's right. And what's right is God's Word.
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And Jesus expected us to come to this Word and
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to achieve unity. It's exciting to see
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individuals who are opening up God's Word
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and are seeing that and are humbly submitting to the Word of God.
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God wants us all to continue to do that, and more than that, to believe
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that that's the way to unity, the way that Jesus intended for it to be.
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This evening, maybe you've not united with Christ, and you want to take this opportunity
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to do that. We're going to sing a song to encourage you. If you're subject
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to that invitation, if you have not acted on your faith in Jesus and you're
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ready to repent of sins and to be baptized, we want to encourage you to
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do that. If you need to respond for ask us to pray for you
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and with you in any way, we would encourage you to come right now as
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we stand and sing.