Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / January 23, 2022 | Better Together - Unity in Christ's Church

Transcript

January 23, 2022 | Better Together - Unity in Christ's Church · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Whew, good morning.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Let me see if I can get there.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: We are.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, my name is Alex Wolfe.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the young adults pastor here at TBC, and I get the opportunity to bring the Word of God to the congregation today.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: And if if uh you know me, uh if you've heard me uh give a message before, you know I like to give some kind of story about myself to illustrate the sermon.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Usually it doesn't paint me in the best of lights.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I didn't do that this week uh for my own sake.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but I do want to give you a little bit of information about me.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Those who know me really well uh know that I really like themes.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: I I uh, you know, if I throw a party, I like it to be themed out.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: My college students back in Dallas when I was a college pastor used to roll their eyes at me a lot because I would ultra theme out these you know retreats and things.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, today is just kind of one of those days, right?
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Where we're in our last sermon of the series entitled Better Together.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: We just sang a song, There's nothing better than God.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and on top of that, we are all together today in the same auditorium, which is exciting.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: And and so, and and on top of that, this just gets even more fun.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um I was preparing this sermon at a coffee shop this week, and I'd never seen this before in my life, but I looked up and it says altogether better, and I'm just like, man, oh, this is good stuff.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: So my theme-loving heart is just having a field day with all of this.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just I'm fired up.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: But anyways, uh beside the point.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: As Jim and I were sort of talking about what we were gonna do for this uh series, we looked at the title, right?
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: We chose the series graphic, and we thought to ourselves, man, there's there's just a lot of directions we can take this idea because the reality is, uh, as you know, we look at our lives, our spiritual lives, we're divided on so many levels.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so we saw that people are divided in their friendships, that man is divided in relationship with God, that our families are divided, and unfortunately, we also see that our churches are divided, but we recognize that God designed all of these to be better together.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what we started talking about.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about how we were created to be in relationships with one another.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: We looked at how we were created to have an eternal relationship with God.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: All right, last week we looked at how our families were created to be together and work together.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I just couldn't stand the thought of doing a church series entitled Better Together without doing a sermon on our need to come together in the church.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so today I get to put the final stamp on this series by addressing the divisions that we are finding uh in our churches today.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's a topic I'm I'm pretty passionate about, right?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's a topically that is heavily addressed in the New Testament, and on top of that, it's a topic that is heavily applicable to our current climate.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh in fact, it's a topic I've actually already uh touched on almost a year and a half ago, and so I was a little bit conflicted about circling back around to it.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I realized as I was preparing this sermon uh that there's a reason that almost all of Paul's letters in the New Testament address disunity in the church on some level.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've ever realized that.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: But be we have this strange tendency, uh specifically in the church, uh, to divide and to quarrel and to create factions.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope that so long as that problem persists, which I suspect it will because it has for 2,000 years, uh, my hope is that we never shrink back from addressing this problem out of fear of redundancy.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Or at least that's how I'm justifying it.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um if something, I'm a firm believer, if something's worth being preached once, it's worth being preached over and over and over again so long as the problem persists.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so unfortunately, it has persisted.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, over the last year and a half, it it may have even grown.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so today I want to address our need to unite around Christ in the church because we are better together.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Right, so today I've chosen passages from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, so that's 1 Corinthians, and I'm gonna build my sermon around this letter because the church is at a place today where I think that if Paul were still with us, he would write a similar letter to us.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Not the same letter, but similar perhaps.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and for those of you who have read 1 Corinthians, you're like, well, that's kind of harsh.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let me clarify so you don't think I'm just going hard at TBC, because Paul goes pretty hard at the Corinthian church.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: When I say us or when I refer to the church, I'm not merely just talking about TBC.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about the Christian church as a whole, of which TBC is a part.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, I I've seen individual churches struggle uh a lot harder with this stuff than I think TBC does, so that's good for us.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: But if we're honest, uh we aren't immune.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And our TBC family sometimes does fall prey to many of the things we're going to be talking about today.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so, as I said, we're gonna be structuring this sermon uh around Paul's letter to the Corinthians, as if he's sort of writing this letter to us.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: And the great thing about Paul is he tends to outline his letter before he develops uh the content.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so he sort of in the introductions gives you a, hey, here's here's the argument, and then he develops the argument throughout the book.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so um we're just going to use the first half of chapter one because this is how Paul outlines his letter to the to the Corinthians.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna use that outline as sort of an outline for ourselves.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul starts out uh in his argument, in chapter one, verse one, and he he argues for nine verses uh that you y'all are followers of Christ.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: So 1 Corinthians 1, 1 through 9, he's arguing uh that y'all are followers of Christ.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: You are in the family of God.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so he starts by saying this in verses 1 and 2.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna kind of divide this out.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: He says, You've been set apart from the world.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh look at what he says.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, we're just gonna look at verse 2.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna skip over his introduction of himself in one.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, To the church of God, which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so the interesting part, uh, those who have been sanctified, right?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: That that's some that's some intense Christianese.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's a big theological word that the translators kind of just dropped into the, you know, into the translation.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but behind this word is the Greek word agiazzo.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a it comes from the root agias, which means holy.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Or in holy has this idea of uh, you know, if you trace it through the Bible, God is holy, he is separate, he is uh totally other than, he is pure, free from contamination.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: And as the story develops, you find out that the thing he's separate from is us.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: So if we think about that for a second, God is pure and we are the contaminants, right?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: So this is the kind of the word holy.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: So this word agiazzo means you have been made holy in Christ.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: You have been set apart into the family of God.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: So God is pure, we are the contaminants, we are what he's set apart from, but you have joined the family of God, you've taken on his identity, he's adopted us and said that we are no longer contaminated.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: We can join him in his family.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: So you have been set apart, you have been made holy in Christ.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's what uh Paul says.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: You've you've been set apart from the world.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: But he even he also says, you've been called to continually set yourselves apart from the world.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: As he says this next phrase, he says, you have been sanctified in Christ.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then he says this, saints by calling.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of a difficult way of translating it because it's the same word, agios, holy ones by calling.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Set apart by calling.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, you're not just set apart from the world, you've also been called to set yourselves apart.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: So there's this kind of double thing here.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so we talked last week about uh these two families that develop in the story of the Bible.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: All right, we have from the fall of man, you have two families that all people are separated into.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: They're either in the family of the serpent or the family of God.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: And all men are born into this family of the serpent by nature, but we are adopted from the family of the serpent as Christians to the family of God.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: So as Paul says in Romans 12, we must no longer be conformed to the ways uh and the ways of walking of the old family, the world, the family of Satan, but we must begin transforming our minds to represent the new family.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, hey, you've been adopted, now it's time to start acting like it, is the idea.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: We've talked about that before.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: So we've been called to grow in our representation of the new family, not the old family.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: So the point is, you have a different mind now from the world.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: You've been taken out of that family and you've adopted, you've been adopted in a new family, and now it's time to start acting like it.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so Paul goes on.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, You've been shown grace and mercy.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: So you've been set apart, you've been called to be set apart, uh, to continually set yourselves apart, and you've been shown grace and mercy.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: And he he develops this in verses three through nine, if you read with me.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: That in everything you were enriched in him, and all speech and all knowledge, even as the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: So that you are not lacking any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also graciously and mercifully, I'm adding that, confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: God is faithful, through whom you were mercifully called into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: What I want you to see in this section is Paul's just like, Y'all have received mercy upon mercy upon mercy and grace upon grace upon grace.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: You've been called, you've been told to, or you've been set apart, you've been called to continually set yourselves apart, and you've just he has just lavished grace upon you.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Right, is what he's sort of going to say.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so the idea is to enter a relationship with God, at some point you humbled yourself.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: You had to, right?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: You had to recognize that you are contaminated and that he is not, that he is righteous and that you aren't.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that and you understood at that point that the way to remedy this idea was simply to ask him for mercy.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: And because he is God and as such, he is merciful and compassionate and slow to anger and abounding in loyal love, he freely gives you mercy and he made you holy.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: And now, as an appropriate response, an act of thankful worship to that mercy, you've been tasked with living for Christ and showing mercy to those in his body.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's the job.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: And you've been graciously given gifts in the body to be able to do so.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so those are the points he's developing.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the point that I want to make is this that this is the basis for Paul's exhortations.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is the basis for which he is going to hold the Corinthians and ultimately us to a higher standard.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because you are set apart, you don't get to act like the world without accountability.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have that freedom anymore.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: You're part of a new family, right?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: When I was uh when I first became a Christian, I was mid-high school, and I started, you know, growing in my faith and plugging in.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: I was a leader in our youth group, and and then I uh moved away and went to college.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Apart from my family, apart from my church.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I I ran.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: I did everything I wasn't supposed to do.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I joined a fraternity, became the party planner of the fraternity.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: You can only imagine what that included.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I ran and I didn't call my church family, I didn't call my brother who led me to Christ ultimately that entire semester.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: I just ran.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I came home and he looked at me and he's like, What on earth are you doing?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: You're not representing the family, you're not representing Christ.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: You're living as if you've not been adopted into this new family.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: And he he pulled me back, and this is sort of what Paul, he's using that basis, uh, that because you've been shown mercy, because you've been shown grace, uh, you'd be a hypocrite not to turn and show mercy.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's time to represent the family.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is what Paul says first, because it's the basis for calling them out.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Reminding them of who they are.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: If they weren't believers, uh he would have no right because non-believers do not have the mind of Christ.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: They don't have the understanding.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: So this is why he says in chapter five, for what have I, Paul, to do with judging outsiders?
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: Do you not judge those who are within the church?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: But those who are outside the church, God judges.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, I'm not here to speak to them.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm here to speak to you because you're the family of God.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is the basis for everything he's going to say, and so it's the basis for our hearing this message as well.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: We're in the family of God, and time to act like it.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so here's how he continues to develop his uh argument, right?
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Y'all are followers of Christ, you've been set apart, you've been called, you you you've you've been given grace and mercy.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Even so, I hear y'all are dividing the body of Christ by unifying around strange things.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we're gonna develop this point out.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're gonna jump over verse 10 and go through go down to verse 11.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna come back to verse 10 as kind of our main point.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but uh he kind of develops this in 1 11 through 15, and again, we're kind of gonna separate those out.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: And here's kind of my first point under this idea of dividing by unifying around strange things.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: First point I want to make is that humans have an ability to unite around things.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: We just do this naturally.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um he says this in 11 through 12.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: I have been informed concerning you, my brothers, by Chloe's people, that there are quarrels among you.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I mean this, that each one of you is saying, I am of Paul, I of Apollos, I of Cephas, and I of Christ.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: So the idea is we did we identify ourselves into groups, and that's what the Corinthian church was doing.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: They were kind of, they were sort of subdividing out, creating these little micro communities within the big macro community, and and we kind of have this tendency to do this, right?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: We we already have a natural ability to unify.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite stories from seminary, one of my mentors and professor, his name is Dr.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: Klingler at Dallas Seminary.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: He was a former NFL quarterback.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: He was drafted first round, Cincinnati Bengals, in in the early 90s, and um and he got hurt and and didn't have the greatest start to his career, got traded around, and ended up in Oakland playing for the Raiders.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: I know, I'm sorry.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that's where he was, and he was playing second string uh to the starting quarterback, and and they were riding together to the stadium.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: It was early on after he had just moved there.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and he he said, We got lost.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: It was before you know GPSs were a popular thing.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, We got lost, and we found ourselves in a neighborhood where two white guys should never be.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: He said they they were running out of gas, they were running out of time, so they pulled over to a gas station.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, they're in blood and Crips territory, gang territory, and and they're like, we we thought there was no way we were getting out of there alive, you know, and so they get out of the car and they go and you know, fill up with gas, ask for directions, and they said by the time that thing ended, they ended up with a blood train escort to the stadium, right?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because it didn't matter, these are two white guys, uh they're raiders.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: That that was what was important.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: They were raiders, right?
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna get you to that stadium, right?
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the same, the same is also true with something Lindsay and I experienced with motorcycles.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: If any of you drive motorcycles, we had one uh that we drove around when we were dating.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and there's this there's this really fun thing that happens when you drive a motorcycle down the interstate.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it doesn't matter how far away, you know, if a motorcycle's coming the opposite direction, everybody waves at each other.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Motorcycles just wave and it's awesome.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's like this huge sense of camaraderie because you drive a motorcycle, you pull off at a rest stop with a motorcycle, you park next to the other motorcycles, you got everything in common all of a sudden, even though you have nothing in common.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but you you know, in both of these examples, there's something more important than whatever made the individuals different.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't matter if you were a, you know, a in my situation, a skinny 18-year-old kid driving his dad's bike, or, you know, a big 60-year-old, you know, greasy tattooed biker.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: It just didn't matter.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: We had something in common.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: We were, we drove motorcycles.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't matter what skin color they had, they were raiders.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: So apparently there's these commonalities that we hold at a higher priority in our eyes uh than whatever makes us different.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and we're gonna talk a little bit more on that in a minute, but but another interesting point is that wherever there's unity, there's also division.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Wherever there's unity, there's all there's always division somewhere.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: The Raiders unify around one another, uh, but they are divided from the Chiefs.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: And boy are they.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: I I grew up hating the Raiders.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: I've always been a Chiefs fan.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's beside the point.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: But um even in the motorcycle world, right, there there's one elite exclusive group within the motorcycle within the macro motorcycle community.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's those who own Harley Davidson's.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's the micro community within.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: And if you drive a Honda Shadow, don't even bother waving.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, because you know there's just something about it, right?
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so the Harley people go a level deeper, kind of create this m micro community, and effectively divide themselves from the rest of the motorcycle community they find themselves in.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: And this is because of our hue uh that our human nature lends itself to uniting with those who are like us.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we do.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, uh I hate to say this, but we are at our very core just selfish and narcissistic.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: We like ourselves more than we like to admit, and we like other Chiefs fans because we like that we're Chiefs fans.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like us, right?
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: They have good taste.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: We like others who have Harleys because they have the same taste as us in bike, and also because they also went into debt to buy a Harley dip.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but you know, humans, this is kind of the next point, is that humans have a tendency, we have this ability to unite, and then we have a tendency to use that ability to form factions, to form these microcommunities.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's really interesting.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: And and uh Paul says this in in verses 13 through 15.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: Has Christ been divided?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Paul was not crucified for you, was he?
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: I thank God that I baptized none of you except for Crispus and Gaius, so that no one would say that you were baptized in my name.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is kind of a window into how bad it was getting, but they're creating these microcommunities.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: And this is, you know, Paul is saying you've divided the macro community by doing this, by unifying around these smaller ideas that you have no business unifying around, by the way.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what many have done in the church.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: We've entered through Christ, but then we went a level deeper and we created a micro community.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: And we've effectively divided ourselves from the rest of the church.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's just like the people of the world, right?
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: We we in the church like those who are like us the best.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is illustrated, I think, best in 1 Corinthians 12.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: We're not going to read it, but in the spiritual gifts, Paul's talking, and it seems as he's exhorting them that they have unified around which gifts they have.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so you know, we speak in tongues over here, and we, you know, teach certain, you know, we preach and we prophecy over here, and then they Start you know fighting with each other over which gift was more honorable.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: So they start creating these little micro communities yet again.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: And we do the same thing.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: We come in, we find those who are like us, we look, who look like us, who think like us, who who uh like the same things that we like, and then we create our little microcommunities or you know, factions.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: And we say, you know, we are we're the Calvinists, you know, at TBC, we're the Arminians, or you know, we're the Democrats, we're the Republicans.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: All right, we got the vaccines, we didn't get the vaccines.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: Then as we become unified around these factions, something really interesting happens.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: We begin to demand that our views be accommodated and adopted in the pulpit.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: Each of these micro-communities does this.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, he says this in in chapter 1, verse 23-24.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: For indeed, Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: But we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, Jews are coming and saying, Okay, Paul, Mr.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Apostle, show us some signs.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: Accommodate our belief.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the Jews are saying, speak to us wisely, Paul.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: And he says later on, he's like, I didn't come to you speaking in any wisdom.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: I was not attractive at all.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I just preached Christ.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: Period.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, you know, when COVID erupted, right, churches, including TBC, were flooded with emails and calls, etc., of people demanding that the church exclusively conform to their view.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Require masks or we're not coming.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: Or if if you make us wear a mask, we're not coming.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: Right now we're starting to hear people getting unsettled about vaccine status.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, creating factions, the vaxxed and the unvaxxed.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: And people are already saying in both categories that you have to teach that this is what Christ would do.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh social justice, right?
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: I've now watched multiple churches uh divide and all but fall over whether or not we should teach critical race theory as a biblically compatible view from the pulpit.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not saying that all views are created equal.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not just a middle of the ground on everything.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Don't hear that.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I too have very, very strong convictions about all of these things.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think that there are some that are far more biblically compatible than others, but you know, at this point I'm simply trying to point out this progression in our churches to unify around these microcommunities and then create factions and then demand that the church accommodate and effectively divide Christ.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to argue that this is acting like the world.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: The thing you've been set apart from, that you've been adopted out of.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: He says in chapter 3, verse 2 through 4, I give you milk to drink, not solid food, for you are not yet able to receive it.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: Indeed, even now you're not able, for you are still fleshly.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: For since there is jealousy and strife among you, you are are are you not fleshly?
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: And are you not walking like mere men?
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: For when one says, I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos, are you not mere men?
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, are you not acting like your old family?
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is why I'm giving you milk to drink, because you're just tiny little babies in the new family.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's time to start adopting and walking like that, but when we do this, we act like the old family.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: And this is this is what the world does.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: Any joker out there can figure out how to unify over things we like and to persecute uh anything that's different.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's just a part of our sin nature.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: We all have that.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: But we are called to be different from the world.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: We are to unify over Christ, period.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: And we aren't us, we aren't supposed to go a level deeper.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: We aren't supposed to create microcommunities.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: We are to be different from the world.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the challenge.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: The difference with Christ and the other communities in the world is that Christ shows no partiality.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: He welcomes people into his body without discrimination.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: And the deal is we're called to do the same thing.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: So he welcomes rich and poor, Democrat, Republican, football fans, soccer fans, right, chiefs, raiders, vaccinated, non-vaccinated.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the mandate for us as part of his family is to copy Christ, to not show partiality, right?
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: To prioritize the other person over ourselves, regardless of the differences that we have.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is totally against our sin nature.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: We have to ignore our preferences.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: We're called to ignore our preferences for the sake and the good of the other and the body.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: But again, I want to argue that this is a priority issue.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think we have a priority issue.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is that we are still prioritizing ourselves.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: We're still prioritizing the selfishness, we're still prioritizing that the old family over the new family.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever causes division is ultimately the highest priority.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: See, in the motorcycle community, the highest priority was that you have a motorcycle, so therefore we look past skin color, we we look past, you know, whatever else makes us different, right?
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because this is the highest priority.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: But imagine if uh they decided to say, well, we're not the same color, therefore, you know, we're not gonna share our motorcycle stories with one another.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, then suddenly that's the highest priority.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: That is more important to them than the fact that they own a motorcycle, and it's the same here.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: In the church, whatever you break fellowship over is more important to you than Christ.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's just true.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: If Christ were the highest priority, you'd recognize the other as the family of Christ, and you would look past the differences because that would be the highest priority.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: So what we've done is we've entered into the church, we walked straight past our mandate to unify over Christ, period.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: And we've proceeded to unify levels deeper and create micro unities around our preferences.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is why we have Christians leaving churches because of worship style.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is why we have Christians leaving churches because of preaching style or the level of entertainment that is provided.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is why we have Christians leaving churches because of political bents.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because we're still acting like the old family.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because to them, these differences are more significant to them than the thing that makes us ultimately the same, and that is Christ.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: And the fact that we are all a part of his family.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: If what unified us were more important, we wouldn't hesitate to look past differences to fellowship with others in the body who disagree with us.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: And this, to me, is a scary thought.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is something that every single one of us needs to ponder often.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that's this.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: What have we placed as more important than Christ?
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: What have we prioritized over the family?
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: What did we choose to unify over instead of Christ?
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you'll take some time to ponder that over this next week.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so then Paul moves to his final point and his main point of his book, right?
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: You're followers of Christ, you're in a new family now.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: But I hear y'all are dividing the body of Christ by unifying around these strange things.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then he's basically gonna say for the rest of his book, the rest of his letters, stop it.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty simple, right?
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh this is paraphrasing, of course.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: Unifying or unify around Christ because the body is better together.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is the idea.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: Just knock it off.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he's gonna use 1 Corinthians uh, or I'm gonna use 1 verse 10 as kind of the main point.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and his exhortation, as we looked at last week, this idea of being of the same mind, he's gonna tell them to have the same mind.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the idea is because you have been set apart, because you've been adopted into a new family, you need to have the mind of the family.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so you need to grow together.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: And he says in verse 10, I exhort you, brothers.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: This is gonna be what drives his entire letter.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: By the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete, or that you be made whole.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: There be no factions in the same mind and in the same judgment.
• 31:05
  unknown: Right?
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: This is the in it, and it's not that you have to agree about absolutely everything.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: That is not the point.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: In the context of the book, he's talking about the central doctrines of the faith.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: The very things they they're kind of, they're they've decided to unify over other strange things, but he's talking about agree on the central doctrines of the faith.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is what we we call orthodoxy today.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is what we call the central doctrines.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Orthodoxy, I'm not talking about like Eastern Orthodox Church.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean Orthodoxy, see, oh my goodness, Orthodoxy, I can't say that word.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: Orthodoxy simply means uh right belief, correct belief.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is the center core of what it means to be a Christian and be a member of the body of Christ.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is what you must believe.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: And throughout all of church history, if you believe anything outside of these things, that is, if you disagree with any of these things, then you were considered not a part of the fellowship.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so we call these things uh, you know, the central doctrines of the faith.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: I just listed out kind of the main seven.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: These are just headings, they're not full descriptions by any means.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: But the things we must agree on is the triune God as creator and redeemer.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: The fall in resulting depravity.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: We gotta recognize who we are and what we've done.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: The person in the work of Christ, we've got to agree on who Christ is and who he says he is.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: Salvation by grace through faith, that's an absolute must.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: Inspiration and authority of Scripture, absolutely foundational.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: Redeemed humanity incorporated into the body of Christ, right?
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then the restoration of humanity and creation.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: That is the resurrection of our bodies and the coming of a new heaven and new earth.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: These are the central doctrines of the faith.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: If you disagree with these, then after due process of figuring out if we actually disagree, then we divide.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: Then we separate from one another.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: But these this list is never to expand and never to contract.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: This alone is the list of things that should cause us to divide in the church.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: We shouldn't take anything away from it, and we shouldn't add anything to it.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: We don't put things there that aren't already there.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: The church history has already kind of worked this out for us, but when we divide over doctrinal issues or political issues, we are saying that this thing is orthodoxy.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: This is what we divide over.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: So in doing this, you effectively expand orthodoxy, you add to this list, and then technically become a heretic, which is not good.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want to be a heretic.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: So be of the same mind.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh second, the body needs differences to function properly.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: The idea is because you have been shown grace and mercy, you go into the church and now you get to show mercy, but the only way you can do that is if people irritate you.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that true?
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: We saw, we talked about earlier how the Corinthians sort of gathered around these spiritual gifts and sort of created these factions, and it was very strange.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that should have never happened.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: All of these gifts were designed to be the differences and diversity was designed to work together to create a specific task, accomplish a specific task, to sanctify us, to set us apart.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: They were never, they were, they were meant to work together, and I think we kind of have a bad habit in most churches of creating these microcommunities, of exclusively building community around those who are just like us, who are in the same life stage, who have the same interests, so on and so forth.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: Right, I I have I've read a book.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: I led one of my Sunday morning groups, they're very familiar with this book.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this is from a DTS professor, his name is uh Dr.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: Mike Spiegel, and he wrote this book called Retro Christianity, which, if you're interested in exploring what the core doctrines of the faith are and what we should divide over, what we shouldn't divide over, and how we connect to our roots, it's it's an amazing uh book.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great resource for you, but he says this later on in his book.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's normal for Christians to be disappointed in other Christians.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we can be downright mean to each other.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's true.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: Even if we avoid outright conflict, there will still be frustration, inconvenience, discomfort, all the necessary ingredients and effects of true community.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: He goes on.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: When these uh he starts talking about the Corinthian church actually, and coming together in the first century, Jews and Gentiles, and he says, when these groups of men and women, slaves and masters, Jews and Greeks became one community, awkward discomfort, even outright conflict ensued, as we're seeing in this book.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's the natural result of mixing these diverse microcommunities into one meta-community.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: It was like mixing oil and water.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: He goes on.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: Church experts opt for affinity groups, as he's talking about how we tend to address this problem today.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: Our churches today opt for affinity groups.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: Common sense tells us to not even try this kind of mixing, our emotions tell us to run in the other direction.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: But shouldn't Christian community transcend the natural?
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody can figure out how to unify over the things they like because we're selfish.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: But shouldn't Christian community transcend the natural?
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: Shouldn't it defy common sense?
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: Shouldn't it seek to overcome the desire to fellowship only with people who make us comfortable?
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: Rhetorical, the answer is yes.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then he ends with this confusion, discomfort, frustration, uneasiness, conflict.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: These are all effects of true community.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: These conditions promote real spiritual growth.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's easy to fake the fruit of the Spirit among people we pick as fellowship partners.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's far more difficult to pretend love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control among those who irritate us.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: And putting our natural human inclinations to the test of real life gives God it means to say, an opportunity to work among us in supernatural ways.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I think we have a bad habit of thinking that we have to create community around the things that make us the same.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I truly believe that community is not about common interests and life stages, but that true community is about living alongside people that drive you nuts.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: It just is, because then you get to practice the fruit of the Spirit.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, you get to show that you've received mercy by giving it to others.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: Hope that makes sense.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: The final point I want to make is this.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we said uh unify around Christ because the body is better together.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: What do we mean when we say better?
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: What do we mean when we say better together?
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh what we don't mean is that the church will give you your best life now.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's a common misconception.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: The church isn't here for your temporary happiness.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's not here to meet every preference that you have so that you'll have your best life.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's here for your eternal happiness.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: There's good news and bad news with that.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: The bad news is this.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: In many ways, we've been called to abandon the pursuit of happiness in this life.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: To choose the path of suffering for the sake of the fellow believer.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it means to be in the body of Christ.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: To abandon your preferences for the preference of the other.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: But the good news is this all of this is working together for our eternal good and eternal glory and happiness.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord is using these relationships that irritate us to form us into his image for our eternal good.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I'm gonna end with this.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: I got three minutes.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: What should we do?
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to just like throw all this out there and be like, all right, now go figure it out.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's mostly what you're gonna have to do because there's not enough here to, not enough time to really flesh it out.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: But uh first suggestion I have, just a thought, is we need to learn and agree to the central doctrines of the faith.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: We've lost this, unfortunately.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: We we need to submit to the teaching of the church, learn what the central doctrines are, and then we need to resolve to not expand the central doctrines.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: That is, we need to resolve not to break fellowship with those over secondary issues.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: Everything outside of that list of seven is a secondary or tertiary, third issue.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: And they're they do not belong in a place where we divide.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: We need to resolve that this is what we divide over, nothing else.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: Second.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: We need to rethink community and the walls we put up around who we fellowship with.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: Look, family is messy.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: Community is messy.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's what makes it effective, right?
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's called iron sharpening iron, right?
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's not it's not called pillows sharpening iron.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: You you ever think about you ever think about how iron sharpens iron?
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's really stressful if you think about the analogy of humans.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, iron's just shaving off bits and pieces of the other piece of iron.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's stressful, it's intense, it's super uncomfortable.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: We're not supposed to be comfortable here.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't uh so we can't we gotta stop gathering our communities just around the things that make us comfortable.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and then third, we need to be careful where our eyes are focused.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: We need to be careful where our eyes are focused.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh because well the qu the question is, are they focused on Christ and the hope that we have in him, or are they focused back on the things of the world?
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: The things that you choose to put your eyes on day after day are the things that will ultimately become your priority.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so as we we need to focus on Christ to keep him as priority.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna close with this illustration.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: I've used it before, but I love it, so I'm gonna do it again.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh maybe you've seen a symphony before.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: If you ever attended a symphony orchestra, uh the violinist closest to you will stand up and will, you know, let out one note.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then everybody chaotically tunes themselves to the it's weird, but uh they they tune themselves to the first chair violin.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't matter if the violin, you know, first chair is out of tune, as long as the whole is tuned to her or him, then they're gonna sound unified.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: But imagine if the flutes decided we don't like the violins.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: I want to tune, I don't know if flutes even tune themselves, I don't know.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: But uh we're gonna tune ourselves to other flutes.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: Or the bassists are like, hey, we're, you know, we're really comfortable with other basses.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna tune ourselves to each other.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, it would be chaos.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: Once they start playing, they would all have a different tuning.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: They would not be unified at all.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: It'd be these microcommunities, even though they're still in a, they're technically still in the orchestra, right?
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_00: They they're totally divided and sound horrible.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: But as they focus their eyes on the on the first chair, they all become unified, not focusing on what makes them different.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a bass, I'm a flute, I'm a piccolo, I don't know.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but we're tuning ourselves to the first chair, and that's what we ought to do.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: We focus ourselves on Christ, tune our character to his, and we'll be all more unified in that way.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh let me pray for us.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: Father, we thank you for this time, that we can come together literally in the same room and think about and talk about what brings us together ultimately in your body.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, my prayer is simple this morning.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: Would you please help us to unify over you, period.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: And to resist the temptation to divide over silly things.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray these things.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, guys.