Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / September 18, 2021 | Then.Now.Next - The Secret of Unity in the Church

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September 18, 2021 | Then.Now.Next - The Secret of Unity in the Church · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, Connor, this looks like fun.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_02: This is gonna be a new fixture on the stage at all times or fancy stools.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Good job, guys.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Good job, John.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Great band.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: I want to say that uh, can you hear me?
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: I want to say thank you to you for coming.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, there's people who've come a long way, uh, just to they were surprised I was still alive.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: And uh people from the 1970s, I think secretary back from when I was first here.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you may know Cheryl Peterson, her husband, Bruce Spearsher.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: And Bruce drove up from Lindsburg, waved to us.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there you are, somewhere.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Back there.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for coming.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's really cool.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Really special.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Just think in 90, 80, 90 years, you can have that for I don't know if they appreciate that reference, but if you bring one of those too.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I only I only um no problem.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: We'll um we're gonna make do with here, you want this?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what fun?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we got Jeremiah I gave you that once we're done.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: We got the petting zoo.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-oh.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe don't tell Jeremiah.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, you better get that.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: I love the idea of the Root Beer Garden.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: That was pretty cool until I got uh this text message uh last night.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Said uh just read the teaser for tomorrow's church on the lawn.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine my shock when I read Roof Beer Garden.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Thank goodness I looked closer, but my first thought was, wow, Connor wasted no time in changing the culture of TBC.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think I think Alex wanted that for the young adults, the the roof beer garden, maybe.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: A little worried about this transition thing all of a sudden.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's gonna So are the dogs.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Although I love the little girl over on the porch dancing while we were singing.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: That was really cool.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if one more person talks about the passing, no, it's the proverbial passing of the baton, you know?
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I saw many times.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: I saw you rolling her eye.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: I about went in and got uh Melder was gonna go get a uh uh one of those paper holder things.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: I talked her out of the toilet paper holder, but yeah, you know, so that I could hand it to you.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: But uh I think we've dodged the literal baton a couple dozen times now.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: So love it.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: So you can have the baton.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh listen, um uh I liked, I just love the passage you came up with.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: It was what, a month or so ago, and you just said, why not do first Corinthians chapter one?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh we want to take you through this passage of what we think it says to TBC at this time and what it says to all of us.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I think uh can you guys flash that on the screen up above us?
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And Connor, would you read that?
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'll go ahead and read.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's 1 Corinthians 1, 10 through 17, and we've kind of abbreviated some parts of it.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: But it says, I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say, and that there be no divisions among you, um, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: My brothers and sisters, some have informed me that there are quarrels among you.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: What I mean is this: one of you says, I follow Paul, another, I follow Apollos, another, I follow Cephas, still another, I follow Christ.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: Is Christ divided?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_02: Was Paul crucified for you?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_02: Were you baptized in the name of Paul?
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: So that's that's kind of the text that we're working with this morning.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it's pretty straightforward or this afternoon, either one.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: And um that's a habit, isn't it?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: So, but it's pretty simple.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I can see why I picked it, because it's got a problem and it's got a solution.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the problem is is serious, but it's kind of silly at the same time.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the solution is also serious, but it's really simple.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: So why don't I start off and I'll talk about the problem for a minute, and then you chip in and we can talk about the solution.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go back 2,000 years ago to Corinth.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And you'll notice that the problem wasn't truth, it wasn't theology, it wasn't doctrine.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: The problem was not uh that the leaders even disagreed with each other.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Paul and Cephas and Apollos, they were best of buds.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: They weren't, there was no squabble among them.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it's fine and it's right to divide over the truth.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Paul was always, you know, he got on Cephas, so he was okay with dividing.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: No, this was about personalities.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: This is about, you know, silly things.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_02: Silly things, yeah.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: The preachers had developed sort of a Christian groupies uh a following so that you had, you know, the guys, you know, the Paul groupies and those who had a man crush on Apollos.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Who we wouldn't.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh, you know, Paul's, you know, some were saying Paul's the best, he knows the Bible better than anybody, and others were going, but Apollos, he's the young stud from Alexandria, and I love to hear him preach.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so you had them separating in clumps.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: You had the Paul clump over here, you had the Apollos clump over here, the Cephas Clump, and then the people who pulled the Trump card, you know, right were the Jesus people.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And and Paul can't believe it's come to this.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so he begins the book that's full of a lot of serious issues by saying, This is critical.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is critical.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: This division over minor things is stupid and silly, but it's really serious.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Christ wasn't divided.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: What we get, you know, did one of us climb the cross or you get baptized in our name?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, uh the idea I get, uh, Connors, that he says it's not complicated.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of a silly problem, but it's but it's really serious, this whole dividing over personalities.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, um, you want to chip on that, Amy?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, uh, it's interesting, like you said, that in this this book uh filled with responses to controversy and a whole lot of things that were going on at the Church of Corinth, that this is how he chooses to start the whole book, right?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: And in fact, so we're we started in verse 10 of chapter one, and by verse 10, he's mentioned the name Christ ten different times.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's that's setting the tone for the rest of the book.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's clear that even though Paul ends up kind of being somebody that's known for addressing controversy and divisions and things like that, he says that this common denominator amongst every single person that was there, whether they had been brought to Christ from Paul or Apollos or, you know, just the Jews who were fans of Peter, that every single one of them had this same sort of undergirding, which is Jesus.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's the gospel.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: And he even goes as far to say, which is sort of funny, he dismisses baptism.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: He says it's actually not that even important.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't even baptize that many people.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: He says the most important thing was the gospel.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: And he he uses this word united in in verse 10.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: And that same word is used in the gospels when some of the fishermen were repairing their nets.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so there's this imagery that he is trying to conjure up in the minds of the church.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: He's saying, you are supposed to be this united front with no holes in the nets, you know, not letting anything through, but um creating just this counter-offensive against the darkness that is in the world.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: And the only way that you can do that is by championing the gospel.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: And the and and something I noticed too, uh, Connor, is that for him it's it's not enough to just show it, to you know, speak the same thing because if people come in from outside and they hear you disagreeing, this would be really embarrassing.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: No, he says it's gotta be not only outside and public in what he says and what you say, but also in your mind and heart.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: That struck me.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: So it's gotta be internal as well.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to really honestly believe the same thing.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: And what is it that you have to believe?
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think it relates to the thing you mentioned about Christ.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then the last word of the text, which is gospel.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: That that's that's what's got to be in your mind and heart, that that's more important than all the the coolest Christian preachers, or who's who's the best, you know, at this or at that.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: You know, in an age of five steps to fix this and seven steps to freedom in this area, it's kind of funny that he addresses this huge controversy and he says, you know what, all of this division that is happening among you, the things that I've heard about, the solution is the gospel.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: The same thing that they would know of.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I imagine there were even a few people when they heard this letter that they were like, oh, come on, the gospel?
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like, are we gonna, you know, go back to that tired old thing, Paul?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: That seems to be your only uh note that you hit on.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: You are a one-trick pony, and he says, but that's enough, right?
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's enough that they understand the gospel and it's transforming power not only to the person, but then and to the church as a whole.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Let's let's bring this uh um let's bring this 2,000 years forward from Corinth to Topeka to today.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: Whiplash, yeah.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: So um so we've got a a serious but rather silly problem, and we have a serious solution which is rather simple, which is Christ and the gospel.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, today, when I ask myself, do we have any divisions today?
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, a lot of people tell me they like you better than me.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: No, uh no.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: I heard the opposite, so no it works out.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: But we do have Christian celebrity wars, but we also have all kinds of other divisions, you're right, you know, mass vaccinations, immigrant immigration politics, Afghan, you know, we can name them all.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel, to be honest, I I feel as deeply about them as anybody here probably.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, Paul's point is that we've got to keep the main thing the main thing and and realize what's most important, and it's and it's Christ and the gospel.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I thought of a story that that um that I I see I see Doug and Lee and and I see their kids here, and so this actually touches them, so they can correct me if I'm wrong or whatever.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes I'll drive up the driveway of our home over uh uh on the southwest side of town, and I'll see a bunch of cars in the driveway, and I'll realize to my happiness that my kids have decided to come over, which means more importantly, that the grandkids are in the house.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, but but you know, it's a long day, and I go inside and open the door, and all of a sudden my ears are hit with this cacophony.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even have to walk to the kitchen and know what the cacophony is that's blasphemized.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's two of the littlest ankle biters who are my grandchildren at the piano at the same time, both of them banging their own secret tune.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just beautiful.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: No, it isn't, it's horrible.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so I wait as long as I can, which is about 4.4 seconds, and then in unison with all the other adults in the house, we yell out, would you stop it already?
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: So, but here's the inner, which is a whole lot like I think the cats fighting in Corinth, you know, the the midnight cats all caterwalling different tunes.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: So, um, but interesting of the last time, last week, I think, was I drove in the driveway and the cars were there and I walk in and it's quiet.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm looking for the kids.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I walk around, I peek around the corner, and I see little heads.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: They're behind the couch next to the piano, they're on the couch where all of our 10 trillion Legos are, and they're building stuff out of Legos.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: And while I'm watching, my six-year-old grandson suddenly lets out warbling a tune.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't sing the words joyful, joyful, we adore the God of glory, God of love, or whatever it is.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, I'm very embarrassed about that.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Not really, but but he's humming, he's warbling it.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: He's and and I'm thinking, wow, that's okay, bad voice, but that's cool.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then in just a moment, stunningly, his four-year-old cousin begins, you know, burping it along with him, you know, warbling it along, you know, chorusing along with him.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: And every adult in that house, you know, stopped to listen because Ruben and Harvey were singing or chirping the same tune.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know the tune, right?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's actually Beethoven.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: So they're brilliant, and they're gonna be they're going to Harvard and Yale or whatever.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: But but you know, I I I I I think tonight of of this story and how early church and sometimes churches today, and we're singing different tunes, and it's a cacophony, but when we're singing the same tune, and when we're when we're and then when that tune is the is the old, old story of Jesus and his love, the gospel, that's when that's when it just sounds great.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I think it's um it's also kind of important to acknowledge the a possibility that some people have uh thrown at the two of us, which is that when you when you look at transitions sometimes, um they aren't always smooth.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: And uh as you know, people some have assumed different things, um, not knowing the close relationship that you and I have, how often we talk about Lord of the Rings and just all the important stuff, all the important stuff.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: No, but the the friendship that we have had for over a decade now and and the long relationship, you know, it's it's sort of funny to us, but it is also kind of like Paul going back to the church in Corinth here and saying, you know, it's obvious that Paul is not concerned as much about who is on his side or who is on the other side.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: Paul is concerned about the gospel.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: Paul's concerned that that's the message that's being preached.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_02: And what's, I don't know, maybe even says that we're out of a job.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: At the very end, he says, For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, and not with words of wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like, think about that statement for a second.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: Paul said that the gospel was so amazing that he didn't have to do anything to it, to add to it no illustrations, no, you know, modern references, no explaining of anything.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: He just said, Here's the gospel.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: This is what you need.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: This is what you need for the church and for all of you to be keeping the main thing, the main thing.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, uh one last thought I have about this text for us today is as we kind of look at how this applies to the church, um, but also just to our modern solution, is that um if we're able to keep the main thing, the main thing, if we're able to keep the gospel the center of what we're doing, if we are like that fish net that Paul has created, and he he uses the phrase in verse 10, he says that we have the same understanding and the same conviction.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: Some of your uh translations might say the same mind and the same judgment.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: And what he has there is he's saying, let's make sure that as we're walking forward, even if we are disagreeing about other things that the Bible might talk about, let's make sure that we're of the same mind that Jesus is number one.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: And let's also make sure that we're of the same conviction, the same judgment, that he's going to continue to be number one, right?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: Make sure that he is the the hub and not just a spoke in the wheel.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: And it it can be easy at times for churches to slide into that sort of thing.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh let me punch that button one with just a sentence or two before we talk about how to specifically apply it to TBC and to our lives.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that is that I think the gos if you're wondering about the gospel, if you're here, you're not quite sure, you know, that that you're on that side or not.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel's really, it really is simple.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's just that I'm so polluted.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel tells me I'm so polluted that Jesus had to come die for me.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: But he loved me so much, Christ did, that he was glad to come die for me.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little bit like the writer of Amazing Grace, John Newton, said he was just before his death, his mind was going, and he says, My memory is bad, I've forgotten most things, but there's one thing I remember.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: I remember that I'm a great sinner, and Christ is a great savior.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if you think about those words, think about those words, then you'll come to Christ.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: You'll see him on the cross, and then you trust him.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, a little Baptist in me there, but um That's good.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: So why don't I talk about sort of putting this on TBC and you talk about you end by talking about how do we apply it to our own life.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: So when I think about uh TBC and applying it to TBC, I just want to tell a story and then mention how you and I fill it out here at the church.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the story is 200 years old, but I love it partly because the guy John Fawcett comes from where my family came from several hundred years ago in England, Yorkshire.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: And and John Fawcett was 12 years old, 200 years ago almost exactly, and he was an orphan.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: But he went to a huge service where a famous preacher named George Whitfield preached, and John Fawcett trusted Christ as his savior, he became a Christian.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: Shortly after that, and and he was living in the country of Yorkshire, uh the local little parish, a small church, very poor, asked if he would preach to them.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: And he did, and he loved it.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and then he moved down the road, a little bit bigger country church, and he preached there, and and he was so genuine, he was so real, and he kept the gospel in Christ so forward that the church began to grow.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: And when he was in his young, about 30, a little bit older than you, a famous church in London, whose pastor John Gill had just died, uh asked if he would come and be their pastor.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was the it was the move of a career, and he said yes, and he was so excited he had a family and they were gonna move to London to one of the most famous churches in London.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so he came and he preached his farewell message at his church.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: He brought the wagons up, they had all their household possessions, was the last thing he was gonna do, and then they were getting in the wagons and they were heading toward London.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: He preached the message, and the little church, the church all came out afterwards.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: He got in the wagon, and the people were just loving on him, and they were holding on to the wagon, and a lot of them were crying, and some of the kids were going, please don't leave, please don't leave.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: And he started off and then he stopped the wagon.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, I'm staying here, it doesn't get any better than this.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: And he gave up a career at a huge famous church, and he stayed there for the rest of his life.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: But after that event, he walked into his little office at the church and he wrote a poem that you know and I know because it starts with the words, Blessed be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: What is the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love?
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's the gospel.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's the gospel.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's Jesus Christ.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I just want to assure you when it comes to the church that you know, from now on I'll be the pastor of missions and leader development.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: But I I'm gonna keep the main thing, the main thing, Connor.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: We've talked about it.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna keep Amen.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: That was an angel uh getting his wings.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm gonna I'm gonna try to keep the main thing, the main thing.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Gospel, Christ.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: And you, you know, your lead pastor, but you and I talk a lot, and you're gonna you're gonna be the same way.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about gospel and Christ.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I think starting next week, you're starting a series on those some of those stained glass five-syllable words of the New Testament that have to do with the fundamentals of the faith.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, next Sunday we'll be talking about depravity in a new series called Church Words.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: So that'll be exciting.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, like you said, it's we're keeping the main thing the main thing.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_02: And and if there's any message, I think, as Jim and I had have had a considerable amount of time to think about sort of what is uh uniting sort of this transition, it was that the main thing has stayed the main thing, that the gospel has been true for you and something you proclaimed, and it's true to me and something I proclaim.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so I I think that's the message also just for the the church at large is that we're going to continue to keep the gospel the main thing.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: And though there might be other issues which uh we would like to disagree on, or or things which we might feel like are driving us apart, we need to make sure that we remember Paul here in 1 Corinthians saying, No, we must keep the gospel at the forefront of our minds, because if we don't, then we can become divided.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: And that we are sure Satan would love to see something like that.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: I I'd like to take just a quick moment to talk about, though, how we can take this and apply it to our own lives.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: Because I think there's a great message here.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: This this letter was intended for some individuals, some in the Cephas Club and the Apollos Club and the Paul Club.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they've got their buttons and their banners and things like that.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um it was in a letter intended for the church, but also for individuals.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: And th the thing that I think is most important here is one that probably, if there were betting lines, people would expect, I'm about to say, but it's that the gospel would become the foundation of your life too.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: And like the church in Corinth, you might be hearing Paul saying, Oh, yeah.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: The gospel, another one of those kinds of messages.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: But I want to just sort of push on that for a second, because there are so many of us who sometimes knowing, sometimes innocently speak Christ but don't live Christ.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: And we are a phrase that you've used before, we are uh speaking cream but living skim milk, you know.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: It is that we are saying that Jesus is important to us, but in the ways in which it truly matters and where the rubber meets the road, we aren't living our lives for Jesus.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: And it's so important because if we don't do that, um not only are we struggling to uh find our true purpose that God has given us here in this life, we are missing out on um understanding some of the love that has been given through Christ on the cross for us.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: But also we're going to be tossed and turned about by the life that we experience if we don't have that solid rock.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: This idea of foundational thinking is so important.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's something Paul ends up picking up on later in 1 Corinthians.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh something that's brought to my mind is there's this new megastructure opening up in Las Vegas.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: They're making this, it's this gigantic sphere that's gonna be like 50 stories tall and have 8K you know videos around it.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's a very Las Vegas thing.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_02: But when you put a sphere in a desert, you've got to make sure it doesn't go anywhere, right?
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so they have put 850,000 cubic yards of cement under the sphere.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_02: To put that in perspective, that is just a little bit less than if you took the Empire State Building, filled it with concrete, and sunk it underneath the ground.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, that's a lot of concrete, right?
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_02: That sphere's not going anywhere.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: But I think of the people in my life, I think of someone like you who has made Jesus such a central part of their life that, like a sphere in the desert, you know, there's nothing that is going to move that.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: They're so rooted in Jesus, like TBC, so rooted in Christ, that even though, I mean, we're past 80 years now, I don't remember.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: I need Teresa to give me the exact numbers.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: 83 years that TBC has been around.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's because we are rooted in Jesus.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_02: And so that same thing applies to us personally.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_02: We need to make Jesus the hub of our life and not just a spoke.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_02: And if there's anybody who doesn't know Christ, it's an awesome time to know him, to understand that Jesus died for your sins, that he rose again on the third day, so that you get to have a relationship with God forever, that you don't need to fear the future because you know that you are covered by the blood of Christ, that every single thing that you have ever done that has gone against God, um, that it is wiped clean, and that in the eyes of God you are seen like his child, just like Jesus.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: So that's something that anybody can walk into, and it's something that we walk forward with uh as we look towards the future.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have any more thoughts on personal there?
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, just uh I th I think I love what you said.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I mean it's so good we ought to just close in prayer, which we'll do in 30 seconds.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: But let me just say this: I think that I would join you in charging all of us as a church and as individuals to do the gospel both internally and externally.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: That is embrace the gospel, truly embrace the gospel with your heart so that genuinely is the most important thing for you by the gospel again.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: This incredible story of how God in his glorious plan sends the second person of the Trinity down to earth to steal our death, to die in our place.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's amazing.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: So embrace that in your heart.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you've never done that before, embrace it, become a Christian today.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: But externally, let's talk the gospel more, let's speak the gospel more, let's verbalize this that it's important to us.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: Feel more free to speak in it.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes talk about the things that happen in the next couple chapters in Corinthians, that there is a lot of depth to the faith, but the thing that's most important is that we are united in Jesus.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now you can close us and pray.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_02: Father, we thank you for today.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_02: Lord, we thank you for 83 years of Topeka Bible Church.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: We thank you for 2,000 years plus of the gospel of Jesus Christ being here.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, God, just the opportunity that we have to know Jesus, to have a relationship with him, and to live that out in a way that not only changes our lives, but changes the lives of the people around us.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_02: God, it is uh it's awesome to be here uh with hundreds on the lawn to celebrate what is happening at the church, but Lord, most of all to celebrate that the main thing is the main thing, that the gospel is number one, has been, will continue to be, and that's the greatest message that we could ever deliver.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_02: So, God, as we um head to the dunk tanks here in a moment, Lord, we just ask that you would uh bless our time together as a church community, that you would help us to have uh some lovely fellowship and uh to just enjoy uh a life lived in dedication to you.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_02: And it's in Jesus' name we pray.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: Amen.