back to indexWed Bible Study (BCC 2) - 11-30-16
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We're going to jump right into the Bible study. 00:00:10.800 |
Today we're giving Pastor Peter a break from the leading worship part so you guys get double 00:00:17.640 |
Well, I want to start off by doing it again of linking everything that we've been learning 00:00:26.880 |
I've been doing it every time that I've been teaching just so that all that we are doing 00:00:34.120 |
in terms of the outflow of how important the church and all that kind of stuff is flowing 00:00:41.240 |
So walk with me here in the review and we'll put a bunch of blanks. 00:00:51.920 |
So we must have an accurately high view of God. 00:00:57.560 |
And remember I made it a kind of emphasis to say that just to say that, "Hey, we're 00:01:02.360 |
going to have a high view of God," as in we're just going to try to elevate him, I felt like 00:01:07.000 |
was not enough because the reality, what is true and real is that God actually is exalted. 00:01:15.980 |
And so we appropriately want to see him that way. 00:01:18.560 |
And then number two, we must have a corresponding high view of his word. 00:01:26.040 |
Think of it, it is really inconsistent when people regularly hold up their Bible and say, 00:01:30.520 |
"This is the word of God, word of God, word of God." 00:01:33.640 |
And yet in terms of treating this, the scriptures and how they approach it, it is very far from 00:01:43.600 |
So correspondingly, they have to be at high view of the word. 00:01:46.480 |
So Pastor Peter went at length about interpreting accurately. 00:01:53.720 |
So we have to have a corresponding high view of the word. 00:01:57.120 |
And then we have to make sure that we interpret the scriptures accurately. 00:02:01.240 |
That if we're not seeking to arrive at the intended meaning of the passage, then all 00:02:05.840 |
you have is conjecture, opinion, and this and that. 00:02:09.720 |
But what's more, we obviously have to apply accurately by making sure that we go through 00:02:14.400 |
the right process of, "This is what the scripture says by exegesis." 00:02:18.080 |
And only then do you ask historical theology, you know, systematic and then, or systematic 00:02:24.920 |
So the whole idea there is, in terms of even the way that you're going to now place it 00:02:30.320 |
into your life, that also has to be accurate as well. 00:02:38.560 |
And we've been talking about that now for several weeks. 00:02:42.160 |
Firstly, we have to cherish the church as Christ does. 00:02:45.200 |
Sorry I don't have the projection on there, but I'm going to repeat those blanks a couple 00:02:52.560 |
You have to cherish the church as Christ does. 00:02:56.600 |
What's more, we have to recognize God's delegated authority in the church. 00:03:04.160 |
We did last week this idea of authority culturally. 00:03:08.800 |
Again, not for every single person, but especially here in the US, culturally, it stands in opposition 00:03:18.280 |
But there's this question of, is there biblical delegated authority within the church? 00:03:25.240 |
Today, as we go down this flow of reviewing all that we've covered, we've covered these 00:03:31.260 |
core doctrines that really stand as pillars for the church. 00:03:37.200 |
But today is going to be more of like a coaching and an inspiring and like a, "Ah, guys, let's 00:03:46.240 |
Because there's a sense in which we can talk about, again, this view of God. 00:03:55.220 |
There's a sense in which it can remain theoretical, right? 00:04:02.040 |
And so today we're going to be challenged to hear this admonition that we must align 00:04:14.420 |
Whatever God is doing then through his word, whatever God is doing then through his church, 00:04:20.760 |
we need to align ourselves with his purposes, okay? 00:04:25.440 |
It's not enough to say the one thing, well, first of all, it's definitely not enough and 00:04:29.560 |
absolutely wrong to have a misconstrued view of what God is doing so that the major problem 00:04:35.480 |
in this day and age has been that people have been making the church what they want it to 00:04:41.440 |
And people have been making the Bible say what they want it to say, right? 00:04:46.480 |
And so the admonition that I'm saying is, if we're going to go down this line of saying, 00:04:50.040 |
well, God is holy and that's accurately what we see him as, then you need to submit to 00:04:56.400 |
If God's word is God's word and you have a high view of it, then you need to submit to 00:05:01.120 |
If God's church is cherished and it has authority, then we need to function underneath that as 00:05:07.240 |
And so the whole challenge today is going to be there is a responsibility on us as members 00:05:13.840 |
to buy into God's purposes and have a sense, this is my purpose, right? 00:05:20.320 |
So that's what we're going to be talking about today. 00:05:22.920 |
And by way of kind of intro to say that, I mean, having a purpose statement for your 00:05:31.880 |
If you've taken any business classes or even if you just read articles about like successful 00:05:36.220 |
businesses or even just successful projects, they'll always say, number one is set the 00:05:46.360 |
And the reason why is because a mission statement pretty much explains why you exist. 00:05:53.680 |
It just answers the question like, what is this all for? 00:05:57.560 |
And I think that's really pertinent to us because we live in a generation where people 00:06:05.200 |
People are always questioning for what reason am I here? 00:06:12.700 |
So was it without a mission statement, we're absolutely lost and without aim. 00:06:16.120 |
And what we're going to see is that regularly God has been very vocal about his purposes 00:06:22.400 |
for mankind, his purposes for specific people, his purposes for nation, his purposes for 00:06:30.940 |
And so what we're going to do right now, and I hope this doesn't become too boring for 00:06:34.120 |
you guys, but we're going to do one of those like follow the trail, okay? 00:06:37.280 |
Follow the trail of different characters to see God's purposes for them. 00:06:43.040 |
So please turn your Bibles to Genesis chapter 12. 00:06:47.640 |
And we're going to be flipping obviously just a bunch of passages in the Old Testament and 00:07:00.920 |
That famous passage you guys are probably well versed in, it says, "Now the Lord said 00:07:06.480 |
to Abraham, 'Go forth from your country and from your relatives and from your father's 00:07:10.200 |
house to the land which I will show you and I will make you a great nation and I will 00:07:14.520 |
bless you and make your name great and so you shall be a blessing. 00:07:19.160 |
And I will bless those who bless you and the one who curses you I will curse and in you 00:07:24.120 |
all the families of the earth will be blessed.'" 00:07:28.200 |
Now you can read that in two different perspectives. 00:07:31.680 |
You can read that in one perspective of trying to figure out like, oh, who is that, you know, 00:07:36.720 |
What's the land and what's this blessing supposed to be? 00:07:41.360 |
The other perspective you can take is a broad scope. 00:07:48.400 |
And look at what he's saying when he says, you know, he's talking about like, "Go forth 00:07:54.120 |
from your country, from your relatives," and he says, "the land which I will show you, 00:07:57.080 |
I will make you, I will bless you, I will bless you." 00:07:59.640 |
And the whole repeated theme of that is God doing a mighty work calling Abraham. 00:08:08.800 |
So within that we have some of the blanks for you there. 00:08:18.000 |
We have the land, a great nation, and blessing. 00:08:23.780 |
Those three things you guys should have categorically in your head. 00:08:26.020 |
If you guys were here when Pastor Aaron was teaching through Genesis, which was an awesome 00:08:33.600 |
Like, because every week he, you know, reviewed that with us. 00:08:37.060 |
But it was great because as he explained it, those things by which God was desiring to 00:08:43.120 |
give and what God had purposed actually built a framework of how to understand the Old Testament. 00:08:50.280 |
That was the meta-narrative by which we started to understand why. 00:09:00.120 |
And so all I'm saying is it's important for us to recognize that there is a purpose of 00:09:03.740 |
God by which he's working and building towards as he calls specific people. 00:09:08.980 |
So what's more, we think about even Moses, right? 00:09:16.740 |
And Moses in Exodus chapter three, he is called, he says, "Therefore come now, I will send 00:09:21.220 |
you to Pharaoh so that you may bring my people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt." 00:09:28.620 |
God, in using Moses to draw his people, made that elaborate drama to make sure that the 00:09:37.900 |
grandeur of his deliverance would be known throughout the generations, right? 00:09:43.140 |
That it would not only simply be like, "Oh, it happened," but it would be something rehearsed. 00:09:47.020 |
It would be something memorized and it would be something reviewed so that the generations 00:09:52.160 |
to come would recognize that God is a God of deliverance. 00:09:57.740 |
So what's more, if you turn your Bibles to Exodus chapter 25, verse one through nine, 00:10:03.740 |
okay, God is working through Moses and he has these various purposes. 00:10:21.980 |
And then he says, "Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, 'Tell the sons of Israel to 00:10:28.900 |
From every man whose heart moves him, you shall raise my contribution. 00:10:33.580 |
This is the contribution which you are to raise from them. 00:10:36.140 |
Gold, silver, and bronze, blue, purple, and scarlet material, fine linen, go hair, ram 00:10:41.660 |
skin dyed red, porpoise skins, acacia wood, oil for lighting, spices for the anointing 00:10:49.900 |
Onyx stones and setting stones for the ephod and for the breast piece. 00:10:53.100 |
Let them construct a sanctuary for me that I may dwell among them. 00:10:58.420 |
According to all that I am going to show you as the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern 00:11:02.940 |
of all its furniture, just so you shall construct it.'" 00:11:08.140 |
And this is a really interesting passage because in God describing to Moses what he is going 00:11:18.300 |
He says that, right there in verse 8, "Let them construct what a sanctuary for me, for 00:11:29.060 |
If you missed that theme, if you missed that concept, what is God doing here? 00:11:37.740 |
It almost feels like you are picking up Ikea manual and just reading it for fun, right? 00:11:42.900 |
And then you are just going to think, man, the Bible is super hard to read. 00:11:45.660 |
How many of you guys have read through Exodus and started realizing, my goodness, half the 00:11:51.300 |
Exodus is 40 chapters, but starting from chapter 25, the huge chunk of it is, this is what 00:11:56.420 |
the clothes look like, this is what the altar looks like, this is what the lamp stand looks 00:12:00.780 |
like, this is what the nation looks like, this is what the, you know what I'm saying? 00:12:10.620 |
In his purpose, he desires to dwell with them. 00:12:13.800 |
So all the details and all the specifics that he is putting into, the measurement, and even 00:12:19.420 |
the color, now all of a sudden has its place, right? 00:12:24.820 |
And what's more, he describes how not only is he going to be doing this, he is going 00:12:32.260 |
So many of the chapters talks about, you know, skilled craftsmen, and then obviously you 00:12:37.180 |
have that little episode with the golden calf and God is like, oh my goodness, right when 00:12:42.020 |
I'm purposing, right when I'm intending to build this sanctuary so that I might dwell 00:12:52.820 |
My point being again though is, we want to have a perspective as we read the scriptures 00:12:56.660 |
of asking the question, what is God's purpose? 00:13:03.380 |
What's more, I want to ask you a question here, okay? 00:13:06.300 |
With the priests of Leviticus, I'm going to ask you this question because I covered it 00:13:10.620 |
week two, which was already a while ago, but just to refresh our memory, I made a big point 00:13:20.780 |
Who remembers what was the intent, what was the purpose of Leviticus chapter 16? 00:13:42.300 |
In the New Testament, Jesus is described as three things. 00:13:54.000 |
My first son's middle name is this word I'm looking for. 00:14:07.700 |
Remember that when God through the priests, all of a sudden in the book of Leviticus, 00:14:14.900 |
start to give all these restrictions and all this kind of stuff, you might have been thinking, 00:14:21.820 |
All God is doing is restricting man from coming to him. 00:14:25.020 |
But I made the case that yes, it is a restriction because the reality is you can't. 00:14:31.540 |
But the purpose of establishing a priest and establishing a sacrifice was to show you the 00:14:40.940 |
In chapter 16 of Leviticus, it made it very clear. 00:14:46.540 |
The book of Leviticus, the purpose of it is to show them that there is going to be a way 00:14:56.260 |
Currently right now, there's nothing for you. 00:14:58.660 |
You're separate from God and you dare not approach him for you shall die. 00:15:07.300 |
That law is a grace given to them to give them a way to worship, to give them a way 00:15:17.100 |
See if you missed that, all of a sudden, Leviticus chapter 19, the book of Leviticus becomes 00:15:22.140 |
random laws, stuff that you just put aside as a bunch of ceremony. 00:15:37.220 |
Please turn your Bible to 2 Samuel chapter 7. 00:15:43.580 |
Please turn your Bible to 2 Samuel chapter 7. 00:15:51.940 |
2 Samuel 7 is known as the Davidic covenant passage. 00:16:00.060 |
I'm going to read you a little bit of a lengthy section, okay? 00:16:07.420 |
He says, "But in the same night, the word of the Lord came to Nathan, saying, 'Go and 00:16:12.020 |
say to my servant David, 'Thus says the Lord, you are the one who should build me a house 00:16:17.500 |
"'Are you the one who should build me a house to dwell in? 00:16:21.700 |
For I have not dwelt in a house since the day I brought the sons of Israel from Egypt, 00:16:27.140 |
But I have been moving about in a tent, even a tabernacle. 00:16:30.980 |
Wherever I have gone with all the sons of Israel, did I speak a word with one of the 00:16:36.980 |
tribes of Israel, which I command to shepherd my people Israel, saying, 'Why have you not 00:16:43.740 |
Now therefore thus you shall say to my servant David, 'Thus says the Lord of hosts, 'I took 00:16:48.740 |
you from the pastor from following the sheep to be ruler over my people Israel. 00:16:53.060 |
I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before 00:16:57.820 |
I will make you a great name, like the names of the great men who are on the earth. 00:17:02.140 |
I will also appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, that they may 00:17:06.340 |
live in their own place, and not be disturbed again. 00:17:09.500 |
Nor will the lewkid afflict them any more as formerly, even from the day that I commanded 00:17:14.620 |
judges to be over my people Israel, and I will give you rest from all your enemies. 00:17:19.880 |
The Lord also declares to you that the Lord will make a house for you. 00:17:23.780 |
When your days are complete, and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant 00:17:28.940 |
after you, who will come from you, and I will establish his kingdom. 00:17:33.460 |
He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever." 00:17:41.020 |
When you read these passages, you just get, I don't know if you get the same sense, but 00:17:47.620 |
you just get a repetition of, "I will do this, I will do this, and this is what I'm going 00:17:56.020 |
And essentially, as you read these passages, what you realize is God has been working, 00:18:01.620 |
God has been active, and he is accomplishing his purposes. 00:18:05.980 |
Whether it looks like it or appears like it in your eyes or not, it's happening. 00:18:14.420 |
We have to align ourselves with the purposes of God. 00:18:20.940 |
Should any of these people say, "But I want to, how come I don't get to, but I so eagerly 00:18:31.100 |
Then all of a sudden, even if whatever you desire seemed to be good in your eyes, now 00:18:37.220 |
Well, just to kind of fill in a couple more, all these significant individuals had a calling, 00:18:44.460 |
a very specific calling, right, from God that was revealed very explicitly. 00:18:52.060 |
Now I'm not going to say that each and every single one of us has a calling explicitly 00:19:03.140 |
Now just kind of going down the line here, Ezra, he was commissioned with bringing reform, 00:19:11.100 |
Bringing the wave of people back, putting away the idols. 00:19:13.900 |
He reprimanded everybody for their cross marriages with idolatrous people. 00:19:19.780 |
Nehemiah had the mission to rebuild the wall, right, to start rebuilding. 00:19:26.660 |
All these significant individuals had a mission. 00:19:29.660 |
Now, if you notice in your packet, I have a thing called common falling condition. 00:19:40.860 |
This guy named Brian Chappell, he wrote a book called Christ-Centered Preaching and 00:19:53.180 |
Whenever you see a kind of common phenomenon where we have this condition, you just call 00:20:00.220 |
it this common falling condition where there is a sense, I believe, in this generation 00:20:09.300 |
I don't know if you agree with me or not, or I don't know if you personally struggle 00:20:15.260 |
There is a frustration in the heart of mankind in this generation and that frustration, I 00:20:19.420 |
believe, comes from a sense of purposeless living. 00:20:27.460 |
I believe there is a reason why that purpose-driven life phenomenon happened. 00:20:32.580 |
Why millions and millions of people read a book where many pastors previous to him said 00:20:42.020 |
Because there was a big, big vacancy of a sense of purpose in their lives. 00:20:47.700 |
And I think, even if I look at my life, sometimes I get so myopic that I look at my table, my 00:20:54.860 |
lot in life, and I start to ask this question like, "Why? 00:21:02.460 |
So I just want to share a little bit of a story here, or I just want to share a little 00:21:10.740 |
I think there are times, let's say even starting from young age, like high school, high school 00:21:15.660 |
students are striving for stuff, whether it be first experiences of going to dances or 00:21:21.740 |
whatever, or high school students are looking for that acceptance letter from their college. 00:21:25.340 |
I'm going to be honest with you, I think I've shared this story with you guys many times, 00:21:30.060 |
but I as a high school student had my heart set on going to UCSD. 00:21:35.500 |
For those of you guys who went there, consider yourselves blessed, okay? 00:21:40.180 |
When I got my little small rejection letter, I was so sad I cried. 00:21:44.700 |
I started crying and my parents were like, "What is it?" 00:21:46.940 |
I did one of those like, "We don't want to talk about it," and just like went to my room. 00:21:53.700 |
And by the fourth one, they wrote me back and said, "Please stop. 00:21:59.780 |
And then at my church where I got saved, we had one of these farewell banquets for the 00:22:03.060 |
seniors and stuff, and then I was like, "No farewell. 00:22:08.940 |
I was so bummed because I had my hopes set on that acceptance letter. 00:22:17.340 |
After that, you get embittered and then you're just like, "Whatever," and you give up. 00:22:21.060 |
So I remember when I came to UCI, I didn't go to SPOP. 00:22:30.900 |
Once I got to UCI, actually James Hong might have helped me register for classes because 00:22:43.220 |
And then collegians, there's a sense in which sometimes when they're studying and when they're 00:22:48.700 |
trying to pick certain majors, maybe they bomb their first exam, whatever it may be, 00:22:52.780 |
all of a sudden disappointment leads to being jaded and leads to a sense of like, "Why?" 00:23:01.260 |
Even if you have a decent job, it's repetitive. 00:23:06.260 |
Just for the fact, not because it's hard, not because it's demeaning, but it's because 00:23:14.620 |
And then you start asking the question, "Why? 00:23:19.860 |
And I have people ask me regularly, "When I think of Christian life, sometimes I don't 00:23:39.620 |
So I don't know if maybe some of you guys can relate to all of that, but I think in 00:23:42.900 |
this generation, there are so many people who struggle with that. 00:23:47.460 |
Did you know that if you look up psychiatric studies of how many people are depressed in 00:23:53.460 |
this generation, it is above the generation of World War I? 00:24:02.340 |
That the number of people who say they have clinical depression exceeds those individuals 00:24:12.060 |
Because I think people wrestle with this idea of there is absolutely no purpose for that. 00:24:20.020 |
I remember when I first became Christian, the very first song that I learned was, I'm 00:24:27.780 |
not going to sing it, but the words go, "Here I am, nothing much to give. 00:24:32.580 |
Here I am, asking for the privilege to be used by you. 00:24:38.780 |
It was a simple song, three chords, and I learned it and I sang it again and again and 00:24:43.740 |
And it came from when I first got saved, I wanted to be used. 00:24:47.700 |
But what was really interesting is after graduating college, I was a philosophy major, completely 00:24:55.300 |
And then I worked for a year and a half, and I did really odd jobs. 00:25:00.980 |
And then I decided I want to go to seminary because I want to be used. 00:25:03.740 |
I went through four years of seminary and then finished. 00:25:14.100 |
But there was still this question of, where do I fit? 00:25:21.060 |
There was a question of, I don't even know what my gifts are. 00:25:23.780 |
I'm going to be honest with you, I don't know what my gifts are in terms of what am I really 00:25:30.220 |
I feel like I can do this, but I don't even know what is a tangible gift I should be doing 00:25:38.500 |
I started feeling a sense of that, like, what do I do? 00:25:43.820 |
And I remember asking this question, God, what do I get to do? 00:25:50.100 |
And then I remember feeling incredibly rebuked because as I studied the scriptures, I didn't 00:26:02.260 |
The questions that I was asking, it's not necessarily wrong, but the heart behind it 00:26:06.460 |
could be very dangerous because although God's answer might be the same, the questions are 00:26:15.980 |
There are times because of our hearts, the common fallen condition. 00:26:20.580 |
How many of you guys have ever sat in your wardrobe, maybe in front of your closet and 00:26:24.900 |
you sit there and you're like, oh, I've got nothing to wear. 00:26:34.660 |
You can't even squeeze your shirt in, but you're like, oh, I've got nothing to wear. 00:26:39.780 |
What we mean is there's nothing there I want to wear. 00:26:45.740 |
We've got that little train table that we got from their cousins and then they're all 00:26:50.900 |
And then obviously the older one, he's stronger and bigger. 00:26:52.620 |
So it's like, I don't want to play with that. 00:26:54.620 |
And my little one's sitting there like, and then his table is all like empty on his side. 00:26:59.220 |
And then he looks at me, I've got nothing, you know? 00:27:04.940 |
You have like a four by four Ikea shelf with all these toys, you know? 00:27:10.540 |
But of course, when you look at in front of them, what do you have? 00:27:16.740 |
When you have so much more on a larger perspective, I wondered at that moment, I got, felt so 00:27:22.580 |
rebuked because I'm sitting here asking, what's my role? 00:27:28.100 |
When God's probably sitting there asking me, did you notice what I was doing? 00:27:37.620 |
Did you know how I, you know, have you been paying attention to what I've been building? 00:27:44.620 |
Did you have eyes like Ezra to see there's like broken wall? 00:27:48.180 |
Did you have eyes like Nehemiah to see there's idolatry over there? 00:27:55.340 |
And then I felt this weight of rebuke because you study the scriptures and Jesus Christ 00:28:00.980 |
is saying over and over again, here in the New Testament, all the things that we went 00:28:05.900 |
through, choosing a chosen nation and a people who will be blessed, that is in Christ, the 00:28:10.620 |
church through Moses, the deliverance, through Moses, the tabernacle of the spirit of God 00:28:17.300 |
That's the church, the building of the temple, so to speak. 00:28:22.180 |
And Jesus Christ has been saying in this generation, I will build my church. 00:28:28.020 |
And that's when I started to feel this like burden on my soul. 00:28:36.260 |
And that's why I'm all about building the local church. 00:28:39.940 |
Because in a moment of kind of feeling lost, in a moment of feeling like I don't know my 00:28:44.920 |
niche in life, I really felt from the scriptures that God was saying that in this time he is 00:28:50.600 |
truly building a body of people, which I am to help build. 00:29:12.740 |
Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked the disciples, who do people 00:29:19.660 |
And they said, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah, or 00:29:25.340 |
He said to them, but who do you say that I am? 00:29:29.220 |
And Simon Peter replied, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. 00:29:33.860 |
And Jesus answered him, blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed 00:29:40.860 |
And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates 00:29:48.460 |
I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on it shall 00:29:52.020 |
be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on it shall be loosed in heaven. 00:30:11.700 |
What's more, Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14, 12, so also you, since you are zealous 00:30:16.700 |
for spiritual gifts, seek to abound for the edification of the church. 00:30:21.300 |
In the New Testament, God is establishing the church. 00:30:26.580 |
And so, if you are feeling a sense of, I don't know, Christian life in the OC, so lame. 00:30:36.300 |
I feel like maybe you're looking at the wrong plate. 00:30:41.900 |
Maybe your eyes were focused in on like, I wanted Christian life in OC to maybe look 00:30:48.180 |
And since you see a gaping hole there, you're like, man, this is lame. 00:30:53.500 |
Let us today, I want to encourage us, again, today is kind of like, let's get inspired 00:30:57.700 |
to broaden our perspective and ask, what is God doing here, right now, in OC, in your 00:31:06.300 |
And what visions and purposes of God can you attach yourself to? 00:31:10.500 |
Not simply to say, God, what's my niche going to be, right? 00:31:14.740 |
And I want to be able to do something that I can look back and say, wow, look at the 00:31:19.620 |
What is God doing by which you can align yourselves and get behind that and serve those purposes? 00:31:30.700 |
You look at all the things that the scripture is said in Ephesians, the passage in 2, chapter 00:31:35.220 |
2, verse 19 to 20, that's the one that talks about this, that in Christ, yes, he is the 00:31:40.100 |
chief cornerstone and we are being the structure joined together, grows into a holy temple 00:31:46.300 |
In him, you also are being built up together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. 00:31:53.700 |
First Peter, chapter 2, verse 4 through 5, as you come to him, a living stone rejected 00:31:57.660 |
by man, but in the sight of God chosen and precious. 00:32:00.660 |
You yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy 00:32:05.140 |
priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 00:32:10.340 |
Did God expect you to have a mundane, I don't quote unquote lame kind of life in this generation? 00:32:19.780 |
He actually expects us to be responsible, active, productive, contributing, offering 00:32:30.420 |
So you guys can look up those passages in your own time, but right now what we're going 00:32:39.600 |
The big picture is there are purposes of God for the church that we need to buy into. 00:32:44.860 |
The smaller things and the details we're going to do now. 00:32:48.220 |
So therefore, therefore, and we're just going to do like a machine gun style, machine gun 00:32:54.220 |
style application, kind of envisioning what we can be doing. 00:32:59.740 |
This is also going to be review, review of our membership covenant. 00:33:05.160 |
So number one, if we believe that the spirit of God dwells not in 314A4 Airway Avenue, 00:33:13.820 |
building A, but the dwelling of God is the church, the people, the dwelling of God is 00:33:21.300 |
Then the first thing we need to do is make sure that we're building this church the appropriate 00:33:25.180 |
way and that you're contributing to the building up of the strength of this church by solidifying 00:33:36.460 |
It is your responsibility to examine your faith and solidify it by which if you have 00:33:50.380 |
If you have any doubt, man, I grew up in the Christian church and then I've been telling 00:33:55.180 |
people I've been Christian since I was a baby, but I can't really pinpoint a time when I 00:34:04.940 |
If you feel like, you know, right now there are days, not just days, but weeks and not 00:34:08.580 |
just weeks, but months, I have no desire for God. 00:34:17.660 |
Because truthfully speaking, the leaders and the people around you, they can't tell you, 00:34:29.340 |
They can't, I actually don't ever really tell people, "Don't you ever doubt and don't you 00:34:46.980 |
So maybe you can, and again, that's your responsibility to search for what kind of questions should 00:34:56.860 |
We practice membership, so there is in a sense a door. 00:35:01.220 |
But that door is crossed by confession and that confession is yours to make. 00:35:08.900 |
For you to examine your faith to the degree that you will have a definitive conclusion, 00:35:14.660 |
a definitive conclusion towards confession, "I believe it. 00:35:27.380 |
That's not in the power of another person to tell you. 00:35:30.580 |
So number one was this idea that you have to have a definitive conclusion. 00:35:39.420 |
And so therefore, we have as our membership covenant number one, which is, oh sorry, this 00:35:48.140 |
motion means that you guys would say it, who remembers, we should put that on the quiz 00:35:56.740 |
List the 10 commitments of, you know, just kidding. 00:36:10.460 |
And that's something we have people sign off on as their commitment. 00:36:18.820 |
It's a commitment of solidifying that confession. 00:36:21.940 |
I have my confession in the name of Jesus Christ. 00:36:30.260 |
Take 30 seconds to jot down some ideas of how this is something that you can apply to 00:36:42.140 |
I'm asking you to take the concept of solidifying, as in making sure that you have the assurance 00:36:47.660 |
of salvation and use that by way of building the church. 00:36:54.780 |
It doesn't have to be so linearly connected, like this is how we build it. 00:37:13.140 |
You know, maybe if you don't have the capacity, you know, maybe you're a newer Christian and 00:37:20.300 |
you can't verbally express the gospel, starting to memorize that, rehearse it, right? 00:37:28.020 |
Maybe not just because someone asked you, but reviewing your testimony to see if there 00:37:34.180 |
have been clear actual experience of being converted in Christ. 00:37:46.060 |
Maybe even if you've been a long time Christian and one of our college students comes to you 00:37:51.660 |
and says, "I just came from this youth group and we've never really heard the gospel, so 00:37:57.980 |
to speak, the gospel proper, but I know I'm a pretty good, like I know I'm a Christian 00:38:06.940 |
So learning how to guide somebody through like an assurance of their conversion. 00:38:13.420 |
So these are all things that you can be doing because then you're going to be equipped to 00:38:18.060 |
There are more, but you guys can, you know, jot those ideas down. 00:38:22.220 |
I'm going to have to probably go faster because we're going to be here for a long night. 00:38:28.020 |
Number two, it's your responsibility to build a church by continuing to learn and renew 00:38:44.380 |
You being a theologian actually builds the church. 00:38:48.800 |
You studying the scriptures diligently and meditating upon it is building the church. 00:38:54.820 |
What's more, when we have services, because these are the main avenues of our gathering, 00:39:00.820 |
When we have the preaching of the word of God, my question to you would be, are you 00:39:03.740 |
getting the most out of the sermons and the lessons? 00:39:08.920 |
Are you sitting back, enjoying the lesson and saying, "That felt pretty good," and 00:39:13.620 |
Or are you actively listening, trying to retain and trying to apply? 00:39:18.420 |
Are you basically taking the inductive methodology that you use to when you do your own Bible 00:39:23.140 |
study and apply it to your own listing of the scriptures whenever you hear it? 00:39:27.660 |
Do you realize that this actually continues to build the church as we all collectively 00:39:34.220 |
And what's more, I ask the question of, are you continuing to renew your mind? 00:39:40.300 |
Because honestly speaking, the church, I don't know if you guys see it, but I see it a lot 00:39:47.460 |
I see it a lot with the collegians because I feel like, my goodness, every year we're 00:39:53.220 |
I'm teaching this lesson on Friday with the collegians. 00:39:56.220 |
I went over one of the lessons, immediately one of the students came up and was like, 00:40:01.420 |
Like, if I want to not come, why do I have to?" 00:40:06.380 |
I'm like, "Okay, we're going to have to go through this every time, every year, because 00:40:13.060 |
the massive generation of people that are coming up don't have a base foundation of 00:40:17.580 |
like, this is the role of the church in their Christian lives." 00:40:21.020 |
Even when it comes to what's pure and what's impure, what's acceptable for a Christian 00:40:27.740 |
That line, obviously we don't draw like crystal clear in the cement or whatever, but those 00:40:34.820 |
But do you realize that this generation, this church is also under attack? 00:40:41.780 |
The muddying of those lines so that you can't say any of that stuff. 00:40:48.060 |
I see it in the, especially in the young group. 00:40:50.640 |
So I just want to ask the question of, is your mind being renewed? 00:40:54.140 |
And again, we have a membership covenant that says, "I confess that the Bible is an inerrant 00:40:58.900 |
word of God and has ultimate authority over my life." 00:41:05.000 |
Is that I'm presenting to you our membership commitments. 00:41:08.980 |
In one perspective, it's just simply your commitment to the church. 00:41:12.460 |
In another perspective, these are various things that you can commit to so that you 00:41:17.100 |
can be a healthy member, a healthy Christian. 00:41:20.760 |
And these are many of the things that you can be devoting your time to. 00:41:23.420 |
Do we expect every Christian to be a studious individual? 00:41:29.620 |
Even if you're a super slow reader, even if you don't normally read books, yes, you should. 00:41:37.660 |
You should be reading topical books on church, topical books on current issues. 00:41:44.420 |
Now I'm not saying that you have to be at a certain level. 00:41:48.100 |
You don't all have to be like somebody else, but you should all be readily growing. 00:41:56.340 |
If you personally have not been renewing your mind to the scriptures, if you personally 00:42:03.460 |
have been really inactive and deficient in learning and gaining perspective and answering 00:42:09.240 |
some of the pertinent questions, how can you address that? 00:42:17.560 |
And the perspective that we want to instill in everybody again is, as you grow in that 00:42:21.700 |
kind of theology, the conviction from the Bible, that contributes to the health of the 00:42:27.140 |
church because your health, whether you get swayed left and right, is the health of the 00:42:33.020 |
Your personal conviction is going to contribute to the collective whole. 00:42:40.100 |
Maybe you guys have never tackled that gigantic, grudum, systematic theology. 00:42:49.060 |
Now we don't all have to go through it by the end of the year or whatever, but we recommend 00:42:56.380 |
Is every single thing in that book correct and right? 00:43:12.580 |
I'm not going to go through all 10, but I'm going to kind of lump the next couple. 00:43:22.940 |
It is your responsibility to build this church by praying your heart out. 00:43:30.220 |
I want to say to you guys is this, oh, wait a minute. 00:43:42.380 |
Well, build a church, that's interesting how that worked, by fervently praying. 00:43:50.180 |
Praying always with all prayers and supplication in the spirit. 00:43:54.340 |
Praying always should be enough, but redundantly, he says, pray always with every kind of prayer 00:44:02.700 |
And watch with all perseverance, supplications for the saints and for me that utterance may 00:44:06.700 |
be given to me that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel. 00:44:14.420 |
I don't know if you guys have ever heard it, but I have heard people say something like, 00:44:17.940 |
you know, there was a large portion where I thought like the vast majority of needs 00:44:25.060 |
We are thankful that many people do serve at our church. 00:44:27.700 |
But number one, no, not all the needs at the church are met. 00:44:30.360 |
Do you feel like all the needs of the church are met? 00:44:33.500 |
But number two, even if you feel like, yeah, but where is there a tangible place for me 00:44:40.580 |
Someone said, there's nothing tangible to serve except cleaning and snacks. 00:44:45.340 |
My thing is this, is like, what if we just asked you, the biggest need we have is for