back to index2017-12-10 One Body In Christ
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Alright, if you can turn your Bibles with me to Romans chapter 12, I'm going to read 00:00:06.840 |
from verse 3 to 8 again, and this is sort of a continuation of last week's sermon. 00:00:16.160 |
Romans chapter 12, verses 3 to 8, reading the ESV, "For by the grace given to me, I 00:00:21.600 |
say to everyone among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, 00:00:25.900 |
but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. 00:00:30.400 |
For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, 00:00:35.120 |
so we though many are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. 00:00:40.640 |
Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them, if prophecy 00:00:47.640 |
in proportion to our faith, if service in serving the one who teaches in his teaching, 00:00:53.000 |
the one who exhorts in his exhortation, the one who contributes in generosity, the one 00:00:57.840 |
who leads with zeal, the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness." 00:01:05.240 |
Gracious and holy Father, we thank you so much for today, and as we've been studying 00:01:11.040 |
justification and the sacrifice of Christ and how that restored our relationship with 00:01:16.880 |
you, and as we continue to dive into our work of sanctification, how you've placed us 00:01:23.000 |
in the body of Christ, that we may use our gifts to build it up, Lord God, for the sake 00:01:31.400 |
I pray, Father God, for the power of your word to make a deep impression in our mind 00:01:35.600 |
and heart that we would move, that we would be more than just hearers, but doers of your 00:01:46.520 |
You know, typically, when we look for a church that we want to get plugged in, and I know 00:01:52.360 |
some of you guys have been here for a while, some of you guys are just making your way 00:01:55.280 |
in, one of the key things that most people look for are, when they come into a church, 00:02:08.240 |
Are these people that I can share my life with? 00:02:11.840 |
And it's understandable, because we want to be able to relate. 00:02:18.000 |
But one of the beauty of the body of Christ, of the church, is that if you look at the 00:02:22.800 |
early church, they didn't have two separate churches where if you speak Greek, you're 00:02:27.080 |
in part of this church, and if you speak, spoke Hebrew, you're part of this other church. 00:02:31.000 |
If you happen to be slave owners, you are part of this church, and if you happen to 00:02:36.940 |
If you were a Gentile, you're part of this church, and you're Hebrew, you're part of 00:02:44.420 |
They got together, and they were all part of one particular church. 00:02:48.680 |
So you can imagine the kind of problems, spiritually speaking, socially speaking, that they must 00:02:56.040 |
So imagine having a former slave that you, maybe you were the master, and they're sitting 00:03:00.460 |
in the same congregation, and sometimes they were the ones who were leading the church. 00:03:06.800 |
You had a Pharisee who studied the Bible, knew all the nuances of the Old Testament 00:03:11.560 |
law, and he's sitting there learning under a guy who spent most of his life cheating 00:03:16.520 |
his own people, these tax collectors of money from the business that they were running. 00:03:22.160 |
Humanly speaking with them, well, that's disaster. 00:03:24.160 |
I mean, people who just maybe a few months or years ago hated each other, were eager 00:03:30.160 |
to just end each other's lives, all of a sudden sitting together and calling God their Lord 00:03:36.880 |
and brothers and sisters in Christ, sharing things, selling property and giving it to 00:03:41.880 |
one another so that they can support one another. 00:03:44.920 |
And so if you look at the early church, humanly speaking, the formula would have been, should 00:03:54.520 |
And in some cases, a lot of these things that you would expect, a lot of the problems that 00:03:59.040 |
you would expect in the early church, we see it in the letters. 00:04:02.960 |
In fact, James, if you've ever studied through the epistle of James, one of the primary things 00:04:08.640 |
that James addresses in the book of James is this division between the rich and the 00:04:12.320 |
poor, where the rich people who were honored in the society when they were coming into 00:04:16.800 |
church, the people who didn't have the money were putting them in honorable seats and looking 00:04:23.820 |
And so if you read the book of James carefully, the underlying theme of that is this prejudice 00:04:33.400 |
So clearly we saw that in the early church, they had these issues. 00:04:37.240 |
The book of Galatians is written because of the difficulty they had with the former Jews 00:04:42.120 |
who converted, the Judaizers who couldn't let go of their culture. 00:04:45.580 |
And also the Greeks who became a Christian came in and they had their own baggage, where 00:04:52.240 |
they came from idol worshiping and they knew nothing of the law. 00:04:55.360 |
And all of a sudden they come together and they were calling each other brothers and 00:05:01.280 |
And so again, they're dealing with the issue of the true gospel. 00:05:05.520 |
But again, the problem that they had in the early church was this mixture of the Jewish 00:05:09.400 |
and the Gentiles coming together, where for centuries they wouldn't even sit in each other's 00:05:16.080 |
They wouldn't walk on the same roads, let alone eat together and call each other brothers 00:05:22.200 |
Philemon is a letter written to a former slave owner, introducing the runaway slave 00:05:30.640 |
back to his former master, now as a brother in Christ. 00:05:34.960 |
So the early church had all kinds of issues because of that. 00:05:38.480 |
So humanly speaking, we would say maybe it would have been wiser. 00:05:44.320 |
All of these issues that the early church had, it could have been easily predictable 00:05:50.780 |
We had one church for this group, one church for that group, which in a lot of ways, that's 00:05:57.700 |
As soon as it becomes uncomfortable in a certain neighborhood, you pack up your stuff and go 00:06:03.280 |
And then again, even the way that we choose churches, we go in to see, are there people 00:06:08.440 |
People that I would be friends with, people that I want to live with, people I want to 00:06:14.920 |
And then if we don't see them automatically, maybe God's not calling me here. 00:06:20.500 |
But God in his wisdom deliberately placed us together. 00:06:25.040 |
In fact, in 1 Corinthians 1, 10 through 14, it says, "I appeal to you, brothers, by the 00:06:28.760 |
name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among 00:06:34.040 |
you, but that you be united with the same judgment. 00:06:37.560 |
For it has been reported to me by close people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers." 00:06:42.880 |
What I mean is that each one of you says, "I follow Paul, I follow Apollos, I follow 00:06:55.280 |
So two of Paul's longest letters, 1 and 2 Corinthians, is addressing this issue that 00:07:04.200 |
This issue of immorality in the church, issue of chaos in worship, even communion. 00:07:11.280 |
The rich people were coming and they were eating and taking part in the communion bread 00:07:15.820 |
and then they would completely ignore the poor people. 00:07:18.620 |
And so Paul rebukes them in 1 Corinthians 11 saying, "Is Christ divided? 00:07:25.600 |
So this division in the church led to all kinds of chaos that Paul addresses in 1 Corinthians 00:07:31.800 |
But the root problem of it was this division in the church. 00:07:35.920 |
And it wasn't a division between worldliness and godliness. 00:07:39.280 |
It was a division between who they preferred to follow. 00:07:44.800 |
We see that in Philemon, Philippians chapter 4, 2-3. 00:07:48.520 |
There's a church that Paul calls a model church. 00:07:52.440 |
A church that he would put on a pedestal and say, "This is what we ought to shoot for." 00:07:57.760 |
This is one of those churches in Macedonia that begged Paul in his letter that despite 00:08:04.000 |
their own famine, despite the problem that they had financially, they begged Paul to 00:08:07.920 |
give them an opportunity to serve God and give money. 00:08:11.200 |
Paul actually said, "No, you take care of yourself." 00:08:21.360 |
And yet, they had a problem with these two prominent ladies, Euda and Sintich. 00:08:26.960 |
In Philippians chapter 4, 2-3, it says, "I entreat you, Euda, and I entreat you." 00:08:32.640 |
In other words, he's begging them to agree in the Lord. 00:08:35.560 |
"Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women who have labored side by side 00:08:40.940 |
with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers whose names 00:08:47.520 |
This was causing so much chaos and problem in the early church. 00:08:50.640 |
Paul actually begs them and he asks other people to get involved to help them. 00:08:55.800 |
Titus chapter 3, 10, it says, "As for a person who stirs up division, after warning 00:09:00.880 |
him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him." 00:09:05.600 |
So this idea of unity in the church was so important that Paul actually says to treat 00:09:11.280 |
him like an unbeliever if he is deliberately trying to divide the church. 00:09:15.000 |
And then his harshest criticism in 1 Corinthians 3, 16-17, he says, "Do you not know that 00:09:25.240 |
So he's not talking about "you" as in singular "us." 00:09:28.840 |
He later says this, uses the singular form in chapter 6. 00:09:32.680 |
But here, the "you" is in the plural, referring to the church as a whole. 00:09:38.640 |
Do you not know that the church is the temple of God and God's spirit dwells in you?" 00:09:45.880 |
If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him for God's temple is holy and 00:09:53.840 |
Is this division that he mentioned in chapter 1. 00:09:56.480 |
And the ramification of that, that he will again continue to exposit throughout the rest 00:10:02.960 |
We could have predicted, humanly speaking, that they were going to have problems. 00:10:07.600 |
Of course, you put a tax collector as one of the apostles and you get these, you get, 00:10:14.080 |
you know, that former Pharisees and Sadducees sitting there, converted, learning from them. 00:10:19.320 |
You could have easily predicted there was going to be issues there. 00:10:22.380 |
You put a former slave owner and a runaway slave into the same church calling each other 00:10:28.840 |
At some point, their flesh is going to get involved and you could have predicted there 00:10:34.840 |
Understandably, the Jews and the Greeks coming together, I mean, these are people who hated 00:10:40.440 |
each other, wouldn't even go through, walk through each other's towns and they're together. 00:10:48.480 |
They're selling their property, giving to each other. 00:10:49.640 |
At some point, you could have predicted that there was going to be some kind of division 00:10:53.920 |
in the church and we see that in the early church because almost every single letter 00:10:58.080 |
written in the early church addresses this issue of division in the church. 00:11:11.100 |
God places us together in the body of Christ because in order to reflect His kingdom, it 00:11:18.640 |
is a vital part of our sanctification that God has placed us where we are deliberately. 00:11:26.560 |
This morning, I want to address the three issues that I believe that the imagery of 00:11:32.080 |
It teaches us about true unity, what God desires of us. 00:11:36.040 |
So I'm going to call it the BLTs for you to have an easier time remembering. 00:11:41.620 |
Not bacon, lettuce, and tomato, but belief, love, and task. 00:11:48.680 |
True unity in the church requires unity in belief, unity in love, and unity in task. 00:11:55.840 |
First service, I didn't get to the third part, so I may not. 00:11:59.320 |
I'm predicting that I'm not going to get to the third part, but at least for the first 00:12:10.280 |
What unites us first and foremost is not uniformity, meaning we walk in, they look like my age, 00:12:18.040 |
similar socioeconomic background, maybe same college, you know. 00:12:24.160 |
We have similar kids, in similar age, and say, "Okay, now I can run the race with these 00:12:30.000 |
That's not what unites the church, because if that was the case, the early church would 00:12:36.520 |
What unites the church is what we believe, and that's the beauty of the church. 00:12:41.720 |
That on the surface, we may look at it and say, "Why would these people spend any time 00:12:45.840 |
There's a bunch of people at church I would never interact with if it wasn't for Christ." 00:12:51.000 |
And I think if you look at the early church, it gives us a glimpse of the priority in the 00:12:57.080 |
If you look at Acts 6, verse 1, it is the first church-wide problem that they have. 00:13:03.120 |
When the church began to grow, they started having this issue, and it says in Acts 6, 00:13:07.760 |
verse 1, "Now in those days when the disciples were increasing in number," and again, I think 00:13:13.160 |
any church, when the church increases, it kind of exposes the weaknesses of the church. 00:13:18.680 |
And so what happened was, in these days, when the church was increasing, "a complaint by 00:13:23.280 |
the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily 00:13:29.480 |
Now, just to kind of give you a background, the Hellenists were also Jews, but Hellenists 00:13:36.000 |
were people who integrated into the Greek culture. 00:13:39.200 |
So whether they were second or third or fourth generation, they spoke Greek as their primary 00:13:45.840 |
Even though they're Hebrews by heritage, but by culture and by language, they were Hellenists, 00:13:54.440 |
So they were considered kind of like compromisers by the Hebrews, because the Hebrews are the 00:14:02.080 |
They're the ones who were probably very active in the synagogues. 00:14:04.600 |
They were the ones who probably went to the temple during Passover, and they primarily 00:14:11.880 |
So you had people who genetically came from the same heritage, but you had a distinction 00:14:17.220 |
in the early church, because these are the first groups of people that came to faith. 00:14:20.880 |
First, the Hebrews, and then they were closely connected to the Hellenists. 00:14:25.440 |
So what happened was, when the church was increasing in large number, the initial group 00:14:31.400 |
who converted were probably the Hebrews, those who spoke Aramaic, because the gospel started 00:14:37.240 |
in those areas where it was saturated by Hebrews, not Hellenists. 00:14:44.520 |
So when they first converted and came in, you have to understand that this problem that 00:14:48.840 |
they're dealing with was not a small problem. 00:14:51.920 |
There was a division in the church within the two, and they were probably considered 00:15:03.000 |
It's kind of like when King Cyrus allowed Israel to come back into Jerusalem, a few 00:15:08.960 |
of them, a remnant came back to Jerusalem to build a temple, and the rest of them stayed 00:15:15.280 |
So that's how the Hellenists were looked upon. 00:15:19.220 |
And yet they converted, they come in, and when they said that the Hellenist widows were 00:15:24.920 |
being neglected in the daily distribution of food, basically they weren't eating. 00:15:31.320 |
It wasn't like they weren't getting coupons to get boba. 00:15:39.320 |
So this was a legitimate problem, these widows, and if the church didn't feed them, they 00:15:45.440 |
So if they didn't deal with this problem, it could have completely split the church. 00:15:51.020 |
They could have had the Hellenists rise up and say, "Hey, if we don't deal with this 00:15:54.240 |
and our widows are not being taken care of, we're going to do it ourselves," and they 00:15:58.360 |
might have just taken up, and immediately the first church would have been divided into 00:16:03.880 |
Instead, the disciples, and you can see the way that they deal with this problem, they 00:16:09.240 |
said, "It is not right for us to neglect the preaching of the word and prayer in order 00:16:14.920 |
Now, the apostles were not saying that because they're apostles and leaders that serving 00:16:26.120 |
He who is greatest in the kingdom is the one who serves. 00:16:28.360 |
So they're not saying that if you're a leader in the church that you shouldn't be serving, 00:16:35.060 |
The emphasis here is the neglecting of preaching and prayer, the priority of the word of God. 00:16:42.080 |
Because what brought them together in the first place was the preaching of the gospel 00:16:47.960 |
And if that gets neglected, you may have uniformity, you may have superficial unity, you may feed 00:16:53.600 |
them and everybody might be happy, but there's no true unity. 00:16:58.360 |
Because true unity, what brings us together from different backgrounds, different culture, 00:17:03.440 |
different economic status, and even different spiritual maturity is our connection to Christ. 00:17:12.360 |
In Ephesians 4, 11, 13, it says, "And he gave the apostles, the prophets, evangelists, pastors, 00:17:17.480 |
and teachers to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up of the body 00:17:21.840 |
of Christ, until we all attain the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of 00:17:26.240 |
God, to a mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." 00:17:30.980 |
If you notice the office of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, every 00:17:35.060 |
single one of them, their primary responsibility was to disseminate the word of God. 00:17:41.540 |
And so he says they need to do their job to equip the saints for what? 00:17:47.020 |
For the unity, that we may come to the unity of the faith in the knowledge of the Son of 00:17:52.800 |
What unites us is our individual connection to Christ. 00:17:56.860 |
And again, Ephesians 1, 22, "And God placed all things under his feet, appointed him to 00:18:01.340 |
be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills 00:18:10.080 |
When our unity in the church is superficial, meaning that these are people that I like, 00:18:14.980 |
or I get along with these people, these people, you know, happen to have these qualities, 00:18:20.040 |
and these people like to go ice skating, these go mountain climbing, these are Angels fans, 00:18:31.180 |
There's one thing that I've learned throughout the years, is just human relationships are 00:18:39.140 |
I mean, I've seen best friends sever their friendship because they're getting married 00:18:44.740 |
and they can only have one maid of honor or one best man, and they would choose one over 00:18:49.660 |
the other, and then the other person doesn't get along, and then they're dead, they're 00:19:00.540 |
Something happens, you did something, they didn't understand it, and it doesn't get 00:19:06.200 |
If our unity in the church is based upon something superficial as human connection, it's just 00:19:17.580 |
You don't like somebody, I mean, sometimes you like them and sometimes you don't like 00:19:20.620 |
them, you get along with these people now, but then next year you don't get along with 00:19:25.900 |
But the unity of the church ultimately is not based upon our friendship, who we get 00:19:33.020 |
along and who we don't get along with, who are people who are like me that I want to 00:19:37.620 |
go camping with these people and I would love to be a part of this church for that purpose. 00:19:42.220 |
It is when we are vitally connected to Christ that I may have nothing with you in common 00:19:48.580 |
in the world, but as soon as we begin to talk about Christ, as soon as we begin to pursue 00:19:53.540 |
Christ, I can have fellowship with a 19-year-old or a 70-year-old because we're talking about 00:19:59.780 |
the same thing, we're pursuing the same thing. 00:20:02.860 |
Our unity is not based upon something superficial. 00:20:07.660 |
And again, sad to say, even in the way that we talk about how to produce church, if you 00:20:12.300 |
want to tap into how people come to church, give them something that they can latch onto, 00:20:17.980 |
and that's sort of using human wisdom to bring people to the church. 00:20:23.940 |
But the kingdom of God does not look anything like the world because what binds us together 00:20:31.580 |
That's why the very first part of our church covenant, of the 10 covenants that we have, 00:20:35.860 |
is that each member has to be a confessing believer of Jesus Christ. 00:20:42.940 |
And that our unity comes in the context of pursuing Christ together. 00:20:47.620 |
If our frustration is we're not united, I don't feel connected with these people, why 00:20:51.220 |
we're not passionately pursuing Christ, the problem is not the people. 00:20:56.180 |
The problem is that what unites us doesn't interest us. 00:21:00.180 |
And so we're looking for something superficial to connect with. 00:21:04.660 |
First and foremost, the church, what connects us is our connection to Christ. 00:21:16.060 |
Under the banner of understanding of love, I mean of belief, that this is who we are 00:21:22.460 |
and this is who we pursue, the second understanding, even though Paul doesn't mention the word 00:21:30.140 |
Because in Ephesians 5.29, Paul says, "For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes 00:21:37.640 |
and cherishes it just as Christ does the church." 00:21:41.020 |
And he uses the illustration of husband and wife. 00:21:44.780 |
As Christ loved the church, he says the husband is called to love his wife and he says he's 00:21:49.900 |
part of your own body and nobody hates his own body. 00:21:52.900 |
It's assumed that if you understand that this is your body, that you are to love it. 00:21:59.420 |
In fact, Jesus himself says the greatest commandment is love God and second is like it, to love 00:22:09.180 |
It is assumed that you spend a lot of time loving yourself, which we do. 00:22:13.900 |
Whether you have high esteem or low esteem, you have high esteem because you love yourself 00:22:19.900 |
And you also have low esteem because you love yourself too much. 00:22:24.480 |
We spend all of our time, first and foremost, taking care of ourselves. 00:22:28.060 |
So when he says to love your neighbor as yourself, it's assumed. 00:22:31.980 |
So when he says that we are one, you are part of this body, this is your body, it is assumed 00:22:37.260 |
that there is a love that we are to practice with one another. 00:22:43.460 |
See 1 Corinthians 12, 18-26, it says, "As it is, God arranged the members in the body, 00:22:57.580 |
You know, we may think that, well, if we want to really keep the unity, if everybody had 00:23:01.300 |
the exact same gift, maybe we wouldn't have this coveting or this competition or misunderstanding. 00:23:10.220 |
God in his wisdom arranged the members of the body, each one of them, as he chose. 00:23:18.340 |
If we were all single members, where would the body be? 00:23:22.040 |
As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. 00:23:24.980 |
The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you," nor again, the head to the feet, 00:23:30.980 |
He deliberately made it so that you're only a piece of that body. 00:23:35.860 |
Meaning, he made it so that you are dependent upon the other members of the body. 00:23:44.160 |
We would think, like, well, it'd be much easier for church planting if all the gifts were 00:23:49.040 |
in one person, then we don't have to worry about other people. 00:23:56.380 |
And he said, even if you don't recognize, even if you say you're a toe and you say, 00:23:59.540 |
"Well, I don't need the hand," you may say that, you may even believe that, but it wouldn't 00:24:08.180 |
It is our pride that causes us to think that I can be independent of the church and still 00:24:13.380 |
He says, no, God deliberately arranged the members as he chose fit. 00:24:20.240 |
He says, on the contrary, verse 22, "The parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable." 00:24:25.580 |
He deliberately placed weaker members in the church. 00:24:29.860 |
Now, the weaker member could be spiritually weak, and in the church we have spiritually 00:24:39.980 |
If you are a genuine believer in Christ and you're walking with God and you don't meet 00:24:46.260 |
Because in the body of Christ, we have everybody. 00:24:48.820 |
As long as you are a genuine believer in Christ, we have young believers and we have more mature 00:24:54.780 |
Weaker also could mean people who are not of honorable position before they became a 00:25:01.500 |
That there are some people who may have been runaway slaves. 00:25:03.980 |
There are some people, economically, maybe they were challenged. 00:25:07.380 |
And there were people who didn't have a lot of clout or honor before they became a Christian. 00:25:14.900 |
He says, God placed all of them in the body of Christ. 00:25:21.300 |
The people that we may think at times, because of our frustration, because of their weakness, 00:25:25.980 |
because sometimes of their constant failing, may think that maybe the church would be better 00:25:35.860 |
And on those parts of the body that we think less honorable, we bestow greater honor. 00:25:43.220 |
We bestow greater honor on the part that locked it, that there may be no division in the body, 00:25:49.160 |
but that the members may have the same, what? 00:25:53.740 |
It's not just another way of saying so that we may have same love for one another, so 00:26:01.700 |
He said he deliberately put in the body of Christ people who are different, people who 00:26:06.900 |
may be harder to love, people who are weak, and we are not to reflect the society in our 00:26:14.380 |
Whatever club, whatever golf club, whatever different organizations that you're part of, 00:26:19.140 |
there's something that is different in the body of Christ that ought not to reflect the 00:26:26.500 |
We know that we're not going to get there fully until he comes. 00:26:30.480 |
But until then, we are to strive the kingdom that Christ established in the church. 00:26:36.580 |
And he deliberately placed different people with different gifts for different purposes, 00:26:48.060 |
Isn't that the greatest pursuit of any Christian? 00:26:51.460 |
Isn't that the greatest goal of any sanctification? 00:26:55.060 |
You know, when we think of sanctification, we can easily think about, you know, being 00:26:58.140 |
disciplined and obviously we need to take the word of God seriously. 00:27:03.700 |
You know, we need to be concerned about the people who are around us and people who are 00:27:08.620 |
poor and feeding the homeless and all this stuff. 00:27:12.860 |
But you can do all of that and be weak in love and all of that means absolutely nothing. 00:27:20.300 |
Isn't that what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13? 00:27:22.860 |
Even if you give your body to be burned in the flame and even if you're martyred without 00:27:31.620 |
And second is like it, to love your neighbor as yourself. 00:27:35.240 |
If Jesus said, when the outside world looks at us, how will they distinguish us from the 00:27:44.060 |
I mean, hopefully we're more moral, but because you're more disciplined? 00:27:52.540 |
Because you have more honor and you've achieved more? 00:27:55.340 |
And we have a gathering of a lot of smart people? 00:28:01.400 |
He said what distinguishes us from the world is the love that we practice with one another 00:28:15.460 |
But what distinguishes us from the rest of the world is Christ saw sin and instead of 00:28:30.120 |
Because the natural way that we practice love is if we walk into a room and we see sin, 00:28:38.060 |
I don't want to be around these selfish people. 00:28:46.860 |
Our natural reaction is to run the other direction. 00:28:50.620 |
And that's the kind of love that the world practices. 00:28:53.780 |
But God, in his wisdom, places us in a part of a community where we can't run from sin. 00:28:59.740 |
We're a part of a covenant relationship, just like there's a covenant relationship between 00:29:03.620 |
husband and wife, and you don't see the ugliness of your wife and your husband and say, "Ew, 00:29:13.620 |
The greatest part of our sanctification is to learn to love, especially when it's difficult. 00:29:22.820 |
Not to love certain kinds of people, not to love people my age, not to love people who 00:29:28.500 |
are mature, but everybody in the body of Christ, because he loves them. 00:29:35.620 |
And I shared with you that when I was back in college, I was part of an apartment training, 00:29:40.100 |
and our apartment at Biola happened to be a little bit more intense than normal because 00:29:44.900 |
the guy who led our apartment was only about three years removed from the Korean military. 00:29:50.080 |
So as you can imagine, the Korean military is intense because they're always at that 00:29:53.800 |
border and they're always on the verge of possibly a war. 00:29:59.900 |
So he tried to apply that in our apartment training. 00:30:01.940 |
So every apartment training, woke up, did quiet time and did all this physical stuff, 00:30:09.280 |
So whether we fell asleep at 10 o'clock or fell asleep at 3, 5.30, you're waking up. 00:30:14.720 |
You wake up, went to Biola, we ran the track. 00:30:18.260 |
Then after that, we would have devotion, memorize scripture, eat breakfast together, go out, 00:30:27.380 |
And I benefited tremendously from that, from the disciplines. 00:30:34.460 |
Like he wouldn't even let us hang out with friends. 00:30:37.820 |
Most people would not have wanted to be a part of that, but I was already headed into 00:30:43.460 |
And I was discipled by my former youth pastor, so I thought this is great training. 00:30:48.580 |
So I was getting training in the Bible at school and I was getting in personal training 00:30:56.420 |
And it took me a while to realize that the real training at this home was not the discipline. 00:31:01.860 |
Discipline was just a superficial part of it. 00:31:04.540 |
And I remember about a year and a half to two years into it, I started having this animosity 00:31:11.100 |
toward one of my roommates, which I never showed. 00:31:18.240 |
Those of you guys who ever have roommates or are married, if you live with somebody 00:31:24.360 |
close enough, you know like everything that they have gets exposed. 00:31:31.300 |
You know, you first come in, you only see the surface and then you stay here for a while, 00:31:34.820 |
after a year, two years, after the honeymoon was over and you see all the cracks and you 00:31:38.420 |
see all the selfishness and whatever it is, the weaknesses, and you see all of that. 00:31:42.980 |
Eventually, we see all of it after you break the first, you know, the honeymoon period 00:31:48.540 |
About a year and a half, the honeymoon period was over and I started seeing certain different 00:31:55.140 |
And this one particular guy just rubbed me the wrong way. 00:32:02.260 |
You know, we would always eat and he would always eat the most. 00:32:06.780 |
You know, we would eat and he would eat the most and then he's done. 00:32:09.100 |
He puts his plates in the faucet and then he's gone. 00:32:12.700 |
When you're playing basketball, it's like we're always there cleaning up to him and 00:32:15.900 |
he never says thank you, you know what I mean? 00:32:18.460 |
And then after a while, like even the way he brushed his teeth bothered me. 00:32:23.500 |
When he went to sleep, how he folded his bed, you know what I mean? 00:32:25.740 |
When somebody bothers you, like everything about them bothers you and it kind of got 00:32:31.060 |
But I was just keeping it to myself because I knew a lot of this stuff was superficial. 00:32:34.820 |
Well, one day I got really sick and I didn't have health insurance and it got to a point 00:32:44.580 |
I mean, so I asked my older roommates, "Hey, can you come and pray for me because something 00:32:52.420 |
And so they come and again, you know, they're hyper charismatic. 00:32:57.900 |
So at that time, and so they had got all the oils ready and they were going to anoint my 00:33:03.180 |
head and then they're going to cast out whatever sickness that I had and they were ready to 00:33:08.620 |
And then the guy who was personally discipling me, he must have noticed something in me that 00:33:12.780 |
maybe I thought I was doing a good job hiding it, but he noticed it. 00:33:15.860 |
And he said, "Peter, do you have anything to confess before we pray for you?" 00:33:27.020 |
So, you know, like obviously he asked me to and he's my leader. 00:33:32.540 |
You know, and obviously the first thing, if I say this is going to be awkward, you know, 00:33:38.300 |
and he actually wasn't there at that time, you know, so I felt a little bit safer to 00:33:42.980 |
But once I say it, it's out and then, you know, I can't take it back. 00:33:44.940 |
But he specifically asked me, "Do you have something to confess?" 00:33:48.020 |
And so I sat there, you know, or I was lying in my bed and so I confessed that I've had 00:33:55.100 |
this animosity and it was really bothering me, these things, and I know it shouldn't 00:33:59.500 |
bother me, but it was bothering me to the point where it's just constantly like eating 00:34:08.860 |
And right before they started praying for me, one of the guys who was sitting next to 00:34:18.300 |
And then he basically said, "I have something against Peter." 00:34:22.820 |
And then he started confessing why he had this against me and he doesn't like the way 00:34:28.180 |
And all this stuff started to come out and so it became really awkward, you know. 00:34:35.060 |
And so they ended up praying for me and it really like, surprisingly, right after they 00:34:40.140 |
prayed and they left the room and the fever broke. 00:34:43.740 |
I was in my sickbed for about three days and the fever broke right after they prayed. 00:34:48.060 |
And I was walking around, even my roommates were looking at me like, "It worked." 00:34:54.980 |
And I remember through that whole thing, obviously I was very thankful for their prayers, but 00:35:00.820 |
I realized through that period that the real discipleship in that home was not the discipline. 00:35:13.900 |
You can't say you know God and you don't read your Bible and you don't pray. 00:35:19.380 |
But the real transformation is taking place within our heart, where the Holy Spirit is 00:35:24.620 |
reaching in and seeing the pride and the hatred and bitterness and whatever it is that He 00:35:32.460 |
And He deliberately puts us within the context of the body of Christ with all different kinds 00:35:37.140 |
of people and our natural instinct is, especially if you're in a church, a larger church, where 00:35:43.740 |
you can just like, "Here's my friends that I feel comfortable with and I don't like these 00:35:48.660 |
And so you can kind of live all your life, even as a Christian, keeping certain people 00:35:53.220 |
that you don't like at bay, "Well, these are my friends and those are people that I just 00:35:59.220 |
And then you get married and you realize you can't run from these problems. 00:36:04.620 |
See, the greatest aspect of our sanctification that God calls us and commands us to is to 00:36:12.780 |
It's the most important thing that we need to work on. 00:36:16.060 |
It is the greatest thing that we need to work on. 00:36:19.220 |
It has the deepest transformation and it is also the most rewarding. 00:36:23.820 |
See, in any home, in any apartment, there's different kinds of roommate. 00:36:35.100 |
If you've ever lived with a group of people or maybe even husband and wife and with your 00:36:38.700 |
children, there's five different types of roommates. 00:36:43.420 |
And you can kind of make the connection here, don't judge people, but you'll know right 00:36:52.940 |
The first roommate is a dirty roommate and he's dirty also in the common area, meaning 00:37:09.820 |
And so he's always frustrating to other people, but he's unaware because that's just who he 00:37:15.460 |
So we have people like that at church, right? 00:37:19.100 |
And that's what we're trying to encourage and disciple and bring them along. 00:37:23.260 |
But this person is just consistent everywhere, inside and out, that's just who he is. 00:37:27.460 |
The second person, he's dirty in his room, but he's clean in the common area. 00:37:40.520 |
So he wants to make sure that everything is okay there, but his roof is a mess. 00:37:44.780 |
You can't get in there, you know, like where is the bed? 00:37:47.320 |
You know, his laundry is always there, he's never clean. 00:37:49.560 |
But in the common area, he's always clean because he's very concerned about what other 00:37:55.740 |
Eventually that person will get burnt out, right? 00:38:04.340 |
The third roommate is the one who is clean in his room, but he's dirty in the common 00:38:15.500 |
He's clean in his room, he's dirty in the common area, and he just can't stand the fact 00:38:22.020 |
And so he's always asking, like, why don't you clean your room? 00:38:25.620 |
But he never lifts his finger to help out, other than to point it out. 00:38:31.060 |
So there are those roommates, and those roommates are very difficult to live with. 00:38:34.620 |
But there's somebody even more difficult to live with than that person. 00:38:38.020 |
It's the one who is dirty inside, and he's dirty outside, and he's complaining about 00:38:45.140 |
There's always that one guy, he's just completely oblivious, just how filthy he is. 00:38:49.460 |
And he's always complaining about the dirt of other people. 00:38:52.300 |
And when that person lives with you, God will test you. 00:39:01.740 |
The best person to live with, obviously, is the one who is clean inside, and who's clean 00:39:06.860 |
And whenever that person is there, he's always helpful. 00:39:10.700 |
They got it together at home, and they're always good at it. 00:39:13.460 |
And whatever they're involved with, they just help other people. 00:39:16.980 |
And it helps the person who is dirty realize, "Oh shoot, maybe I should help out." 00:39:29.140 |
Obviously, our goal is to become that person where we are disciplined and love the Lord 00:39:34.540 |
inside and out, and just our presence in the church inspires and encourages other people 00:39:44.900 |
But the thing is, we walk into a church, and I will only attend a church that only has 00:39:56.260 |
Because God deliberately places us in context so that you can grow in your faith to practice 00:40:04.340 |
The greatest aspect of our sanctification has to first take place internally. 00:40:20.920 |
And we will never know that if we are running from everybody makes us feel uncomfortable 00:40:35.820 |
It says, "Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of 00:40:42.900 |
Obviously, He's not saying that if you love one another, we can sweep all the sins 00:40:53.620 |
What does it mean for the love to cover a multitude of sins? 00:40:56.540 |
One, love helps us to be gracious with shortcomings of other imperfections. 00:41:02.380 |
The underlying commitment that we need to have one another is, "Do I love them?" 00:41:11.520 |
We wouldn't be as eager to expose other people's sins if we really genuinely love 00:41:16.700 |
And the standard that I try to use, because sometimes it's hard for me to discern even 00:41:22.380 |
I could think that I'm doing righteous things and serving God and I have a Bible 00:41:26.420 |
verse to stand on, but am I really practicing love? 00:41:29.380 |
Is the reason why I'm doing what I'm saying, is it motivated by love? 00:41:32.900 |
And again, it's hard for me to even discern my own heart. 00:41:35.700 |
So usually the way I try to apply it is, would I do this if this was my wife? 00:41:46.620 |
If I would be as eager to expose their sins if they were like my children? 00:41:55.920 |
So first standard is, if we genuinely practice the love that God calls us to love, we would 00:42:03.320 |
be a lot more patient and a lot more gracious and not more willing to cover over their sins. 00:42:11.640 |
The second application we find in James chapter 5, 19-20 is that, "My brothers, if anyone 00:42:16.340 |
among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever 00:42:21.340 |
brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a 00:42:29.020 |
So not only will we be more gracious, we would be more righteous. 00:42:33.720 |
Because there are certain things that I would only say to my children because I love them. 00:42:39.640 |
If my children are going down a path that I know is detrimental for them, I'm not going 00:42:43.220 |
to say, "Well, I don't want to say this because I don't want them to not like me." 00:42:48.060 |
I would be more bold in speaking up and being righteous because of my love. 00:42:54.180 |
And just like it says in Ephesians chapter 4, 15, "Rather speaking the truth in love, 00:42:58.460 |
we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ." 00:43:04.580 |
So sometimes when we practice grace without love, we just don't want to deal with sin. 00:43:11.020 |
And sometimes when we practice righteousness without love, we just have holy vengeance. 00:43:18.060 |
When we recognize who we are and what God placed us in, and when we are affected by 00:43:23.140 |
the love of Christ, the immediate application is grace and righteousness, both. 00:43:32.180 |
So our primary pursuit in the body of Christ and in his wisdom and the way that he put 00:43:39.300 |
us together, our greatest pursuit ought to be the greatest gift, which is what? 00:43:47.380 |
Of the three, there's love, faith, and hope, and of the three, the greatest is love. 00:43:54.460 |
So I pray, again, and we're not going to get to the task part, I'm not sure exactly when 00:43:57.940 |
we're going to get to it, but at least for this part of it, that when the immediate application 00:44:03.940 |
of everything that we have been taught in the 11 chapters of Romans in view of this 00:44:08.060 |
mercy to present your body as a holy and living sacrifice, which is your reasonable, logical 00:44:14.800 |
act of worship, the immediate application ought to be, who do I love? 00:44:24.580 |
Let's take some time to pray, again, as we ask our praise team to come. 00:44:30.260 |
And again, we can hear the word and not apply it specifically, and not deliberately, but 00:44:41.060 |
And so I want to encourage you, as it takes us time to pray, be specific about how should 00:44:46.420 |
What are some things that need to be applied in my life? 00:44:51.660 |
Are there situations or groups that I've created within my circle because I feel comfortable 00:44:56.860 |
with them and I don't want to be bothered with these people? 00:45:00.060 |
And as a result of that, there are crucial areas of your life that are not being sanctified. 00:45:06.260 |
Let's take some time to come before the Lord and ask the Lord, "Search me and know me, 00:45:09.980 |
see if there's any hurtful ways in me that I may apply the love of Christ in the body 00:45:16.100 |
Let's take some time to pray as our worship team leads us.