Published: February 16, 2025 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Worship 2 - Part 7 | Scripture: 1 Corinthians 14:26-33
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so famously prays in the shepherd Psalm that you would guide us into the right and Green Pastures and lead us beside Still Waters so give us wisdom even as we
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pray father we do lift up to you those that have been on our hearts we do uh think of Yuri and chrisen and the children as they are on the road that
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you would give them safety that uh you would give Yuri alertness as he drives the children calmness and good behavior and of course
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Christian stamina uh for the car ride we do pray for her speedy recovery from this surgery and and ask that indeed as the surgeon has declared it it uh is in fact
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successful that this will not again recur we do pray for Chris little and and ask that you would strengthen her and uh help her to meet this release
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date of March 5th and to return home uh and help her to recover her strength and uh if it Be Your Will father that she might resume the life
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that uh that she was living before this this latest illness has has laid her low for so many months father we pray that as We Gather
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in the name of Jesus Christ we would be both open minded and openhearted that we would search your
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scriptures and submit ourselves to them and to your Mighty hand and that you would teach us and guide us reprove us rebuke Us train Us in righteousness that
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we might be ready for every good work that you lay before us we ask that you would guide us and that you would be pleased by our Endeavor to worship you
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and our endeavors to build one another up for we ask this in Jesus name
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amen returning to our uh discussion from last week um it was a I thought a very good discussion based on 1 Corinthians
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14:26 the passage that um has everyone coming together with a with a Psalm with a hymn with a teaching uh
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teaching uh letting everything be done for edification the question that last week was H how do we do this um I think we we can recognize that
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that our cultural setting is vastly different than that of the New Testament um church was uh predominantly um
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local people did not travel they did not move around as as we do um there weren't many churches you didn't have a lot to choose from fact typically there was only
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one and those who um certainly those who accepted Jesus as the Messiah from within the the Jewish
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Camp were frequently excommunicated or ex synagogue is the the Greek word that is in our scriptures they were they were put out of the synagogue which also
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meant that they were put out of their Community they were put out of their family they were outcasts now that that lies behind some of the historical narrative that we read
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especially concerning the various famines and the famine relief that Paul was so Earnest to to gather to send to the Saints in Jerusalem um famine would
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hit these people very hard because they they had no means uh by which to to earn a decent living because of their conversion as it were although it in
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their minds it wasn't a conversion Jesus is Israel's Messiah there's nothing converting here it's simply following through with what God has done among the Gentiles it may not have been quite so
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bad because most of them were polytheistic pagans the problem they would run into is their refusal now to particip ipate in the emperor cult to swear uh Fidelity
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to the emperor the living Emperor as a God and by this time and Paul's when Paul is traveling around that's now a requirement uh and they're they're
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obviously not able to do that they're going around saying cuas christas instead of cuas Kaiser Jesus is Lord Christ is Lord rather than Caesar is Lord and so their
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issue is intensely political um and and they are they are liable to be not just put out of the of the temple they didn't really do that but but actually executed
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or exiled so they lived in a very dangerous situation that that we don't experience they lived in a very insular community that we also no longer
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experience that's something that that you could still find up to maybe the middle of the 20th century and then everybody started moving around and probably very few of us if any are there
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any actual native green vilans here we got any well okay all right now you obviously don't understand
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Greenville yet your grand children might be considered native yeah so that would be oh there we go okay so we have that's right you guys are native so um good I'm
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glad we have at least you know we don't know well that's true you're Upstate you're upsters yeah I I understand and vice
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versa yeah but we are mostly transplants our Our Heritage um is is very widely scattered and and diffused uh many of us
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probably uh don't know our great grandparents or where they were from or you know so it's a different culture and
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that leads to the question that I asked last week if is what we read in scripture historical or is it prescriptive when we read this passage
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in in Corinthians do we say okay well that's what the Corinthians we're supposed to do but we know we don't we don't do that because we really we can't do that we have seminaries now and we have a professional trained class of of
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clergy that takes care of all these things and we just go to church to uh to be blessed that's what we do now I don't think so um and as I said last
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week we we have to take verse 26 in its context Paul has just spent the better part of three chapters talking about well really starting back in chapter 10
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talking about the work of the Holy Spirit within the body of Christ and so I I can't see where that's a regional or or
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chronological uh matter I don't think we can uh cultur it and say okay that's how they did it in the first century we've come up with a better way it works better because people are so scattered
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and and people are just frankly so busy that we need to actually pay some people to do this for us and then we'll give them Sunday morning a couple hours and that's how we do
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church I don't think so I don't think that's what what was intended either by what we read in the book of Acts concerning the history of the early church or what we read in Paul letters
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especially concerning the behavior and the impact of the church and that's kind of what I'm I'm going to uh in terms of what what is the ultimate purpose of
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worship often times when we say you know this is Christian ease but when we say something was was really edifying what what does that
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mean right we we enjoyed it right um I'm not I'm not sure that when we when we look at the word edify we're really thinking of the fact that it's the same word that from which we get edifice or a
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building okay so when you say oh that was very was very edifying what you're saying is I was built up by that that was that was very upbuilding but what we really mean is I
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enjoyed that that made me feel good okay or we might we might say well that was very challenging it made me think U and and that would also be but it it is
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usually oriented to how we walk away from the service feeling uh and that's just part of our culture I I don't think I don't know that we can necessarily get a get away
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from that just by turning off a switch and saying I'm no longer primarily concerned with how I feel or I how I react um but are we simply Gathering to
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worship to make ourselves feel better to to you know strengthen ourselves through the coming week do you have a comment just to no I
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thought I thought I saw your hand go up
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um you've read Corinthians lately haven't you yeah they were they were really a bunch of selfish people weren't they and they were all about look at what I can do look at my gifts oh yeah people haven't
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changed cultures is what I'm saying has CH I think we agree that our culture is different than the one they lived
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well that's good to hear yeah I appreciate that um Jeremiah especially as a as a prophet as a particular Prophet but then other self
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testimony of of God in Scripture tells us that the process of building up often involves a tearing down and it is the Lord who tears down
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and it is the Lord who builds up and Jeremiah was actually appointed for the tearing down and the building up and we don't we don't necessarily think
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that way when we when we're looking at the church and the church that we attend and what why we're going we don't realize that um in order to build up especially those of us who've been
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Christians for any number of years there may be some things that need to be torn down and that's also the responsibility of the body and the Holy Spirit working in the body to do
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that so
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um these two concepts uh I want to I want to put together as saying this is
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actually edification when we read 2 Timothy 3:16 we can we can infer when we read that it is the word of God is uh is profitable for
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profitable for reproof that that that would be the tearing down know that would be the um the spirit through through the word saying to us that you're you're not doing this right or that is not what I'm
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teaching in my word what you believe on that in that regard is is not accurate you need to be Berean and search the scripture so there's an element of of
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tearing down and so I what I'm what I have been trying to teach for a number of years hopefully consistently is is what I see in scripture to be a
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major paradigm shift that occurs when a person is born again okay so it begins with the passages like 2 Corinthians 5 If any man
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be in Christ and and the literal Greek is is really beautiful I wish the English was a was a little more accurate in our English Bibles we read any If any man be in
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Christ he is a new creation that's not what it what it says Paul says if any man be in Christ New Creation New Creation behold all things have passed away
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behold all things are new that reads differently doesn't it there's a there's a certain excitement in Paul's pen that we don't
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get in our smooth out English translation that provides the pronoun and the and the verb he is a new creation no it's just simply New
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Creation he was definitely the Apostle of new creation although Peter didn't lag behind nor did John but in terms of the volume of what Paul wrote concerning
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the new creation having begun in Jesus Christ Paul is the one that not only speaks of of human beings as New Creations but he speaks of the creation
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being itself renewed in Romans 8 so we're actually the um uh the the product of a new work of God
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that we see in John 1 and 2 Corinthians 4 for example we see spoken of in terms of the first creation okay let me let me read that
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one from second Corinthians for a moment because uh I think this this lies very much behind the real meaning of of
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worship for God who said light shall shine out of darkness is the one who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the
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face of face of Christ now we say okay that's regeneration but what does that mean behold all things have passed away
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behold all things are new uh now this is where the the church has wrestled with this throughout it throughout its history recognizing that we are as as
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Mark reminded Us From First Peter we are resident aliens our citizenship is not from here it is from heaven we are pilgrims and
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sojourners we're A peculiar people a holy nation God's Own possession these are all new testament phrases referring to the to the church and
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church and so most of the time when part of the church realizes this they have reacted in a way of physical
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separation okay so I wrote the word up there Brethren um again word that Paul uses that Peter uses that John uses the word is a
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is a delos okay um and it is this sounds bad gender neutral they there is isn't really a
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specific word for sisters that's why I wrote the word brethren I mean it can be translated Brothers it is masculine um but just like the word Adam
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man uh is is gender neutral it includes it means it means mankind men and women so also adelos uh means both brothers and
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sisters which is the word brethren right so what what does that mean when we read that we we may know of people who attend Church where U and actually Elie you did
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this this morning it was very ironic you walked in and said good morning brother like thank you okay that's what we're teaching on today um but there are churches of course where you know that's how you refer to one another sister so
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and so or brother so and so um and I'm not advocating that I I frankly I've always felt that kind of artificial uh kind of like the French Revolution where
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everybody was named citizen okay I don't I don't want to I don't want to make anything artificial anything artificial but it's there the word's there and um I
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don't think it's just a a a platitude I think it it also has theological meaning um and it's a meaning that I think requires uh a major
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paradigm shift in our understanding of who we are now a few months ago I can't remember exactly when it was um I was filling in for Mark in the in the pulpit and and I talked about the
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difference between
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identity I'd like to preach another sermon on that soon so Mark you going on vacation soon um frankly I
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don't well let me put this way I don't think it had the impact I had hoped we we don't really understand this concept in fact we're actually most of
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our uh world around us confuses these two words so that we We Come Away thinking that our vocation is our
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identity I mean people when they meet us they ask what do you do right you and and so um my my point was not that we deny our
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vocation not at all our vocation is providential but my point was our vocation changes throughout life I'm a grandfather now okay so you know that
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that's a completely different Paradigm than being a father okay um and and and there are other things you know some of us are retired some of us are still working um some of us are facing
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unemployment you know our vocation changes does that change our identity and one of the reasons why uh some people of course uh do not live
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long into retirement everybody I many of you remember the Alabama coach be Bryant that that actually predicted that that he wouldn't live six months because his identity was football
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his his vocation was his identity when that was over he was over okay um but I think we all understand that these are different concepts that your identity
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transcends your vocation in fact it's your identity that gives your vocations coherence if you don't understand this then when your
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vocation changes even to the point of of having small children versus having teenagers versus having adult children you don't make the
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transition I'm not saying you inevitably don't but I think you know people who haven't made the transition in their V vocations because they they don't understand really who they are they've
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confused who they are with what they did and now what they did is is different and they don't know how to
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change and and I think that's a major uh factor in our um Christian Life is is making this distinction and understanding the difference between
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these two terms now in terms of worship and and the word brethren and the new creation this is an identity
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crisis for crisis for everyone who is Born Again by the Holy Spirit okay you've heard that phrase
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before this is an intentional identity crisis that Paul uh Paul constantly says things do you not know to the Corinthians that you are the Temple of the Holy Spirit yeah do you not
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know that's an identity crisis it's like when Jesus said to Nicodemus you're the teacher of Israel and you don't understand these things who are you what
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is your is your identity and and so there's there's a lot of that um uh sense of bewilderment that comes out of scripture when when we read Paul addressing us through through
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these letters you foolish Galatians you have begun in the spirit are you now working it out in the flesh he's like do you not know who you
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are I think we often times don't know who we are or we're we're taking our identity from our cultural and our and our national and even our familial
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surroundings any comments yes
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first we what no we didn't evolve that yeah that's a good we didn't evolve into Christians it Christians it boom when when the spirit regenerates the heart that's it that's God spoke
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light into that Dark Soul in the same way that he spoke light into the the chaos at creation adoption is what I think yeah there you go where that thank
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you that's where we're headed because I mean Brethren Brethren means members of the same family right that's what brothers and sisters are they are the
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first degree of consanguinity right they have the same parent okay so there is a paradigm shift that comes from the new creation
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and equally from the spirit of adoption and and I understand I I don't know from from personal experience but I I can
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certainly read and and uh and I can also um comprehend just with my mind that a person who is adopted can very easily feel
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less than and um a natural born child I mean I the other way of looking at it is you know the parent could say well listen I
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chose you these other bozos just came out you know I went to I went to the pet store and I saw you I chose you um but no I I
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know that it in our culture adoption is perfectly legal it's not really stigmatized anymore that doesn't make it easy it's an identity crisis for many people I I do know this somewhat
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firsthand in that my oldest sister's children are both adopted and so and and one of them lived with us for several years so I did see somewhat firsthand the the identity crisis uh now I don't
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know it was entirely because a lot of it was because she was adopted and you know then the adopted child wants to know who is my my natural father who's my natural mother and
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there's an identity crisis but it's it doesn't mean that adoption itself is bad adoption is often good
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Ariel should be
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Christ not chooses baby they that there's a little bit of the child also recogniz through faith that's
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imputed absolutely thank you yeah there is something and that's what that's though that's the result no that's the intended result of the identity crisis
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and that is to realize as as Ariel is saying I appreciate that because in an adoption a human adoption the child never becomes part of the
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genetic family of of the of the Brethren right if they do a 23 and me right they're they're not going to just because of legal paperwork they're not
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going to show up as DNA Brethren that's not true in the case of our adoption by the father we have all been born again
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into one into one family that's the identity crisis is who are we is what I'm trying to say the the the the analogy of of
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actual human adoption was simply an analogy to say that you know we're familiar we can see through this process of adoption that identity crisis but it it is as Ariel says it's
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not the not the same okay my my niece and my nephew will never be biologically related to my sister and
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brother-in-law but we are spiritually related that's the difference between Divine adoption is it isn't just a legal determination where God looks around and
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says you look nice and chooses you it's actually a a rebirth into one family but we don't see it with our eyes
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because we're not of the same what we see as families of course are our our brothers and sisters our parents our aunts and uncles our cousins that's our family and often
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in uh in our lives as Believers we have multiple
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coas you don't do that with the Greek you don't make it plural by sticking a sigo on the end of it um but we have multiple fellowships and there is a tremendous amount of challenge in the scriptures
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and not just the New Testament primarily the Old Testament where the people of God are consistently challenged we're looking at this in
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Leviticus I mean consistently as in every meal they ate they were challenged to recognize which Fellowship was
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valid and which were at the very uh best temporary at the very worst they could be dangerously misleading
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but I'm going to put some up here um I'm kind of drop dropping a bomb and then I'm going on vacation um but here here are three that are very prevalent is way
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the way I look out at the the church today especially in our culture in the late or the beginning of the 21st century um I'm going to work out to
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in um this is this has been around for several hundred years I know much is being made of Christian nationalism as if this is some new thing um no it's not anything new you can find it in the Middle Ages you can find it in the
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Reformation you can find it in the early modern period and you can find it today and that is the idea that that my identity is associated with my nation
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and and the the um the tendency then to christianize the nation and certainly in our country country that that's being done but again that's nothing new it was
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being done in Great Britain in the 19th century uh it was done in Germany during the Reformation so it it's always been done in France and Spain during the Middle Ages so the idea of of a
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that's what's that's how it's being spoken of today and of course those who use the term are using it pejoratively now I want I want to say with this first one that I don't personally think that uh being a
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Christian um precludes patriotism I don't think that at all uh and those of you who who know my library know that I have a plethora of books on American history um and even though I'm
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only second generation so I probably haven't been in this country my people haven't been here as long as as some of yours um Abe is he's transplant he's an he's an immigrant okay nonetheless we
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love this country I don't think you're planning on going back uh I'd like to visit Sicily but I have no intention of living there you know so it's it's not like uh because I'm a Christian I'm not
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American when I don't care about what happens to my country and I don't want uh moral Improvement uh I I want that for my children and my grandchildren you know I we do want these things but
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that's not my identity
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right it becomes an idol that that's where we're headed is that each of these things if they become our coinonia they have become an idol and and idolatry is is self-destructive and it's also false so
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then that's why it's destructive because it is false ER yes yeah right family became ethnicity
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became their Idol and Paul does a tremendous amount in his letters to try to disabuse them of that and to real and to show them that that was never the intention of the Abra Covenant to begin
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with through him all nations of the world would be blessed so yeah we see it in scripture we see it in life um I don't know though if we're able to recognize it when it shows up in our own
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lives okay or at least in our own churches so that's that's one another one um this one is a little
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less but this one's a little less prevalent this is going to be more on the liberal wing of professing Christianity and not so much sadly uh in the conservative Wing but it is born out good motives good intentions it's born
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out of an intention for evangelism that once I am a Christian then my identity is an evangelist I remember having a conversation with uh a young lady in at
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Milton uh many years ago about the What's called the Great Commission in Matthew 28 Matthew 28 um I don't really think that's the Great Commission I think the Great Commission
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is Matthew 5 you are the light of the world you are the salt of the earth and the reason I don't think Matthew 28 is a Great Commission is because Paul tells us very clearly that not all are
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evangelists the Great Commission is great because it applies to every believer I don't think that Matthew 28 does apply to every believer but we've been told that it does for the last 150
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years at least we you've been told that your fundamental identity as a Christian is to share the gospel with somebody else and to go into all the world making disciples well Paul says that's not
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everyone's gift
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right yeah okay well um you know and and I they argue even your family is a mission Feld well yes but not really what they're talking about and and so this is another similar to what you were
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saying about nationalism there's a place in which it's it's good there's also a place where it's bad a and so it is not that we should ignore the unbelieving world around us in our companies in our
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neighborhoods that's not what I'm saying what I'm saying is that's not our coinonia that's not our fellowship and and this social action and then that's the liberal wing of it
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but even within fundamental IST Christianity the emphasis on evangelism displaces communion and discipleship within the body and many of those
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churches that that Focus so heavily on missions don't feed the sheep some of you may have experienced some like that Ariel would you
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bringus yes yes you TR thousands of miles yep and I and I think missions is guilty of that because missions in its
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history has often been as much about transplanting culture as it is about transplanting Christ uh that Americans British before
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them um have have evangelized americanism or evangelized the the British Empire and the British way of life and the British way of eating and
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tea at 4:00 and not this you can you can um if you read the biography of Hudson Taylor for example you can see that's what he was up
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against and what he tried to uh to work against was the tendency of missionaries to transplant their foreign culture as
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if it were Christianity and I think what they were doing is making these prelit twice the son of hell as they were themselves I think missions is greatly guilty of that
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um but the the point here is this emphasis on evangelism is out of balance okay it it is it is it's become
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the coin it's become the purpose of of assembly and of worship Okay the third one though I think is the one closest part of the P closest to
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home go ahead just work neighborhood
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well it's that's what I meant yeah it's uh social action or right being being Christ hands and feet is often you know that that if if who if you don't go who will and it might be flood relief uh up
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in Western North Carolina and there's nothing wrong with that okay but that's not our not our identity Paul's identity was not famine
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relief but when there was famine he tried to help relieve it right yeah right it it it introduces Pride
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that we're we're part of something that we're doing for God but what we're doing and and again all of these absolutely have their place in God's providential
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vocation none of these are our identity it it is God's Providence that we are citizens of the United States and with
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that Providence becomes the responsibility of living as resident aliens in a country called the United States but it doesn't make being
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American our identity when Paul says our citizenship is from Heaven he's speaking to the Philippians who were by birth in that City Roman because that city was
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founded by Rome as a place to put uh retired legionnaires that the emperor did not want all coming back to Rome that passage is also very much
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misunderstood because most Christians think that that means we're going to heaven that's where our citizenship but Paul says our citizenship is from
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heaven from where we expect and anticipate Christ to return When Rome established its colonies like
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colonies like Philippi it never intended for them to all come back to Rome that was the point don't come to Rome we don't have enough housing we don't have enough food we don't have
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enough jobs you stay there but you're Roman citizens so I mean we're we're told very bluntly that nationalism is not our
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not our identity evangelism is not our purpose family is not our reality and there are a number of
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passages in the New Testament especially that that indicate that there is something that transcends family within the believer's life Jesus of
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course saying you if if you do if you love father or mother or sister or brother more than me what' he say good for you
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worthy right um again I think this is a situation that that we are in a different cultural different cultural Paradigm in that age and in that culture
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especially the Jewish culture and there are still there are still cultures like this in the world today especially within Islam to become a Christian is to immediately find out
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that you're not part of the family
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yes and yet and I think you would agree with this having physical brothers and sisters parents aunts and uncles who are believers is a good thing it is a blessing I came out of a pagan
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situation uh of six children I was the third to accept Christ but I did so independently of my two brothers my older brothers um and then you know
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there was immediate ridicule uh daily reminders of of how sinful any time you did anything wrong um it came right back
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at you now my sisters praise God they have come to know the Lord as well um but certainly not not my father so there was there was a very much and then my
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friend my friends from high school I lost all of them that was that was it so there there was definitely um but it wasn't nothing it was nothing like what a Jew would have experienced but I have often
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said that actually made it a little bit easier for easier for me it it makes it easier to realize what you read in scripture and that is you are my brothers and sisters my brothers
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and sisters are those who were in Christ Jesus said that who is my brother who is my mother those who do the will of my father okay so you know it's it's really
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before um you know we we have
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this all right fine there I don't want to cause trouble I think this is all wrong I just think we're looking at it
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wrong I don't think there's any prioritizing because prioritizing has to do with this all right obviously some of you right now your priority is your vocation is family that that's great praise God you
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you have small children um later on of course you you have grandchildren you know it your vocation is changing okay your country is changing you know we change presidents we change
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administrations we change ideological paradigms our culture is changing they things are happening in our culture that we're not happy with okay um our
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neighborhood may change we may move our our company may change and we have new co-workers all these things change what what is the common denominator well I
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would say that it should be church that that that doesn't mean church is our first priority after God it's not or that church is a higher
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priority than our family I'm not saying that I I remember learning in seminary about a fellow by the name of um C CD Stokes I know his last name he was a a
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famous footballer in the true sense of the word
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um well well come on I mean think about it think about it we only use our feet for the point after in the field goal I mean come on I don't know what we would call it we should call it like Pig
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skinning or something like that but they're not made out of pig anymore I'm not a big I I love soccer but I'm not I'm not you know I watch football as well but I always thought what football you you're
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you you're supposed yeah okay I in soccer you never use your hands unless you're the goalie right so that's why they call it football plus the rest of the world
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plays it more than we do and they call it football so anyhow um he was a footballer and he he very famously and I remember my Seminary Professor was just going waxing uh almost um uh romantic
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about the fact that he left his wife and children to go on the mission field now his real sacrifice is he left football uh to go on the mission field to Southern Africa I thought it was
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horrible I I in fact I said so I said I don't see how you can praise that I really don't that that just because he's going on the mission field he's he's abandoning his providential vocation as
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a husband and a father for Christ his theology is way off right so I'm not saying that you know you need to abandon your country your
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neighborhood your co-workers or certainly not your family what I'm saying is this word here it has to be understood in the light of this reality and the place the place where
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all of this is is experienced is the church and I don't mean the church is some esoteric concept Believers are all over I mean the local congregation in
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Corinth in Philippi in epes in Greenville okay that's a paradigm shift and if we're going to understand what worship meant under the guidance of
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the holy spirit in Acts chapter 2 then then we have to go through this identity crisis and realize that it's not about me we talked about that last week we
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each come with something for the building up of the body not for grandstanding but then it's also not about where I am it's about who I
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am well let's let's close in prayer father we do thank you for your word and we thank you for your work and we do thank you for the
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church we know that we don't get it and we haven't often gotten it but we know that we are the body of Christ that you have placed us and left
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us here on Earth as your witness as a community as a new creation community of those who have been born again with the same power that spoke light into the
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darkness of darkness of creation help us to meditate on appreciate and understand our identity in Christ that it might inform and
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Empower our vocation but also equip us for the different vocations that you have planned for us through our lives that in each one we may give you glory
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through Jesus Christ for his in his name we pray amen