0:03
I personally think that the songs that we sing are under the rubric of prayer they they are lifted up to God in the form of of prayers sung uh to uh Harmony um and we have of course the example of
0:14
the Psalms to kind of confirm that assessment so I think we look at these four items these these four activities uh more as um categories of
0:26
what we do rather than this is all we do and we don't do anything other than that and so we're talking about the word fellowship and I guess what I want to try to reiterate from last week and make
0:37
sure is is very clear the concept of coia is diametrically opposed to the
0:47
concept of concept of religion now you've often heard that you know Christianity is not a religion it's a relationship uh there's some truth in that but it's so shallow that you don't
0:58
really want to wait in um but but I do think that um our common understanding of religion and the framework that we tend
1:10
to immediately think of when we think of religion even religion even Christianity is not what we find in the New Covenant it's not what we find in Paul's letters what we find in
1:30
religion almost almost invariably and even sometimes or many times unintentionally we find a clergy okay we we find a class of
1:44
people who do the work of the ministry and rather than use the you know the the word le I'm simply going to put it in modern we have an audience the clergy has an
1:57
audience and I can't really think of too many religions that don't have that sort of framework and certainly we see it in our churches um we see it in our
2:08
church or at least we we see it enough to try to battle against it the concept
2:35
Community now the anabaptists of the 16th century and and their their heires uh the menites the Brethren the Amish hites all all the different um uh
2:47
flavors of of anabaptists that came down through the through the centuries they tend to take this um idea
2:57
of community to the idea of of of a of a leveling there that there's no distinction within the body of Christ within the community of Believers that
3:08
is also wrong that is also not according to what scripture teaches us there is an equality of of persons but there is a a
3:20
hierarchy or or a separation of gifts and I I think that's what both Paul and Peter teach in their letters um that there are difference in gifted so you
3:31
don't have to go from one extreme of a papacy to The Other Extreme of nobody's prepared a message nobody's prepared a lesson uh everybody just kind of comes
3:43
together and ironically I think it's ironic um in almost all of those anabaptist Traditions it's only the men who ever have a word from the Lord okay
3:54
so they also have a distinction in their non-distinct uh congregation um so Community does not mean I mean when we say community that does not mean
4:05
everybody's equal it's not it's not commune when we have a community we do have leaders of the community but the idea of the community is that everybody has a
4:27
community no not if that Community hopes to survive right there's there's no community that every voice is is equal and in most of History the truth is not not everybody has a voice in a community
4:40
um some do not some legally have their voices removed uh or not permitted and that's also true in the church even among like I said anabaptist
4:51
churches that recognize the essential character of community they still silence some and and so what I'm what I'm trying to show is I don't I don't see any of that type of Distinction in
5:04
Paul's letters but we can definitely discuss that I do see in Paul's letters that there is a a a variety or a differentiation of gifts he teaches that
5:14
very clearly in First Corinthians and Peter talks about the same thing when he talks about the gifts of speaking and the gifts of serving he doesn't go into this greater detail but he gives us that nice two-fold rubric of the categories
5:27
of gifts that the Holy Spirit mediates the point of coia is that no one who is in Christ is excluded from these gifts so that no one in Christ is
5:39
excluded from Ministry within the community in fact they're not only not excluded they bear a responsibility to responsibility to participate okay so as we talk about
5:52
these um these passages this morning I I want you to to kind of listen to the context of each one and and I think you're going to find
6:04
that just about everything we could think of doing in a community is caught under this word coinonia so that everything that we do
6:14
no matter no matter how privately or how mundane is still part of part of quinia right I I really hope that you
6:24
know we have some discussion about what what is the role uh of of every member in the in the Fellowship of the community um I think
6:38
that we still I really don't know how and I I've wrestled with this for 30 years 3 35 years
6:49
now I really admire the anabaptist tradition in its anti-clericalism having been raised nominally Roman Catholic
7:00
but having done a lot of historical study in church history um I I think that clericalism is is certainly one of the the greatest satanic
7:11
deceptions uh that the church has experienced in its history it is it is absolutely destructive of the work of the spirit and it's crushing uh to the
7:22
the individual believer they may not they may not even realize it because too often it plays into their natural apathy or um frankly um frankly laziness uh it's easier to have someone
7:34
else carry the burden than than it is to pick up the load and shoulder it yourself so clericalism is not going to go anywhere fast this side of the second
7:46
coming when Fellowship Bible sh I'm going to do a little bit of a historical background um when this Fellowship Bible Church concept was first conceived back
7:57
I think in the 1970s by a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary by the name of Jean gats so there are other Fellowship Bible churches around the world certainly
8:09
around the country this particular one was kind of planted by a Fellowship Bible Church or at least sponsored by a Fellowship Bible Church out of uh was it
8:19
Little Rock and actually the first pastors um I believe came from Little Rock or at least one of them did okay so get my I was wasn't here then but Mark and Martha
8:31
were um or shortly thereafter uh so the idea of course of Fellowship Bible Church was certainly to to
8:43
highlight community and they incorporated into their liturgy I don't know if they still do this in other fbc's but after the sermon there was a fellowship time and that Fellowship time
8:55
was was intended first there was a uh a snack um snack um and then there was a time of of everybody having sort of an open mic uh
9:06
not karaoke but almost as bad um it it uh it was an opportunity for everybody and what it what it became here at least
9:16
was it was an opportunity for everybody to tell everybody else what the passage meant to them over time it was an opport I felt like it was an opportunity for the birds
9:27
to Feast on the seed that had been so so that by the time everyone went home no one remembered what the preacher said at all um is that what we do I mean do we do we do it do an a Baptist do we not
9:39
even have a sermon just whoever feels led by the spirit gets up and reads A Passage and I mean that's what Paul did in the synagogue do we do we do that if we don't do that if we realize
9:51
that teaching does require some structure and that we realize that the responsibility of of the Pastoral Ministry is to instruct is to equip
10:03
that's Ephesians 4 it's 1 Timothy it's Titus that role exists how does that role then not overwhelm the responsibility of the
10:14
individual believer and we fall right back into the pattern of clergy Ley or clergy audience I I think the biggest challenge is not on Mark and
10:27
me it's on you laid out responsibility don't we we're
10:39
supposed to study the word and then bring that word to you right that's nice I mean you know at least I can I mean
10:49
honestly it's it it is it is a burden because the scripture says that we are those who will have to give an account in the day of judgment we will give an account for our own Liv lives but also
11:00
we will give an account for yours not your salvation but your shepherding so that that's a burden yet the the the job description is somewhat nicely laid
11:11
out what about just being a member of the congregation what what is your role in this okay you have a share in Christ and you have a share in the body
11:23
because of Christ because of the holy spirit so the having part is something that you might be able to get your mind around pretty easily what about the
11:33
giving part a lot of what I'm going to read here is the is the giving part anybody have a comment or he
12:22
bewildering yeah the Old Testament the old Covenant was so detailed so so minute in some respects and I appreciate you saying that because that's an excellent introduction to the
12:32
plum line class coming up in a few weeks where we're going to be talking about one of the most confusing and controversial of the levitical laws the dietary laws and that's certainly a
12:43
place where the minutia of the levitical system is is apparent is the clean and unclean animals um and and so the you know the question that Abe's raising is
12:54
you know why why was God so specific with the Israelites and he so nonspecific with the New Covenant with the church um I I think that there are
13:06
answers to that question um there's a reason why Jesus declared all FL Foods clean there's a reason why God gave Peter the vision of the sheep being lowered with
13:18
all forms of unclean animals and Peter's being told rise kill and eat there's a reason for that there's a transition taking place and I think it's exactly what you said it's the Holy Spirit
13:29
it's the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and Jesus said he will guide you into all truth so the Shadows are gone we're in the light but being in the light we're still kind of blinking you know
13:41
from the from the uh blindness of it and don't really know what to do and that that vacuum humanly speaking is is one of the reasons why this came
13:52
about uh I hope to do a reprise of the church history church history series but the rise of the of the episcopacy of the
14:03
Bishops was a a seemingly natural historical Evolution to meet a need for literate and um eloquent men within
14:16
the church both to teach the church and to communicate with other churches and so you end up having this this this elevation of individuals but
14:26
as those individuals were elevated the rest receded that that's the problem it's not that you have a few men who are capable
14:36
of teaching it's that everybody else naturally almost inevitably recedes in responsibility and becomes an audience okay and even the letters that
14:49
we have the titles um which again were added there they're not Paul did not put titles on his letters when he sent them but the titles of the of the letters of
14:59
the uh post-apostolic fathers they they kind of um confirm this historical Evolution when you have for example the the letter of the letter
15:11
of Clement to the Corinthians that immediately raises Clement to some level and lowers the Corinthians to another right but it was just a
15:22
just a letter so if you know that there's no necessary change in stat or worth when one person writes a letter
15:32
to a congregation but what happened historically is that's exactly now Clement is listed as the third Pope in the list of of popes because he was in
15:44
Rome you know so that's pretty convenient um if he had never written a letter we probably wouldn't know anything about him and he wouldn't be the third the second pope was lonus I don't know who he was or or what I I
15:56
just every time I think of him he has a blanket that's can't escapee that all right um any other comments
16:27
absolutely no you can tell that from the letter the the letter is like uh Peter's letter where Peter calls himself a fellow Elder Peter does not address his recipients as the pope or Peter Bishop
16:38
of Rome or any such thing he says to the elders as a fellow Elder that's the same thing Clement did if you read his letter it's an excellent letter because Corinth even then was still a mess it's like
16:49
everybody wrote their letters to Corinth it was good practice ground um and yeah he he's he very much avoid voids an
17:00
voids an authoritative now his authority comes from his quoting for example Paul and John which is very interesting because we haven't even reached the end of the
17:10
first century and he's quoting these men as authoritative so that that all falls into the idea of of Canon of New Testament um but he doesn't he doesn't
17:21
take the position oh I'm I'm in Rome and you're in Corinth so you need to do he doesn't do that that's something we've done with that history nonetheless Clement was recognized as a as a worthy
17:34
figure within the congregations and so his his letter did have some weight okay so we have this uh this challenge that I want to lay before
17:46
you and that is how do we find a Biblical balance where we're we're not simply pulling our pulling our ignorance but we're also not sitting
17:56
under a dictatorial tyrannical uh clerical type
18:19
rights Paul does John does yeah um I think by God's grace Peter grace Peter doesn't I think also because of where Peter what he went through and denying
18:32
Christ I think that that forever humiliated or humbled him I should say um humbled him to where at least in his letters he doesn't take any any such
18:43
position of uh of authority though he had it okay and and Paul acknowledges Peter's Authority do do not I also have the right to you know Take Along a wife
18:53
a believing wife or you know and he recognizes he says you know Peter James and John reputed to be pillars in the church he doesn't um maybe that's a little tongue and- cheek I don't know a
19:05
lot of what Paul says could be tongue and cheek but nonetheless but they were Apostles and we recognize them as having been with the Lord and being sent out by
19:15
the Lord the Lord directly when when they leave the scene when we read the Pastoral Epistles for example we see that that level of authority that level of objective
19:26
Authority is not passed on to the pastors of the churches that we don't have this Apostolic succession whereby we come up with a A list of
19:37
popes that's that's not from the New Testament it just simply is human nature I mean it is frankly human nature to especially in religion to have this type
19:48
of framework okay so you know we we don't have that in what we're taught well let's go to the scriptures starting in in 1 Corinthians 1
19:59
again we are focusing on Paul's use and that's really um a matter of convenience for time because he uses the word coinonia more than any of the other
20:11
writers and so I think it's and I think he uses it in so many different ways that his writings best provide the range
20:21
of meaning and application of the word coia uh verse 9 in First Corinthians he says God is faithful through whom you
20:32
were called into fellowship with his son Jesus Christ Our Lord now that that is that is an excellent um kind of
20:44
Capstone as we saw last week looking at the the word communion but this this idea I'll put this up here
21:10
again that's that's where um you know this is that Latin phrase sinon without which nothing okay um but I think what uh we we all agree with that in fact that that's kind of a touchstone of of
21:22
being a being a Christian um even in the modern perversion of the of the word and its application Christian is not a set of
21:32
morals Christian is is not a religious establishment of creed uh Christian is having a share in
21:42
Christ it's having being being given a share in Jesus Christ but we have so atomized the faith
21:54
and so and so individualized the act of salvation and and the church's Act of evangelism that the vast majority of
22:05
professing Believers have stopped here that's it to them that's the sum total of if you ask them the the word if you knew if they knew it was the word Queen Ania this would be pretty much the sum
22:17
total of their understanding and that is I have a share in Christ and that share cannot be taken away but I think um from Paul's
22:29
perspective everything else he says in terms of coia not only flows from this but it flows necessarily from
22:39
this Jesus said he who believes in me streams of Living Water will pour forth from his from his heart there's not it's not really um if
22:52
they choose po streams of Living Water will pour forth if they it this goes to the debate that sadly is still going on about whether or not you can separate uh
23:04
the the the Savior ship of Jesus Christ from his from his lordship and and there are many who are taught and many who believe that you can accept Jesus as your
23:16
savior but it is optional if you accept him as your lord Ariel
23:31
no I don't think so because uh that's a good question will they look back and and think that that's nothing more than Scholastic yeah absurdity um no I don't think so because the argument is between law and Grace and that's been going on
23:43
for 2,000 years and yes it represents an extreme position but it's an it's a position that is that appeals to the um
23:53
flesh frankly well it's also so blatantly not biblical okay um it's not necessarily a lot if you read uh people like Zay hajes um who fortunately is not writing
24:06
anymore he died a few years ago um if you read them you can you can see the it's kind of like Armenian the arminius they're going to use scripture you know
24:18
they're going to talk about laying up treasure for yourself in heaven and and rewards and you know they're going to use Paul they're going to use the gospels and they're going to twist it around because their fundamental
24:29
argument is that any Reliance on Works including what they call the work of repentance takes away from
24:41
Grace Grace is just unadulterated unabashed forgiveness without any strings attached to no expectation whatsoever now they they completely
24:51
misunderstand the nature of regeneration the fact that you have become a new creation they don't understand meaning the biblical meaning of the new heart and they don't
25:02
understand Paul's phrase may it never be you know when Paul was faced with these types of of ridiculous comments he wasn't sucked into argument he just
25:12
simply said what may it never be um how can we who died to sin still live in it I mean that right there is like how do you get around that um so uh the the
25:26
point I'm trying to make is it it it does does appeal to our the weakness of our flesh to stop here that we have fellowship with
25:40
Christ and frankly and sadly I think that represents um fully 80% of professing Christianity in the
25:51
west anybody want to argue with that it's not that's not clinically done I mean you I haven't taken a poll or anything uh but from what I read from what from what I encounter um from what
26:22
yes that's right yeah it's it's it's of the the lordship debate as they call it is really a a natural-born child of phism uh and of arminianism but the idea of of modern
26:32
evangelism is as you said get their ticket punched and that's all and don't don't put too much on them because you might lose them that necessarily me ideas conceived outside of healow right
26:45
either these false converts are not entering fellowships at all or they're entering fellowships and adding to the ignorance that's already there EXA what we're talking about isn't it right it is
26:55
um and and there is and coupled with this uh individualizing of evangelism and of Salvation has been a a very powerful denigration of of the
27:06
importance and the nature of the congregation that that is become purely voluntary and not only voluntary but but then if if you do choose voluntarily to
27:17
be a part of a congregation uh then it becomes simply becomes simply consumerism in in and then what happens to the the ministry is that it becomes nothing more than marketing you can you
27:30
can follow the the just almost inevitable traces of the the arminianism and phism everybody know what phism is Charles finey Second Great Awakening in
27:42
the 1800s he's pretty much the author of the of the anxious seat and the alter call um he he was like um he was more
27:52
arminian than Jacob arminius okay and there well you know you laugh but there are certainly there are certainly people who are more Calvinists than John Calvin that's
28:04
that's not unusual but uh finny finny was a real doozy that's a theological word there word there doozy um all right so we start with this
28:16
The Fellowship of the son and then in staying in First Corinthians this passage we looked at last week and and it was it was brought out that just down from the one the verse I read where the
28:27
new King James translates coia communion in 1 Corinthians uh chapter 10 in verse 20 uh the new King James translates
28:38
quania Fellowship now this is an example of the unfortunate um activity of translators that they will they will
28:50
often in the same context translate the same word by different words in the target language this happens in Spanish it happens in German it's not just English that that
29:01
they've done this um and so you know we we've encountered this a lot in in the plum line plum line class it seems to me that if the author
29:13
uses the same word within the same context and now Paul is talking about the the meaning of the Lord's Supper but he's talking about it with reference to
29:23
the concept of of meat sacrifice to Idols which was major uh issue in Corinth in the Corinthian Church because Corinth itself was a very commercial
29:34
Maritime City and probably more um um what pluralistic than the United States is today so that there were just
29:47
like Athens there were temples everywhere and most if not all of the meat that you would buy at the market had been sacrificed at a temple it had been dedicated ated to a deity
30:01
and then it was sold to the public and there was um Paul recognized that there there was a certain cache they could raise the price because this meat was was sacrificed to an idol therefore it
30:12
was blessed he also acknowledges that it that it really doesn't mean anything to a Christian because we know that there are no Idols that that's just that's absolute emptiness and so he he's uh got
30:25
very tricky balance here in terms of are you allowed to eat it or or not well he wants everybody to understand what's going on in that Temple and that is
30:37
coia that that people who attend that feast and that sacrifice are joining themselves to that Idol and so he writes in verse 20 of 1 Corinthians 10 he
30:49
says uh well let me start up in um verse 19 what do I mean then that a thing sacrificed to Idols is anything or that
31:00
an idol is anything no okay so he he's not giving any Credence to Pagan theology he knows that there are no such things as other gods there is only one
31:12
God you know and and that's a good thing to say because it's very easy to think that that there there are other there are other powers there are other principalities there are other uh rulers
31:24
in the spiritual realm that's true but none of them are gods there's only one God and and so he wants to be very clear on that he says no but I say that the things which the Gentiles
31:36
sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God and I don't want you to become in here in The New American Standard it says sharers in demons the words
31:51
coinonia okay I don't want you to have Fellowship new King James uh with demons okay now that seems
32:02
contradictory on the one hand he says a demon is nothing an idol is nothing on the other hand it says I don't want you to be coia with
32:14
demons um how do you how do you take that what what is what does that mean to
32:28
what it's hard to apply that to our day when our meat is is not sacrificed to
33:00
right yeah you have to parse Paul's words carefully sometimes and understand that he's he's not always speaking in absolute terms but often relative terms
33:42
right yeah that's still going on by the way yeah um that that will always go on as long as in this age that every generation is going to to come up with its own Idols um and behind those idols
33:54
and I think this is where um Paul is going I firmly believe the idols themselves are uh are false Isaiah makes that very clear that does not mean there
34:05
are not Powers behind spiritual Powers behind those idols and behind the worship of those Idols there is satanic and demonic deception that is going on it is real and and I think both of you
34:17
that's very excellent uh assessment um that what we're dealing with here is Paul's pastoral concern that nobody in the Corinth Corinthian Church attached
34:28
themselves to the destruction that's going to come upon those spiritual powers and principalities I me as a wise and understanding people we can't just pretend like it's all the
34:39
same just to be to be legalistic about it to be preoccupied with every piece of me or deal or human is not wisdom
34:51
neither is pretending like everything's the same we we yeah we should not there there is a balance we should not um become obsessed as as I've seen
35:03
certainly within the charismatic movement an obsession to the point uh that that it's almost glorified the the Demonic um on the other hand we should not be as as many uh many reformed are
35:15
and pretend that that doesn't even exist you know that Christ's Victory on the cross has forever remove the Demonic no he's defeated the the powers and
36:43
well it goes in very well um but you're you're absolutely right we as Spiritual Beings even as Believers we can be tempted to outwardly visible spiritual
36:54
visible spiritual exercises spiritual disciplines and that was always the purpose of of idolatry Idols icons was that we we now we walk by sight not by faith you know we flip
37:06
it um and there is a certain uh Comfort um to be able to see uh and and that that frankly is one
37:16
of the um primary attractions that Protestants will will list when they convert to either Orthodoxy or
37:28
Catholicism is the the sense of the Divine well they call it the Divine there a sense of something but it ain't Divine okay when
37:38
you go into these Cathedrals and everything is Merry you know and all these there is a there is a power there um but it's not a power of God it's not a power of Freedom it's a power of
37:49
bondage and yet our Spirits our souls are attracted to that and there's uh a temptation to give give ourselves over
38:00
to that outwardly visible tangible um and and um to our senses very satisfying does that make sense there's
38:13
a certain satisfaction to the the visual the oral and even the uh is it the old factory the the old factory yeah the the nose you know what we smell what we see
38:25
what we hear the chants the in sense and the and just the the imagery it just all conspires to draw you into an idolatrous
38:35
trap but then there are also other aspects of Life power money ambition sex there there are other things that do the same thing that draw Us in and we become
39:12
peoplebody standing a list of here's how you worship it goes in exactly this order it makes it easy in some respects and the true religion of it's a lot more wide
39:24
open than that scares people it does what what do you uh why do Protestants for example why do Protestants wear
39:37
crosses thank you there we go case we mean a
39:50
work yeah that's the problem you know you you wear garlic to to ward off vampires and you end up surrounded by Italians all right seriously why why do we wear
40:03
crosses I mean would and and I don't mean to be uh in any way sacriligious or or lighten the the crucifixion
40:13
but had Christ been hanged would we wear little silver
40:24
nooses what is a cross it's an instrument of death right I mean at least Christ isn't on a Protestant cross but that's not the point the point is that um the purpose for example of the
40:35
second commandment is that any attempt to visualize the person and work of God is a step toward
40:46
idolatry it's a step away from faith and toward sight and it's a step away from trust in The Invisible God toward something that you can look at and so
40:58
the nice thing about idolatry and icons is you can take them home you can buy them at the gift shop you can take them home and put them in your hang them on the wall put them on your mantel and have your own little Shrine every day
41:10
there at your home so there's something tangible about that now the comment that Gabrielle made about Fellowship is that well what is Paul talking about here this is coia he's just said what what is
41:22
the cup if not coinonia in the blood of Christ what is the bread if not coia in the body now he's speaking to the community and so what he's saying is I'm
41:34
not saying I I don't think he's saying that the best defense against the temptation of idolatry I think he's saying the only defense against the temptation of idolatry is the fellowship
41:45
of Believers is the community I think what he's what he's saying here is no it's not you and then you and then you it's it's y'all or even all y'all okay it's the community and I
41:59
think one of the reasons there are so many but one of the reasons why modern Christianity is so visibly weak in the world I do think it's because it has
42:10
been successfully been successfully atomized into individual salvation and we all have been led to believe through the through the Christian uh self-help
42:22
books uh I I don't recommend listening to him um but George Carlin is probably the most brilliant uh on self-help books U he says just think of it it's a
42:33
self-help book written by someone else that's a good point all right it's not self-help is it uh but the idea that we get from from The Challenge and the
42:45
the excitement of your responsibility and what you can do for Christ um it's it's almost never in the context of the community of Believers and yet when we read the New Testament it's always in
42:56
the context you're baptized into one body you know you're not you're not a Lone Ranger and I don't think we I think we have so lost the reality of the the
43:08
the dark the dark side and and it goes even further again I I I touch back on the experience that angel and I had in the charismatic
43:20
movement um you're you know you're basically expected to hold off Satan yourself that you're you know and then you read that even Michael the
43:31
Archangel would not issue a railing judgment but rather said the Lord rebuke you and yet we think you know puny little me are going to go up against the
43:42
devil we we really have we've trivialized what is actually a very powerful realm and I think that's one of you know people ask why why the church
43:54
why not just you know save us and take us home well I don't the answer to that uh I've got theories but not answers but I I have better answers on the church
44:04
right not not only in the sense that um God did not simply save Moses he called to himself a people and the same thing is true in the
44:15
New Testament he is calling to himself a people and that people has both defensive and offensive responsibilities that do not devolve on the individual believer except in as
44:27
much as that believer is a member of the body so coia starts with a sharing in Jesus Christ and as we saw last week um it almost immediately has a an opposite
44:43
um characteristic you know if you if you have communion with Christ then what communion can you have with the devil okay if you have fellowship with Christ
44:54
what Fellowship can you have with bile if you have coia with truth what coia can you have with the LIE see there's an immediate uh dichotomy that comes to the
45:07
believer immediately the moment of regeneration places that that person in a completely antagonistic relationship to the world around him or her does that make sense
45:21
so sharing in Christ absolutely anuls sharing in the world that that's that's where it starts
45:32
okay so it's not just all good you know and all it is it is all good but there is there is the other side of it that Paul's bringing out here and and elsewhere in 2 Corinthians six that
45:44
being in the church means being not in the world being in Christ or being in Christ means being not in Adam and and so that's where we kind of
45:58
start but to but to close I I hope you're beginning to see that that's a really terrifying position to be in if you must be in it
46:11
alone and yet I maybe because of that God has ordained that that no believer is alone that we are part of the body
46:21
well let's close in prayer father we do pray that you would open your word for us by your Holy Spirit and teach us and help us to understand what understand what our role as a member of the body as a
46:34
joint as a ligament as one who is gifted by the holy spirit for the edification the building up of the body of Christ teach us to
46:45
us to know how to minister and how to bring glory and honor to you through our lives within the body we ask in Jesus name
