Thank you chip for that that story do you want to go to Daddy’s house evening going to Daddy’s house the importance of the local church family OA Christian Fellowship is a Brotherhood that makes known the wisdom of God to angels and to Demons that’s how important this body of
Believers is this family of God Ephesians chapter 3:10 says his intent was that now through the church the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the Heavenly Realms through Oola Christian Fellowship the Heavenly ruler and authorities find out what God is like what God has
Provided you know I think of that um argument that God had with Satan over job and um putting it in kind of everyday terms was kind of like uh God said to Job or God said to Satan did you notice my servant job and Satan says yeah I I sure did and
Uh and Satan says you know the reason that he’s faithful to you is because you put this hedge around him and if you take away that hedge he’s he’s going to crash spiritually he he’s not going to last and God in essence said no he
Won’t and God or Satan said yes he will and God said no he won’t you I don’t know how long that little argument might have gone on I’m just imagining a few things there but um God then said okay go ahead test him and you know the story he was
Faithful God won the argument well he comes back a little later and Satan says well you know fles for flesh you know if if you take away your protection of his flesh then he’ll he’ll give up on you and God said no he won’t and again might have had this little
Discussion well he took away everything except his life he was full of all these boils and the pain and so forth that he had and again God was right you know I think of that when um your congregation or my congregation is being attacked by Satan
And Satan is saying you know you let this happen and they’ll divide or they’ll explode or they’ll have problems and they’ll whatever and I think I hear God wanting to say no they won’t no they won’t because God believes in what can happen in a local church he is the one who has
Initiated we are made a spectacle unto the world and to angels and to men according to 1 Corinthians 4:9 so we’d like to talk about a local church a little bit tonight you know what is a local church well it’s a group of Christians who regularly assemble in
The Name of Christ and officially affirm and oversee one another’s membership in the body of Believers in Jesus Christ in the kingdom and they do that or we do that through preaching and the exercise the ordinances and so forth and so as we come together we’re
Called upon to to bind ourselves to one another as we’re bound to Christ Our Savior and Lord you know there’s a a um household in the New Testament that um was addicted says that this household was addicted I thought it was interesting the definition of addiction is it’s a
Compulsive need for a habit forming substance the condition of being habitually and compulsively occupied with something well if that’s the definition of being a addicted there was a household in the New Testament that was addicted name of the father was stephanus and it says in 1 Corinthians
16:1 15 that the household of stephanus was addicted to the ministry of the Saints now I don’t know what all that means except that if we take that definition of addiction what was the family’s compulsive need what were the habit ual compulsive things that they were occupied with and the scripture says the
Compulsive addictive things that they were occupied with was the ministry of the Saints I think that’s a wonderful addiction every one of you I welcome you to get addicted in that sense um and again just encourage you you to invest your lives in one another in that
Addiction so I won’t make you stand uh this time but let’s say this together again as we begin this evening but now hath God set the members every one of them in the body as it hath pleased him once again but now hath God set the
Members every one of them in the body as it have pleased him you know our enemy wants to get his fingers into the local church because he knows that she has more power to demonstrate to a a needy world the beauty of Holiness than any other organization in
The world it’s you as a body that have that potential more than anything else any other organization within the world and that’s why he says in Matthew 16:8 18 I will build my church and the Gates of Hell shall not Prevail against it so no matter how you came into this
Church the Oola Christian Fellowship no matter how you got here if you’re running from a problem in another church you’re running from the pastor or maybe you running from a pandemic in the last number of years or you grew up here and we’re baptized here or maybe you
Married your beloved and moved into the the area because of that by or by cook good decisions or bad decisions God placed you on this team he pulled you off the bench and he’s putting you into action in this team Chester and timus in their um their
Book the total Church make this comment and I quote the centrality of the church means the centrality of the congregation or it means nothing commitment to the church is easy while the church is some abstract Universal reality but the New Testament assumes commitment to real people in real
Churches with all their faults and foibles it is easy to love the church in abstract or to love people short term but we’re called to love people as we share our lives with them this is a pathway to Christian growth and Holiness commitment to the people of God is
Expressed through commitment to specific congregations end of quote you know if I were to um to teach on the Christian family and the beauty of the Christian family and so forth but someone who I’m speaking to comes from a family that’s full of tension and bickering and anger and separation and
So forth the father divorces the mother and marries another woman uh 5 months later and and um this particular individual stayed with Mom for a little while and then then kind of goes back and forth between Mom and Dad and one sibling goes off to live with an uncle
Or an aunt 15 miles away or 15 hours away whatever if I came in I’m going to be to talk about the beauties of family life what do you think he would be feeling he’d react because he has not experienced the beauty of family life all he’s experienced is the horrors and
Anguish of family life well very similarly if a Believer comes from a background of bickering confusion and anger in in some previous Church Church experiences Pastor Joel leaves with a third of the members starts another church and he stayed with the original group and others leave for some
Other denominational church and then if I come in and we start talking about what we’re going to talk about tonight about the beauty of the local church you think that person is going to be able to grasp that well I hope so by the holy spirit’s anointing and his power upon his own
Word but would be easy for that person to react cuz it hasn’t been that way for him or her he wants No Connection Church life has been ugly and hard but brother and sister that’s why it’s so important what is normal what is the church supposed to look
Like you know there’s a lot of cynicism about the church today one person said that the the church is like Noah’s Ark the stench inside would be unbearable if it weren’t for the storm outside another person said this to dwell in love with Saints above well
That will sure be glory to dwell with all the saints I know well that’s a different story now 1 Corinthians 14:12 says seek that you Excel to the edifying of the church seek that you may excel to the edifying of the church you young people
That are in school if you excel in math you want to get 100% or 98 at least um or in English you want to write this the the story just right or in softball you want to be able to hit those hund those home runs and so forth or if you’re
Building sheds you want to have something that’s really fantastic you want to Excel and Paul is saying I want you to excel in this particular calling of edifying the church picking up that challenge and getting 100% on your report card from the Lord for the way that you edify the
Church Melvin layman in his um one article the kingdom of God says this I’m amazed at how serious Christians often stand in awe of the invisible worldwide church but simultaneously and consistently have little respect for the local body of Believers that they belong to and he
Ends by saying this is tragic to say the least Brothers and Sisters You Are The Bride of of Jesus Christ you are being prepared for the most fantastic wedding to ever take place that bride is going to have a beauty that is out of this world Gathering as a local church is
Like entering the dressing room of the bride and you’re responsible to pour all your energy into making the local expression of her beautiful appreciated what Leland was sharing earlier so are you frustrated with the dirt that is under her fingernail well if you don’t like that dirt that’s close by help remove
It she’s ready to enter the ceremony she’s ready to walk from the foyer to the front of the auditorium to meet her groom she is integral to your whole experience as Believers she is God’s Workshop to create Christ likeness in you in me when most people abandon their Church they
Abort God’s program to prepare them for Ministry I’d like to share about six or seven eight quotes here um I have been encouraged as I’ve seen a number of even angelical writers um catching some of the importance of the local church in more recent years it felt like there
Wasn’t a lot back 20 years ago 30 years ago but there have been some good comments coming from some of them in the more recent uh past one was was written by a clinical psychologist who changed his convictions about meeting with clients in a little room someplace to talk walk through
Their problems as he counseled them he said that he’s going to put the ministry that he thought was supposed to happen there back into the local church his name was Larry Krab and Larry said this beneath what our culture calls psychological disorder is a soul crying
Out for what only the church can provide we must do something other than train professional EXP experts to fix damaged psyches damaged psyches are not the problem the problem beneath our struggles is a disconnected Soul the greatest need in modern civilization is development of churches True Churches
Where The Heart Of God is home where the humble and wise learn to Shepherd those on the path behind them where trusting strugglers lock arms with others as together they Journey on you know menos Simons said back in 1558 in a letter to a friend he said
There is nothing upon Earth which my heart loves more than it does the church Andrea farmer was writing to single young people in his book rich single life he said this God has designed genuine Ministry to be Inseparable from the life and Leadership of the local church any Ministry that
Doesn’t strengthen one’s commitment to the local church is inconsistent with the purposes of God I’m not a real fan of Jean Edwards though he has made some good statements in relation to Brotherhood and he said this church life is hard to explain you have to experience it and know this God never
Intended you to be a follower without it the life of the believer was never intended to be experienced alone you were meant to know Christ in a corporate setting being a follower of Christ just does not work without Church Life the Lord’s life does not even work nor did
God intend it to except as it experienced corporately Jesus only begins to make sense when you know and experience him in the vital overwhelming Encounter of Church Life Kevin D young in his book just do something said this my fears that of all the choices people face today the one
They rarely consider is how can I serve most effectively and fruitfully in the local church I wonder if the abundance of opportunities to explore today is doing less to help make well-rounded disciples and more to help Christians avoid long-term responsibility and have less long-term impact and then in his book Birthright
David needam says functioning first generation Christians knew that the individual Christian was not an isolated Pilgrim but a part of a body which could not function apart from love these men are trying to help us understand that it’s you together that is a part of this bride that is meeting
With Christ much more so that than each of us individually and separately and disconnectedly meeting with Christ it’s as we meet together in a Brotherhood a body dianis back in the early church time said I would it would have been but dutiful to have suffered any kind of ill
So as to avoid rending the Church of God a martyrdom endured for the sake of preventing a division of the church would have been just as glorious as one endured for refusing to worship idols cyprien another earlier Church Father was maybe even more emphatic in this he said without the church as
Mother one cannot have God as the father maybe he is saying more than what you’re comfortable with but he was trying to make a point that the church is very very important in a believer’s life he went on to say that outside the church there is no
Salvation Peter wrote in 1 Peter 2:9 but ye are a chosen generation he’s talking to you you are a chosen generation a royal priesthood a holy nation A peculiar people that you should show forth what the Praises of him who has called you out of Darkness into His
Marvelous Light what Peter is really saying is is Oola Christian Fellowship is a chosen congregation it’s a monarchy of preachers it’s a holy culture it’s a different ethnic group that you should show forth the Praises of him that called you out of Darkness Into His Marvelous Light Dennis McCullum said I believe God
Is less interested in all the churches working together in a single denomination than he is in a uni Unity between brothers and sisters looking at one another in the same room well let’s go to the scriptures we can get man’s ideas and thoughts about that but isn’t it powerful what Paul
Said in Ephesians chapter 4 as he’s talking about the church and the different roles and so forth that we have he said it was it was he who gave some to be Apostles and some to be prophets some to be evangelists some to be pastors or Shepherds and teachers why to prepare
God’s people for the works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ he’s
Emphasizing that in order to get to the full measure we need each other we can’t do this alone this wasn’t designed to be done by yourself it is in the body preparing God’s people for works of service the body of Christ may be built up goes on become mature
Attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of God then we will no longer be infants tossed back and forth without this role we will remain infants he says no longer will we be infants tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and
Every and by the cunning craftiness of men and their deceitful scheming instead speaking the truth in love we will in all things grow up into him who is the head that is Christ from him the whole body joined and held together by every supporting ligament grows and builds
Itself up in love as each part does its work my children grew up much of their young life in uh at smbi and if you’ve been into any of these Bible schools one of the activities that’s pretty prominent there is volleyball and um so they got opportunity to start playing volleyball
When they were very young um 12 11 12 years old and some of the students would invite him to come in and help and and they probably weren’t too good at that point but over the years with all the experience year after year playing with them
And I’m probably a little naive as a father but I think my boys and girls became really good at volleball and um so when they would play I’d love to watch them because of their ability to jump and Spike and save and all that sort of thing it was just fun
Watching them but it was interesting that um particularly my two sons who were excellent with it didn’t like the tournaments that they would have toward the end of each term there at smbi they didn’t like them because they couldn’t choose their teammates they had to just play with
Whoever was assigned to them well you know the the people who were making the teams wanted to keep things fairly even as much as they could so because they were quite good they put the quite bad ones alongside of them and U so they they’re working with these that
You know the ball would bounce off top of their head and they kind of miss it over here and and so my sons would end up diving Behind these people trying to get their hand on the floor before the ball hit it and bounc it back up again
And they’ smash their Knuckles and their knees against the wall of the gym trying to get these balls and they usually lose and then my daughters who you know they were they were good but they didn’t do all the spiking and all that sort of thing and they were good at setting so
They were usually put on another team and they usually won and all the discussions that we’d have at home after these tournaments my poor sons they they didn’t want to be in these tournaments I remember when they’re a little younger they come with tears and Dad I’m not going to play
Again and I tried to encourage him I said you’re learning how to do things that you wouldn’t have have to learn if everybody was as good as you I mean you I know it’s hard out there but you know it’s it’s really training you well it didn’t seem to help them too much
Um brothers and sisters sometimes those of you who are maybe older and more mature in some ways in your Christian Life you may end up sliding across the floor and smashing your nose against the wall as you’re trying to get the ball at OCS OC up back in the on the air
Again in the church life we fantasize about being that perfect Church team but seldom realize that we’re called to beat our limbs against the wall and against the floor in order to keep that ball up in the air who chooses that team that’s why we’re focusing on this verse but God has set
The members every one of them in the body as it hath pleased him he didn’t consult you he knows more about it than you do he placed them where he wanted them the NIV says it very similar but in fact God has arranged the parts in the body
Every one of them just as he wanted them to be he chose your team members in Psalms it says for a day in the courts is better than a thousand I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of
Wickedness Larry Krab said finding God and living in community are tied together you cannot pursue the one without the other and it’s interesting to me that in the in the scriptures in the New Testament there’s 115 different references to eklesia which is the word for church 115 references 83% of them are
Either directly or indirectly referring to a local church not to The Universal Church five times it’s referring to Israel in the Old Testament 15 times it’s referring to The Universal Church uh and six of those I think are in Ephesians five times it refers to both
The local and Universal but 90 times it refers to a local church when it uses the word eklesia some examples of that are this if you neglect to hear them tell it unto the church obviously talking about the local church you don’t put it on CNN or
NBC or some place no it’s local that it’s talking about Acts chapter 8 there was great persecution against the eklesia which was at Jerusalem it’s talking about specific location acts 14 and when they had ordained them Elders in every eklesia every local church 1 Corinthians 1 unto the Church
Of God that is at Corinth and you find that in in all the Epistles there uh Revel has got those seven different churches that are specifically labeled in a locality and in Philip or phiman 1 verse 2 it says and to the church in thy
House the church that is in thy house so I’m convinced that the greatest service you and I can give is to be a lifegiver the Oola Christian Fellowship this is the only way to make The Universal Church healthy is if this church is healthy and joining other healthy
Churches out there but it’s important that this church is healthy that the cells the DNA of this church is not sickly you have the potential to turn your church toward or away from God purpose in his calling number of years back it felt like God was asking me the question how
Devoted are you to the Lord Jesus Christ it was in the late 90s that it felt like God was focusing that question toward me we had gone through the pilgrimage of of my uh my daughter Kayla’s death she died of a seizure disorder at 2 and a half years
Old but just previous to that we had done everything we possibly could do that we knew to do to try to stop those seizures she had something like 120 different seizures during about a 2year period of time and about five or six of them were Grand malls that they never
Did get stopped until she got to a um a hospital and was put into a coma we pursued every obstacle we could think of fasting praying we had our church praying we had our family praying we had the students at smbi praying we were resisting Satan in every way we knew how
To do was there anything from our ancestors that was connected with this we tried five or four different kinds of medication but nothing was changing she continued to seize we would travel from Minnesota out to Pennsylvania and as we were going down the road we’d be watching for those
Blue Hospital signs because we never knew when we’re going to have to either turn around and go back to one or hurry up to the next one she was in hospital after hospital after Hospital duth Goan Indiana McConnellsburg Pennsylvania Baron Wisconsin bigi Bedford duth I mean we just felt so
Helpless three different times she was taken by emergency flights to another trauma cent center someplace and as we cried out to God it seemed like he was just blankly looking past our impassion pleased for him to change her health and I remember the last time that she was taken to by helicopter to
Another Trauma Center as I was standing outside watching the helicopter Le into night air to go over to Johnstone my faith was just hovering AC above the Madam God why does this have to continue I love my daughter we want our daughter we want to train her to be
Your servant and all these people out here they’re killing their children and they’re boarding them and why can’t mine be normal but as I watched that helicopter go up in the air I sensed that God was stretching me toward more faith in his sovereignty over these this whole
Scenario and while I was so discouraged I felt like I forget which one of the biblical figures said to whom then shall I turn I don’t have any else anyone else to turn to God I’m going to continue to follow you I’ll remain faithful to
You I don’t have anyone else to turn to well then in 2004 my first wife had congestive heart failure and we thought we were going to lose her that evening but the doctors were able to put in a a balloon pump and while they were doing that and
She was in a coma and they had put the um the paddles on her and I saw her as she got shocked she’d come right off of that table with the electric shock trying to get her heart to go again they did that three different times and I was
Just weeping I didn’t know what was going to go on and was I going to be was I going to lose my wife I went down to the cafeteria of the comma Hospital there and just began praying and crying out to God well God allowed her
To come back again for another two years and then in 2006 she was entering into the foyer of a church going to the wedding of a friend when she collapsed and uh died there I was on at a um IO board meeting at that time and so I wasn’t able to be
There quickly turned around and headed for the hospital and I’ll never forget the anguish of telling my children that their mother had passed away and their their cry their moan my oldest child was 25 the youngest was 12 we were homeschooling planning to move to Asia
Later on that year God can’t you pick on somebody else I’ve already buried two of my family do I need to bury the third God was asking how devoted are you to the Lord Jesus Christ well then in 2016 we got word while we were at
Smbi that our house had burned to ground the night before these heart-rending experiences as difficult as they were as I look back now I know that there are also heart forming experiences because God was testing me will you remain faithful when I don’t fulfill your desires it was a little after that when
I sensed that God’s question was significantly different now he was asking how devoted are you to the Bride of Jesus Christ he had tested me at least to some degree in my commitment to the bridegroom now he was saying how committed are you devoted are you to
The Bride of the Lord Jesus Christ we had four pastors who resigned on the same Sunday I had appealed to them not to leave but they did I was in Thailand at that time so our correspondence was distant and again it seemed like the bride was looking blindly past my impassion
Please of desperation I flew back from Thailand and we created a steering committee to try to go forward in the next year or two before I could move back I was the only one that was ordained for the congregation and then I was asked to to return in in
2017 it changed our future plans I was hoping to do a lot of writing and it just I wasn’t going to have time in pastoring the church but I needed to come back because my local church was sick was hurting diseased that part of the universal church was ailing
And was contributing to us spreading spiritual disease that needed medication from the lord well we didn’t argue quite that bad but it most felt like that sometimes are we sincere when we envision laying down our lives for people in a mission setting but are unwilling to lay it down for the local
Church we tend to love our church if it’s user friendly but the best index of love for our local church is how much will you sacrifice for her you know the missionary goes across to some foreign field they don’t have those nice smooth highways they’ve got the bumpy thing bumpy roads way back
Into the hills and out across the the mountains they have to be sensitive to the the cultural dimensions of wherever they’re at they can’t eat the food that they had back in in America they have uh they have to leave their RV equipment back at home they can’t get together
With their family gatherings like they could before and they they spent hours in prayer for these people for insight how to get the truths of God’s word the Redemptive analogies as as they’re called and break down the spiritual Darkness for that have been there for centuries they spend months trying to
Learn the language to precisely articulate the truths to these people they’re all willingly made for a pagan maybe a sodomite prostitution unhealthy diets all those kind of things they’re they’re made these sacrifices are made for that people group what about making those kind of sacrifices for the home people
Group we’re so geared to contextualization on the field but maybe it seldom comes across our mind when it comes to our home church and if I’m not brother sensitive in my home church then I’m a hypocrite when I’m Thai sensitive in Thailand am I willing to lay down my
Hobbies my sports my preferred clothing or my veiling style or my employment that causes compromise or offense for the Brotherhood for the body of Christ our commitment to The Blood Bought bride should be no less both the groom and his bride are worth giving my life for so are we energy giving missionaries
To our local church are we as s sacrificial in our calling to the home church as we would be to those other groups that we work with outside of the four walls here are we as as different to our home church as we are to the standards of maratha Bible school or
Smbi or CBS or ebi or wherever you might go to to be at a Bible School some have to change your whole wardrobes to go to some of those schools so what about doing that here if that was asked for will I remain faithful to the bride when she seems to look blindly
Past my imp passion please I am so challenged by Paul’s love for the church what an example he is to us and it’s interesting here in Philippians chapter 1 how he he almost becomes serpy in his love for these people he says in all my prayers for all of you I always
Pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now being confident of this that he who began a good work in you will carry it out on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus it is right for me to feel this way about all of you
Since I have you in my heart for whether I am in Chains or defending and confirming the gospel all of you share God’s grace with me God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus and this is my prayer
That your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ filled with the fruit of the righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of
God that was to the church at Philippi but probably even more amazing to me is the way he loves the church at Corinth now I don’t know how do you five or six leaders here would feel if you had the problems in this congregation that Paul was going to address in
Corinth I think I’d be tempted to move back to Pennsylvania or someplace because these are difficult things that are he’s going to be addressing in this book and I mean these people really need some help but listen to the way he addresses them this mly crew that he’s talking to
I always thank God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus for in him you have been enriched in every way wait a minute Paul every way in all your speaking and all your knowledge because our testimony of Christ was confirmed in you therefore
You do not lack any spiritual gift well he’s talking to them later in the book about their quandering with spiritual gifts but he’s able to say this and I think he’s saying it out of a True Heart therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for
Our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed he will keep you strong to the end see the sense of confidence so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ God who has called you into fellowship with his son Jesus Christ Our Lord is faithful that’s a powerful
Mouthful for Paul to talk to this church that he’s going to be reviewing I mean he’s going to be talking about the judaizers he’s going to be talking about the spiritual midgets they’re drinking milk when they should be on meat he’s going to be talking about the lawsuits that are been threatening the
Relationships he’s going to be talking about that incestous relationship carnality hung from the Corinthian Church like icicles in Minnesota in the winter time it was all over the place but he loves them he loves this group and then in the second book he gets it seems like he even gets more loving as
He says I have said before you have such a place you have such a place in our hearts that we would live or die with you I mean talk about being committed to sticking with them in the middle of all these problems I have great confidence
You I take great pride in you I am greatly encouraged in all our troubles my joy knows no bounds brothers and sisters take that attitude toward each other you think you might have some little difficulties you don’t have anything compared to Corinth so you can certainly say this to
One another who in your church will love the church like Paul loved the Corinthian Church if I can’t get excited about my local church then my excitement about some mystical universal church is phisical and Dietrich Bon hoofer said this he who loves his dreams of church more than the Christian Church itself
Becomes a destroyer of that church ladies would youd like to have your husband love his his fantasy of a wife fantasy of what a wife should be or do you want him to love you but we do that in the church sometimes we love our fantasies about
The bride Universal bride while we don’t love the local church God’s love is so personal that he would die for you if you were the only one and he would marry ocf if she were the only church on the face of the Earth can we love our vision of our
Universal bride while dismissing that part of her that makes up this local church can the universal and local bear such contrasting emotions again quoting from Jee Edwards he said the Christian Life was never intended to be lived outside the community of the redeemed a large part of your personal relationship
With Jesus Christ is supposed to be corporate not individual I’m not referring to your getting together with a few friends and calling that church nor am I talking about you and those you work with in non-denominational organizational settings together in some inter denominational movements such Gatherings very often become a substitute for
Eklesia you know Jesus is the Hub Jesus is the groom and he knows what spokes need to be put in that wheel to make up Oola Christian fellowship and so he knows just what the right combination and the right contrasts are needed in this group in order for you all to
Grow any cyclists here you like to Bicycle got one over here another one back there over here um I don’t know much about bicycles necessarily but I was reading where it says spokes once under tension in the essence in essence brace the rim using the Hub as a central anchor in a perfect
World scenario each spoke pulls with the equal tension to distribute the load evenly throughout the wheel while also holding the rim true and circular so you know God knows what tensions are needed on opposite sides of issues so he’ll put an Optimus in your group and just to contrast him put a
Pessimist in there just to get things balanced here or he may put a the males and the females um with different perspectives coming from our gender he’s got some extroverts here and he probably is going to put some introverts in your group there’s some zealots and there’s some tax
Collectors they don’t get along real well uh I hate to even put this up there but there might be some premillennialists and there might be some a millist that are put into your your wheel there’s some who are cons considered conservative and you know there’s some of us that are considered
Liberal there’s some prophets and there’s some mercies there’s some elderly and there’s some young people and there’s some Jews and there’s some Gentiles you know when we start recognizing the beauty of that you can grow as a church if we don’t recognize the beauty of that we do something very damaging to that
Wheel I don’t need all those young people they just they don’t see the the value of history and so forth and those ladies if they would just keep their opinions to themselves it would be so much better and those amist they just take everything you know allegorical and
And we start cutting off these different people in our church it won’t be long and again I’m not a cyclist but I understand that it won’t be long when this wheel is going to start wobbling and you hit a corner that’s hard and that wheel is going to give and you’re
Going to be in the ditch that’s what’s going to happen in a church that doesn’t appreciate the sense that God has put this thing together with the tensions on both sides of that wheel and we’re to learn how to love one another in such a way the community
Looks on and says behold how they love one another going to give one more quote here by Andrew farmer he said the church is not some Cosmic concept some Heavenly fraternity that we sometimes kind of feel around us it is the people of God set apart for
His purpose when it comes to the church Christians are not and can never be Believers but not belongers the church Universal the bride of Christ expresses itself at the level of daily life in an individual local congregations from the very beginning scripture was has directed every member
Of The Universal Church to be an active participant in a local church this local Community of Faith includes not only dear old Pastor Bob and W of the Angelic voice worshipper but Ed the obnoxious Zealot and Betty The Chronic whiner as well Chester and timus said this to be a community of
Light from which the Light of Christ will emanate we need to be intentional in our relationships to love the unlovely forgive the Unforgivable embrace the repulsive include the awkward except the weird it is in context such as these that Sinners are transformed into disciples who obey everything King Jesus has
Commanded so when you come together brothers and sisters on a Sunday morning Wednesday night or whenever you have Services you need to dress up now I’m not talking about dressing up with um formal attire necessarily maybe that’s a good thing too that’s a different message that we talking about that tonight but
Anyway you need to dress up by the way that Paul says therefore as God’s chosen people holy and dearly love clothe yourselves in other words dress up with compassion kindness humility gentleness and patience bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another forgive as the Lord forgave you
And over all these virtues put on love which binds them all together in perfect Unity what that kind of means is that as we dress up to come together as brothers and sisters we put on the underclothes of compassion we put on the shirts of kindness the trousers of humility the
Socks of gentleness and patience the shoes of forbearance and forgiveness and that over all of that the Overcoat of love the local church says Paul billheimer may be viewed as a spiritual workshop for the development of agapy love once again let’s say this together but now hath God set the members every
One of them in the body as it has pleased him amen um I’d like to have a sing this song yet I I don’t want to you have another song later that’s fine too but the people of the Living God that’s who you are as a congregation let’s stand
Together and sing this song yet people of the Living God The world around as a and Sorrow your alar Receive no the the where youwell shall be my home where shall be find the god you adore your redeem be Earth every I meain and peace and Joy andoss Sho AFF follow me I know Jesus I see now CH you may be seated
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