Episode Transcript
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Here is the word of the Lord, husband's Love Your wives, as Christ
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loved the Church and gave himself up
for her, that he might sanctify her,
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having cleansed her by the washing of
water with the word, so that
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he might present the church to himself
in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or
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any such thing, that she might
be holy and without blemish. And the
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same way, husband should love their
wives as their own bodies. He who
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loves his wife loves himself, for
no one ever hated his own flesh,
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but nourishes and cherishes it, just
as Christ does the church, because we
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are members of his body. Joined
me. As we pray, our father,
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we thank you that this is your
very word to us. We pray
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that the Holy Spirit would do the
work for which you have sent him,
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to show US Christ, to open
her eyes, to see his beauty and
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his great mercy to us, and
to grow in confidence because of who he
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is and all that he has done
for us. And we pray this in
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Jesus name. Amen. So,
a couple of years ago I I had
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the opportunity to spend some time in
Brazil, especially in the city of some
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Polo. I travel frequently to teach
pastors in Brazil and in Serbia, mostly
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Serbian. No. But the was
a fascinating two weeks because I got to
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visit a number of different churches.
One of them met and an air conditioned
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hotel ballroom with sophisticated PA systems and
slides on the screen and a full band.
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It was a wealthy church, well
clothed, well appointed, well educated.
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Another church met in a cement floored, prefab building that look more like
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a gymnasium that had open Air Cooling
and heating. It was a middle class
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church and one of the subsidies of
some Polo. One that in a church
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sanctuary, looking very much like an
American church sanctuary, with peers and a
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pulpit and a choir. And the
last one we drove into on dirt roads,
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into the midst of one of the
slums, the favelas. It was
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in a building for which the drug
lords had given permission to meet and to
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build. It was sandwich between plywood
enclosures in which people live and raise their
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families in the middle of the slum
and as we met in that narrow room
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there were armed drug lords marching through
the street or walking the streets to patrol
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things and keep things in order.
And as we left we could see their
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guns on their hips just to make
sure we behaved, and everybody else who
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went and left behaved as well.
Now they were all churches. Their circumstances
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were very different from each other,
but they were all churches. And tonight
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I want to talk about not what
we see when we look at the church,
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but what Christies when he sees the
church. Guess he he sees our
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different locations, are different circumstances,
but he sees in all four of these
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circumstances. And then this gathered congregation
and at Rincon and in the church I
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visited in South Tucson today, he
sees his people raised from death to life.
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He sees his people in whom he
has placed his spirit and made them
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one in him. He sees his
covenant family that he has known and loved
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and sent his son to die for. And those externals are not significant to
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him, though they tend to be
with us. And tonight I just want
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to ask the question what does Jesus
see when he sees the Church and the
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practical side? How does that affect
what we see when we see the church?
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What? How does it affect our
attitudes and our actions toward the church.
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Now, the passage I've read to
you is most often read in the
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context of marriage, but really it's
an extended discussion of Christ love for the
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Church. It's in the middle of
his exhortation to husband's but it's really about
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the church and even says that at
the end of the passage. I'm not
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talking about marriage, I'm talking about
the church. A couple of years ago,
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and application this, I began to
have couples who would come to me
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and want me to do their wedding
and I would began to say to them,
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you know, I'm glad to do
that wedding, I just want you
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to know your wedding is not about
you. It's about Christ and the church
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and you're just another case in point
of the love of Jesus for his people.
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That's what Paul is saying here.
It's about Christ and the Church and
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Paul Describes here how Christ he is
the church and his love for the church,
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and I find it's we will move
to the point of application. This
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is very challenging to me because it's
easy to see the problems in the church.
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It's easy to see the faults and
flaws of the Church and it's elders
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and it's pastors. It's easy to
see the divisions of the Church and the
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foolish things the church has done.
It's easy to see those. But I
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think the way Jesus sees the church
sets the pace for how we're to see
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the church. So we'll we won't
spend a huge amount of time in the
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passage, but just enough to draw
out a few things and then talk about
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how it applies to us. First
thing we would see about the church as
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what Christ sees, is the people
he owns. They're the bride that is
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his. He loved the Church and
gave himself up for her that he might
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sanctify her. Now, couple things
to note here. Is Christ loved his
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people before they were his people,
which is really kind of remarkable, because
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because he is God the Sun,
he chose her to be his own.
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From Kevin he came and sought her
to be his holy bride, and that
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was when she was dirty and defile. Ezekiel tells a story of the God
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of Israel going by and seeing a
baby that was discarded on the side of
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the road dyeing, and Ezekiel Sixteen
and defiled and takes the child and raises
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it. And that was what God
has done with us. We were a
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dirty, defiled people and he said
his love upon us in Christ when she
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didn't even know who he was.
Secondly, he loved his church and showed
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that love by his self giving sacrifice, which we fully understand. And third
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he did so so he would and
her sanctify her. That is that is
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both progressive and the idea of sanctification
here set apart for him. He owns
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her, she is his. He
owns her fully incompletely, which is why
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when we do wedding those we say, forsaking all others, I will keep
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myself only for you as long as
we both shall live. Jesus says that
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to us. You are mine and
only mine as long as I live.
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So he owns the church completely,
and not just us as individuals, but
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the congregation with all its faults and
flaws. You you cannot be a Christian
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without being part of the congregation.
I run into a lot of people these
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days who say things like I don't
need the church, I don't need the
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institutional church. Is what they mean. I listen to sermons on the Internet,
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I play good music on my handheld
device into my ear buds and I
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hang out with my friends at the
coffee shop. Isn't that what church is
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all about? Well, no,
it isn't. And most of all,
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the church is not something I created
my pleasure. It's something God creates by
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the Gospel. But when Jesus looks
on the church, you see something that
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he owns, that is his,
that he's purchased by his blood. And
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when he looks on Covenant Presbyterian,
He sees a group of people and he
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says to them you are mine,
I own you. He looks on us
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and he says, I have purchased
you, you belong to me. And,
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most amazingly, he is not ashamed
to call us his people. So
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he owns US completely and and in
owning us, he places his name on
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us. Secondly, he's purifying the
church. Now she is clearly a blemished
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bride, that but she is becoming
unblemished. Christ love the church, says
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Paul, and gave himself up for
her that he might sanctify her, having
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cleansed her by the washing of the
word. And a little later, no
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one ever hated his own flesh,
but nourishes it and cherishes it, just
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as Christ does the church. I
love that phrase. Nourishes and cherishes it's
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it's this picture he has here's is
a bit unusual. She is his fully
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cleansed. She he owns her fully, but she is not just clean,
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she is being cleansed. She is
righteous and being purified. She is a
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finished product and in the midst of
being finished as a product. Luther put
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it this way, she is both
righteous and center at the same time,
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and that that kind of gets to
the core of the tension that we feel
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sometimes with God. It's it's wonderful
that God says you were fully accepted and
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righteous in my eyes through my son, but something we don't feel so accepted
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because we look at our lives and
say so. God says I'm Righteous,
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but this done looks all righteous.
So the church is the same. She
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is fully righteous and yet God is
sanctifying her, he is cleansing her because
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she is both righteous and sinner at
the same time. She is holy in
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being made holy and he sees all
her blemishes. I find that helpful.
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Will come more to that at the
end, because I'm a proof reader.
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You know, proof readers are proof
readers are somebody when the student hands the
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paper to them and it's still upside
down to the proof reader's eyes, they
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look across the first page and say
there's a Typo on that line. That's
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prefer they're looking for the TYPO,
the bad grammar. They're not looking for
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the fact that they're two hundred and
forty nine correctly spell words on that page.
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Doesn't matter. There's one word that's
wrong. That's that's how that's how
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I tend to be. I look
for the blemishes in the church. I'm
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I'm well aware the blemishes. I
read blogs about the blemishes. Everybody's writing
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about the blemishes of the Church.
The Lord knows all about the blemishes and
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he gave himself for a blemish bride
and he is in the midst of purifying
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her and he is nourishing and cherishing
her. I that's that's it, beautiful
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language. Jesus is not a drill
sergeant. Jesus is not the Master Sergeant
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you get in basic training whose primary
goal is to break you. It's not
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barking orders demanding response. He is
nourishing and cherishing. There is not in
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Jesus an accusing tone. My Wife
says there times when I have an accusing
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tone, even when I say things
nicely. There is no accusing tone in
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Jesus, there is no angry tone
in Jesus. He has never exasperated,
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he's never trigger happy. He is
loving and nourishing his bride to make her
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holy in the washing of water with
the word and the and that word,
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which is cleansing her, is the
word of the Gospel. Paul says,
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as you have received Christ the Lord, so walk in Him. What I
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need is more of Christ and who
he is and what he's done, because
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that is what causes me to grow. I am rooted and grounded and established
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in him. Now we need the
law that it is not the law that
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cleanses us. It is Christ,
by the spirit, that cleanses his people.
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And as we hear of Christ,
he changes us, he transforms us.
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So, yes, Jesus is fully
aware of the blemishes the book of
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revelation. I hear all the things
I commend you for each of the churches
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that I have this against you.
He sees those, but he already knew
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them. They're already factored into his
sacrifice on the cross. They're already factored
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into the fact that he is sanctifying
and nourishing and cherishing his people. So
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we are a work in progress,
a construction site, a place of purifying
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and mature he owns us, he
is purifying us now, total makeover,
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and he will complete that work.
We've just sung that there's a purpose in
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his work. He will present the
Church to himself in splendor, without spot
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or wrinkle or any such thing,
that she might be holy and without blemish.
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He will do it someday, the
last day. She will be in
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splendor, that that's glorious, radiant, honored, not despised. There will
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be no spot or wrinkle, all
imperfections removed. She will be wholly and
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without blemish. No flaws will be
found in her, and that is not
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something that may happen. That is
certain. His death and resurrection have shook
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secured that outcome for us, his
people, and I just find that wonderfully
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hopeful. God, God begins with
a congregation of people made up of individuals
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he has chosen before the foundation of
the world, for whom he has given
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his son, who, by his
incarnation, bearing their sin upon the Cross,
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resurrection and Exaltation, has purchased them
and by the spirity calls and forms
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them into his people, makes them
righteous in his eyes, and now is
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in the midst of scrubbing her clean
and ironing out all the wrinkles and removing
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all the blemishes. And his purpose
is for our glory. Some day we
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will be presented with splendor. Jesus
said, we will shine like the sun
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in the Kingdom of his father.
I just stop think about that a second.
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We will shine like the sun in
the Kingdom of his father. That
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that sounds pretty impressive. That is
that is the glory that God intends to
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share with us. Jesus said,
the glory you have given me, I
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have given to them. We will
be in union with the eternal son,
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as adopted sons forever. That that
is his purpose. We will be his
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everlasting bride. A couple of years
ago I was I was thinking about this,
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this this great glory that awaits us, and I I thought of a
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wedding. I recently attended a wedding
here in town, Friends of thirty some
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years who's youngest daughter God gave her
a wonderful husband. She waited patiently for
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years and we were all at the
the wedding reception afterwards, and you know,
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there's a there's a head table with
the bride and the groom and the
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bride's parents and the groom's parents in
some cases, and then they're all the
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guests. And Somehow in the back
of my mind I always thought at the
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wedding supper at the lamb we were
the guests at the tables. No,
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we're at the head table, there
are no guests, we are the bride
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at the head table. That that
is the place he will give us some
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day. So revelation says. I
saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem,
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coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for
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her husband. That is the end
we will have and it is certain which,
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as I as I look at my
life, gives me great hope that
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God is not finished. He will
complete the work he has done, and
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it means as I look at your
lives, I can say someday I will
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see them and they will be more
themselves in absolute purity and they have ever
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been. He sees that we,
he owns us, he sees he is
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purifying us and everything is going exactly
as he has purposed, and he sees
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the glory that will be ours.
So that's how he sees us. How
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do we see the church? How
do we see each other? Well,
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as soon as I ask that question
people say, Oh, he's talking here
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about the invisible universal church, not
local congregations. Well, that's a nice
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dodge, except that doesn't play out
in the New Testament. If you follow
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the teaching of the New Testament,
you find that every local congregation is the
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people of God. It is the
body of Christ, the bride of Christ.
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You are, as a congregation,
everything that the church is in its
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entirety. Here you are a full
expression of the invisible church. Here in
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Arizona we have we have these places
where rocks kind of erupt out of the
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ground, especially as you get up
in the mountains. Well, all those
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rock formations that are below the ground
are, like the church, invisible,
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spanning from eight age to age,
and these little rocky eruptions are local congregations.
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That's you and me. We Are
you are the church. Paul says
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that even to the Corinthians. So
think Highli of how God sees you.
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We're just a small group of people. Know, you're the church. You
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are the body of Christ here.
That's what Jesus sees. Well, how
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does that affect attitudes and actions?
And this is where I find thinking these
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ways as helpful to me, because
I tend to look at the church through
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these eyes, not through the eyes
of Christ. I walk by sight,
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not by faith, and that's really
the choice that when I look on the
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congregation, when I look on God's
people, the Church of which I help
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pastor do I see those people as
Christes them, or do I see them
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as I see them? And I
tend to see them as very positive if
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they're growing and not causing too many
problems, and I tend to see them
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as very negative if there are constant
source of headaches. Well, that's very
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me oriented. You notice that that's
not how Jesus sees them. I need
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to take my cue from Christ and
how he sees the church. His love
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for the church shapes my attitudes and
expectations. Now I don't know if it's
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true here. I I doubt in
this congregation that this would be initial bit.
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You never know. Sometimes we become
disillusioned with the church. Sometimes will
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become very disillusioned with the church,
very disappointed with God's people. And here's
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how I picture it. When we're
disillusioned, are critical of the Lord's bride.
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I pictured as a wedding ceremony and
the groomsmen come with the groom and
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they stand in the fraud and the
bride'smaids begin to come and the maid of
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honor comes and finally the bride appears
and she walks down the island. She
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stands there next to the groom with
her father on her father's arm. And
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and here's what I picture. The
best man's watching this whole thing and and
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this would be he pictures the person
who's critical of the Church and he watches
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this whole thing and he turns to
the groom and says, I don't know
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what you see in her. How
do you think that groom would respond to
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that? And yet when we look
on a local congregation or even the wider
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church and we say how ugly she
is, how unattractive she is, how
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full of fault she is, we're
insulting the groom and the groom is Jesus
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and it doesn't really matter what I
think, it matters what he thinks.
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Christ sees the Church as he does
and that's supposed to condition how I see
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a couple of years ago going through
some very, very disillusioning experiences with a
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congregation wrestling with the question of when
Randi and I just go sit in the
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back row of a mega church and
disappears. Very appealing about this time and
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a friend of mine said, does
Jesus still have his name on the Church?
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Well, yeah, well it is. He still own the churches as
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people? Yeah, is he still
commit at it, to the Church and
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working in it with all their faults
and flaws? Well, yeah, well
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then you can't abandon her because you
take your cues from Jesus, not from
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how hurt you've been. So that's
what I'm that's what I think the passage
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says. I need to see and
love and cherish the church as Jesus sees
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and loves and cherishes the church.
Alongside of this is realizing that when Jesus
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looks on the world, his eye
is on his bride. So the church
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is not something that gets the dregs
of my energy in my heart and my
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soul after I got done with all
the important stuff. Eugene Peterson is paraphrase
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of Ephesians. The end of Ephesians
one has as these wonderful words. After
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he talks about the exultation of Christ. Over all principalities and powers. He
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says at the center of all this
Christ rules, the church, and then
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this wonderful phrase. The church,
you see, is not peripheral to the
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world. The world is peripheral to
the church, and that's stunning. So
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take all the stuff of Congress and
three point five trillion dollar reconciliation bills and
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elections and COVID supply chain problems,
global economy, civil rights, social justice,
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cancel culture and put them in the
scales and they don't weigh anything next
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to the church. Nothing. They're
peripheral. That what God is doing in
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the world. So when God looks
on the world, the headlines He writes
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are not what you'll find in any
major news outlook, conservative or liberal.
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The illustration I gave a couple weeks
ago for this was the headline in Luke
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Chapter Two, as Caesar Augustus gives
a decree that everybody has to report to
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their hometowns to be taxed. That's
the headline. That was big news.
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God's headline is Caesar Augustus gives a
decree that sends Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem
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some Messiah can be born. That's
God's headline, and I guarantee you nobody
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in Rome cared one whit about it. So Jesus que about how he sees
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the church shapes how I see the
church. The importance he gives of the
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church shapes the importance I give to
the church. Where is the church in
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my affections? Now? I'm not
saying your daily callings are insignificant. In
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those callings you serve Christ, but
those callings will some day go away.
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In the church will not. So
what place does the Church have? Do
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you, it's one of my good
friends used to say to you, build
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your life around the church, or
do you have the church is one of
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the things around that orbits your life? It's good question. Christ loves the
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church with all its blemishes. So
should we. Christ makes the is seize
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the church as the center of his
work in the world and he wants us
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to love the church and make priority
of the Church and the work of the
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Church as he does. But the
church will always be a mixed bag in
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this age while he is purifying it. Eugene Peterson put it this way many
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years ago. Ordinary congregations are God's
choice for the form the church takes in
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locale and pastors of the persons assigned
to them for ministry saying. Paul talked
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about the foolishness of preaching. I
would like to carry on about the foolishness
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of congregations. Of all the ways
in which to engage in the enterprise of
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church, this has to be the
most absurd. This haphazard collection of people
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who somehow get assembled into pears on
Sundays, halfheartedly saying a few songs.
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Most of them don't like tune in
and out of a sermon according to the
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state of their digestion, and the
preachers decibel's awkward in their commitments and Jurk
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he in their prayers. Sounds like
every congregation I've been part of. But,
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says Peterson, the people and these
peers are also people who suffer deeply
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and fine God and their suffering.
These are men and women who make love
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commitments and are faithful to them through
trial and temptation, and bear fruits of
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righteousness, Spirit fruit the blesses the
people around them. That's what Jesus sees.
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He knows the blemishes, but he
is at work in the midst of
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it. The churches at construction project
that helps me get my expectations right.
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I've been on construction projects are messy. There you need a hard hat because
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they're shouting and noises and power tools
and dirt and scraps of wood and bumps
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and scrapes. That's the nature of
a Church and Christ is nourishing his church
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and cherishing his church. So behind
this gathering, behind whatever community life you
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share, behind common meals, behind
session and pastoral care of this church,
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is Christ who is using all that
to nourish and cherish his people. So
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what the Lord is getting in your
regular gatherings, as Christopher preaches as a
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nert, is nourishing and cherishing you
as his people. Christopher is an instrument,
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but behind it all is the Lord
of Glory who loves and cares for
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and nourishes and cherishes you. He
is intent on bringing you to the fullest
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maturity and perfection. Someday, and
finally, someday the church will be finished
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in pure and that gives me reason
to endure. One day the church will
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be complete, which is why why
Paul and First Corinthians writing too, the
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most troubled church in the New Testament, look forward to the day when God
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would be faithful and she would be
perfected and that informed his present perspective on
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that Church. He had not lost
hope, even though there was lots of
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dirt and grime and grittain shouting going
on in the church at that time.
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There's a messy construction site. But
Paul saw God at work and so he
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endured, he persisted to love and
serve and care and forgive all of God's
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people in the local congregation because Christ
was at work there. So you and
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I have this incredible honor of being
objects of God's saving, electing grace in
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which everything about us is fully known
and already factored into the equation. I
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never look up at the Lord and
say, did you know I was going
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to do that? Did you know
those people in the church we're going to
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do? That already factored in.
He has loved, he has given his
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son for he has fully accepted her
as righteous. He is at work to
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perfect her and someday she will stand
as the bride of his son forever and
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glory. And everything about how I
see and respond to other believers in the
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context of the congregation is shaped by
that and not by what my I see,
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by what he sees. We are
the beloved of God. That the
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person in this congregation that you may
find difficult to get along with. I'm
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I don't know if you have that
problem here, like every other believer in
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every church I've been part of,
but that person is beloved of God.
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God is at work in them as
part of this congregation, and someday they
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will be presented as part of his
bride in perfected glory. So give thanks
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to God and think often of his
great love for you is his people,
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and then turn and reflect that great
love to each other, with all your
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faults and flaws. Join me as
we pray
