Episode Transcript
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You have your bibles that invite you
to turn to first Corinthians. We're going
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to be reading the first seventeen verses
of Chapter One First Corinthians, chapter one,
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versus one through seventeen. This is
the word of God. Paul,
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called by the will of God to
be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and
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our brother Sostenes to the Church of
God that is in Corinth to those sanctified
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in Christ Jesus, called to be
saints, together with all those who,
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in every place, call upon the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both
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their Lord and ours. Grace to
you and peace from God, our father
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and the Lord Jesus Christ. I
give thanks to my God always for you,
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because of the grace of God that
was given to you in Christ Jesus,
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that in every way you were enriched
in him, in all speech and
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all knowledge, even as the testimony
about Christ was confirmed among you, so
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that you are not lacking in any
gift as you wait for the revealing of
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our Lord Jesus Christ, who will
sustain you to the end guiltless. In
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the day of our Lord Jesus Christ, God is faithful, by whom you
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are called into the fellowship of his
son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
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I appeal to you, brothers,
by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
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that all of you agree and that
there be no divisions among you,
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but that you be united in the
same mind and in the same judgment,
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for has been reported to me by
chloe's people that there is quarreling among you,
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my brothers. What I mean is
that each one of you says,
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I follow Paul, or I follow
Apollos, or I follow Sephis, or
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I follow Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul Crucified for you? Or
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you baptize in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none
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of you except crispus and get gay
us, so that no one may say
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that you were baptized in my name. I did baptize also the household of
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Stefanus. Beyond that, I do
not know whether I baptized anyone else,
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for Christ did not send me to
baptize, but to preach the Gospel,
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and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied
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of its power. Amen. This
is the word of God. May Be
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seated to say that the Corinthian Church
had some difficulties would be a massive understatement.
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It'd be far more accurate to say
that the church at Corinth was a
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spiritual train wreck. These guys wrote
the book on how a church should not
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go, what it should not do. In this letter we find a group
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of Christians who are struggling with divisions, with a lack of love for each
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other, a lack of unity.
They're not serving each other. They they
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are confused about sexuality, about marriage, about singleness. They're confused about spiritual
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gifts. They're confused about worship and
what worship in the church should look like,
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and then, and then the list
goes on and on and on,
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and it goes on a little bit
more. I'm taking the youth at Ringkon
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Mountain through First Corinthians and weaken and
week out there's something new that they're shocked
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by, that the church is doing
wrongly hearing corinth. Behind all these practical
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issues you sort of surface issues and
beneath that, on a foundational level,
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the Corinthians are also struggling with a
deep, deep seated self centeredness and status
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seeking that they brought into the church
from the culture. They're putting themselves first,
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and that's affecting then everything about the
church, how they relate to each
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other and how they interact with each
other, going first at the Lord's supper
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and getting drunk while the poor and
those who are lesser, of the Lesser
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Class sit hungry. So this,
this church, is messed up. This
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church is far out, far out
there. It's an outlier. And yet,
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given all that, given the mess
of the Church at Corinth, when
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we open to the first chapter,
First Corinthians, I would expect Paul to
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say, you guys are expelled,
you guys are out of here. The
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presbytery has excommunicated this whole church.
You are no longer among us, you
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are no longer with us. But
that's not what Paul does. In fact,
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and I think we should actually be
shocked by this, look at verse
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two. What does he say there? He says to the Church of God
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that is in Corinth the church belonging
to God, to those sanctified in Christ
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Jesus, called to be saints.
Just think about that for a moment.
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Despite the fact that they have messed
up and sinned so horribly against God,
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against each other, Paul still says
that they are sanctified in Christ Jesus they
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have been set apart to God as
holy. In Christ, they have this
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calling on their lives still to be
saints. Just as Paul was called in
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the to be an apostle, in
verse one, they too are called still
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to be saints, to be those
who are holy before God and living in
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a holy manner before him. They
are ex septed in God's sight and even
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beloved. And that, as a
result, then, Paul says, impacts
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everything else, everything else about the
church, especially regarding unity. We're going
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to get to that in a second, because, you see, it's not
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until we are humbled by the Gospel, humbled by the good news of what
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Jesus has done for us in his
life and in his death and in his
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resurrection. It's not until we realize
just how little we bring to the table
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that we can then actually live at
peace with each other, because we realize
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that in Christ we are equal.
This is a level playing field. I've
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said this before, but but the
ground is level at the foot of the
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cross. We all come with nothing, and that, haul says, is
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the foundation then, on which to
build everything I wish to build the church
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and in particular, in which to
seek out unity, because Paul's point here
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is clear that knowing who you are
in Christ change is and how you live
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in community with each other. Knowing
who you are in Christ then changes how
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you live in community with each other. And so, in the time remaining
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I just want to put before us
just two simple questions here. Who Are
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you in Christ? And secondly,
how then, do we live as a
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community, as a body of Christ? First, who are you in Christ?
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And the short dance that is found
in verse four. So look at
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Verse Four. There he says,
I give thanks to my God always for
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you, because of the grace of
God that was given you in Christ,
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Jesus. So who are you?
Well, the short answer, Paul says,
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is that if you're trusting in Christ, you are a recipient of grace.
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You're a recipient of grace. Everything
you have, everything you are,
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has been given to you in Jesus
Christ. In fact, Paul will go
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on later in First Corinthians, chapter
four and he will say they're what do
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you have that you did not receive? Everything about your Christian identity is because
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of what he has done for you, not what you have done, not
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what you have accomplished. It's not
based on that. What do you have
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that you did not receive from Jesus? And then he goes on to describe
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you, giving us five, five
descriptions in sort of a cascade, a
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blessing of what it looks like to
be a recipient of grace. So the
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first one we see is in verse
five. He said this first description is
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this. You've been made rich in
Christ in every way. You are enriched
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in him in all speech and all
knowledge. So Paul here is turning the
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values of the culture on their head. Corinth was a busy seaport. You
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Think Long Beach. All right,
it's a busy seaport, tons of trade
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and commerce. It was a center
of business and of Industry and, as
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a result, the mindset of that
city was that your status depended on you
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being successful as a businessman, in
the workforce, in industry, in commerce.
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You could stand on your own two
feet and say, look at what
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I built with my two hands,
look at what I've built from myself,
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look at all that I've accomplished.
But, and so Paul is saying,
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it doesn't depend on that, it
doesn't depend on your financial security or prosperity.
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Rather, he says you've been enriched
in Christ Jesus. And then he
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says in particular, describing what that
looks like. He says you've been enriched
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in all speech and all knowledge,
and that too is part of the Greek
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society, because Corinth was a city
in Greece and the Greek's prize oratory.
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They prize me the person who could
stand up and give a speech and do
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it well, do it very fluidly
and fluently and and it just tickling the
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ears, stringing the sentences in the
sounds together. They would actually pay for
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itinerant speakers to come and to give
speeches. I won't go there. I
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was thinking about politicians, but that
they prize speech and you also, they
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also prize knowledge. Again, this
is Greece, the center, that the
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origin of philosophy and of not this
endless quest for knowledge. And Paul says
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that in Christ you've been given tremendous
riches, tremendous wealth and all speech and
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all knowledge. You've been given the
words that actually not just tickle people's ears
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but give life. You've been given
the Gospel, you've been given a knowledge
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of God, not just at the
world around you. What more could you
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want? In thinking about this,
where we get our value from, where
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we get our sense of worth from? There's a relatively new song put out
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by Keith and Christin Getty, who
wrote in Christ alone, and this new
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song that they wrote is called my
worth is not in what I own,
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and the first couple verses go like
this. My worth is not in what
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I own, not in the strength
of flesh and bone, but in the
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costly wounds of love at the Cross. My worth is not in skill or
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name, in when or lose,
in pride or shame, but in the
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blood of Christ that flowed at the
cross. See, Paul is telling the
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Corinthians. This is where you're worth
is, this is where you get value
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and identity. It's not from again
and your success and the workforce. It's
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not from your financial prosperity. In
Christ, you are in here an air
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of God, a joint heir with
Jesus Christ, as Pastor Ross, I'm
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assuming, preached on this morning.
He God is your portion. God is
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your portion, God is your treasure, your great and infinite reward. This
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this is what you have in Christ. In Christ you've been made rich.
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Then, secondly, in verse six, he says you have the spirit of
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Christ. Verse six says this even
as a testimony about Christ was confirmed among
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you, maybe maybe thinking, I
don't see the spirit in there. How
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can you say that we have the
spirit of Christ from this verse? And
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while the the name the Holy Spirit
is not in there, the work of
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the spirit is there very much,
because it's a spirit who confirms to US
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Christ that we that we are in
him, that we understand and believe and
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rest in the Gospel. It's a
spirit who roots us in that Paul wrote
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in Second Corinthians one versus twenty one
and twenty two, and it is God
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who establishes us with you in Christ
and has anointed US and who has also
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put his seal on us and given
us his spirit in our hearts as a
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guarantee. So the spirit that Christ
sent confirms to us that that we have
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an interest in him, that that
he is ours, that we are his,
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that we belong to him, that
we truly have life in God and
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in Christ Jesus. It's a spirit
who makes the work of Christ real to
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our hearts and then who flushes that
out among us in community with each other.
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And so Paul is saying that the
spirit of God is convicting convincing these
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saints that they, as the body
of Christ, are indeed the body of
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Christ. And Paul goes on and
gives a third description of what the blessed
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person, the person who has received
grace, looks like. He says you
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have every spiritual gift. In verse
seven, Paul Says You're not lacking in
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any gift. And you can jump
forward first scrinthians twelve through fourteen, where
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Paul talks for three chapters about spiritual
gifts and the wreck that these Corinthians were
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doing with them, using them for
their own interests instead of to build up
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the body of Christ. But Paul
isn't saying so. Paul isn't saying it's
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wrong that you have these spiritual gifts. fact, it's it's good. It's
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an evidence that the that you have, the spirit that you do but indeed
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belong to Jesus Christ. It's good
that you have every gift and and he
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says it's every gift, every spiritual
gift, that's necessary to build up the
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body of Christ you have. That's
an encouragement to us too. Every gift
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that is needed to build up the
body of Christ is here. It's present
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in the people of God were gifted
differently individually, and yet we're to use
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our gifts to build up this body, to use them sacrificially for one another.
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So it's not the gifts, that
the gifts are bad, but rather
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the abuse of the gifts that Paul
goes on to say is indeed bad.
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One commentator when this he was writing
about this. He wrote something that was
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very interesting to me. He's he
explains it like this. He says the
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Corinthians took great pride in being gifted, but they had forgotten where they had
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gotten those gifts from. They took
pride in being gifted, but they'd forgotten
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where they got the gifts from.
Fourthly, then, Paul says you have,
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you will be sustained guiltless until the
end. Look again at Verse Eight.
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Paul says he will sustain you to
the end, guiltless, in the
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day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
You hear the joy there. Paul is
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telling these sinful, Selfish Corinthians that
God is going to keep you. God
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has started his good work in you
and he is not going to just abandon
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it midway through. He's going to
he has made you blameless in Christ and
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he's going to keep you blameless in
Christ. positionally, you may you may
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sin, but all your past,
present and future sins have been done away
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with at the cross. They've been
canceled there and as a result, you
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have hope, you have a future. He's saying, this does not end
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now. I should throw you out
of the Church, I should expel your
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church from the gathering of churches,
but I won't. He says it's because
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God is going to keep you and
sustain you to the end. That's also
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encouraging for us. We sin,
we fall short, we are in a
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lot of ways like the church at
Corinth, selfish, self centered, but
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God is going to finish. Why? He has started in you, Christian
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God's not done with you. That's
that's good news in fifthly, lastly,
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the fifth description that Paul gives is
in verse ten, where Paul says that
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you've been called into the fellowship of
his son of the Sun, Jie,
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the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul says
here that we don't have simply an individual
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relationship with Christ. It's true,
we do, but we also have to
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think about this as being a corporate
relationship with Christ, because we are individually
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united to Christ by faith, by
trusting in him. We have this personal
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relationship with Jesus. And yet if
I have this relationship and you have this
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relationship and you and you as well, well, then we're connected to we
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can't we can't help but be connected. We are corporately united to Christ.
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We have this. We have to
think in more than individual terms about how
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we relate to Christ and with each
other. And again, this goes completely
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against the cultric corinth as well as
our culture today. America's individualistic. You,
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you again, you stand on your
own two feet and you say to
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the world, look at what I've
done, look at who I am.
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It's particularly easy now that facebook has
come along. Or we can post all
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our pictures and our status updates and
say look at what I'm doing now,
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look at, look at, look. Do you see this picture of what
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I just made, what I just
baked? All right, we we can
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it simply stay at the individual level
in our relationship. We have to think
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broader than that, and that's what
Paul has said. We have we have
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been joined to the fellowship of the
Sun. We have entered into the community
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that has been formed by Christ.
That word fellowship. There's the word point
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in EA, the community, that
the fellowship. You think of the fellowship
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of the ring, those who are
gathered together for a common purpose to destroy
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the one ring in the Lord of
the Rings. All right, we got
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has put us in community with each
other, and and that's a good thing,
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because it means that we're not just
pilgrims alone on this journey. We're
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not on our own. We're traveling
with a group. We're traveling with the
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saints together towards this New Jerusalem,
the city bill or, whose builder and
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maker is God. That's our destination
place and we can on the way.
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When we have struggles, trials,
when we are weak, others come around
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us embarrass up again, think of
Sam whay's Gamgee, carrying Frodo up the
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slopes of mountain doom. We're in
it together, something that God has put
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us together for, because alone the
journey is too much for us. We
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will falter, we will fall and
we need someone to come alongside us and
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pick us up. So this is
what the Corinthians have received in Christ.
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God has showered them with this grace
and lavished his love on them, and
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that, then, should bear itself
out. And how they behave toward each
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other. It's only toward after telling
them again who there they are, what
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their identity is in Christ, that
them. Paul goes on and says,
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I'll show it, show it,
show that this is indeed who you are.
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Live it out in your lives.
So that's our second point. How
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should we live in community? So
the first problem, of all the problems
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that we find in the book of
First Corinthians, the first problem that we
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come to, is a one actually
Paul spends the most time on. The
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actually addresses the issue of the unity
of the Church and the divisions that are
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going on in the church at Corinth
he talks about it for the first four
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chapters in one form or another,
hitting at it from different angles. We're
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only looking at the first few verses
here, in verses ten through seventeen,
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but I just want to draw your
attention to verse ten for a moment.
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He says here I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our
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Lord Jesus Christ, that all of
you agree and that there be no divisions
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among you, but that you be
united in the same mind and the same
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judgment. So what's goes on,
as Paul explains in the next few verses
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was. What's going on is that
the Corinthians are polarizing around certain leaders in
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the church. They're they're becoming sort
of groupies for their favorite guy and as
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a result, some are saying I
I'm I like Paul. Others are saying
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my guy is apolos. They are
going at it and trying to follow after
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one particular individual to the detriment of
everyone else and as a result, it's
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causing bitterness and resentment among the Corinthians. But why? Why are they?
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Why are they doing this? Why
are they picking favorites? Why are they
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following these individual leaders and getting upset
at each other because they're not going along?
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WHY ARE THEY GETTING UPSET? What's
going on here? Well, Paul
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tells us the reason in verse twelve. He actually quotes US four times the
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reason in verse twelve, and it's
that little word I. I'm of Paul,
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I'm of Apolos, I'm of Peter, I'm of Christ. The Corinthians
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didn't have a corporate mindset. They
weren't thinking terms of we, the thinking
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terms of i. what, where
do I stand in all this? How
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am I going to benefit from this? How is my position that in the
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church going to be elevated and increased? How am I going to become more
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important? If this had been done, you know, if this had kept
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going up to the present day,
the Corinthians would have been handing out buttons
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and wearing tshirts and putting bumper stickers
in their cars saying Paul's My guy,
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I love Apollos. They're in it
for themselves, their status seekers. They're
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thinking, how is this going to
improve my position in the church, and
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they're latching on to a particular candidate, you could say, and they're pinning
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their hopes on this person to the
exclusion of everyone else, in the hopes
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that if this person does become the
chief guy at Corinth I get to share
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in some of the glory. I'm
right, all y'all are wrong. All
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right, my guy made it and
I then follow in his train and his
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footsteps. All Right, I get
a share of the glory. And there's
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a result. They're quarreling, they're
fighting. Paul says, this is not
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how your to behave, this is
not how you're to behave. Where the
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fellowship of Christ, they communion of
the saints. And so Paul makes us
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appeal based on everything he has just
said about them and explained, based on
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who they are in Christ. He
makes us appeal, saying guys, Love
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One another, have grace towards each
other, and then he actually gets pretty
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upset and says, why are you
putting my face on that ad? Why
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are you putting my name on that
bumper sticker? Was Paul Crucified for you?
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Were you baptized in my name?
No, don't do that. I
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don't want any part of this.
This is not Christian. These divisions in
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the church, quarreling, backbiting.
That's not Christian. And the Youth and
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Family Group at ring con we have
a policy. It's called no hunting.
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We don't talk poorly, don't speak
badly, don't gossip about other people behind
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their back. That's what's going on
here. They're hunting, they're the church
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is not a safe place. It's
not a no hunting zone. Paul is
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saying, guys, you got to
put that sign up no hunting. Here
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should be a safe place where you
were loving each other, showing kindness to
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each other, showing care for each
other based on who you are in Christ
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Jesus, and the only way to
do that friends, as if you humble
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yourself and actually listen to each other. We can't come at this with an
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air of superiority. Can't come at
it putting ourselves first. have to come
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and humbly say I'm a sinner to
and when there are issues that come up,
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problems, divisions, sit down and
talk about it. This is what
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Paul is getting at here. But
this is a natural this isn't normal for
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sinful human beings. Our natural tendency
is towards self centeredness, and that's why
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it takes the power and grace of
the Gospel to accomplish us, because this
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is otherworldly. Living in this way. Dietrich bonhoffer was exactly right when he
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said this. He said without Christ
we should not know God, we could
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not call upon him nor come to
him. But without Christ we also would
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not know our brother, nor could
we come to him. The way is
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blocked by our own ego. Christ
opened up the way to God and the
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way to our brother. Now Christians
can live with one another in peace,
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they can love and serve one another, they can become one, but they
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can continue to do so only by
way of Jesus Christ. Only in Jesus
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Christ are we one. Only through
him are we bound together. This is
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what the Gospel lived out looks like. It's at the cross that I am
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freed from the selfishness that used to
ensnare me, I used to hold me
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captive. So now I can love
my brother in Christ. Actually, it's
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at the cross that I see my
savior, that he didn't just die for
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me, but also for you,
and that means there's a bond here that
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goes deeper than family ties. It's
a bond in blood that binds the church
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together. It's at the cross that
I see Jesus divided and his body torn
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and broken, so that his body, the church, might never be divided
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and never be torn and brokenness under
that's what we're going to celebrate here in
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just a few moments the Lord's table. That here Christ shows he is given
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for us so that we might be
one in him. Let's pray
