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I hope that this time in the Word would be a blessing to you, so let's pray.

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Father, we thank you for your church.

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We thank you for the incredible things you are doing through ordinary people, ordinary

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sinners who need help, who need to be saved, who need to be redeemed and sanctified.

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Thank you that you are a God who gets glory from taking the weak and useless things of

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this world and creating life.

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We are the foolish things.

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We are the low and despised things, the things that are not, so that in the presence of God

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no human being may boast.

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So we thank you for your church and we thank you for your Word and I pray that you would

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speak to us clearly through it this morning.

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Amen.

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So what have we learned so far?

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We've learned that when God commands His blessing, His blessing comes.

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Psalm 133 announced that God would bring eternal life from Zion and He did it.

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Two thousand years ago, here we are today, Jesus Christ came and in just three years,

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as one historian puts it, this Jesus of Nazareth, without money and arms, conquered more millions

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than Alexander, Caesar, Muhammad and Napoleon.

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Without science and learning, He shared more light on things human and divine than all

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philosophers and scholars combined.

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Without the eloquence of schools, He spoke such words of life as were never spoken before

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or since and produced effects which lie beyond the reach of orator or poet.

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Without writing a single line, He set more pens in motion and furnished themes for more

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sermons, orations, discussions, learned volumes, works of art and songs of praise than the

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whole army of great men of ancient and modern times.

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Born in a manger and crucified as a malefactor, He now controls the destinies of the civilized

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world and rules a spiritual empire which embraces one third of the inhabitants of the globe.

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There never was in this world a life so unpretending, modest and lowly in its outward form and

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condition, and yet producing such extraordinary effects upon all ages, nations and classes

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of men.

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The annals of history furnish no other example of such complete and astounding success, in

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spite of the absence of those material, social, literary and artistic powers and influences

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which are indispensable to success for a mere man.

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Christ stands in this respect also, solitary and alone among all the heroes of history

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and presents to us an unsolvable problem unless we admit Him to be more than a man, even the

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eternal Son of God.

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So here we are, 2000 years later, in a world irreversibly changed by the life of that one

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man, Jesus Christ.

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Today in 195 countries and about 3,300 languages, Christians gather together to worship Jesus

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Christ.

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Who is He?

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He is the most important figure in all of human history.

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He is the Lord of history.

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He is the author of the greatest story ever told, a figure so prominent and preeminent

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that His birth is even more important than the birth of the universe itself, which is

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why all the dates on our calendars do not go back to the beginning of time.

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We do not date our existence from the origin of this universe because something more important

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was born 2000 years ago.

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He who created this universe.

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And so we date our calendar to that year for He is Lord and He has changed this world and

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He will change this world forever.

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That is our hope, friends, as we gather here this morning.

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There is no one like Him because there is no one like God.

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No one spoke like Jesus.

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No one could ever live like Jesus.

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No one could ever die like Jesus, which is why at the foot of His cross, you have a man

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who has watched perhaps hundreds to thousands of other men die excruciating deaths.

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And He watches Christ die.

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And just from His death, He concludes this man is the Son of God.

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How powerful that you can die in such a way that the conclusion you come to is this man

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is divine.

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Jesus is in a league of His own.

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He is holy, unrivaled, utterly preeminent in everything He does.

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There are no other words known to man more studied and translated and memorized and copied

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and sung than the words of this man, Jesus Christ.

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Whether you believe in Him or not, His short life in this world changed it forever.

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Millions of books filled with the desperate efforts of men and women to try and plumb

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the depths of His legacy.

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This is why other religions cannot ignore Jesus.

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Muhammad couldn't ignore Jesus.

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Hindus can't help including Jesus amidst their pantheon of gods.

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Buddhists are fascinated by Jesus.

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Hare Krishnas call Jesus one of their gurus.

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Of course, the Jewish scriptures themselves contain the first 39 books of the Bible, which

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all point in various ways to who?

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To Jesus Christ.

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Even those who deny any interest in Christ can't stop taking His name in vain, which

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is why all blasphemy is owned by Jesus Christ in Hollywood.

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He is the name you're going to keep hearing because other names have no power.

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There is no scandal in using Muhammad's name in vain, which is why there's lots of Muhammad's

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in this world.

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There is only one Jesus Christ and His name will be the one that continues to be profaned

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and blasphemed because He's the only one worthy to be worshipped.

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He is the only name before which every human being in all of human history, past, present

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and future will bow the knee one day and say, holy, holy, holy, you are Lord.

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That is a day appointed on all of our calendars, a day that we must reckon with.

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Joe Rogan, whether you love him or hate him, has the most popular podcast in our world

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today and he even recently admitted, we need Jesus.

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But we're not surprised.

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No one lived a life as fascinating and profound as that of Jesus Christ.

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In antiquity, crucifixion stands as possibly the most barbaric invention ever to be conceived,

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to humiliate and torture a man to death.

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Shameful, bloody, horrific.

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And yet Jesus turned that into a symbol of hope.

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Isn't that incredible?

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A cross that speaks of love, of life, of hope, of glory.

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And yesterday we considered Christ's incredible prayer before this moment, a prayer that speaks

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of incredible things, a prayer that reminds us of the fact that Christ came to save sinners

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and glorify them, uniting them in Him as He is in the Father and the Father is in Him

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because that's His plan, a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in Him, whether

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on earth or in heaven.

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And that's what He's been doing ever since.

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Christ has been uniting His people from all nations and cultures, from every continent

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and every country on the face of this earth, from every generation throughout the ages

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to form a single, unified, sanctified, glorified community of saints.

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Friends, the church is not a side project.

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The mustard seed has become a sizable tree and it isn't finished growing.

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Christ's kingdom won't be hindered.

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And we would do well to remember that from just a handful of skittish disciples, we now

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find ourselves at a time in history when more than 30% of our world professes some form

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of faith in Jesus Christ.

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When Jesus said the gates of Hades would not prevail against His church, He meant it.

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When Moses and David and Isaiah and Habakkuk prophesied more than three millennia ago that

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the knowledge of the glory of the Lord would cover the earth as the waters cover the seas,

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they weren't lying.

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And Malachi foretold a time when from the rising of the sun to its setting, the name

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of the Lord would be great among the nations and feared.

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He wasn't daydreaming.

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As we saw from John 17, Christ didn't end up on a cross by mistake.

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A perfect plan is unfolding before our eyes, which is why Christ's church is unstoppable.

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No one and nothing can derail God's purposes to save the world.

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Which brings us, of course, to His strategy, the church.

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What is the church?

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It's not a social club.

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It's not a charity.

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We're not just another non-for-profit incorporated association.

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And I want you to look at this verse 27, when we consider who Jesus Christ is in history,

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who He is in reality.

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And you read verse 27, you must know that the church is big stuff.

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Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

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This same Jesus, this incredible God man, this gigantic figure that eclipses every other

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human being who has ever lived.

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The eternal Word who became flesh, the Holy One who sits on the throne of the universe

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to whom all authority and power and dominion is given.

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This Jesus has a body here right on earth.

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As Ephesians chapter one puts it, God put all things under His feet and gave Him as

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head over all things to the church, which is His body.

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The fullness of Him who fills all in all.

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We are the body of Christ.

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There's a metaphysical dimension to this that just completely boggles the mind.

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Here we are.

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We are the building and we belong to something massive, eternal.

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Who are we to be a part of His body?

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The huge ramifications that come from this reality.

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And our passage gives us three of them.

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Number one, we were made for each other.

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Number two, we need each other.

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And number three, we were gifted for each other.

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Let's briefly look at each of these in turn.

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Number one, we were made for each other.

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Verse seven, to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

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Friends to know why each one of us exists is fundamental to the meaning of our lives.

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You don't want to be born into this world and ask the question, well, why am I here?

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What is this all about?

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So many people struggle with anxiety, depression, identity crises, not knowing what they're

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here for, not knowing what their life is about, going from one thing to the next, lost.

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Friends, this doesn't have to be us.

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We have the most incredible mission given to us.

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The most incredible reality that we can know we were made for this, for each other.

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It's exhilarating to know that when God saves sinners, he saves us to serve.

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We were born for a reason.

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Our lives are not an accident.

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We belong to something bigger than ourselves.

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And our meaning and purpose is completely tied up in his church.

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We were made for each other.

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To each of us is given the manifestation of his Spirit for the common good, for the common

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good of the church.

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Friends, it's great comfort to know that God has deliberately made us and formed us and

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saved us and sanctified us for his body.

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We're not saved to sit and wait for the end of the world to come, to hive off in a bunker.

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We're saved to serve.

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We're made for each other.

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And I want you to see from our text that our place in Christ's body is no accident.

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Verse 11, all these are empowered by the one and the same Spirit who apportions to each

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one individually as he wills.

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Verse 18, but as it is God arranged the members in the body, each one of them as he chose.

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Verse 24, but God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked

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it that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care

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for one another.

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Look around you, the people right here in this room.

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We're not all the same.

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We're gloriously different.

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God has chosen our shape and size.

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He has chosen what part of the body we're supposed to be so we can serve, so we can

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love, so we can make the church strong so that we can leave this world better than we

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found it.

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Friends, isn't it great to know that God has prepared good works in advance for us to do?

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Our lives have meaning and purpose.

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There's amazing things that we can be doing by the power of his Spirit in his grace to

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make other people's lives better, to make the church strong.

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You are not a lone ranger.

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You need people.

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God has made us for each other.

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And just today we had the joy of seeing Amy baptized.

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The body has got a new limb.

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You don't want to push that too far.

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You end up with some sort of octopus in your head.

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But it's encouraging to know that we're stronger.

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Every time a new person comes into the body, we grow.

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We were made for each other.

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So many Christians want to discover the will of God for their life.

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Well here's one helpful answer to that question.

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God has given to each one of us his Spirit for the common good of the church.

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We were made for each other, which means secondly, we need each other, as I've been saying.

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We need each other.

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And Paul paints a bizarre picture for us to drive the point home.

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Can you imagine if all the parts of your body decided to go rogue?

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If your hand no longer listened to your brain, your feet refused to carry your body anywhere.

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What if your mouth decided it wasn't going to be accepting any more food?

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If your lungs decided they weren't going to take in any more air, what would happen to

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your body if your heart quit beating?

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Isn't the case that it's just the foot that dies if the foot goes on strike?

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If your heart stops beating, is it just your heart that suffers?

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Is it just your lungs that fail if your lungs decide we're quitting today?

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No, the whole body dies.

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The whole body suffers.

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And this is by design.

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God is saying, I have inextricably woven you people together.

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You have the same spirit in you.

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One spirit binding us together.

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We need each other.

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God could have made us autonomous.

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He could have made us so we don't need other people.

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He could have decided, you know what, I'm going to save people one at a time and they

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can go and do their own thing.

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But that wouldn't bring him glory.

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And so he's decided the church is going to be his body here on earth.

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And we need each other if we're going to survive.

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Have you ever woken up in the night with a dead arm?

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It's a horrible feeling, isn't it?

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You feel the skin.

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It's like, who is this person lying next to me?

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Doesn't feel like it's part of you anymore.

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We don't want to be dead limbs.

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Paul points out the obvious in verse 21, I cannot say to the hand, I have no need of

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you nor again the head to the feet.

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I have no need of you.

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On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.

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And on those parts of the body that we think less honorable, we bestow the greater honor

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and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which are more presentable

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parts do not require.

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And if this is true of how each one of us relates to the church, then we must know that

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we cannot live without each other.

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We need each other.

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And it means that we have a vested interest in seeing other people win.

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When members of our church community hurt, if we're a healthy body, we should hurt.

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We don't want to be a church with leprosy.

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The other day I was chopping wood and I decided to use a hammer, which incidentally is not

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the best technique to use.

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And I thought I could just crack it because it was very old and instead I cracked my toe.

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And it was just my toe that felt pain.

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The rest of me was fine.

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Yes?

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You've had this experience?

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No.

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The whole body reacts.

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I am leaping and dancing.

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I am ululating, which in Africa is like, and my toe is turning black.

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My whole body suffers for that one toe, that part of my body that I hadn't noticed the

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whole day.

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Do I need a toe?

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Apparently I do.

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Friends, we need each other.

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Some of us might be toes, but we need toes.

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We need elbows.

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We need hairy armpits.

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I'm not looking at anyone.

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But we're grateful for all the different parts of our body and Christ is saying, I've given

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you a role to play in this world.

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It means that we've been called to weep with those who weep and grieve with those who grieve,

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rejoice with those who rejoice.

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Verse 26, if one member suffers, all suffer together.

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If one member is honored, all rejoice together.

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Friends, I want you to imagine we've got Joel over here at the back.

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He's into his catching wild animals.

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I want you to imagine he goes out one night and it's just incredible.

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He breaks Samson's record.

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Samson got 300 foxes and Joel comes home and he's 305.

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And West Australia, you've got to celebrate this man.

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This is unprecedented.

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Normally it's like one or two, but this guy, he's broken the national record.

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So they put his face in the paper.

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Would we say, well, it's just his face we're honoring really, because it's just his face

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that ended up in the paper.

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Did his face catch all the foxes?

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That doesn't make any sense.

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Of course, we understand that if his face is there, his face represents the whole body.

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Maybe it was his brain that figured out clever traps that he could use to catch that many

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foxes, but we don't print his brain in the paper.

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That wouldn't be any helpful.

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We understand how this works.

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If one part of the body is honored, the whole body is honored.

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And so friends, we need to be people that have a vested interest in the success of each

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other.

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We don't want to be people who envy other people's gifts.

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You might want to be intelligent and literate in multiple languages.

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Maybe you have all these people up here playing these.

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I can't play a single musical instrument.

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I think it's wonderful you've got folk who are musical and talented with music and they

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can, you know, music is this like amazing language and they can understand.

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I can't understand it.

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My wife can sing and it's fantastic to hear her and I get by.

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But the point is we've got to find our, find your road and be a blessing, serve with what

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God has given you.

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And when other people excel, rejoice in their success.

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Let's be a healthy body.

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That's what it means for the whole body to rejoice when one member is honored.

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We belong to each other, which means we can rejoice in other people's giftedness and

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success.

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The glory of one part glorifies the rest, which brings us to our third and final reality.

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We were gifted for each other.

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As you probably noticed already, this whole chapter and the ones that follow are about

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the subject spiritual gifts.

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We all love spiritual gifts, but why do we have spiritual gifts?

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The Holy Spirit tells us plainly in verse seven, to each is given the manifestation

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of the Spirit for the common good.

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God gives spiritual gifts to the church for the common good, not for our own personal

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enrichment and pleasure.

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God gives each of us gifts, not to bless ourselves, but to bless others.

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We're spiritually gifted to give, not to get.

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Put simply, we were gifted for each other.

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Hands need feet.

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Feet need hands.

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Eyes are useless without ears and mouths and a nose.

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God has gifted each one of us uniquely so that we complete His body.

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The gifts that we have are not for us, they're for others.

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We think of a rugby team.

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Some of you watch a bit of rugby.

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And a rugby team is made up of people of all shapes and sizes, which is why I love watching

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the game.

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You've got the tall blokes, you've got the big stocky guys with no neck.

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You've got the fast sprinters, the gangly sort of chaps that hope they never get caught

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standing on the fringes.

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And if you just randomly reposition these people on the field and get them to do jobs

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they're not designed to do, you have a rugby team that's never going to win.

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A rugby team that functions healthily is a rugby team where the guys that are good at

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running are in the place where they should be running.

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And the guys that are good at pushing are in the place where they should be pushing.

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The guys that are good at jumping are there where they can jump.

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And this is how the whole team works well together.

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And God has made us like a rugby team.

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We've got the stocky blokes, we've got the tall guys, we've got the fast ones, we've

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got the clever ones who can figure things out.

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But we need to work together otherwise we're going to fail.

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So God has gifted us each differently.

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Friends, if we're going to be a healthy church united in one body we must remember that our

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giftedness is for each other, not ourselves.

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Our world has turned giftedness into a quest to make ourselves great.

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I mean that's why we have these shows.

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America's got talent and Britain's got talent, American Idol, The Voice.

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We have events and competitions that celebrate individual giftedness, but this is not the

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way of the church.

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If you're good at something, make it a blessing to others.

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Don't worry about what others can or can't do.

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Don't envy those who have gifts that you don't.

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That's not your business.

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God gave you your role in the church.

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Make your life about serving each other.

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Paul asked the question, verse 29, are all apostles, are all prophets, are all teachers,

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do all work miracles, do all possess gifts of healing, do all speak with tongues, do

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all interpret?

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Which is his indirect way of saying no, that's not the case at all.

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We're not all apostles or prophets or teachers or miracle workers or healers or tongue speakers

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or interpreters, and that's by design.

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Verse 18, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them as he chose.

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And of course, that's not to say that some gifts aren't greater than others, because

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Paul tells us plainly right at the end of this chapter in verse 31, but earnestly desire

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the higher gifts, which means there are some gifts that are higher than others.

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And in fact, the order is given to us in verse 28, God has apportioned in the church first

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apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping,

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administrating, and various kinds of tongues.

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And if you think about it, you can see why.

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Without the apostles, we wouldn't have the New Testament.

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Without the prophets, we wouldn't have most of our Old Testament.

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And without teachers, we wouldn't be able to make sense of the Old and New Testaments.

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So if you have to choose between having someone who can speak in tongues or having the Bible,

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I choose the Bible.

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But again, I think this is where a lot of us stumble.

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Why should anyone desire the higher gifts?

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For status, for fame, for glory?

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No.

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If we've been following with Paul up till now, we know it would have to be for the common

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good.

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We don't desire the gifts so that we can strive to become tongue speaking, Jedi, mountain

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moving people.

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This is not God's plan for giftedness.

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We desire the gifts so that we can love this church, which is why the last thing that Paul

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writes in this chapter is this, and I will show you still a more excellent way.

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What is this more excellent way?

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What is the next chapter in this book all about?

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Love.

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It's all about love.

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We're gifted to love.

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What is gifts without love?

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It's worthless.

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Loveless giftedness is worthless because the goal of giftedness is the building up of the

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church, not ourselves.

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Friends, we've been gifted to give, not to get.

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So 1 Corinthians 12 confronts us with an incredible reality.

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The church is the body of Jesus Christ, and that means at least three things for us.

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It means we were made for each other.

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It means that we need each other, and it means that we've been gifted for each other.

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That's how we stay united and grow, and that's how we conquer this world for Jesus Christ.

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Let's pray.

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Father, we thank you for a reason to live.

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We thank you for purpose.

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We thank you for truth.

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We thank you from saving us from being lost and without hope, bringing us into your body,

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your church, that we might live forever, that we might be with you, that we might call upon

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00:29:05,200 --> 00:29:11,440
you as Father, that we might be used by you in this world to show others your love, to

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speak truth.

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And so I ask Father that you would bless this church, that you would give them the gifts

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that they need, and that they would serve you from a full heart.

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And I pray that this weekend might be a wonderful catalyst to motivate anyone who might be sitting

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on the fringes to get more involved, to spend more time and more effort with your people,

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for your people, for your glory.

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Amen.