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Today is the Sanctity of Life Sunday being observed in churches across the United States

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and I want to encourage all of us to remember in prayer those involved in the movement,

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not all elements of it.

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We would approve of some of the tactics that we have seen in recent months over the last

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year or so are tactics that do not belong to a pro-life movement.

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That does not cause us to diminish our efforts on the cause of unborn children that are being

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aborted.

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Let us remember to pray for those involved in the leadership of the movement and this

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afternoon if you desire at 2 o'clock there is going to be a rally at the state capitol

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that all of us are invited to be a part of.

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Okay let's open our Bibles together now to 1 Timothy chapter 3.

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We're going to study the last part of this chapter that talks about arranging order in

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the church's ministry.

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This is a manual in some respects of the ministry of a local church and in it Timothy learns

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the importance of a church staying on course with the message that God has given us, the

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gospel, and the importance of arranging an order in the ministry that honors God in the

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church's operation.

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You might ask the question why is God so particular about a way a church arranges itself?

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The answer is because the church is his creation.

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He has exalted the church to a special place in his plan.

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It is the bride of Jesus Christ.

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It is the body of Christ.

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It is united to him and therefore the church is important.

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The church of Jesus Christ is given the central role for this age.

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Now that is a significant statement.

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What it means is that it is more important what happens in the church today than what

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happens in Washington DC or in Moscow.

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More important than the signing of a peace treaty or the breaking out of hostilities

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in some remote part of the world is what happens in the church of Jesus Christ.

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More important than the death of a famous person or if you can believe it, more important

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than the trial of O.J. Simpson is what happens in the church of Jesus Christ.

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Somebody has said though the church has many critics, it has no rivals.

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The point is that the church of Jesus Christ is preeminent in the world as far as God is

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concerned.

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It may not be as far as man is concerned, but as far as God is concerned the church

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has the central place.

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What place is that?

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Well in our text we are going to see.

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He says, I am writing these things to you hoping to come to you before long, but in

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case I am delayed I write so that you may know how one ought to conduct himself in the

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household of God which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the

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truth.

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And by common confession great is the mystery of godliness.

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He who was revealed in the flesh was vindicated in the spirit, beheld by angels, proclaimed

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among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.

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The first place we see that the place of the church is the center of God's plan.

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The very center of God's plan.

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The place of the church is two-fold.

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It is the residence of God and it is the repository of truth.

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Now follow this with me.

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It is the church where the living God dwells.

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It is the residence of the living God.

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Now some people are oblivious to that.

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One little child attended church with his parents and then when he knelt to say his

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prayers before going to bed that night he prayed, dear Lord we had such a good time

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in church today, I wish you could have been there too.

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But you see God was there.

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He's always here because the church is where God lives.

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It is the residence of the living God.

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In the Old Testament there was the tabernacle and then the what?

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Hello?

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Anybody home?

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The temple.

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Now God isn't limited to a tabernacle or to a temple.

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In fact the heavens themselves could not contain God but God chose to manifest his presence

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in the Jewish tabernacle, that tent of the meeting, and then the permanent building that

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Solomon built, the temple.

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It was there that the Shekinah of God was visibly manifested and now God dwells in the

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church.

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It is described in the New Testament as a place of living stones.

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A place of living stones.

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In other words you and I are stones that God is building.

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The church is not the building we live in, it's us.

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It's the people who compose the church and it is in us that God dwells.

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God has not withdrawn from his people, God is here in his people.

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And then the church is the repository of truth.

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Notice he calls the church the pillar and support of the truth.

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A repository is a person or a place where something is entrusted.

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It is a person in whom something is confided.

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It's a room for storage of something, a repository.

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Kind of reminds me of that extra bedroom we have in our house which has sort of become

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the storage of all unclean things.

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A repository.

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Well in a much more positive sense the church is a repository of the truth.

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You see in the Old Testament God chose Israel as a people to receive his revelation.

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He revealed himself to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their descendants.

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Israel received the truth about the one God who created everything.

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In the midst of all of the polytheism and the false religions Israel had the truth.

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God gave Israel the responsibility to keep the truth and to spread it.

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And of course we know that Israel was much better at hanging on to it than they were

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at spreading it.

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And ultimately Israel fell short of the truth it did have.

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God in this age has made the church the repository of truth in the world.

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We now are responsible to hold the truth of the living God, to preserve the truth and

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to disseminate it to the world.

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Verse 16 is an example of the truth, and we'll come back to it in a moment, of the truth

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that we hold.

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The truth that we are responsible for.

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The truth that we are then to disseminate to the world.

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Turn back with me to Ephesians chapter 2.

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Timothy was the pastor of the church at Ephesus, right?

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So you would expect that Paul might say some similar things to the letter to the church

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at Ephesus as he would to their pastor.

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In the second chapter of the book of Ephesians he says in verse 19, you are no longer strangers

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and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and are of God's household.

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Same term as he used back there in 1 Timothy, the household of the living God.

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Having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself

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being the cornerstone, in whom the whole building being fitted together is growing into a holy

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temple in the Lord.

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We are the residents of God.

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God doesn't live in a temple in Jerusalem, God lives in the temple of his people.

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And then he says in verse 1 of chapter 3, for this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus

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Christ, for the sake of you Gentiles.

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And then he says almost parenthetically, but it's not unimportant.

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If indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace which was given to me for you,

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that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery as I wrote before in brief,

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and by referring to this, that is the letter I wrote to you before, when you read you can

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understand my insight into the mystery of Christ.

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What is he saying here?

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He is saying that not only is the church the residence of God, the church is the repository

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of truth.

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I have received the mystery of Christ and I have given that to you.

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And today we have the truth of God in this word, the Bible.

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We treasure it, we preserve it, we proclaim it, we disseminate it to others, because that

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is the place of the church in God's plan.

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He intends for us to be the place where he lives and makes himself known in the world.

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So what an honor has been bestowed upon us that we should be the dwelling place of God

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and those assigned with the blessed privilege of maintaining his testimony in the world.

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And we are his plan, he has no plan B.

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God hasn't assigned some angels up there to come down and do our job for us if we fail.

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We are his plan, we are the church.

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If you came in this morning feeling kind of low and like a zero with the edges rubbed

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out and like you don't really make much difference in the world, let me tell you something you

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do.

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Not because of who you are, but because of what God has called you to be.

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God has called you out to be a part of the church, which is the very center of everything

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he's doing in the world.

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You don't have to feel left out by the White House or the Kremlin.

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You don't have to feel like you're surpassed by the heroes in the sports world or the wealthy

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and the famous, for you are a part of what God is doing.

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And his place for the church is the very center of his plan for what he is accomplishing in

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human history.

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You don't expect to hear that on the NBC News tomorrow night.

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You won't be there.

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The world doesn't recognize this, but it is the truth that God tells us in his word.

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Secondly, we can say that the place of the church is in the center of the world scene.

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The place of the church in the world scene is explained in the text back in 1 Timothy

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again.

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There are three statements that I would use to describe what the place of the church is

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in the world scene.

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The place of the church is in the first place to present living faith against dead religion.

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He calls us the church of the living God.

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The church of the living God.

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We are those who believe in a living God, who have a faith that is alive.

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The place of the church in the world scene is to present living faith against dead religion.

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The world's religions are without life.

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They are filled with death.

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They seem right to a man, but the end thereof, according to the writer of Proverbs, chapter

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13, verse 12, are the ways of what?

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Death.

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World religions come in many different shapes and sizes and colors and hues and all the

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rest, but they all have one thing in common.

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They all lead to death.

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Every one of them.

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I don't too often agree with the pope.

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But in some statement that I missed, apparently some time back, he denounced Buddhism.

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He tried to make up for it, unfortunately, in a statement yesterday.

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But when he was in Sri Lanka this week, you may have read the Buddhists were very angry

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and protested because of what he has said about their religion in the past.

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Religion leads to death.

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Islam leads to death.

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The religion of Shinto in Japan leads to death.

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And dead Christianity leads to death.

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World religions have no life to them.

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The purpose of the church of Jesus Christ is to live out a faith that is real in the

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face of dead religion.

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Israel was to do that too.

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Back in the book of Isaiah, he denounces idolatry.

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What idolatry for the moment just stand in for the idea of world religion?

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Human man-made religion.

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Isaiah chapter 44 verse 8.

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God says this, is there any god besides me?

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Is there any other rock?

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I know of none, those who fashion a graven image, that is, in the context of what I am

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saying, those who make up a religion, are all of them futile.

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And their precious things are of no profit.

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Even their own witnesses fail to see or know so that they will be put to shame.

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A number of times in the book of Isaiah he says that religion, man-made religion, whether

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it's made out of silver and gold or wood, or it's made out of philosophies and ideas,

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man-made religion leads to death.

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And shame for those who follow it.

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But the church of Jesus Christ, its place in the world scene, is to show a living faith.

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A living faith.

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How do we do that?

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Through changed lives.

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Through changed lives.

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By having different standards, different values than the world in its religions.

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By being of one heart and one mind, George McDonald, however, said, division has done

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more to hide Christ from the view of men than all the infidelity that's ever been spoken.

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That may be true in his day.

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I think one unknown writer puts it better for our day.

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He says religious differences are not nearly so disastrous as religious indifferences.

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There's the problem today.

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But the point is that God has us here for a role.

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And that is to live out faith against dead religion.

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Secondly, to proclaim the truth against deception.

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We are the pillar and the ground of truth, he says.

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We are to proclaim the truth against the deception that is in the world.

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The word pillar is just exactly what it sounds like.

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It's talking about a column that supports something.

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That holds it up in view.

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So what he says here is that the church is a pillar to hold up in view the truth.

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The truth.

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Religious deception is demonic in its origin.

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In chapter four, verse one, he says, the Spirit explicitly says in the latter times, some

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will fall away from the faith paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons.

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That is, teachings that come from demons that are intended to deceive people in the way

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that they think.

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Religious deception is demonic.

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There's an old Spanish proverb that says, where God has his church, the devil will have

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his chapel.

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Wherever the church is holding up the truth so the people can see it, there will be false

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ideas and false religions abounding around it to try to distract and to deceive people.

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But nonetheless, we are to hold up the truth.

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Now what is the truth?

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Well, he tells us in verse 16, great is the mystery of godliness.

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He says great is the mystery that belongs to God-centered living.

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Great is the mystery that accompanies godliness.

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Great is the mystery that godliness embraces.

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He says first of all, it is this, God was revealed in the flesh.

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God was revealed himself in the flesh.

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This of course is a reference to the incarnation.

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It implies the pre-existence of the God who came at Bethlehem and was revealed in the

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flesh.

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He was vindicated, it says, in the Spirit.

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I understand that to be a capital S. Jesus Christ's claim to be God was vindicated by

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the work of the Holy Spirit.

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We think of his baptism.

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When God the Father spoke from heaven and the Holy Spirit came down in the fashion of

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what? a dove that lived on him.

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The Holy Spirit came upon him, vindicating his claim.

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He claimed to be God by the miracles that he did, and Jesus said the miracles that he

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did, he did by the Holy Spirit.

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In his resurrection according to Romans 1-4, the Holy Spirit vindicated Jesus Christ, showing

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that he was in fact the Son of God.

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Fourthly, as a result of his ascension, the Holy Spirit gave testimony.

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Jesus said, I'm going back to heaven and when I get there I'm going to send the Holy Spirit.

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So he ascended back into heaven and who came?

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The Holy Spirit.

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So at least four ways that I've just mentioned, he was vindicated in the Spirit.

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He was beheld by angels, meaning that these spiritual beings that we cannot see saw him

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in his earthly ministry.

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He was proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, that has to do with our work,

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our commission.

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He was taken up in glory.

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It is he was returned to heaven where he entered into his session, into his present ministry.

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And so we have six beautiful statements, probably either a hymn or an early creed that the church

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had fashioned at the time that Paul was writing this.

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And so when he says that the church is the pillar of the truth, he is saying here is

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the truth that we are holding up for the world to see.

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No one else is going to do this.

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This is our work.

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And then he says that the work of the church is to protect the truth against detractors

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because we're not only the pillar of the truth, we're the support of the truth.

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The word support means a buttress, a bulwark, a stay.

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It's that which helps protect the pillar.

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There are people, there are influences, there are movements, there are philosophies that

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seek to erode and to undermine the church of Jesus Christ.

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They seek to erode and to overthrow the truth that the church holds up for the world to

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see.

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In the face of that, we are to protect the truth.

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We're to do everything we can to see that the truth is kept intact.

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We are to come to the defense of the truth when it's attacked in our world.

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Jude, who was a half brother to the Lord Jesus, writes these words in the little epistle that

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bears his name.

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Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt

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the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which

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was once for all delivered to the saints.

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Jude 3.

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He says once and for all God delivered to us the truth, the doctrines of revelation.

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And he says, now brethren, contend for it.

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Now we're to contend for it without being contentious.

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Some Christians get that confused.

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But contend we are to do.

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We are to exert ourselves to the point of agony to fight on behalf of the truth, to protect

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it from its detractors.

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In the world stage there is no more central action than that in the church.

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It is dealing, we are dealing with the issues of eternal wait.

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And in the world scene our job is to present a living faith, to proclaim the truth, and

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to protect the truth.

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But finally I want to talk about the place of the church in the believer's life.

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Because he insinuates this to us as well.

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There are three ideas suggested in the language that Paul uses with Timothy to tell us what

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the church's place ought to be in the believer's daily life.

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He says that I and you, we are to see the church as a place first of all to be related.

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To be related.

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He says I want to tell you how to conduct yourself in the household of God.

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Somebody has said a Christian without a church is like a bee without a hive.

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God has created us as Christians to be a part of the church.

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Not in a peripheral sense, not on the edge of things, but a part of it.

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In the hive.

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God wants us to see the church for us as believers as a place to be related to others.

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Secondly, he wants us to see the church as a place to be responsible.

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For he talks to Timothy about how one ought to conduct himself.

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The word is must in the Greek language.

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We would a whole lot rather talk about maybes than musts.

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Might than must.

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But God talks about some musts.

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There are some responsibilities that we as believers have, some obligations, and they

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can be summed up in the word faithful, old fashioned as it may seem.

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To be faithful to pray.

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To be faithful to attend.

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Someone has said if absence makes the heart grow fonder, some people sure do love the

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church.

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To be faithful to give.

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To be faithful to serve.

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Some unknown preacher to me in a different age as will be obvious had a very pungent

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statement.

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I sometimes wonder whether the church needs new members one half as much as she needs

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the old bunch made over.

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Judging by the way multitudes in the church live, you would think they imagined that they

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had a through ticket to heaven in a Pullman palace car and had left orders for the porter

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to wake them up when they head into the yard of the New Jerusalem.

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Someone else said if there were as many idle parts in an automobile as there are members

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of the average church, you couldn't push it downhill.

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Some of you remember Bud Wilkinson who was the famous coach, football coach at the University

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of Oklahoma.

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He was being interviewed one time by a reporter who asked him because he was on the President's

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fitness council, what would you say is the contribution of modern football to physical

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fitness?

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Wilkinson replied absolutely nothing.

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Would you care to elaborate?

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Said the non plus reporter.

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Certainly replied Wilkinson, I define football as 22 men on the field desperately needing

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rest and 40,000 people in the stands desperately needing exercise.

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So is the average church.

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The place of the church in the believers life is that it's a place to be related, a place

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to be responsible and then a place to be respectful.

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Paul says to Timothy, here's how you ought to conduct yourself.

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You see there's an appropriate way to conduct oneself and there's an inappropriate way to

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conduct oneself in the church.

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We ought always to remember whose church it is.

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Therefore to be gracious and deferential to one another.

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We need to be respectful of other believers as the children of God.

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To be respectful of Sunday ministry, I read one statement recently that said some who

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watch Saturday Night Live come to church Sunday morning dead.

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I would just wonder how God views that.

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If we're respecting God and His church when we come to church tired because of the way

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we use Saturday night.

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We need to be respectful of what's happening in the services.

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When a soloist is singing for example to remain in the back until the soloist is finished

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so we don't distract other people and be discourteous to come on time to the services.

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I wonder how God feels about us just straggling in for the first 10 minutes of a service.

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Is that showing respect to God and to His church?

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We need to be respectful by being friendly and reaching out to the other person, speaking

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to them, greeting them.

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If God's role for the church takes such precedence in the world, then what place ought the church

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to have in my life and in my family and yours?

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God has given a place of honor to the church.

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He's given it the central role for this age.

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Believe me, the church will prevail.

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It will succeed because that's what God has called the church too.

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The question is will we be a part of it?

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The church has had its enemies but it's always victorious.

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Diocletian who was a Roman ruler in the third century felt that he had finished off the

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church.

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In fact, a medal was struck by Diocletian that bore this inscription, the name of Christians

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being extinguished.

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There was a monumental pillar that was raised to his honor.

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It was raised in Spain.

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It gave his full name, which I'm not going to read, but it said Diocletian, to Diocletian

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in his honor, for having extended the Roman Empire in the east and the west and for having

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extinguished the name of Christians who brought the Republic to ruin.

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People go and observe the busts and the pillars to Diocletian.

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He's dead.

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He's been dead a long time.

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The church of Jesus Christ lives.

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It cannot be extinguished.

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But we who are a part of it, what place does it have in our lives?

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Not because of who we are but because of what God is doing.

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I don't know how many of you like mosaics.

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I'm not crazy about them but I like them especially when they're old.

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When you tour in some parts of the world, you're taken into places where old mosaics

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exist.

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You think about that.

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Here is something that an artisan, a craftsman, hundreds, maybe thousands of years ago worked

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on.

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A little piece of shell or a glass or a stone.

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Meaningless in itself, but that artisan took the stone and polished it or took the shell

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and shined it and shaped it and then placed it into one little spot.

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Over and over again, the artist did so with these meaningless little pieces until he had

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produced a masterpiece.

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That's what God is doing.

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Using a shell here and a stone there, polishing and shaping us to be a part of the church,

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his masterpiece.

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Let's value the church.

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Let's value the church for the place that God has given it.

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And let's give the church the place in our lives and our values and our priorities that

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God wants it to have.

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Sir Isaac Newton was a well-known scientist, as you know.

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He discovered the law of gravity.

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What many people do not realize is that he was also a dedicated Christian.

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At the height of his career in studying physics and mathematics, you know what he did?

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You know what he did?

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He laid it all aside in order to study the Bible.

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There was someone who asked him about it.

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In fact, some of his fellow scientists tried to lure him back into science.

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And his reply was, I do not want to be trifling away my time when I should be about the king's

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business.

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Powerful statement.

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If it was true hundreds of years ago for Newton, it's still true today for us.

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To be about the king's business and the church, his masterpiece.

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Let's bow together.

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Have we counted the church as being a third or fourth priority?

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Something we're involved in when we have the time or the means?

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Do we count the church as being frankly insignificant?

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If so, we've somehow missed the picture here of what the church is and God's plan.

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What we have need of is to come back to the Word of God and to see what God says about

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the church.

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That it's a place for us to be related.

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Are you related?

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Are you plugged in?

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Are you a member?

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Are you responsible to the church?

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Are you a part of what the church is doing?

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Are you respectful of the church?

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Do you conduct yourself in such a way that it shows respect for God's masterpiece?

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Father, there are points of thought and conviction to all of us as we think through these various

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things.

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And it's not comfortable for some of us.

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It sticks.

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It hurts.

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But thank you for doing it because you're reminding us of what's important.

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We acknowledge to you that our thinking gets so messed up by the pressures in our culture

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00:36:46,040 --> 00:36:48,440
and its values.

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Help us to see today the value of your masterpiece and what you have called us out to be a part

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of.

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And may our hearts respond to that by renewed devotion and dedication to you and to the church

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00:37:04,880 --> 00:37:13,880
of Jesus Christ, His bride.

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We pray this in Jesus' name.

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Amen.