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We're thinking tonight again of the precious promises from the Bible.

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This evening one which our Savior speaks in the eighteenth verse of the sixteenth chapter

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of Matthew, he says, I say to you that you are Peter and upon this rock I will build

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my church and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it.

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The promise that Jesus gives us in this verse would be absolutely ludicrous if it were not

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for the confession and the truthfulness of the confession that Peter spoke just before

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it, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

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For this promise claims that Jesus is going to build something brand new, a new entity,

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a new congregation of people, a new spiritual house which would be divided ultimately in

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time by the process of death so that one segment would reside on earth and another in heaven.

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But he promises that he would build his church.

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He says the gates of Hades shall not overpower it.

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That is, even though death may come and claim a generation at a time, the church and the

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construction of the church would go on and on and on until it was completed.

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He says he is going to build a church whose life source, whose ethic, whose destiny, all

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run counter to the prevailing nature of the environment where it is to be built.

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Jesus is here promising to build, as it were, a colony in an alien atmosphere.

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It's like building a colony of human beings on the planet Mars.

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He is saying he is going to build something unique when all of the conditions around it

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are totally incompatible with what he is going to do.

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But he says, I will build my church.

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It is to be constructed not of hammers and nails or brick or mortar.

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It is to be constructed not by force of intimidation or the threat of sword, but he will build

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his church fabricated by the implantation of truth in the hearts of people, and it's

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then being quickened by the work of the Holy Spirit.

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The church will be built despite the reality of death that removes one generation at a

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time, despite the opposition of Satan and the powers of darkness, despite the hostility

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of the world system and its citizens.

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The church will be built.

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There is nothing at all in heaven above or the earth below or hell beneath which can

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prevent the ultimate completion and realization of God's purpose for this select entity

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which Jesus calls here the church.

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I will build my church, he says.

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Because the building of the church is the promise of Jesus Christ in this age, we can

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be assured that the church is important to Jesus.

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What is Jesus building anyway, and what does it mean to him?

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Well, I think the answer, the partial answer to that question, can be found by going to

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the church epistle.

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I refer to the book of Ephesians.

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In the book of Ephesians, we have a number of metaphors of the church.

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We're tonight going to simply pick out the three most obvious ones as we attempt to begin

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an answer to this question, what is Jesus building anyway, and what does it mean to

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him?

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When he says, I will build my church, what does he mean?

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Well, in the first place, we learn in chapter 2, verses 19 to 22, it means that he is building

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his holy temple.

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Verse 19, so then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with

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the saints and are of God's household, having been built upon the foundation of the apostles

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and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being

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fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built

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together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.

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What is the church?

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What does it mean to Jesus?

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Well, to Jesus, the church is his holy temple, a holy temple that is ordained for worship.

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Just a word of background about this, of course we know the Jews that were in Ephesus understood

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immediately the concept of a temple, because their whole faith revolved around that building

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in Jerusalem, that temple that was built by Solomon and then later reconstructed after

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the exile.

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The temple that was enhanced by Herod by the time of our Lord and his apostles, a temple

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that was a beautiful structure, a temple, a building in which God had said he would

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dwell.

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Sadly, hundreds of years before this, in the days of Ezekiel, the glory of God had

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departed from that building because of the disobedience of his people.

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But nonetheless, the temple was very important to them and to their faith, and it remains

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so today to the Jewish people, although they have no temple existing at this moment.

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They understood though when Paul was saying that the church is Christ's holy temple,

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he was saying that Jesus Christ is building a place for his dwelling.

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Now what about the Gentiles?

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Well likewise they understood what a temple was all about, even though they may never

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have seen the temple in Jerusalem.

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For they also worshiped in temples, in their pagan religions, and in the city of Ephesus

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there was one of the most magnificent of them all.

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It was a huge building of marble and precious metals.

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It had fountains and ponds and small lakes in conjunction with it, parks in conjunction

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with it.

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It was called the Temple of Diana, the Temple of Artemis.

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It was a lewd and sensuous place where vile kinds of things occurred, but it was a part

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of their pagan religion you see.

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So when the apostle picks on this theme of a temple, they too understood at least that

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a temple was where God met with people.

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It was where God dwelt.

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Here our Lord Jesus says that he is constructing a holy temple as he builds his church, a temple

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that is ordained for worship.

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The relationship between himself and the temple is very simple.

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He is the chief cornerstone.

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He is that critical piece without which the whole structure would collapse and be but

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a pile of rubble.

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He is the chief cornerstone.

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And although Paul does not use the term here, Peter does employ it later in referring to

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believers as living stones built upon that foundation of Jesus Christ.

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No longer do God's people go to a temple to worship, but God's people now are the temple

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of worship.

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If this is true, there are certain implications that we need to take note of.

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If it is true that the church is his holy temple, then it means that God personally

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resides in the corporate or the collective assembly of his people.

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We believe because the Bible teaches it that the body of the believer as an individual

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is a temple of God and he indwells us.

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But there is another marvelous aspect to this idea of a temple, and it is that when we come

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together as a body of people, we are collectively a temple of God.

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Just think of that.

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When we come together in this place, God is here.

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God resides in our midst, not in this building of cement block and steel and mortar.

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But God arrives here when you and I arrive, and he leaves here when you and I leave, because

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we are his temple, his dwelling place.

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That's a very significant thought.

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It's a brand new thought that is brought to us in the pages of the New Testament, that

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God does not dwell in a building made with hands, but he dwells in a building made of

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people who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

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Paul speaks about this again to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 3, and I just would like

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you to turn there and look at a couple of verses with me as he tells us what this means

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in this context.

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He talks about himself being a wise master builder and the foundation that he has laid

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at Corinth.

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But then he goes on to say in verse 16, Do you not know that you are a temple of God?

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He's talking to them now as a body of people, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you.

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If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is

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holy and that is what you are.

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Because God resides in us, this assembly of God's people must be respected.

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The writer of the Hebrews, for example, says that we are not to forsake the assembling

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of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but we are to be faithful in coming together

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because as we meet we become the temple of God.

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And now in Corinthians the apostle says that we must be careful not to in any way defile

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the temple of God by ungodly attitudes or actions within the church that would cause

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the church to be damaged.

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God forbid that any of us should do anything that would tear down what Jesus Christ is

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building up, that's the point.

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And there is even the strong warning to us here that if any of us engages in that kind

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of activity, that we bring ourselves under the direct judgment of God, for if we destroy

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the temple, God will destroy us.

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That is a serious charge, a serious warning.

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Jesus Christ said, I will build my church.

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The church to him is a holy temple.

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It is not common.

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It is not ordinary.

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It is not to be taken lightly what he is building.

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It's a holy temple, ordained for worship.

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And as a part of that temple, I must respect it.

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I must treat it with caution, with care, with consideration, because it is the Lord's holy

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temple.

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Now in Ephesians, if you'll turn to chapter 4 with me, we'll see that there is a second

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metaphor, another common one that we find not only in Ephesians, but in other parts

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of the New Testament.

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In fact, this is the most common one in Ephesians.

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It's the overarching metaphor or picture of the church.

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When we think about what Jesus Christ is building and what it means to him, we need to understand

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that he is building his spiritual body.

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Chapter 4, look in verse 4 where it simply says, there is one body and one spirit.

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For time's sake, let's go on down to verse 11.

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And he, Jesus, gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some

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as pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the

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building up of the body of Christ.

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What is he building?

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What is Jesus building?

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He is building his spiritual body.

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He speaks about the fact that we will someday all attain to the unity of the faith and of

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the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs

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to the fullness of Christ.

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He speaks then again in verse 15 of the fact that Jesus Christ is the head.

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He says in verse 16 then, from whom the whole body being fitted and held together by that

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which every joint supplies according to the proper working of each individual part causes

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the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

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What is Jesus building as he builds the church?

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He is building his spiritual body which is organized for service.

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The Holy Temple is ordained for worship.

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The spiritual body is organized for service.

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Now a word of background about this idea of the body.

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We realize of course that the knowledge of medicine and anatomy in that day as Paul wrote

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this was not developed as it is today.

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The famous Greek doctor, Dr. Galen, had not even lived at this point.

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I am his namesake.

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I asked my mother one time if she had ever heard of him.

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She said no and I am kind of grateful that I wasn't named after him because he did rather

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strange things.

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In order to learn about the body he would dig up cadavers from graveyards and he would

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dissect them to try to figure out how the body worked.

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There were those who said he was crazy.

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I just like to think he was ahead of his time but that is the kind of a guy he was.

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He had not even lived at this point.

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They did not know a lot about the body as to how it worked but the body was very important

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to these Greeks and Romans because they were very much into athletics.

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The Olympic games were played throughout the Roman Empire.

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In their major cities and including Ephesus they had buildings that were called gymnasiums

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where there was exercise and there were games held.

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They were very much into body building and to their frame of mind the human body as it

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was fully developed was a beautiful work of art.

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They captured that in some of the statues and so on from that day.

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To them the athletic coordination of the body was something to behold.

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These were familiar thoughts to them, not anatomy and physiology but athletics and athletic

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coordination.

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These were popular ideas and I believe that Paul was building on that idea from their

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background.

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He tells us here that Jesus is building a spiritual body.

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Jesus is in the body building too.

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The body that he is building is organized for service, it's coordinated.

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He expresses the relationship of Jesus to what he is building by the term head and members.

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Jesus Christ is the head, that part of the body that is responsible for all of its direction

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and for its coordination.

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The members, us, are attached to the head to carry out the will of the head.

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The body is to express the life of the head.

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Now there are certain implications in all of this if that's what Jesus is doing.

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For just as with the living body there is accountability, intentionality and adaptability

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so there is in the spiritual body.

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Think about the fact that a physical body has accountability.

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This body, this hand rather attached to this body can do something.

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It can do something to damage itself and when it does the rest of my body will hold it accountable.

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The body that you and I live in is a body that is accountable to itself.

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The same is true spiritually.

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For example right here in this context he tells us in verse 7 for example that grace

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is given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.

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Every member is gifted to serve says Paul.

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That's an important concept.

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Every member is gifted to serve, no exceptions to that.

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Furthermore every member is expected to serve as he tells us in verse 16 for example we

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are fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies according to the proper

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working of each individual part.

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So every member is gifted to serve and every member in the spiritual body of Christ is

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expected to serve.

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Just like those members in your physical body.

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They're all expected to participate in expressing your life.

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Furthermore he tells us that every member in the spiritual body is united to serve.

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Verse 13 the first part, till we all attain to the unity of the faith.

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Back in the first few verses of the chapter he tells us how that unity is attained.

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It is through humility, gentleness, patience, forbearance of one another in love.

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Being diligent to preserve the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace.

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It is the responsibility of the Holy Spirit to produce unity but it's the believers,

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the members responsibility to preserve the unity in the church.

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It's not God's, it's ours.

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And he can produce it but we must preserve it by the attitudes and actions that conform

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to what he talks about in these verses.

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The human body is a body of accountability and so is the spiritual body.

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We are gifted to serve, we are expected to serve, God has united us in the body to serve

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so let's serve.

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That's the point.

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Jesus Christ is building a spiritual body, his own spiritual body.

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A physical body has intentionality, it has a purpose.

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Your body is a vehicle for carrying out your decisions and your desires because you're

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the head.

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You make the decisions, it does what you want it to do most of the time.

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That changes as you get older.

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But the idea is that the body has some intention to it, there's a purpose to it, there's

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a function for it.

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The same is true of the spiritual body.

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It's to carry out the purpose of the head.

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And to bring that down to a local church, the job that you and I have is to find out

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what Jesus Christ, our head, wants us to be about and get doing it.

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The mission that he's given to us in the world.

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We are not here by accident, we are here by intention, by design.

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There's a function for us to fulfill.

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The human body is not only one of accountability and one of intentionality, but it's one of

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adaptability.

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The body can make amazing adaptations.

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When we moved here, we moved from Dallas, Texas where it was in the 70s and the 80s

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in January of 81, to the Twin Cities where it was a little lower than that.

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But we existed because our body adapted to it.

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Our blood began to adapt to the situation here and our skin, I guess, got thicker or

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whatever, and we lived through that first winter.

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I'm glad it was a mild one.

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The body is adaptable and so must the spiritual body be.

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We must acclimate ourselves to our circumstances.

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In the way that we carry out what God's called us to do, we have to be flexible.

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This brings us back to the terms that we used earlier in the year, form and function.

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You remember that?

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As a church, we need to decide what our functions are, what God's called us to do so that we

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can carry out the mission He's given us.

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But in the way that we carry that out, we have to be adaptable.

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We have to be flexible.

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We have to use the methods that work in our day.

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It's easy for us as a body to begin to get arthritis the older we get.

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We complain about little extra movements.

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I'm getting a little bit of arthritis and a couple of joints in my hands.

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These joints don't particularly like some of the movements that I make anymore.

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That's kind of the way we get as the body of Christ if we're not careful.

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We get arthritic.

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What I've got is called degenerative arthritis.

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It's not rheumatoid, thankfully.

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That's the kind of arthritis the body of Christ sometimes gets.

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Disnerative arthritis.

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Things are done a little differently.

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There's an ouch and an oh and a gripe and a complaint.

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These things ought not to be.

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The body of Jesus Christ has to be adaptable if it's going to carry out the function,

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the purpose given to it by its head, Jesus Christ.

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We can say this very clearly that a body that does not express what the head wants is a

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body that is diseased or disabled.

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We have examples of that just right within our own church of people who are very much

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alive and whose head is all together.

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Yet the head, because of disease or because of damage to a spinal column, the body does

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not do any longer what the head tells it to do.

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That is so tragic when it happens spiritually.

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When the spiritual body that Jesus is building no longer responds to the head, oh, may God

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help us to be a healthy body as a church.

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What is Jesus doing?

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He is building his church.

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When he does that, he is building a holy temple that is ordained for worship.

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God resides in our midst.

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As he builds his church, he is building his spiritual body that is organized for service

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to carry out his purpose in the world, calling others to be saved, to come out of darkness

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into light, to find eternal life in Christ as he is building the church finally.

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He is building and putting together his chosen bride.

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That's the third picture we want to look at in chapter 5.

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I'll just read a couple of verses in this chapter.

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Verse 25 says, Husbands, love your wives.

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Jesus Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify

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her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present

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to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but

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that she should be holy and blameless.

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The church is Jesus' chosen bride, originated for union.

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That's the purpose of it.

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Just as marriage is to bring together a man and a woman into oneness, these two become

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one flesh.

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So Jesus Christ is building a romance partner, his bride, his chosen bride, which is originated

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in his holy design for union with himself.

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It might be helpful just to remember briefly the background, the oriental background of

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this concept.

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Marriages in that day were arranged, you recall, and dowries were paid by the bridegroom to

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the bride's father.

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In order that the bridegroom might receive the bride, notice what the dowry price was

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here in this case.

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He gave himself up.

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He gave himself up for her.

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That was the dowry price that we might be brought into this union with him.

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This relationship with him is expressed in this case not as a cornerstone and a living

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stone.

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It's expressed here not as the head and the member, but here it's expressed as the bridegroom

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or the husband and the bride or the wife.

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We have the initiator and we have the responder.

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That's the relationship in this blessed union.

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If in fact this is what Jesus is building, if this is true, then there are a couple of

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implications that need to be examined.

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We need to say first of all that romance is the heart of his relationship to us.

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It's not just that we are some stone in a building or we are some functioning member

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in a body, but the heart of his relationship with us is found in love.

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It is found in romance.

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It is found in oneness with himself.

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Love is the heart of his relationship.

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Just as in a marriage, love can cool, so it can happen in the chosen bride.

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Christ's love cannot cool for us, but it's possible for our love for him to cool.

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In fact that's exactly what happened to the Ephesians.

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These very people who received this letter for about 30 some years later, Jesus sends

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a little note to them through the apostle John and he says, look I know all about the

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good things that are happening there and the works you're doing and the many pluses that

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are on your side, but I have something against you.

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You have left your first love.

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You've laid aside the intensity of that initial love, the fervency of the love is gone.

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It's possible for that relationship to our bridegroom to deteriorate to external motions

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rather than developing internal emotions.

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In other words we go through all of the right routines and we say the right words, but somehow

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inside, in the heart, the love cools.

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It is possible for the fire to go out.

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We need to be aware of anything that would drain the energy from our love for Jesus Christ

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or which would attempt to replace it.

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Jesus is rightly jealous for our order, our devotion.

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I say he is rightly jealous because he is our bridegroom and we have become one with

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him spiritually.

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Jesus Christ is building his chosen bride, originated for union.

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The heart of our relationship with him is romance.

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How's the romance coming?

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Jesus said I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.

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As he builds his church, he is in the first place building a holy temple, a temple that

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is ordained for worship.

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And he is building a spiritual body that is organized for service.

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He is building a chosen bride, a bride that is originated for union with himself.

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That's what he's doing and that's what he will accomplish.

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The church means so much to Jesus that he gave himself for it.

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But I think it's an appropriate question to ask us, what are we giving for the church?

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We who are a part of this body.

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If the church means this much to Jesus, what does the church mean to you, to me?

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Is it to you a holy temple, something to be respected?

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Are you careful not to do anything to damage it or to defile it because it is a holy temple?

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Do you gather with other believers faithfully, assembling to worship the one who is the chief

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cornerstone of our church?

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Is the church to you a spiritual body in which you are a contributing member and a healthy

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member?

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Is the church to you a chosen bride in which there is love that is deepening, love that

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is growing, becoming more intense?

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Jesus is involved in a very serious project in this age, building his church.

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Of all the things that you and I might be involved in, and the options are multitude,

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there is nothing that can surpass our involvement in being a part of what he is building in

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the world tonight.

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Let's pray.

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What is your part in what God is doing?

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Are you a living stone in the body that is being fitted into place in this holy temple?

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Are your attitudes and actions such that the temple is being built up and not torn down

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by your presence in the church?

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Are you an active, healthy, involved member utilizing your gifts, serving Jesus Christ,

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using what he has given you to carry out his desire as your head?

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Are you responding to him in love these days, or are you just going through the motions?

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After so many years, it has become a habit.

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It's an outward form that may not conform to the real reality inside of you.

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What is that reality?

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Is it love?

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Or would Jesus say to you, as he did to the church at Ephesus, you sure look good, but

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the love has gone out?

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Tonight's the night to understand what Jesus has promised to do and to get on board in

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every way.

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Lord Jesus, I pray that we will be faithful living stones in this temple that you are

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constructing and that we will be fit, a pure body, a fit body for worship.

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We might recognize that when we come together, you are here and you reside in us.

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I pray that we will be a healthy, spiritual organism carrying out the purpose and the

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function that you've given to us as our head.

401
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I pray that we will be a faithful, loving bride.

402
00:36:11,160 --> 00:36:13,520
Warm our hearts.

403
00:36:13,520 --> 00:36:18,800
Correct our attitudes and actions.

404
00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:24,100
Bring our steps back to the right way if that needs to be done so that we will be working

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00:36:24,100 --> 00:36:28,800
with you in what you're building in this age.

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Just before we close in prayer, I want to give you an opportunity to respond personally

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00:36:32,720 --> 00:36:44,000
just right where you're seated to say, Lord, have your way in my life.

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I haven't been cooperating with you.

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I've been resistant to you.

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I heal myself.

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I surrender myself afresh.

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Do that right now.

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Make ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto

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you.

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Hallelujah, hallelujah.

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Let's stand together, please.

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Now our Lord, our risen Lord, as we depart from this time of instruction and this time

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of worship as a body of people and we go our ways, we ask your blessing upon each person

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and each family unit.

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Work in our lives according to your most holy purposes and desires this week and draw us,

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we pray, after yourself to love you more, to serve you better.

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In Jesus' name, amen.