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Thank you, Mark and Clara.

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Would you open your Bibles with me, please, to 1 Corinthians chapter 12, as we think again

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today about our theme, the New You.

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Before we can live our lives with joy and satisfaction, I believe that we must discover

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who we are and why we are here.

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We get little help regarding those questions from the dominant culture around us.

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The dominant culture in our society has really no answer at all for the questions, who am

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I and why am I here?

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Because of the lack of answers, there is despair which has taken root in our culture.

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Is it not absolutely amazing that one of the leading causes of death in young men and women

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is suicide?

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Think of that.

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So much hopelessness regarding life, so lack of an understanding of who they are and of

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God's purpose for their lives that they determine to kill themselves.

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The fact that there are few answers in our society is seen in the fact that four years

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ago a Professor Margaret Batten from Stanford University suggested that in fact we ought

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to do the kind thing and help teenagers commit suicide if they think that that would be the

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benefit, the most beneficial thing for them.

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Despair comes from a lack of answers to these basic questions.

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Along with despair comes a devaluing of human life which we see in abortion, in the gradual

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progress of euthanasia, and in the growing movement to assist in suicide.

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We see it as well in the alarming increase in the murder rate.

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Do you notice the news from our own area and how almost every day at least one person and

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often several people have been killed because of the violence in our society?

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The dominant culture has no answers.

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In addition to a devaluation of human life and despair, a result of that is devastation

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in our environment.

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We live in a world that is becoming increasingly abused and misused.

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We are literally killing ourselves because of our abuse of the environment.

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But if after all there are no answers as to ultimate meaning in our culture, then why

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should we be concerned about the environment?

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And coming out of this lack of answers also is a decay of order, a decay of the moral

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base upon which we have historically built our society.

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The dominant culture today has no answers for the meaning of life.

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This is indeed sad and tragic because in past generations the answer, the question of meaning

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has been taught in the homes, in the churches, and in the educational institutions of America.

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But by and large not so today.

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In the past we have learned early in life that each of us is a special creation of God,

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that we are not an accident of evolutionary chance.

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In the past we have been taught that each life has God given value and meaning that

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supersedes sickness or deformity.

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In the past we have been taught that each one of us will be accountable to God, the

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Creator, for the actions of his life that is not being taught anymore.

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The dominant culture in our society has no answers to the questions of identity and meaning.

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But from the Bible, the Word of God, we learn that the infinite, personal God who created

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and sustains all things, this God, entered the world of time and space.

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And that he did so with a wondrous purpose.

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You see humanity having chosen to rebel and to live in sin needed a Savior.

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And so this infinite, personal God came into the world in the person of his Son, Jesus

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Christ, to rescue us sinners from the hell that we deserve.

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And so he offered himself as a sacrifice for humankind's sin.

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He suffered on our behalf.

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He died.

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And he rose again from the dead so that he could save any one of us who would come to

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him in simple repentance and faith.

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When you and I trust in Jesus Christ, we then become children of God and we receive a new

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identity.

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Before that, we were identified with Adam, the first man, in his sin and transgression

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against God and in the death that he inherited because of his sin.

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And now in Jesus Christ we have been identified with him, with him in his life and in his

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righteousness.

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Before we were identified as sinful, now we are identified as forgiven in the sight of

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God.

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Before we were saved, we were separated from God.

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But now we are related to God through faith in Christ.

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This new identity that you and I have is described in the New Testament with a number of different

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word pictures and one of them is in our text.

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We'll read 1 Corinthians 12, beginning in verse 12.

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For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body,

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though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.

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For by one spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether

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slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one spirit.

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In this text we learn that one of the word pictures that describes our new identity and

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purpose is members of the body.

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The new you is described by God as if you were a limb or an organ in a physical body,

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except that the body mentioned here is a spiritual body, real but spiritual in nature.

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The last time that we came to this text we saw that in this regard the new you is an

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addition to the body.

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You were added onto the body that began on the day of Pentecost.

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On that very day the Lord added several thousand to the initial body, and since that day, 2,000

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years ago, he has been adding one at a time new members of the body.

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If you have trusted Jesus Christ, you have been added to the body.

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We learn that that addition was a past addition.

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You were baptized, he says, into one body.

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That is placed into the body by the Holy Spirit.

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It was a permanent addition.

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In other words, you have been placed into Jesus Christ's body once and for all.

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You cannot be placed into his body again.

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It is never necessary to be placed into it again, because once and for all that has happened

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to you.

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We learn that it is a purposed addition.

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In other words, you were assigned a place in the body of God's choosing.

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As it says, for example, in verse 18 of this chapter, God has placed the members, each

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one of them, in the body just as he desired.

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So you were a purposed addition.

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You were not an accident, but God, in his saving grace, brought you to faith in Jesus

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Christ.

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Now, according to the gifts and the calling of God in your life, he places you into the

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body to fit just where he wants you to.

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God is still adding to the body today.

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You see, church growth is God's idea.

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It is not man's idea.

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God wants us to be a growing church, growing by reaching out and touching the lives of

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people who do not today know Jesus Christ, but who can come to know him, as we share

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the gospel with them and the Spirit of God does his work in their hearts.

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Last Sunday we were challenged to that very theme of sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ,

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and many hundreds of us stood, indicating that we were going to be involved by God's

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grace and with his help and his courage in our hearts in getting the gospel out.

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Let me just pass on to you that tracts should be available today out in the lobby.

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They've been printed by one of the men in our church who's a printer, and we encourage

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you to take them.

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They have our church's name on the back of them.

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I think I should point out to you that through a misunderstanding with Sumner Wimp and the

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printer, my name was put on here as though I were the author of these two tracts.

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I did not write my tracts that fast.

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Last week, you remember, he said that when I got my heart right, I would write a couple

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of tracts, and my heart isn't that right yet, I guess.

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At least I haven't written them.

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But it's going to be corrected on the next printing.

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But Sumner said we could go ahead and use these tracts nonetheless, and we want to encourage

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you to pick them up and to use them and pass them out.

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Share the gospel with people, wherever you go.

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God is still today adding to the body, desiring that other men and women might come to faith

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in Christ, and you and I are a part of that whole process.

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Now today, I want us to think about the fact that the new you is not only an addition to

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the body, but also an extension of the head of the body.

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The word head is not used right here in the text that's before us, but it is used a number

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of times in the New Testament in connection with the members of the body.

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I'd like for you to look at a couple of them with me.

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Turn with me to Ephesians, chapter 1.

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At the end of the first chapter, the apostle says regarding our glorious Lord Jesus Christ,

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that the Father put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him, that's Christ,

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

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In other words, God has given us a gift, and that gift is a head.

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Jesus Christ is the head over all things to the church.

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We can turn over a page or two to chapter 4, where we have a more lengthy paragraph

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regarding all of this.

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Let me just pick it up in verse 12, where it says, for the equipping of the saints for

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the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.

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In other words, he's saying that all of us are being equipped to do the ministry that

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the body of Christ might be built up.

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That means added to and also strengthened.

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He says, until we all come to the unity of the faith, and to the knowledge of the Son

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

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of Christ, as a result we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves,

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and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men by craftiness and deceitful

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scheming, but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects in him who

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is the head, even Christ, 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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Then again in chapter 5, verse 23, the Apostle is here talking to wives and to husbands regarding

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our relationship together in Christ in our marriages.

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He tells us something about our roles, and he says, wives, be subject to your husbands

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as to the Lord.

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He says the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church,

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he himself being the Savior of the body, as the church is subject to Christ.

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Once again in this epistle, Paul speaks about this matter of the headship of Jesus Christ.

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You see the new you, who you are, is an extension of the head, Jesus Christ.

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You have been added to the body, and you are an extension of him in the world.

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This word head, word kethelai, is a word that in the Greek anthropology, we'll get around

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a minute, in Greek anthropology, meant the authority, that which takes precedence over

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all of the other members.

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When Paul was using this term the head, he was thinking of the fact that the head is

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in control of the body, that it has all authority over the members of it.

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And of course he's using our physical bodies as an analogy.

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Someone said to me one time, do you want to lose ten pounds of ugly fat?

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And I said, sure.

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I said, cut off your head.

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I said, thanks.

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The problem is, if we cut off our heads and lose that ten pounds of substance, the result

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is that our whole body dies, because our heart, our lungs, our kidneys, our intestines, everything

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about us is controlled by the brain that's in the head.

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The head has authority over it.

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It dominates the body.

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It's in control of the body.

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And that's exactly what Paul wants us to understand regarding Jesus Christ.

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He is in control of his body.

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He is the one who has all authority in the body, Jesus Christ.

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And we are an extension of him, just as my hand is an extension of my mind and I wiggle

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my fingers, not because my fingers decide to wiggle, but because my brain is right now

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telling them to.

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You see, it's in control of my hand.

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And so you and I are like that.

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We're extensions of the head.

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We are to live in this world, but under the control and the domination of him who is the

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head.

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A couple ramifications of this.

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The whole body functions as an expression of the head's likeness.

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Have you ever noticed that your foot has the same personality as your hand?

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Have you ever noticed that?

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It doesn't have an independent identity.

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Have you ever noticed that your eyes have the same personality as your big toe?

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Not two different personalities, the same.

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Why is that?

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Because your whole body is an extension of you, of you.

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The same personality in the whole thing, good or bad, whichever, is still the same personality.

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Your body is the extension of you in the world.

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It's the expression of your life.

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It's who you are as it relates to this physical realm, and so it is with the body of Jesus

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Christ.

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We are an expression of him in the world.

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He himself is in heaven.

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He is seated at the right hand of God the Father in his glorified body, but he still

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expresses himself in the world through you because you're a member of his body.

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The implication of that is that you're not to be your own person.

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You're not to be somehow distinct from him because you are an expression of his life

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on planet earth.

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There's a song that's been written that says something like this.

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You are the only Jesus most people will ever see.

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The world today only sees Jesus as they see him in you in the expression of his life through

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you.

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You are a member of his body.

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Not only so, but the whole body of Jesus Christ functions in subjection to the head's direction.

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We function as an expression of his life, but we also function in this world in subjection

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to the head's direction.

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Someone may say, but I can be a Christian and do my own thing, can't I?

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Not if you're going to be healthy.

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If my leg decides to do its own thing, I've got a problem.

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Let's suppose that I want to walk.

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My brain says, leg, go out there so I can walk, but my leg is paralyzed.

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It will not cooperate with my head.

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What do we say about my body?

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We say it's ill.

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We say it's disabled.

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We say it's diseased.

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Any of those things might be true.

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And so what do we say about the body of Jesus Christ when the members of the body will not

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be in subjection to the head?

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We say that's normal 20th century Christianity.

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That's what we say.

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But the Bible says it's diseased Christianity.

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It's disabled Christianity.

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When the body of Jesus Christ is not in subjection to its head, the head expresses his will through

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the members of the body.

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How does Jesus Christ mediate his headship to us?

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How do we know what the brain, the mind, the person, the headship of Christ desires of

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us as members?

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After all, he is in heaven, and I'm here in St. Paul, Minnesota.

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So how do I know what he wants?

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Well, the answer to that is not hard.

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The answer is that he communicates to me through the word of God and the Holy Spirit.

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That is the nervous system, shall we say.

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That's how the head communicates to me as a member, his word and the ministry of the

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Holy Spirit in my heart.

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That's how I learn what he wants me to do.

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Now we can think of that on a corporate level as members of the body here.

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You see, the body of Christ is universal.

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It's also local.

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It's eternal, but it's also present right here and now in our church.

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Grace Church Roseville is one expression of the body of Christ in the world.

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There are many thousands of others.

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How does he tell us as a body of people what he wants us to do?

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How does he lead us as a body of people?

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The answer is the same.

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It's through his word and through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

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There is another factor involved in speaking of the body, us together, and that is that

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God has chosen to also include in this whole communication system a body of appointed people

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that are called elders.

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We strongly believe in the priesthood of every believer, but we also believe in the ministry

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of elders in a local church.

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You see, Jesus Christ never designed the body to be a democracy.

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We grow up thinking that democracy is the strongest form of government, and it is from

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man's perspective.

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From God's perspective, it's the weakest.

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From God's perspective, the strongest form of government is called a theocracy, where

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he directly rules over man.

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The church is a theocracy.

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Jesus Christ is the head of the body.

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On a human level, he mediates his direction in the church in part through the elders of

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the church, to whom he commits the rule, the oversight, the shepherding of the body.

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That's an important concept for us to grasp.

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Some of us come out of backgrounds where we are used to members voting on every decision

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in the church, and we have picked that up because of our culture.

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That is an inculturated practice.

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It is not a biblical practice.

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Certainly, we all have opinions, and there are times when all of us can voice those and

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should voice them.

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But in the process of carrying out the ministry of the body, Jesus Christ has established

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a body of men, elders, who are godly and who are responsible to him.

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I want to repeat that, who are responsible to him for their work.

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And so as you include people on your prayer list, if there's anybody you ought to be praying

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for, it's the elders of your local church, because of the awesome responsibility they

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have to God to understand and mediate the will of Jesus Christ in the carrying out of

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the ministry and the growth and the development of this body of believers.

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That's how he talks to us as a body.

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He talks to us individually too, our head.

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How does he do that?

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Well, through the word and through the Holy Spirit.

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But how do I receive it?

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The answer is through prayer.

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I will only understand the will of God for my life as I spend time with him in prayer.

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How much time do you spend with Jesus in prayer?

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How much time is there on your knees?

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How committed are you to this privilege, the practice of prayer?

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If I have a member of my body that will not listen to my head, that member of the body

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is unhealthy.

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If I as a member of the body of Jesus Christ am not praying in communion with the head

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of the body, Jesus Christ, through prayer, and if I'm not allowing his word and his

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Holy Spirit to direct my life, then to that extent I am an unhealthy member of the body.

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The new you is an extension of the head of the body, Jesus Christ.

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You are an expression of his life in the world.

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You are the only Jesus that many will ever see.

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And you function in subjection, hopefully, to his headship.

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In Romans chapter 14 we are reminded that as members of the body of Christ we don't

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live to ourselves, we don't die to ourselves.

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That is, we have to take others in the body into account, while at the same time remembering

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that one day we'll stand before the head and give account of our lives.

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So then every one of us will appear, will stand, will be manifested before the judgment

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seat of Jesus Christ.

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You see the position that God has given us in the world is a position with which comes

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accountability.

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And someday we will tell him and share with him how we have lived in this world as a member

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of the body.

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How we have functioned as an expression of his life and how we have functioned in subjection

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to his direction.

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So then every one of us will give account, not of everyone else in the body, but of himself

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to Christ.

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You know there are some real benefits not being the head.

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Because I am not the head I don't have to direct my own life.

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I can depend upon him to give me direction.

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Because I am not the head I am not responsible to give other people direction.

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He gives them direction.

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Because I am not the head all I have to do is to listen and to obey.

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It is really very simple but also hard.

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I don't know whether you have seen the film Hoosiers that was put out several years ago

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about an Indiana basketball team.

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A new coach comes to town who brings a new regime, a new way of doing things.

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The very first thing he has to do is get his team under control.

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And so early on in the film a couple of the stars of the team of seven people are kicked

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off the team because they would not be in subjection to the coach.

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They wanted to do their own thing.

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And with six or seven players the team went on into the season.

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And the very star player of the team who was left was benched in a critical game at a crucial

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moment because he refused to do what the coach told him to do.

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You see the coach is the head of the team.

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The authority for how to play the game is in his hands.

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The team members don't have to worry about the game plan.

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All they have to worry about is doing what the coach tells them to do.

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They don't have to worry about whether they win or lose.

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Oh, they care.

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But it's the coach's responsibility to plan and to play that game in such a way that the

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team wins.

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And so it is with the head of the body, Jesus Christ.

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He is the one who is ultimately responsible.

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What we have to do is to trust and obey.

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Martha Snell Nicholson is written a poem that talks about the final accounting that we will

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each have.

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She pictures herself before the judgment seat on that day as she writes,

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When I stand at the judgment seat of Christ, and he shows me his plan for me, the plan

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of my life as it might have been had he had his way with me, and I see how I blocked him

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here and I checked him there, and I would not yield my will, will there be grief in

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my Savior's eyes, grief though he loves me still, he would have me rich, and I stand

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there poor, stripped of all but his grace, while memory runs like a hunted thing down

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the paths I cannot retrace.

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Then my desolate heart will well nigh break with tears that I cannot shed.

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I shall cover my face with empty hands, I shall bow my uncrowned head.

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Then she prays, Lord of the years that are left to me, I give them to thy hand.

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Take me and break me.

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Mold me now to the pattern thou hast planned.

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Let us pray together.

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The Bible gives us an answer, my friend, as to your identity and to your meaning in life

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if you are a child of God.

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You are a member of the body and your purpose in the world is to be an extension of Jesus

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Christ, to be an expression of his love and his kindness and joy.

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Your purpose is to be in subjection to his will.

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He's the head, he's the authority.

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Does that describe where you are living today?

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Are you living in subjection to him?

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Is he truly the Lord of your life?

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Is your life an expression of what Jesus is like to those around you?

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Let's talk to the Lord about that.

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Let's acknowledge to him where we need to confess.

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Look for your seat and tell him about it.

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And sing with me these words if they come from your heart.

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Otherwise, do not sing them.

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Have thine own way, Lord, have thine own way.

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Thou art the potter, I am the clay.

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And make me after thy will.

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While I am waiting, yielded and still.

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Would you stand together with me, please?

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With our heads bowed and before we go, will you determine in your heart by the grace of

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God to be a faithful member of the body of Jesus Christ this week and to live in a living,

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vital communion with your head, Jesus Christ?

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Father, may that be the desire of our hearts.

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May it be the fulfillment of our lives.

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You are the Lord of the years that are left to us, and I pray that each of us will determine

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by your grace to live so that when the time comes that we stand at that judgment seat

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as members of the body we can give a good account and know that we have been a faithful

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extension of our Lord Jesus Christ in this world.

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Now send us out, I pray, on our way this week with the joy that should come to us as we

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realize that privilege.

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In Jesus' name, amen.

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The Lord be with you and bless you.

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We're dismissed.