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As we think today regarding our mission as a local church, as has been suggested to us

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already this morning, God is surely doing something very special and wonderful in our

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midst.

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Many people, I believe, since this, God's fresh working is being discussed in the hallways

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and groups among individuals who speak together.

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Comments and comments that have been received from some of you seem to confirm what many

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are believing, that God is moving, touching, healing, restoring, challenging, and awakening

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us as a church to a new era in God's purpose for us.

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God loves to bless us.

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God has blessed us in Jesus Christ with every spiritual blessing, says chapter 1 and verse 3.

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He loves to make those blessings real and manifested in our midst.

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He delights to demonstrate his goodness and his grace to us.

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I'm interested in the last verse of chapter 1 which says,

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And God put all things in subjection under Christ's feet, and gave him as head over all things to the church,

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which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

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While we have earlier in the service acknowledged some of the more tangible, visible measurements

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of God's working in our midst, personally I find the most exciting thing to be what

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God is doing in our hearts spiritually.

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The increasing desire to witness that is seen in our congregation, the use of tracts that

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have been printed with our church's name on them, passing those out in the community.

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You say, people are doing that?

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Yes.

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And we get all kinds of reactions.

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I had a note from one person who wrote back and said,

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You really believe all this bleep?

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And then sent along a track of his own produced by a group of atheists down in Madison, Wisconsin.

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You can't expect everyone to read a track and say, oh thank God for this, but at least

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that person read it and the truth is there in his heart even though initially his response

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was one of rejection.

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In recent weeks, Pastor Sulak has asked many of you, all of us in fact, to share the names

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of people that we're praying for and witnessing to.

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And many of you have responded.

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In fact, over 60 individuals and families have responded with names of people that they're

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actively burdened for and praying for and witnessing to, representing well over a hundred

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individuals that now many of us are praying for.

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God is also increasing the burden in our church to work for the Lord Jesus in a variety of

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ministries.

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As Emily, for example, has been seeking to find people to help out in the children's

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ministry, there have been some people who have not been involved before who said, I

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want to do something and I want to do that or I'll try that.

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That kind of a spirit, that kind of a heart, I believe, is the evidence of God working

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in our midst and I find that very exciting.

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Attitudes of obedience and faith seen in so many ways.

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So many are allowing God to bring a new wholeness to their lives where there's been, because

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of events recent and in some cases events far past, where there's been brokenness and

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deep hurt and disappointment.

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But there's been a new openness with God and a new healing of heart and of mind and

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a wholeness that is now being experienced spiritually.

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That's exciting to me.

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A growing sense of waiting upon God that is developing in our church.

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Not talked about a lot.

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I don't think that can be promoted.

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I believe the spirit of God must cause that kind of a thing to grow naturally.

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But there is an increasing desire in our church to wait upon God and to pray.

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A few weeks ago at another one of our Friday night all church prayer meetings there were

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more than 30 people who gathered and spent an hour and a half praying over a variety

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of needs.

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And as you know these are happening now with some regularity in our church.

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And people are invited just to come and pray.

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And more people than ever before in our history are doing that.

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And I believe God is stirring us.

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That God is preparing us as a people for greater things than we have known yet in our 11 years.

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Certainly the opportunities for ministry today are greater than they've ever been.

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When we look out into the society around us and we see the hurt and we see the crashed

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hopes and dreams of people.

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And we see the fractures in families.

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And we see the disappointment of parents and the heartbreak of children.

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We see increasing abuse and disillusionment.

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All of that speaks to greater opportunities that we have as the people of God to minister

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in the name of Jesus Christ.

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Opportunities abound today.

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It's true that society has always had its problems and that the only answer has always

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been Jesus.

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But the fact is today society has gone through a lot of the answers it thought it had for

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its problems.

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And it's coming up dry.

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And there are places in this country where in fact social institutions are turning to

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the church, the true church of Jesus Christ, and they're saying, what are you doing?

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It's working there.

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You see this in big cities where Christians have banded together sometimes as groups of

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churches, sometimes as bands of believers, small groups.

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And they've started ministries in inner city situations.

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And there's tremendous result from that.

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And sincere and disillusioned social workers look at that and they say, what we're doing

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isn't working.

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What are you doing that's making a difference?

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Today opportunities abound for us, and I believe that's why God is stirring freshly in our

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midst.

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God is not stirring us just to give us a spiritual high.

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God is stirring us to prepare us for the work of the mission that he's given to us, because

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God does have a work for us to do.

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God is a God of intentionality.

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What I mean by that is that he does what he does with design, aim, and purpose.

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Nothing he does is ever done haphazardly or arbitrarily.

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God does what he does with intention.

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It is true with the creation of the universe.

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God intended for that creation to point out to humanity that he exists and something about

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his greatness.

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When God created mankind, it was with a purpose that we in distinction to all of the rest

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of creation might bear the image of God and as his viceroys rule over his creation.

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There was purpose in it.

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When God called Israel out as a nation, he had a purpose in that.

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In Exodus 19 he tells us that it was that Israel might be his special people to declare

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to the nations of the earth God's truth and to be the human progenitors of the Messiah.

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Everything is purposed ultimately for the glory of God.

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I think we recognize that.

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God's own glory is the overarching purpose of everything that he does.

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In fact, we can say that the most gracious thing that God can do is to glorify himself.

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There is nothing that is selfish about God doing that.

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When God glorifies himself, he in fact is bringing to his creatures the greatest happiness

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we can know.

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For when God is glorified, God's creatures find great happiness and joy and fulfillment

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in knowing God.

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Just as the creation and humanity and Israel are examples of God's intentionality, so is

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the church.

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The church that we just read about here in the book of Ephesians.

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God has a purpose for the church being in the world.

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The church is created with a design and a mission to accomplish.

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For the last year, I have been seeking to build a foundation that would bring us to

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the next three weeks.

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Last spring we talked about the God that we worship.

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We sought to discover, freshly for our hearts, what God is like in his person.

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Who is this God that we worship in all of his glory and majesty?

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Who is he?

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Through the summer months we talked about the good gifts of God.

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What God has given to us, what God has done for us because of who he is.

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Through the fall and then past Christmas time into the month of January, we've talked about

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who we are because of who God is and what he's done.

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Who are we now?

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And we've talked about the new you.

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We've said that we are members of the body and ambassadors for Christ.

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And we are a holy priesthood.

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And we are chosen disciples.

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Who are we?

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Well, hopefully now we have something of a better grasp of that.

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But we are who we are so that we might do in this world what God has called us to do.

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That is the mission that God has sent us on.

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I'd like for us to think back to 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 9.

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And just remember what is said in that significant verse of identity telling us who we are.

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You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession.

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That, now he's going to give the purpose.

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He says, here is who you are.

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And he lists several of the names, some of them we've studied together.

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He says, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness

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in this marvelous light.

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What is the purpose for which we have been called as the people of God?

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It is so that we might proclaim the excellencies of the one who has called us.

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That we might make him known, that we might declare him to the world, and in doing that,

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bring glory to God.

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The purpose of the church is to do exactly that, to proclaim Jesus Christ to the world.

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And each local church needs to be able to translate that idea into its own context.

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What does that mean to Grace Church Roseville?

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How can we, as a local expression of the church, be what God intended us to be?

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As your leadership has sought to struggle with that issue, who are we as a church?

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What are we here for?

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We've come up with a statement.

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It's not divinely inspired.

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It's not infallible.

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It's the kind of a statement that will surely be adjusted and changed as our context changes.

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But for right now, it's a statement that identifies us and what our mission is.

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It's found in your worship folder today, right in the middle page at the very top of it.

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And it says there, Grace Church Roseville is a community of believers whose purpose

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is to worship the Lord Jesus Christ and prepare itself through biblical instruction, service,

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and fellowship in order to evangelize the world.

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I want to talk about that this morning.

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As you can see, there is a diagram there and some other statements that we're going to

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get to in the next week or two.

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But I want us to think about that philosophical statement of mission that I've just read and

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which you can read in your worship folder.

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We need to ask several questions about this statement.

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The first one is, is it biblical?

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We have a mission, and we have at least philosophically outlined it in this statement.

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But is it biblical?

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Will it pass muster when it's tested by the Word of God?

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Well, I believe the answer to that is yes, or it wouldn't be there.

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But let's think about it in light of the Bible.

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It begins by saying that we are a community of believers.

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Is that biblical?

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Well, of course it is.

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In fact, in this very book that we're looking at, Ephesians, in the second chapter, the

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apostle doesn't use the word community, but he certainly describes what it means.

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You see, a community has been defined, at least by one dictionary, as a society of people

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having common rights or privileges or common interests.

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It's a group of people who have something in common.

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That's why it's called a community.

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It's a group of people who have something in common.

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In the second chapter of Ephesians, Paul relates how God has taken the Gentiles and the Jews,

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who had absolutely no use for each other.

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There was hostility and separation and warfare between them.

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And now in Jesus Christ, in this new community that we are, he has united them.

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He has brought us together as the people of God.

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You can see all kinds of phrases and words that identify that.

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It says in verse 14, he himself is our peace who made both groups into one.

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He broke down the barrier of the dividing wall.

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Verse 16, that he might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross.

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Verse 18, through him we both, Jew and Gentile, have our access in one spirit to the Father.

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He says no longer strangers and aliens, fellow citizens rather, with the saints of God's

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family, God's household.

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Yes, I think we can say God's community.

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

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

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temple in the Lord.

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You see how God has brought together diverse things and made them one?

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God is still doing that today in every local church.

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For every church is a diverse body.

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There are differences amongst us.

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And God's plan is not that we be uniform, that we all march to the same exact beat.

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Because God has made us differently than that.

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But God has given us a commonality.

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God has provided through the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ something that holds us

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together.

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And what that is, spiritually speaking, is the Holy Spirit who indwells me and you and

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you and you and you and all of us who know Christ, so that we are one body spiritually.

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But in sense of mission, we are held together by the realization we have a common purpose

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in the world.

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Now we have different jobs, different vocations, we live in different places, different standings

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in the world, but the fact is that we all have one basic mission given to us by Jesus

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Christ.

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We have a commonality about us that God has built into us because we are believers in

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the Lord Jesus Christ.

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We share a profound bond in Him and in the purpose that He has given to us.

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Now as we think about the church, this community of believers, there are lots of things that

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might be said about us, many ideas about what we're to do because we are the church.

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We've tried to boil all of those ideas down into two that are essential.

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If we're going to be the church, these two things must happen in our midst.

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Number one, we must be a people who worship.

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We must be a people who worship the Lord Jesus Christ.

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If we do not do that, we are adulterers, spiritually speaking.

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For we are married to Him as a body of people.

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He is our husband and we come together to worship Him.

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As a church, we must worship, that is part of our mission.

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We are called a holy priesthood by God.

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Priests are to offer sacrifices to God and to worship God as part of what we're about.

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If we don't worship, we're not the church.

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We can get together for services, we can sign statements, we can pass budgets, we can talk

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about things we want to do, but if we don't worship, we have lost our mission at the very

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first step.

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We must be a worshiping people.

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Are you enjoying worship these days?

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Many of you are, who've given feedback that the worship is alive and real to you, very

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meaningful.

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But let me tell you something, it doesn't just happen here on Sunday morning for half

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an hour or 40 minutes.

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Worship is something that we cultivate in our lives through the week.

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And get this, because it happens in our lives on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday

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and Friday and Saturday, when we get together on Sunday, it's really meaningful.

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That's really what worship is all about.

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It's a daily thing.

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It's living in Christ's presence every day of the week, and then gathering with other

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believers to share that joy of Jesus Christ.

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If you really want to get a lot out of the worship services here on Sunday, then begin

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on Monday to prepare for it.

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So that when Sunday comes, your heart is overflowing with praise to God.

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And we gather together and we all overflow, all over each other, and God is pleased.

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And God is blessed.

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God inhabits the praises of His people.

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We are a worshiping people.

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And it must begin there.

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That's the life, that's the heartbeat of the church worship.

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But there's a whole lot more.

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We've tried to condense that and make it as simple as possible.

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And we've said to be the church, we not only have to worship, but we have to be prepared.

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We have to prepare ourselves to be the people of God.

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How do we do that?

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Well, we mention some ways here in the statement.

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Through biblical instruction.

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Whether it be here in the service, or it be in the small church, or the Sunday school

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class, or in Juana, or whatever else happens in the programs of the church, biblical instruction

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is probably a part of that somewhere.

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We are prepared to be the people of God by being taught the Bible, the Word of God.

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We mention service.

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Service also prepares us.

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One of the best ways in the world to grow as a Christian is to get involved in serving

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the Lord somewhere.

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And to step off over your head into an opportunity where God in his strength must buoy you up

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and bear you up and teach you and help you.

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When you and I allow God to do that to us, when we allow ourselves to be stretched beyond

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what we think we can do, we grow.

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We're prepared.

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We are prepared to be the people of God through our service for the Lord.

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Vital.

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Absolutely vital.

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And then the final thing is fellowship that is mentioned.

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When we get together as the people of God and we share with one another, if one is rejoicing,

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we all rejoice, and if one is weeping, we all weep.

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Fellowship.

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Fellowship doesn't happen very much, at least, in large services like this.

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It happens in the small church setting or in the flocks of the church, where we can

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be more intimate and more open with one another.

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That's why we keep pressing home the importance of being a part of a smaller group than worship.

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Those who come only to worship miss most of what this church or any church is all about.

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Fellowship prepares us as a people.

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So we believe that as a community of believers, our purpose is to worship the Lord and to

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prepare ourselves through biblical instruction, service, and fellowship, next phrase, in order

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to evangelize the world.

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In order to evangelize the world.

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That's why we are worshiping and being prepared.

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The end result of it is evangelism, the making of disciples who will come to know and follow

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the Lord Jesus Christ in their lives as well.

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If you want to compare it to an arrow, think of the shaft of the arrow as being our worship.

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Maybe the worship could be compared to those feathers on the end of it that help give stability

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and direction to the arrow.

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The preparing of ourselves, the shaft of the arrow, and the point of it all being evangelism.

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That's why we're here.

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To worship the Lord and prepare ourselves to evangelize the world.

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If we are content only to be a little subculture of people meeting inside these walls on Sunday

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mornings, we have lost our mission.

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We have lost our mission.

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Our mission must go beyond these walls to see the world reached for Jesus Christ.

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If you look into chapter 4 of Ephesians, you'll find preparation there.

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The equipping of people.

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We're not going to take time to look at the verses.

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Our time is gone.

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But you'll find there the equipping of people, serving, unity, and all of it.

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Why?

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So that the church may grow.

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The church may grow.

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That doesn't mean just grow inward.

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That's part of it.

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That's being built up and edified, but it means being extended.

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God wants us as a people to be extended into the world.

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To penetrate into the world with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

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That's why we're here.

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Is it biblical?

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I believe that it resounds with the Bible.

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The second question is, is it possible?

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Well, if it weren't possible, I don't believe our Lord would lay down what he's given us

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in his word.

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It is possible to do this.

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But only through the blessing and strength and fullness of the Holy Spirit.

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In Acts 1-8 he says, you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and

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you shall be my witnesses.

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The mission that we have been given by Jesus Christ is a mission that requires the strength

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of the Lord.

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In ourselves we are all weakness.

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We can't even say, Lord, help me.

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Because then it's sort of like God is our supplement.

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God's the vitamin that we take and need.

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The real spirit is, the real attitude that we have to nurture in our heart is, Lord,

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you have to do it through me.

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It's not that I'm going to do it and you be my assistant.

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Lord, you do it through me.

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Is it possible to live that way?

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Yes, of course.

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That's the Christian life.

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But a third question is important.

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We have a mission.

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It's biblical.

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It's possible.

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But is it personal?

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It's not enough for leadership to articulate a mission.

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It's not enough for other people in the church to have ownership of it.

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Each of us must buy into what we're about as a church.

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Each of us must have ownership in the mission that we're about together as a community of

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believers.

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I think of a man in our church who's a professional who sees a lot of people in the course of

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a day because of the practice that he's in.

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He's personally bought into this mission.

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As a result of his conversations with the patients who come to him and the doors that

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God opens to him because he's available to God, there are scores of people meeting weekly

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right now in Bible studies, most of them non-Christians, but they're meeting in Bible studies with

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other people in our church being brought toward the point where they will understand the gospel

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and come to faith in Jesus Christ.

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That's one example of a person who understands the mission and who's bought into it.

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And there are others with him in that.

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That needs to be multiplied in our congregation.

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We're not all going to do the same thing.

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We will see it realized in different ways, and I want to suggest some of those in the

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next week or two.

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But the point is that it's critical that all of us say, this is not only the mission of

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my church, but because I'm a part of that church, it's my mission in life too, to worship

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the Lord and to prepare myself through learning the Bible and through serving the Lord and

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through fellowship that I might evangelize the world.

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I want to challenge you to make that your mission today.

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To say, God, that is my mission, and in the strength and power you give me, I will do

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it.

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I was intrigued in reading an article this week in a magazine about a man by the name

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of Brother Jonah, a Chinese believer who is 73 years of age.

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This dedicated servant of Jesus Christ understands the mission that he has.

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And this author of the article, Ron McMullen, who is an Asian correspondent for News Network

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International, went covertly with Brother Jonah rather recently on one weekend of his

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ministry.

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And I don't have time to recount the article as I'd like to, but let me just read you a

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paragraph that summarizes all that they did in one weekend now, and this is a 73-year-old

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Christian who's got a handle on the mission that God's given him.

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He says, it was an amazing weekend, nine hours of bicycle pedaling, 40 hours on a hard railway

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seat, and eight hours on a bumpy bus.

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Jonah led more than 50 people from a remote village into the kingdom of God.

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He saw 50 people converted in one weekend.

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He started a church.

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He held an all-night seminar on Bible doctrine to 10 young people on that train.

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He reconciled the leaders of 5,000 Christians, and he converted a high-ranking party official,

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Communist Party official, through the healing of his son.

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You would think, well, man, he must have been tired when he got back Sunday night.

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Well, he probably was, but he went through his mail, and there he found an invitation

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from another province to come and minister, and so that very evening he was on a train

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to the next village.

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What did Jonah, the man of God, say?

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He said, rest is for the next world.

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That was his attitude.

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Rest is for the next world.

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Let's pray together.

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Rest isn't for this world, as the people of God.

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It's not.

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Oh, we rest in Christ, who is our strength, but our energy is to keep fervent, pointed

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toward the mission.

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When you say in the quietness of your heart, God, focus me on the mission.

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God, as a part of this local church, write on my heart what my part is in the mission

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you've given us together.

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God, fill me with the Holy Spirit, that I might serve you effectively.

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Listen together to the chorus that we sang before the message, with our heads bowed,

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and as a prayer to the Lord, in our church, Lord, be glorified.

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In our church, Lord, be glorified, be glorified.

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In our church, Lord, be glorified today.

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Would you stand with me, please?

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Father, it is my prayer that as we stand, that each of us may begin to understand the

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biblical nature of the mission you've called us on, and see that it's not only possible,

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but it's also a personal mission you've given each of us.

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And I pray that over the next couple of weeks, this sense of mission will grow and become

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understandable, and that we'll each begin to implement what it means in our lives, because

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of the great God that you are, and what you've done for us, and who we are in light of that.

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May we be effective in doing what you've called us to do in this world for Jesus' sake.

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Be glorified in your church, Lord.

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Amen.

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Amen.