Finding One's Place

SERMON: 2015-10-11--s0615--finding-one-s-place-part-1 SOURCE DURATION: 00:52:17.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 1.00 APPROVED: false REASON: The recording begins with the speaker introducing a theological topic (Bible metaphors) and concludes with a final pastoral appeal and exhortation regarding spiritual growth in Christ, both of which are core components of the sermon. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: none ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: no ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: none Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- If you're familiar this morning with the Bible as I trust most of you are, then you will know that the Bible uses many different metaphors, analogies, images of what it is to be the people of God in the world. Let me give you just a couple of examples. There is the, probably for us, the most common analogy of the church. It comes from the Greek word ecclesia. You'll recognize it in the English transliteration of that ecclesiastical, and it literally means the called out ones. God's people are called out from the peoples of the world to be God's chosen and unique people. Another image that you find in scripture of the church is that of a bride, the bride of Christ. What that emphasizes is the covenantal relationship between Jesus and the church, a relationship that closely parallels that of the marriage relationship. Still another image we find in scripture is that of the temple, the temple of the living God, and that emphasizes the fact that God has chosen to dwell among his people. Many years ago, Moses said to the Lord in one of his prayers, "Who are we? What makes us distinct from the nations of the world? Is it not for the fact that you have chosen to dwell among us?" There are many analogies like that throughout scripture where we're called God's vineyard because he cultivates us, we're called the pillar of truth which embodies the truth of the gospel. But one of the most common models or analogies that Paul uses and that Paul uses here in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 is that of the church as body, specifically the body of Christ. And again, Tao, he puts it in verse 27, "Now you are the body of Christ and each one of you is a part of it." You are the body of Christ and each one of you is a part of it. Now in a few moments we'll talk more about what it is to be the body of Christ. For the moment let me just reflect on the reality of our being a body, specifically a human body. Why is it that Paul in this chapter spends so many verses elaborating on the connection of the church being a body? Well the answer is simple, it is because there is nothing quite like the analogy of a body to capture the principle of unity within diversity. Listen again to how he puts it in verse 12, "The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts, and though all of its parts are many, they form one body." Think this through with me for just a little bit. Let's take a look at this chart for an example because here you have a good picture of all the parts that go into making us what we are. The print is probably too small for you to read but that doesn't really matter. It starts off at a chemical level with atoms and molecules and they form the DNA which is the basis of the cell. Remember we talked about this once before, how many cells in your body? They have just recently counted them finally, done it right, 37.2 trillion. That's you. It doesn't matter whether you are fat or skinny. Fat cells are just bigger than little cells. Two hundred different kinds of cells and most of those cells have up to 20 variations. Put cells together, what do you get? Well you get tissue. And tissue, I found rather interesting, there is really only four main types of tissue in your body, connective muscle and nervous. And then tissue combines to form organs which you see here, you know I'm not a medical person but I think that's the stomach, wouldn't you? I picked this one because most drawings that I could find for some reason gravitate towards the urinary tract system. I didn't think I wanted to share that with you this morning but this is your stomach. And your stomach is one of as many as 78 organs in your body. An organ is defined by having two different kinds of tissue combined to accomplish a particular purpose. Now those organs of course all come together and they produce systems and we have about a dozen again depending on how you define them, there's a circulatory, there's the digestive endocrine which deals with the hormones in your body, immune, muscular, skeletal and here's a big word for you, integumentary. So it holds you together with your skin. It is the largest single system in your body. Put all of those together what do you get? Well you get a baby. You get a child, you get you and me. Now understand you not only have all these parts that go into the making of this person but now when you look at the end product of this, this child of course has a lot of parts also. I mean she's got hands, she's got elbows, she's got a shoulder, she's got a head, lips, nose, ears, knees, legs, hands, all of those parts together make the body. And here's what's so brilliant about this. When the body is healthy you don't even know that you've got a body, isn't that true? It's only when you have an injury or a breakdown in your body or maybe a stroke that you discover you've got a body and it causes you trouble. But the genius of the body is that all these different parts, the millions and millions of them really if you add them all up, they do what your head wants them to do without giving you any trouble. Now that's an amazing thing. And that is why in this particular passage the Apostle Paul draws on this analogy because he says now to you and me collectively you are the body of Christ and individually he says you are members, you are part of it. You are the body of Christ and you are a part of it. And what he says there's two things and two very important things for us to understand. It means first of all that Christians are literally an extension, listen to this, you are literally an extension of Jesus because we are the body of Christ. We're not just a body together, we are that too, but we are the body of Christ. And what that means is that Jesus who is the head seated in heaven at the right hand of God the Father, ties his people together and by his word and spirit manifests himself through his people. That's a very profound thing to realize. Where two or three gather in my name says Jesus, there am I in the midst of them. When God's people get together there is the presence of Jesus. And Jesus living in us wants to express himself through us, we are literally his hands and his feet and he does his work through you and through me. That's an amazing thing because as we'll see in a few moments that body doesn't always respond very well to the impulses of the head. There's a lot of fragmentation. We'll talk about that in a moment and we'll see what the answer is to that. But I want us to understand we are the body of Christ. The second thing that that means then is that we have to do the work of Christ collectively. We have to do the work of Christ collectively. Because for the body to function there's two things that need to happen. Every part in that body needs to relate properly to the head and then it needs to relate properly to all the other parts. And all those parts working together need to become the expression of the living Jesus. That's what it is to be the church. And that of course is where lies the problem a little bit. Because none of this comes to us naturally. Naturally we, as our catechism says, we're prone to hate God and prone to hate our neighbor. Naturally, we have no relationship with Christ. We're certainly not interested in doing what he wants us to do. Nor do we care to lay aside our own agenda for the agendas of others. The genius of the body is every part is submitted to the greater good and finds its purpose in belonging to the greater community. Well think of all the things in the world that get in the way of that being a reality. We're all separate individuals. We have our own ideas. We have our own beliefs. We have our own backgrounds. We're separated in many instances by culture and language and customs. I'm talking in terms of the total diversity of the human race. And then there is the whole element of brokenness. A lot of people not only don't know how to connect with God, but they don't know how to connect with each other. And in a world where attachment issues are increasingly a problem, you get more and more people who just want to - Simon and Garfunkel, years ago, remember the song "I am a rock"? Everybody in their own little closets - I mean, here's the funny thing. We have all these modern methods of communication now, right? And you get a family picture when your family gets together and what do you see? Everybody is sitting in their own little bubble looking at their own mobile or their handheld device, and the more we know how to connect, the less we know how to connect because we live in a world where fragmentation is a reality. And I don't know about you, but my lifelong passion, and I can only attribute that to the Holy Spirit, is to see the Lord build local church communities that model the early church in Acts chapter 2. We've talked about that in times gone by. I don't need to talk a lot about that now, but you'll recall that in Acts chapter 2, we're told that the early church devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. They were filled with awe, wonders, and miraculous signs were done by the apostles, all the believers were together, and had everything in common, selling their possessions and goods they gave to anyone as he had need. And every day, they continued to meet together with the temple courts, they broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people of the Lord, added to their number daily those who were being saved. I wonder if God can birth in our hearts a vision of what it is that he longs for in terms of the local church. People sold out to Jesus, people sold out to each other, people prepared to lay aside all their own agendas and peculiarities so that together they can manifest the purposes of God in their generation. Wouldn't that make a difference in the world today? And isn't that why Jesus died? And isn't that why he gave us his spirit? So the big question is, how do you take all of these pieces, all of this not just individuality but individualism, how do you take all the brokenness, all the pride, all the arrogance, all the things that divide not just humanity but often God's very own people, how do you bring that all together? Well, in the time that remains, I want to give you probably just two out of four practical steps that we need to take and understand if what is true spiritually in Christ can also become true literally in reality. So let's see how far we get this morning. The first thing that we have to realize, if this is to be a reality, is that in Christ we have been baptized into one body. Listen again to how Paul puts it, "The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts, and though all of its parts are many, they form one body. So it is," he says, "with Christ, for we were all baptized by one spirit into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free, and we were all given one spirit to drink." What's Paul saying there? Well, he's saying two things. The first thing that he is saying is that to belong to Christ is to belong to Christian community. To belong to Christ is to belong to Christian community. We were all baptized by one spirit into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free. We were all baptized into one body. That is to say, if I belong to Jesus by faith in Him, and you belong to Jesus by faith in Him, guess what? You and I have a relationship, and we have a relationship whether we realize it or not, whether we like it or not, whether we want to believe it or not, because we were all baptized into one body. It's a little bit like being born into your natural family of origin. You have absolutely no say about who your parents are. And you have little, if any, say about who your siblings are going to be. Now, you may like them, I hope you do. You may not like them, but for better or for worse, you're part of one family. And you and I, by faith in Jesus, are brothers and sisters. We are members of one body with everybody who names the name of Jesus. You are, for better or for worse, identified with and connected to that community. I love the way the Heidelberg Catechism addresses that issue in response to the question, "What do you believe concerning the Holy Catholic Church?" Holy Catholic means the Holy Universal Church. This is one of the phrases out of the Apostles' Creed, "I believe a Holy Catholic Church." Now listen to the answer, because it is really, really good. "I believe that the Son of God, through His Spirit and Word, out of the entire human race from the beginning of the world to its end, gathers, protects, and preserves for Himself a" what? "A community chosen for eternal life, united in true faith." We can be part of this community apart from belonging to Jesus, and of this what? Community I am and always will be a living member. So when Paul says, "The body is a unit, and though all of its parts are many, they form one body, and so it is with Christ, for by Him we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body." This is what he is talking about. He says, "To be in Christ is to be part of the Church." As I said, you may like it or you may not like it. You might like the people you are sitting next to, you may not like the people you are sitting next to. It is too bad. You are one body. But then the second thing that he mentions is that we have been given the resources to make this a reality. For what does he say? "We are all baptized by one Spirit into one body, whether Jews or Greek slave or free, and we were all given the one Spirit to drink." The one Spirit to drink is the Spirit of Jesus. Jesus obeyed the Father perfectly, even to the point of death on the cross. That Spirit, He pours out on all of us when we are joined to Him by faith, and that Spirit working in us and through us works as a unifying force to overcome all the natural obstacles that want to keep God's people apart. So it is the Spirit who makes Jesus real to me so that I start saying no to sin and yes to Him. It is the Spirit who identifies for me what my gifts are, where my place is in the body of Christ. We will talk about that in a moment. And it is the Holy Spirit who begins to weave the body of Christ together. And He does that supernaturally and powerfully by the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. Think of it this way. In Jesus, we get the necessary DNA to overcome all the fragmentation that was produced by sin. Remember, at the Tower of Babel, what happened to all the nations? They began to speak another language and they scattered far and wide. What happened on the day of Pentecost? People from all over the Roman Empire came together and they all heard the proclamation of the Good News in their own language. That was the genius of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. It was an overcoming of all the natural divisions among and between people. So in Christ, there is everything that we need to become in reality the kind of body that the Lord is inviting us to be. Think of how, you know, go back, think back for a moment to the slide of that child. How are we formed? Well, you know enough about the birds and the bees to know that egg and sperm unites, egg gets fertilized, chromosomal information gets transferred, and out of that grows the whole human being. But all of that information of what that human being becomes biologically is inherent in those original two cells when they come together. And after that, it is an unfolding of the life that is already there. It's amazing. That's why there's so much talk these days about stem cells, because stem cells are undifferentiated cells in your body that can become anything they need to be. If you're joined to Jesus, in Jesus is the DNA that you need to be a living member of the body of Christ. Think about that. It is supernaturally present in your life. And you know, all you need to do is provide an environment where that seed can be cultivated. You can't make it grow, you can't make it happen. It is a life that is inside you. It will unfold in the way that it is intended to unfold if you water it and fertilize it. Take the means of grace and get out of the way when God is at work and stop resisting Him when He calls you into something. As you yield to the Holy Spirit, the life of Christ inside you will form Christ in you, and as Christ is formed in you, you learn to live in community and in reality. Am I making any sense here? This happens by the power of Jesus. It means you need to deal with stuff, it means you need to repent when the Holy Spirit calls, but all you have to do is obey the promptings of the Word and the promptings of the Holy Spirit and life will flourish. And I love the way the Apostle Paul sums it all up in 1 Thessalonians 4.9 because he captures this principle that we're talking about when he says in 1 Thessalonians 4.9, "Now about brotherly love, we do not need to write you, for you yourselves have been taught," how? "By God to love one another." And while we're on this, this is the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. The Old Covenant comes to you and says, "Do this and you will live," doesn't give you any help to do it. The New Covenant is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Jesus inside will transform you to become a living member of the body of Christ. He will lead you in that direction. And a lot of us here have experienced that reality, you come to Jesus and what do you discover? You're closer to other people who belong to Jesus sometimes than your own family members because you share now a common life, you're drinking of the same Spirit. So how do we get rid of fragmentation? We embrace the fact that in Christ we are one body and that in Christ are all the resources we need. Jesus will make it happen. We just have to do our part. All right, second thing that we need to understand is that God sovereignly chooses what our place is in the body, verse 18, "In fact, God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be." God has arranged the parts just as he wanted them to be. Now, I take that to mean that God not only has decided that the body consists of many parts, all of which are different, we'll talk about that someday, the Lord willing. But he's also decided what your place and my place is going to be. Because remember, for the body to function, there are two things that have to happen. We have to be in right relationship with the Lord Jesus so that we receive signals from the head, if you will, that river of the water of life. And we have to be in right relationship with one another, which means we need to know what our places should be. And it is God who decides what that place ought to be. Earlier in chapter 12, verse 11, concerning spiritual gifts, Paul says this, "All these are the work of one in the same spirit, and he gives them to each one just as he determines." So for the body of Christ to mature, we need to, yes, develop in our relationship with the Lord, but we also need to clarify, where in the body do we fit? Am I a hand? Am I an eye? Am I a mouth? Am I an ear? Am I a tissue? Am I an organ? What is the system that I am part of? Because God has ordered the body of Christ to function like he has ordered the human body to function. And that, of course, immediately raises the question, how do I know? Where do I fit in? And we talked about that briefly last week, but I want to talk about it in a bit more detail for a bit this morning, because I think Paul in Romans chapter 12 gives us four very practical steps that we can take in order to find increasingly where our place is in the body of Christ. Because understand that the function where we are intended to function is where the anointing lies. When the mouth tries to be a foot, you stick your foot in your mouth. You know, it's been said that if your feet smell and your nose runs, you're built upside down. You've got to know where you fit, because that's where the anointing lies. How do you find that? Well, very quickly, it begins by submitting, according to Romans 12, to God's agenda. I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship. Worship isn't just something we do when we gather together on a Sunday like this. Worship in Scripture is presenting your bodies to God 24/7 for God to use you in the way that he wants to use you. That begins with a transfer of ownership, a surrender of ourselves as a living sacrifice. Think back. We talked last week briefly about the tabernacle model and how God dwells in the Holy of Holies, and the desire is for his people to have fellowship with him. And that fellowship starts at what is known as the altar of burned offerings. The altar of burnt offerings represents, first and foremost, a coming to Jesus in repentance for the forgiveness of my sins. That opens the way to the presence of God. But it also means the surrender of myself to Jesus for his purposes. I know a lot of people, they have their own ideas of what they want to be in the body of Christ, and they want to tell God what they want to do and what they will not want to do. We're all that way by nature. You'll never get anywhere because God has this problem where he thinks he's God, and he thinks he has the right to tell you what to do. And the reason for that is that he happens to know better than you what you were designed for and what your gifts are. See, there are two problems that people face in trying to live the Christian life. One is that they are in a position that is greater than what their gifting is, and that causes intense frustration and burnout. The other is you're stuck in a position that is less than what you were gifted for, and the result of that is boredom. God knows you better than you know yourself. He knows what you have been designed to do. He has prepared for you good works from before the foundation of the world, and what he says to you and to me is put it on the altar, and I will lead you. I believe there has to be a place in every believer's life. And usually this is progressive, but there has to be a place in every believer's life where we come to the Lord and we say, "Okay, Lord, not my will but yours be done." But I can tell you that far from just being sort of a generic, "Yes, Lord, I'll follow you," it will almost always come down to a very specific theme. A relationship that you may need to give up, or a relationship you may need to step into. Resources that you have that he wants you to put on the altar, and he's been bugging you and you can't get away from it to the point it makes you frustrated. Some sin, some habit, some new place to step into and every part of you says, "Lord, here I am but St. George." And you will discover you will not know freedom until you can actually surrender that and say, "Lord, I don't know how in the world I'm going to do this, but I will trust you to make it happen." Somebody here tell me who was the author of Hind's Feet on High Places? Hannah Hernard, do you remember the story? For years struggled with the Lord, what did she struggle over? She knew she was called to be an evangelist, the woman was. Two problems. She had a phobia of crowds. And she stuttered madly. And she had visions of standing in front of people utterly and totally humiliated because nothing would come out of her squeaky mouth. And this went on and on and on until she came to a place where she finally laid it down. And the Lord met her and gave her by faith supernaturally what she needed. If you've ever been in that kind of a place where you have faced your limitations or your own strong desires and the Lord has challenged you with it and on it, then you know that taking up your cross means that His will crosses your will. It's a tough place to be, but if we will persevere, He will wrestle us to the ground because His will is perfect. It starts at the cross. And this isn't anything that anybody can point out to you. This is something you will know in your heart when the Lord twigs at you, doesn't let it go, then you know. When every sermon you hear or every song you hear speaks to you, then you know that it isn't because people are ganging up on you. It's because the Holy Spirit is orchestrating what you need to hear. It starts with surrender. One step, according to Romans chapter 12, if we want to know the will of God, is we have to be renewed in our thinking, specifically, we must learn to think, now get this, we must learn to think like a servant. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, His good, pleasing and perfect will. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Time forbids us this morning to get into all the very clever Greek nuances that Paul is drawing on here, the word metamorphosis, that transformation. Suffice it to say that in the world, your gifts, your resources are typically seen as a stepping stone for your own agenda, is that not true? My gifts, my resources, my talents, they are mine to use to build me up, and if I need to use you to get to where I want to be, so be it because that's what clever people do, that's how the world functions. The only reason we don't see more of it in the Western world, and we see enough of it here, is because we've been shaped by the Christian message, which is a message about servanthood. The message of the gospel is the exact opposite. The message of the gospel is that whatever God has given you is not simply for you to build your own kingdom, to climb the ladder of success, to sit on top of the totem pole. It is given to you first of all to serve the Lord and to be a steward of what it is that He has given you, for which one day you will give account, and I will. Secondly, it is to serve the people God puts in your life, and again, the catechism really captures this. When it goes on to say in Lord's Day 21, question and answer 55, what do you understand by the communion of saints? That's another one of the phrases you will recognize in the Apostles' Creed, I believe a holy catholic church. The next phrase is the communion of saints, and the answer is this, first, that believers one and all as members of this community share in Christ and in all His treasures and gifts. We've been talking about that, that's the anointing given to us by Christ. Second, that each member should consider it a duty to use these gifts readily and joyfully for the service and enrichment of the other members. We are to use these gifts readily and joyfully for the service and the enrichment of other members. Remember, we are members of one body. When one rejoices, we all rejoice, when one weeps, we all weep. The genius of the Acts chapter 2 church is that they were able to share their resources on multiple levels because they saw themselves as the children of God. And the more you know that God is more than able in Christ Jesus to supply all of your own needs, the more He will also meet you to meet the needs of others. It's ironic, isn't it, that with all the migration that is happening with the Syrian migrants, they're all gravitating to Europe, which has a Christian heritage of taking in strangers and the dispossessed, though that is causing increasingly a great level of anxiety. But the large and rich Mideast nations like Saudi Arabia and Qatar and a number of, haven't taken in a single refugee, even though they are of their own ilk and kin. And that's a reflection of the difference in values that even in post-Christian Europe have been utterly shaped by the power of the gospel. So if you want to find out what your place is in the body of Christ, you begin by laying it all on the altar and saying, "Lord, not my will but yours be done." And then you say, "Lord, change my thinking so that I can see that what you have given me as a resource with which to bless other people." In what proportion do you want, what does this look like? What does this look like in terms of my time and my talent? How do I look after my own needs and those of my family? And how do I look after the needs of other people? That's always a balancing act. But then thirdly, Paul says, we need to do a sober, sober self-evaluation. For by the grace given to me, this is verse three, I say to every one of you, do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Don't think more highly, but with sober judgment. And I would say sober judgment also includes not thinking of yourself less than what you should. See, my experience in ministry, you know, as you know, I've been at this for many years. My experience with ministry is that when it comes to building the body of Christ, where every part knows their place increasingly, and every part works together to manifest the presence and the power of Jesus in a way that makes a powerful difference in the world, you run almost immediately into a two-fold issue. One is those who have a natural, fleshly desire to be on top of the hill, they think they are God's gift to humanity, they're not led by the Spirit, and you always have to pull them back because they are pursuing their own agenda and not the agenda of Christ. But the other side of that equation is just as prevalent, if not more so. That is the person who is down here saying, "I've only got one talent, and I'm not very good at what I do." And so they play with a false sense of humility to avoid taking their responsibility in the body of Christ, and the body of Christ suffers because they are too lazy and too self-absorbed to step into the things that God has, and Paul says you need to do some sober self-evaluation according to the measure of faith that God has given you. It is not humility to deny the strengths or the gifts that God has given you. May sound humble, everybody else may think you're humble, but remember what Jesus said to the servant who buried his one talent, he wasn't particularly impressed. Nor is it pride to say, "I think God has given me some gifts, are there ways in which I can serve God's people and the world around me with the gifts that God has given me?" God's vision for the church is that whatever your spiritual gift is, and we've talked about that now, sometimes parallels your natural gift, sometimes it is a supernatural anointing that comes on you so that you can know the heart and the mind of God and you can lead his people forward. Everyone has a spiritual gift of one kind or another. Every part of the body, if you're genuinely born again, matters. And the well-being of the community depends on your faithfulness. So you want to find out what God's will for your life, you want to find out where you fit, put it on the altar, learn to think of yourself as a servant, and then with sober self-evaluation, and sometimes it helps to do this with other people around you who know you well, find out, "This is who I am. This is what other people affirm. This is what God blesses." And then the next step, of course, we talked about this a bit last week, is you need to step out in faith. Paul puts it this way, "We have different gifts according to the grace given to us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve. If it is teaching, let him teach. If it is encouraging, let him encourage. If it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously. If it is leadership, let him govern diligently. And if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully." And notice, in each case, the emphasis on, "Let him do it." I said last week, "It would be wonderful if our giftings would emerge full-blown, and we would never make a mistake, and everybody would love us and never criticize us." Not going to happen. Not on this side of heaven, I can tell you that. The big challenge is to just start stepping into it and doing it, because it is in the doing that you will find out, as I said last week, where your anointing lies, where God favors you, and where you can be blessed in doing. And I'll tell you, you only need to experience the wind of the Holy Spirit under your wings once in your life to know there is nothing like knowing that you're flying in the kingdom. Do you know that? There is nothing like knowing, "Oh my goodness, God has just filled me with his Spirit, and he has used me to advance his kingdom purposes." I give money to the church or money to an individual, and I know this is exactly what they needed to know where they want to be. I step into a relationship, ask a question, pray a prayer, and I discover that's exactly what changes that person's life. I sidle up to somebody, I become their friend, and I discover they were just on the edge of killing themselves, and my presence in their life made a difference. It's not going to happen to you every day, it may only happen a couple of times in your lifetime, but I guarantee you, when it happens to you, you will know that it has happened. And you will know there is nothing else in the universe that even begins to compare because you will have tasted a moment of what it is to be caught up in the plan and in the purposes of God. And this is when you should say, "Amen and amen." Because that is how it works in the kingdom. I can't make it happen, you can't make it happen, but God can make it happen. And all he invites us to do is to step into it. He promises to meet us, and as we find our place in the body, and we let him guide and direct us individually and corporately, the body comes to life. It begins to move, it begins to manifest Jesus, and church becomes fun. I know for some of you it's hard to imagine. Church becomes fun because you stand in awe of what God is doing and what God can do. So let me end with this quotation from Ephesians because the book of Ephesians theme is how God purposes to unite all things in heaven and in earth through the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And here is what he says, "Speaking the truth and love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the head, that is Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work." Will you ask yourself this Thanksgiving weekend, "Lord, what is my place in the body of Christ?" A lot of you, you already know that, you volunteer your time talent and your treasures with incredible generosity and the church wouldn't be where it is today if it wasn't for you. Some of us perhaps aren't quite so sure, we're quite content to sit back, maybe we've been hurt somewhere along the line or we've tried stepping out and it didn't pan out and so we bury our treasure because it's just too dangerous. But you know, you'll know where the Lord is knocking. Will you pray, will you consider what part it is that you call to play in the body of Christ? There's a new class coming up, there's a lot of people that are part of this community that have never formally joined the church, I understand that. We love you, we're glad to have you here, but it's the Lord inviting you to take a next step of belonging and a next step of committing because you see, the more we commit ourselves, the riskier it becomes because what if, but how can we grow into the body of Christ if we don't step out and really trust Him with our lives? I wish I could paint for you the picture of what lives in my heart when the church is the church the way God has designed it to be and I would pray that in every way the [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:52:11.420; remove through 00:52:17.000] Lord gives us the grace and the faith to make that in Christ become increasingly a reality. [CUT] [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:52:17.000; resume after this marked segment]