"We are One Body, Let's Live Like It" (Joe Penner)

Remember the Titans is a movie based on a true story of the

1971 TC Williams High School football team in Alexandria, VA.

Up to this point, schools had been segregated by race and now

3 high schools in the area were forced to integrate and this

caused a lot of tension in the community and many resisted the

change, especially when their new head coach was Herman Boone,

a black man. But the biggest opposition that

they faced was the internal struggle, the internal division

between the white and the black players.

They refused to trust one another.

They refused to work together as a team.

And the tension reached a climax when they're at training camp

and Coach Boone wakes the team up at 3:00 in the morning.

And they run and run across several miles in the dark until

they finally reached the Gettysburg Cemetery, where

51,000 American men had died during the American Civil War

fighting their own people, fighting against one another.

And then Herman Boone gave this speech.

Anybody know what this place is? This is Gettysburg.

This is where they fought the Battle of Gettysburg on this

field, fighting the same fight that we're still fighting

amongst ourselves today. This Greenfield right here,

painted red, bubbling with the blood of young boys, smoke and

hot lead pouring through their bodies.

Listen to their souls, man. I killed my brother with malice

in my heart. Hatred destroyed my family.

You listen and you take a lesson from the dead.

If we don't come together here on this hallowed ground, then we

too will be destroyed just like they were.

This was the turning point for the team.

Slowly, they began to trust and respect one another and they

came together as a team. They went on to finish the

season undefeated and won the Virginia State championship.

This morning, as we're picking back up in the book of Nehemiah,

we see the same principle. Now remember, as we began the

book that Nehemiah heard of the destruction in the ruins of

Jerusalem. And so he began to pray, and the

Lord paved a path for him to go back with a vision on his heart

to rebuild the walls. And as he cast that vision to

the people, they caught on. They bought into the vision, and

the work began. But no sooner did the work begin

than outside pressure began to come from their enemies and they

began to be attacked and slandered.

But they put their trust in God and they continued on the work

on the wall, and it seemed like there was nothing that was going

to stop them until they began to fight one another.

In order for them to succeed on building of the wall, they

needed to come together. They needed to come as one body

and recognize that they were a team.

The success of the mission was now at risk, however, not

because of enemies from the outside, not because of attacks

from the outside and persecution, but because of

quarrelling and conflict among themselves.

The title of my sermon this morning is We Are One Body.

Let's live like it. The success of the church today

depends on this same sort of unity, the same sort of unity

that Israel needed. They needed to come together as

one body and work together. And that's exactly what we need

to do. The success of God's mission is

dependent on us coming together in unity as his people, as one

body, as we work together to bring him glory.

Before we dive into our text this morning, let's bow for a

word of prayer. Father, we thank you that this

narrative, this story has been recorded for generations, and we

thank you, Lord, that it has blessed many over the years.

And we are so grateful, Lord, that you have preserved your

word for us over the years. We believe that your word is

authoritative. It is true, it is instructive,

each and every part of it for every area of life.

And Lord, we come to it this morning thinking that it is not

just words on a page, but that it is Your word.

It is living, it is active, it is sharper than the sharpest 2

edged sword, dividing between soul and spirit, between joint

and marrow. And Lord, we recognize that each

and every one of us is accountable to you.

Before you, each and every one of us are naked.

Lord, you see our inmost thoughts and hearts and desires.

And we pray, Lord, that you would give us a desire as Your

people to be pleasing to you. That as we open up your word

that you would teach us, that you would instruct us that Lord

you would correct sin in our hearts, and that You would unify

us together as your people as we seek to make Your name great in

all the earth. We ask this in Jesus name, Amen.

Would you open your Bibles with me to Nehemiah chapter 5?

Nehemiah 5 · chapter mention

Nehemiah chapter 5. I will read the whole chapter

Nehemiah 5 · chapter mention

now. There arose a great outcry of

the people and of their wives against their Jewish brothers.

For there were those who said, with our sons and our daughters,

we are many. So let us get grain that we may

eat and keep alive. There were also those who said

we are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and our houses to

get grain because of the famine. And there were those who said we

have borrowed money for the King's tax on our fields and our

vineyards. Now our flesh is as the flesh of

our brothers, our children, or as their children.

Yet we are forcing our sons and our daughters to be slaves, and

some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but it is

not in our power to help it, for other men have our fields in our

vineyards. I was very angry when I heard

their outcry in these words. I took counsel with myself and

brought charges against the nobles and the officials.

I said to them, You are exacting interest.

Each from his brother and I held a great assembly against them,

and said to them, We, as far as we are able, have bought back

our Jewish brothers who have been sold to the nations.

But you even sell your brothers that they may be sold to us.

They were silent and could not find a word to say.

So I said, The thing that you are doing is not good.

Ought you not to walk in the fear of our God to prevent the

taunts of the nations, our enemies?

Moreover, I and my brothers and my servants are lending them

money and grain. Let us abandoned this exacting

of interest. Return to them this very day

their fields, their vineyards, their olive orchards, and their

houses, and the percentage of money, grain, wine, and oil that

you have been exacting from them.

Then they said, we will restore these and require nothing from

them. We will do as you say.

And I called the priests, and made them swear to do as they

had promised. I also shook out the fold of my

garment, and said, So May God shake out every man from his

house and from his labour who does not keep this promise, so

may he be shaken out and emptied.

And all the assembly said, Amen, and praise the Lord.

And the people did as they had promised.

Moreover, from the time that I was appointed to be their

governor in the land of Judah, from the 20th year to the 32nd

year of Artaxerxes the King, 12 years, neither I nor my brothers

ate the food allowance of the governor.

The former governors who were before me laid heavy burdens on

the people and took from them for their daily ration 40

shekels of silver. Even their servants lorded it

over their people. But I did not do so because of

the fear of God. I also persevered in the work on

this wall, and we acquired no land, and all my servants were

gathered there for the work. Moreover, there were at my table

150 men, Jews and officials, besides those who came to us

from the nations that were around us.

Now, what was prepared at my expense for each day was one ox

and six choice sheep and birds, and every 10 days all kinds of

wine in abundance. Yet for all this, I did not

demand the food allowance of the governor because the service was

too heavy. On this people, remember, for my

good, Oh my God, all that I have done for this.

People, as we begin, the first thing that we're going to see

this morning as we strive to be a part of the body together, is

that we must expose sin in the body.

This chapter opens with the problem.

It opens with what's going on among the Jews.

There are those who are sinfully taking advantage of their

brothers and sisters in the Lord, their own body, but the

oppressed people come and expose the sin.

It says there arose a great outcry of the people and of

their wives against their Jewish brothers.

Now remember that that Nehemiah had come and asked everyone to

come and join in building the wall.

So everybody left their farms, they left their fields, they

left their vineyards and, and couldn't devote that attention

that they needed to on the work of their hands because they had

devoted their work to the building of the wall.

And that may have contributed to a famine that is going on here

at this time. And the situation was desperate,

but their own people began taking advantage of those people

who were oppressed and poor. Some were being denied food by

their own people. Some were selling their

vineyards and their fields and their homes to buy people to buy

grain, this from their own people.

Some were borrowing money from their own people to pay the

King's tax and then being charged high interest rates.

Some people say maybe up to 50% interest rates is what was being

charged. Then some were selling their

children to be slaves to their own people in order to get food.

And what we learned from this passage is that there was

nothing that they could do. They said we're that we can't

help it. We don't have any way to stand

up to these people. We don't have any defense.

We are helpless, but rather than remaining silent, they expose

the sin of the leaders, They bring it out, they shed light on

what is going on. And the reason they're confident

to confront, to expose the sin is because they were disobeying

God. He had commanded them.

In Leviticus chapter 25, if your brother becomes poor and cannot

Leviticus 25 · chapter mention

maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he

were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you.

Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God that

your brother may live beside you.

You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him

your food for profit. God wanted his people to act as

one body, as one people taking care of each other and blessing

one another. But instead they took advantage

of each other out of selfish gain.

So those who were oppressed exposed the sin in the body

because they realized they recognized if we allow this sin

to go on, if we allow it to go on unchecked, it has the

potential not only to stop the progress on the wall, but to

completely destroy us as a nation.

And so they exposed the sin. And many of you remember the

story of King David in the Bible.

He was anointed as Israel's next king as a young man, but then he

suffered many years of torment from the present king, King

Saul, who was jealous of him. Finally, after many years of

patient trust and waiting on the Lord, David is anointing king.

And sadly, one of the most memorable things about King

David's life is his sin with Bathsheba.

In an attempt to hide his sin, he sleeps with Bathsheba.

And then in an attempt to hide his sin, he kills her husband

Uriah. And God sends the Nathan the

prophet to confront David. He tells him a story of this

wealthy king who has all the pastures and all the all the

sheep and, and herds of goats and lambs, and then the story of

a man who, who just has one. And he treats this lamb like a

child, like a son. It eats from his table.

He he snuggles it on the couch. This is his lamb that he loves

and cherishes. And, and when the rich king has

a guest come for a meal, he doesn't take from one of his

many, many sheep. He takes the sheep of the man

who just had one. King David is outraged, and he

says, as the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to

die, and he shall restore the lamb fourfold because he did

this thing and because he had no pity.

Nathan said to David, You are the man.

Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel.

I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the

hand of Saul, and I gave you your master's house, and your

master's wives into your arms, and gave you the House of Israel

and of Judah. And if this were too little, I

would add to you as much more. Why have you despised the word

of the Lord to do what is evil in his sight?

You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have

taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the

sword of the Ammonites. Now the interesting thing about

all this is David has described as a man after God's own heart,

and yet he sinned greatly against God and the people that

he was leading. But because of his love for

David, God exposes his sin through Nathan the prophet,

rather than allowing it to go on unchecked and to lead deeper

into sin. Brother and sister, if you have

placed your faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior,

you're a child of God. You're a member of his family.

You're a brother and sister in Christ.

We're brothers and sisters in Christ.

We are one body. Paul says that in his letter to

the Corinthians. He says that we are, though we

are many members, we are one body.

Now we generally, if we look at our own bodies, we don't do

things that would bring harm to my own body.

So then why do we sin against our brothers and sisters,

bringing harm to them? We are commanded by Paul to

treat one another better than ourselves.

He says in Philippians chapter 2.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility

count others more significant than yourselves.

The truth is, sadly, that we do sin against one another.

And when that happens, we need to expose that sin.

It's tempting to ignore it. It seems easier to just sweep it

under the rug. But we must expose it, or else

unforgiveness and bitterness will settle into our hearts.

And others could be harmed as well.

If we don't expose their sin, they could harm other people as

well. And this threatens the work that

we are seeking to do in building God's church.

So maybe a brother or a sister in Christ has hurt you, has

sinned against you. If you feel safe enough to do

so, you should go to that person and expose that sin.

Maybe they didn't realize what it was that they did wrong.

Or maybe they will confess that they wronged you and then you

can work towards reconciliation. If you don't feel safe enough to

go to them privately, then you should come to a leader in the

church or someone that you respect, someone that you see as

having wisdom who can help you navigate that situation with

that person so that you can work towards reconciliation.

I'm not talking about gossip and going to someone and telling

someone else what that person is doing.

We're talking about finding someone who can help you have a

conversation with that person to bring it to reconciliation, to

bring it to restoration. If we are going to be the people

of God, then we must keep Christ's church pure.

And in order to do that, we must expose sin in the body.

The next thing that we learned from chapter 5 is that we must

confront sin in the body. The people understood the

seriousness of the situation, that that sin needed to be

exposed, but it's not enough to just expose it or to just

uncover it. It now needs to be confronted,

and this is exactly what Nehemiah does.

But as we look at Nehemiah's confrontation, we're going to

learn some principles for how we can confront people when we're

bringing up sin in the body. And the first thing is that

confrontation should seek self-control.

Now Nehemiah when he learns of what happens he gets angry but

listen to how he shows self-control in verse six and

seven. He says I was very angry when I

heard their outcry in these words.

I took counsel with myself and I brought charges against the

nobles and the officials. He was angry, but he didn't rush

out in his anger hastily and and confront that sin.

He counselled with himself. He took himself back, he

stopped, he paused, he waited, and he even brought charges,

right. He formalized his complaint to

these people. He didn't just come and rattle

off whatever he wanted to say in the moment.

He thought about what it was that they were doing and how

they were sinning against their people and brought those charges

to them. He showed self-control.

The next thing is that confrontation should seek the

truth. As he brings these charges

against the leaders. He's wanting to present the

facts accurately, which is why he he brings these charges.

He is seeking the truth. In verse 7 and 8 it says I said

to them, you are exacting interest.

Each from his brother and I held a great assembly against them

and said to them, we, as far as we are able, have bought back

our Jewish brothers who have been sold to the nations, but

you even sell your brothers that they may be sold to us.

They were silent and could not find a word to say.

So notice that he carefully brings the charges that he's

bringing against them. He's seeking the truth, but we

also see that he's seeking the truth because he gives them an

opportunity to respond. They don't have a word to say.

But again, he's not trying to blast them and just overpower

them with words and confrontation so that they don't

have an opportunity to speak. He wants to seek the truth.

He wants the truth to be made known.

The third thing is that confrontations should seek God's

glory. We see here in this passage that

Nehemiah is concerned about God's reputation.

Look at what he says in verse 9. So I said, the thing that you

are doing is not good. Ought you not to walk in the

fear of our God to prevent the taunts of the nation's our

enemies? Nehemiah understood that when

God's people treat each other sinfully, that reflects poorly

on God. And as the nations begin to

taunt them because of the way that they're treating one

another, God's name is dragged through the mud.

And so Nehemiah is concerned about God's glory and his

reputation. 4th Confrontation should seek reconciliation.

The goal of confrontation is not not just to get something off

your chest or to vent towards someone.

It's to reconcile. It's to make things right.

Look at verses 10 through 12. Moreover, I and my brothers and

my servants are lending them money and grain.

Let us abandoned this exacting of interest.

Return to them this very day. Their fields, their vineyards,

their olive orchards and their houses, and the percentage of

money, grain, wine and oil that you have been exacting from

them. Then they said we will restore

these and require nothing from them.

We will do as you say. And I called the priests and

made them swear to do as they had promised.

So notice what Nehemiah does. He confronts the sin, but he

calls them and tells them what to do.

Not just confronting the sin, but here's how we remedy it.

Here's how we fix the situation. Here's how we bring

reconciliation. Stop charging interest.

Return all that you've taken sinfully and an amazing thing

happens. They do it, they confess their

sin and they return it all. And look at what happens in

verse 13. The result is worship.

Nehemiah says in verse 13. I also shook out the fold of my

garment and said, so May God shake out every man from his

house and from his labor who does not keep this promise, so

may he be shaken out and emptied.

And all the assembly said Amen and praised the Lord.

And the people did as they had promised.

Sin had been exposed, sin had been confronted, and the leaders

repented and the people offered their forgiveness and joy was

restored, leading to worship. When we are faithful to expose

sin in the body and confront sin in the right way with the right

motivation, we restore the brokenness in our relationships

and bring glory to God. Now if you live long enough, you

will experience hurt and pain from someone, a family member, a

friend, a Co worker, somebody. Many of you I would guess have

had very painful experiences where where you allowed someone

into your life you shared intimately and deeply and you

were burned. This happened to Paul after

spending a year and a half in the city of Corinth, pouring

into these people, sacrificing for these people, teaching these

people, giving of himself for these people.

He after he left after a year and 1/2, he goes away and a

false teacher came into the church and was able to turn all

the church against Paul, calling into question everything that he

ever did, his authority, his teaching, his work.

Paul was incredibly hurt by this.

And so he wrote a very severe letter to that church.

We don't have that letter, but he wrote a very severe letter to

that church confronting them in their sin, rebuking them for

their sin. An amazing thing happened.

Those people repented. They repented of their sin and

they even disciplined the person who had come in and stirred them

up. They disciplined this man and an

even more amazing thing happened.

He repented and he turned back and he confessed the sin that he

did wrong. Now the problem was that the

people were slow in welcoming this man back and so Paul had to

write to them. In Second Corinthians chapter 2,

2 Corinthians 2:5–8

verses 5 through 8, he says now if anyone has caused pain, he

has caused it not to me, but in some measure not to put it too

severely to all of you for such a one, this punishment by the

majority is enough. So you should rather turn to

forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive

sorrow. So I beg you to reaffirm your

love for him. In that severe letter he had, he

had called them to turn back from their sin and they

listened. But now they disciplined this

man and they kept disciplining him even though he was

repentant, even though he had confessed what he had done.

And Paul tells them now the time for confrontation is over.

It is now time to forgive, to comfort, to affirm your love.

John MacArthur, speaking on this passage, says Paul knew there

was and is no place in the church for man made limits on

God's grace, mercy and forgiveness toward repentance

sinners. Such restriction could

restrictions could only rob the fellowship of the joy of unity.

Nehemiah understood this as well.

He understood and was willing to confront sin in the body because

the goal was reconciliation and restoring joy, restoring unity,

restoring worship of the true God.

This must be our goal as well, which is why we must confront

sin in the body. We need to expose it.

We need to confront it so that reconciliation can happen and we

can restore the joy of unity. So what is the best way to do

that? How do you seek reconciliation

and restoration when when confronting sin?

We follow Nehemiah's example. First, we seek self-control.

When others sin against us, our, our emotions tend to be high.

And so this is not the time to run out and confront someone.

We need to take the time to think, to pray, to come up with

with what we're going to say and the best way to approach.

We must be self controlled. 2nd, we must seek the truth again,

when when our emotions are, they're clouding our judgement

and we need to seek the truth. We need to slow down and think

about what we're saying and, and think about what is best and

allow the other person a chance to respond.

And maybe there's pieces of information that we're missing

that we need. And so we go in on a fact

finding mission trying to find out what is going on.

Often times they've been hurt as well.

And so we need to share in their pain and work together to seek

the truth. 3rd. We must seek God's glory.

If we want to confront someone, we must be concerned not about

our who we are and what we're going through.

Not just our well-being and the fact that we're offended.

But we must take the time to consider how our actions and how

actions of others towards us affect God's name and

reputation. Scripture is our ultimate guide,

so use it in your conversation. And when we follow God's word,

he is glorified. 4th We must confront people but seeking

reconciliation. Now again in our confrontation

we sometimes we were tempted just to want to vent to to want

to be able to show our thoughts, show our feelings and just dump

on someone. And if this is your motivation

then you're not self controlled and you're not ready to confront

someone in their sin. You need to ask yourself the

question, am I seeking revenge or am I seeking for this

relationship to be restored? Pray that the Lord gives you the

desire to reconcile. If you don't have it, and if you

do desire the relationship to be reconciled, then say to that.

Say that to the person that you're confronting.

I'm coming to you because I want our relationship to be restored.

I want unity to be present once again, that we can worship the

Lord together and you can do all the right things and someone may

still reject you. They will deny that they've done

anything wrong and maybe still not want anything to do with

you. But if you follow this pattern

in confronting someone, it has a greater potential of leading to

reconciliation, restore joy, unity, and worship.

The next thing that we learned from chapter 5 in the book of

Nehemiah is that we must kill sin in the body.

Now when sin happens, we must expose it and we must confront

it. But the better way is to kill

sin altogether and to avoid the pain that it causes.

As we close Chapter 5, Nehemiah begins to give us insight into

how he lived as the governor of Judah.

The reason this is important is because if he is confronting

those leaders for taking advantage of the people, they

could think that he's a hypocrite if he's doing the very

same thing. And so as we look at Nehemiah

and how he lived as a governor, we're actually going to see how

we can learn to actively kill sin in our lives, how we can

learn to kill the sin of selfishness and greed in our

hearts. And the way that we do that, the

way that we kill that sin of selfishness, that sin of greed,

is having a heart to serve. But the way that you serve

matters. You should serve not to get, but

to give. We don't know exactly when, but

at some point after Nehemiah arrives, he's appointed the

governor of Judah. He was willing to serve, but as

we see from his life, and it was not because of what he could

get, but what he could give. Look at verses 14 through 18.

I'll read these few verses. Moreover, from the time that I

was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah,

from the 20th year to the 32nd year of Artaxerxes the King, 12

years, neither I nor my brothers ate the food allowance of the

governor. The former governors who were

before me laid heavy burdens on the people and took from them

their daily ration, 40 shekels of silver.

Even their servants lorded it over the people, but I did not

do so because of the fear of God.

I also persevered in the work on this wall, and we acquired no

land, and all my servants were gathered there for the work.

Moreover, there were at my table 150 men, Jews and officials,

besides those who came to us from the nations that were

around us. Now what was prepared at my

expense for each day was one ox and six choice sheep and birds,

and every 10 days all kinds of wine in abundance.

Yet for all this I did not demand the food allowance of the

governor because the service was too heavy on this people.

So though Nehemiah had the right to the food allowance as the

governor, he didn't take it. Governors before him use this as

an opportunity, use their position and their authority as

an opportunity to take advantage of people, and even their

servants would Lord it over these people.

But Nehemiah killed that sin by serving to give.

Nehemiah provided food for himself for 150 men, Jews and

officials who sat at his table. He provided.

There were even people outside of the community who came to him

asking for food, and he provided for them as well.

He did that for 12 years. This gives us a little bit of

insight into the wealth that Nehemiah had gained as the cup

bearer to King Artaxyrxes. The fact that he's able to

provide for over 150 people for 12 years, he had grown

incredibly wealthy and he was coming here to serve not out of

what he could get, but what he could give.

You also kill sin by seeking to serve, not to please man, but

God. After mentioning all of these

personal sacrifices for the people, Nehemiah says in verse

19, Remember for my good, O God, all that I have done for this

people. Nehemiah is willing to make all

of these sacrifices personally because of his desire to be

pleasing to God. Obviously his work and his

sacrifice was a benefit to the people he was serving, but

ultimately he wants to do what's pleasing to God.

And this distinction is really important because at times

Nehemiah had to do really hard things and he had to say really

hard things. And if our desire is to please

man, then we we are tempted to not say the hard things.

We're tempted not to do the hard things.

But when our desire is to please God, as Nehemiah's desire was,

then we're willing to do those hard things.

We're willing to say those hard things because our desire is to

be pleasing to our Lord. And so the way that Nehemiah

killed sin in his own life was by seeking to serve.

And his heart of service was motivated by what he could give

and how he could be pleasing to God.

Now, the reason that we struggle so much with sin is because of

our selfish desires. It is because of our selfish

nature. Rather than seeing ourselves as

a body, we think of ourselves individualistically.

James addresses this very issue as he writes to believers who'd

been scattered because of the persecution.

They're facing persecution from the outside, but they're also

beginning to face internal conflict.

And James exposes and confronts the heart of the issue in James

four, verse 131 through three. What causes quarrels and what

causes fights among you? Is it not this that your

passions are at war within you? You desire and you do not have,

so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so

you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do

not ask. You ask and do not receive

because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions.

The reason they had sin and fighting in the body was because

of their selfish desires. They were more concerned about

their personal desires and their selfishness than what was good

for the body as a whole. And so James goes on and says,

You adulterous people, do you not know that friendship with

the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a

friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

Or do you suppose it is Nope to no purpose that the Scripture

says? He yearns jealously over the

Spirit that he has made to dwell in US.

So he calls out their selfishness, but then says,

Don't you know that your selfishness is putting you as an

enemy of God? God had given them His Spirit,

and he wanted them to find their true delight in him, not in the

things of the world. Thankfully, James gives the

remedy to their selfishness, but he gives more grace.

Therefore, it says God opposes the proud, but gives grace to

the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to

God. Resist the devil and he will

flee from you. Draw near to God and he will

draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners,

and purify your hearts. You double minded.

If they humbled themselves before God, He would give them

grace if they draw near. If they were going to draw near

to God, then God would draw near to them.

If they pursued God's ways, then their hearts would be pure.

The believers that James was writing to were quarrelling and

fighting because of their sin. They forgot that they were a

body. They needed to kill their sin by

seeking to serve and be pleasing to God.

Is this not exactly what we struggle with, brothers and

sisters? The reason that we have

quarrels, the reason that we have fights among us, is it not

because we fail to recognize that we are one body.

If I truly saw that you were a part of me, that we were a part

of the body together, then I would be just as concerned for

you as I am for myself. If you truly understood that I

was a part of you as the body, then you would be just as

concerned for me as you are for yourself.

That is the result of us being a body together.

Well, how do we kill the sin of selfishness in our own hearts?

We follow Nehemiah's example. We seek to be servants.

Do you view church, this body of believers, as a place to get

what you want? Do you view it as a place to get

your needs met, to have your preferences satisfied?

If you're going to kill the sin of selfishness and greed, we

need to be willing to serve one another, to sacrifice and to

surrender for one another, not out of what we can get.

A good reputation, a good feeling on the side, on the

inside, people looking at us from the outside and thinking

that we're good people. It's not out of what we can get,

but it's about what we can give. If you've placed your faith in

Jesus Christ as your Savior, His Spirit has given you a gift.

That gift is not so that you can elevate yourself.

That gift is so that you can use it in service to help the church

to grow, to help the body to grow into the fullness, the

maturity of Christ. And we should do this not to

please one another, but to please God.

Our desire should be to be glorifying to Him.

And this means at times confronting sin, exposing sin,

but when we desire to please God, we're willing to do those

hard things. So I have some uncomfortable

questions for us this morning. If you are a part of this body

of believers, are you more concerned about what you can get

or what you can give? And I'm asking these questions

to myself as much as anybody. Are you more interested in

looking good to others or pleasing God?

Do you see the people around you as this part of the same body as

you? What are you doing to help them

grow? If you want to kill sin in the

body of Christ, you must become a servant to your fellow

brothers and sisters in Christ. We are one body.

Let's live like it. The only reason that we can live

as a body is because of what Christ has done for us, the work

that he has done on the cross, reconciling a people to himself.

Because you see, God has exposed our sin, He said in Romans 323

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and

God has confronted our sin. And he says in Romans 623, the

wages of sin, the wages of sin is death, but God has killed our

sin through Jesus Christ. He goes on to say the gift of

free. The free gift of God is eternal

life in Christ Jesus our Lord. How did Christ do this?

How did he accomplish this? He accomplished it by emptying

himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the

likeness of men and being found in human form.

He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,

even death on a cross. Friend, God loves you enough to

tell you that you're a Sinner and to tell you that your sin

will lead to death. But God also loved you enough to

send his Son Jesus Christ to die on a cross for you to take your

sin on himself to himself. Bear the wrath of God in your

place so that you can be forgiven, so that you can have

the hope of eternal life. And if you will confess your

sins and believe in Him today, you can be saved.

Have you done that? After the service today, I would

encourage you to talk to a pastor or a leader.

Talk to someone who's sitting around you.

As you go out for lunch and go this afternoon and go watch the

Super Bowl somewhere this evening, talk to someone, Talk

to a friend and ask them what it means to follow Christ.

What it means to give your life to Jesus as your Lord and

Saviour and to accept His sacrifice that He has made for

you. Brothers and sisters in Christ,

those who have placed their faith in Him.

Since Jesus loved us enough to humble Himself, to take on the

form of a servant, to die on a cross so that we could be saved,

we should desire to follow His example and seek to live our

lives in humble sacrifice for one another.

Thank God that even though we fail, He gives us grace.

Amen. If we turn to God in humility

and repentance, He will give us grace.

He will strengthen us by the power of His Spirit to be

unified as we seek to build His Kingdom and make His name great

and bring glory and honour to Him.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for all

that Christ has done for us. We thank You that You have saved

us as a body. Lord, would you kill selfishness

and pride in our hearts? Would You help us to be willing

to surrender and sacrifice for one another, not looking to only

our own interests, but looking also to the interests of others

and in this same way having the mind that Christ had?

Or would you strengthen us? Each and every one of us needs

your help. We cannot do it on our own, but

we praise you and thank you that You have given us your Spirit to

walk with us, to guide us. And we confess this morning that

that far too often we grieve the Holy Spirit through our sin.

We ignore his promptings. We ignore as He leads and guides

us and strives to to point us in your ways.

And we pray, Lord, that you would continue to soften our

hearts, continue to make us more willing to live for your glory

and honour. Or would you help us to forgive

one another, to work towards reconciliation?

And Lord, would you restore to us the joy of your salvation as

we seek to be the faithful body of Christ building your Kingdom?

This we ask in Jesus name, Amen.