Sermon
Joining People to God's Work of Renewal
Publisher transcript
Transcript
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Well, again, let me say good morning to you.
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I'm thrilled to be here.
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And I'm excited to continue in the series that we started a couple of weeks ago.
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We're taking time right now, just a few weeks, to talk about the DNA of our church.
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We've been here for about 14 years, and some of you have been here for that entire journey.
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Some of you, this may be your first Sunday with us.
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And so, in the life of any church, it's very valuable to take time every now and then to
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remember why we started the church, why we're here, most importantly, where we feel like
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God is calling us to go.
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So this is really about what we feel that God has called us to be and to do in this area.
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And so, this is week three.
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We're continuing to look at our statement of mission, which, Julian, if you could put
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that up, our mission statement is essentially this.
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We exist to do three things, to join people to God, which we talked about a couple of weeks
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ago, to join people to one another, which we talked about last week, and then this week's
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topic, to join people with Christ's work of renewal in Washington, D.C. and through it,
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the world.
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This is the topic that we're going to be focusing on.
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Another way to ask the question that we're going to focus on this morning would be this.
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What is our salvation for?
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Why does God establish the church?
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Why does God save and restore people and place them in the church?
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What's God's desire for His church, for His people to do in the world?
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Why are we here?
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Why are we here?
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And what we see, and this is what the Bible does again and again, is the Bible says, if
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you know who you are, if you understand your identity, then out of that, you will clearly
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begin to understand your purpose.
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So, if you know who you are, then you can begin to discern why you're here.
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And that's why we're going to look at 1 Peter 2, verses 9 through 12, because this really
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speaks to those two things.
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It tells us first who we are and then why we're here.
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So, we're going to look at this in two parts, the identity of the church and then the purpose
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of the church.
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So, this is our outline for this morning.
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So, let's take a moment and pray and ask God to guide us as we open His Word.
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Lord, we thank You for Your Word, and we thank You that it's more than just ink and paper,
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that it is living, that it is active, that when You send it out, it does not return void.
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It accomplishes all that You intend for it to accomplish.
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Lord, our hope is not in the Word of human beings this morning.
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It's in the Word of the God who made us.
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And we pray that even as we open Your Word, that it would become living in us, that it would
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become flesh in us, and that through Your written Word, we would come to see Your living
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Word face to face.
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And it's in His name that we pray.
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Amen.
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Amen.
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So, first of all, let's talk a little bit about the identity of the church.
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This isn't just church of the advent.
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This is the church in the world.
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1 Peter, since we're dropping into the middle of this, just to give you a little context,
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1 Peter is all about the fact that Jesus, through His resurrection, has raised people to a living
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hope.
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That's what it says in the very beginning of the book.
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And what that means is this is a hope of life.
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It's a hope that is living and active in the form of Jesus Christ.
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And it's a living hope for the world.
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That God's plan isn't just to save people so that they can escape the world.
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That God's plan is actually to resurrect and renew the world just as the body of Jesus has
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been resurrected and renewed.
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So our hope is a resurrected world.
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And He raises people to begin to live out that hope here and now.
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And so, 1 Peter is really all about how we do that when we live in a world where people
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believe lots of different things, a pluralistic society, and where increasingly people are
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very hostile to the beliefs of a faith like Christianity.
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These people were facing hostility every bit as much as we face skepticism and hostility
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today.
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And so, Peter's talking about first in the first part of the book, he's talking about
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the identity of the church.
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Who are we who have been raised to this living hope?
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And how do we orient ourselves to the world that we live in, the society where God has
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placed us?
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And he uses two key terms that give us a big, strong, clear sense of our place in the world.
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And the first word that he uses, it's a key term, is the word exile.
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He says, to understand who you are in the world, you need to understand that now because
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of me, you are all exiles.
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You're exiles.
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And he's intentionally referencing a very specific time in Israel's history.
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In the 6th century BC, the Babylonians conquered God's people and they took them into exile.
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And the Babylonian strategy was that after a couple of generations, Israel would simply
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become assimilated into Babylonian culture.
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So the idea is, it's very expensive to kill all of these people.
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It's very bloody and it's a big waste.
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We're going to benefit more as a society if they just assimilate and we gain their best
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and brightest.
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And so that's exactly what they did.
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And so the hope was that Israel would simply cease to exist, right?
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That their kids' kids wouldn't even remember Israel.
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And so for these Israelite exiles in Babylon, there was this big question that they were
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debating among themselves.
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How do we relate to this foreign culture of Babylon?
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And it seemed like there were only two options.
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Some people said we need to hunker down.
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It was the sort of fortification option.
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Let's fortify ourselves against the Babylonian culture.
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Let's keep ourselves entirely separate and let's wait for God to rescue us.
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And there were some prophets who were saying that's going to happen very soon.
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Just hold tight.
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God is coming.
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The other option that some people sort of accepted with a sense of hopeless resignation
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was let's just give up.
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Let's just allow ourselves to be assimilated.
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There is no hope for us.
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We're done as a people.
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And so that was really the two choices, fortification or assimilation.
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And God sends the prophet Jeremiah with a third option.
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He says, I don't want you to fortify yourselves and I don't want you to allow yourselves to
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be assimilated.
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And the option is what we might call faithful presence.
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On the one hand, he says, don't remain separate.
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Go into Babylon.
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Put down roots.
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Get jobs.
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Have kids.
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Commit to living there for several generations.
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You're going to be there for a while.
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And then on the other hand, Jeremiah says, on the one hand, don't fortify.
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But on the other hand, don't allow yourselves to be assimilated.
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Go into the city.
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Go into the society.
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You know, get jobs.
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Put down roots.
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Get married.
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Let your kids get married.
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Get to know your neighbors.
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Invest in the community.
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But don't be assimilated into their way of life.
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Stay faithful to me as my chosen people.
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Stay holy, which means set apart.
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Stay holy.
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And more than that, verse 7, seek the welfare of the city where I've sent you into exile.
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And pray to the Lord on its behalf.
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For in its welfare, you will find your welfare.
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Right?
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And the word welfare can also be translated shalom or flourishing.
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Right?
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And so this is the third option that exilers are called to in the world.
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And Peter is saying that Christians need to understand that we need to think of ourselves like exiles in Babylon.
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So God wants the church to be present and active and engaged in every sphere of society.
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God's vision is that Christians would be everywhere there are people.
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Right?
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Go everywhere.
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In every job.
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In every profession.
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In every sphere.
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But on the other hand, don't be assimilated.
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Stay holy.
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Stay separate.
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Stay set apart.
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Stay faithful to me.
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Stay salty.
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Stay.
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So it's the both and option.
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Right?
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Be present but don't allow yourselves to be assimilated.
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Instead, pray for and seek the flourishing of the society where God has put you.
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So that's the first word that he uses.
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Think of yourselves like exiles called to have a faithful presence wherever God has put you.
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And then he adds to that a term that would have gone way beyond anything that you would see in the Old Testament.
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He says, not only are you exiles, but you were also a royal priesthood.
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Because of Jesus, you're not just exiles.
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You are royal priests.
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Now, for the original audience, for people with a kind of a Jewish background, royalty was a kind of unimaginable privilege.
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Right?
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Most people didn't even know somebody who was royal.
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And so what they would think of would be sort of King David and the lineage of King David.
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Unless you were born into a royal family, you probably wouldn't even be in contact with anybody who was royal.
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And priests were similar in the sense that that was this kind of unimaginable privilege that you had to be born into.
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Because in the Old Testament, in the Old Testament priesthood, priests came from certain special families from among the nation of Israel.
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And they were uniquely able to enter into the holy places of God and to mediate the relationship between God and people.
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So both royalty and priests, they were privileges that you had to be born into.
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You had to be born into the right family.
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So the idea that everybody would be royal priests was just unthinkable.
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Right?
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Because these are massive privileges.
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And that's exactly what Peter is saying.
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He's saying that every single Christian who puts their faith in Jesus Christ is born again into a royal priesthood.
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You're born into that chosen, set apart, privileged family.
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And what this means is that every single Christian has all of the privileges of royalty in God's kingdom.
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Right?
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You have the place of honor at the table.
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And every single Christian has direct access to God.
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A kind of access that the Old Testament priesthood couldn't have even imagined having.
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So he says you're exiles and you are royal priests.
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Every single one of you.
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And this is extremely important for understanding the identity of the church in the world today.
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Because, you know, when we use the word priest, we can easily get confused.
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Because in the church today, we use the word priest in a couple of different ways.
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In one sense, we use the word priest to describe an office in the church.
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Somebody who wears a collar.
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Somebody like me.
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And we say, well, some churches have priests in them.
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And that word comes from the Greek word presbyteros, which essentially means elder.
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And what we see is that since the very beginning of the church, the apostles set aside certain people to serve the church as presbyteros, as priests, as elders.
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People to sort of oversee and manage the affairs of the church and God's people.
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And so that's what I do.
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That's what a very small number of people do.
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We have that job in the church.
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It's an office.
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But here's the thing I want you to understand.
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Our job and the reason that this office even exists is to serve you, the royal priesthood.
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So we are sort of priests who serve all of the other priests in God's family, in God's temple.
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And so as Paul says in Ephesians chapter 4, the job of people like me is to equip the saints for the work of ministry.
Ephesians 4 chapter mention
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Our job is to equip the royal priesthood to be a royal priesthood in the world.
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And so our contract is essentially this.
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I keep you well fed so that you can go out and do all of the things, do all of the ministry that God has given you to do.
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And that's how the relationship works.
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And one of the biggest threats to the mission of the church is what we might call clericalism,
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which is the mistaken belief that the clergy are the ones doing the real work of ministry on the front lines
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and that it's the job of the church to support the kind of ordained people.
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You know, the pastors and the missionaries and the monks and the nuns, they're the real Christians.
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They're doing the real work of ministry.
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And everybody else's job in the congregation is to support what they do.
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And what we need to emphasize here is we can't really emphasize this enough.
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That's the exact opposite of the way God, I believe, intended his church to function.
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I mean, I stand up here for an hour and a half roughly every week.
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And you all are the ones sitting in the pews because this is the time for you to be fed.
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This is the time for you to come together and to be fed and to be nourished.
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And we all sort of come together in prayer and around the word of God and around the table.
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And so you need to be fed by word and by sacrament, right, for all that God has called you to do.
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So this is the time for you to sit in the pews.
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But that's about an hour and a half a week, give or take.
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For the remaining roughly 166 and a half hours of the week, you are the ones on the front lines and I'm the one behind the scenes.
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And you are the ones on the front lines doing the work of royal priests in the world.
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And I mean that in its fullest sense.
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Everywhere you go, you bring the presence of God with you.
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You have an ability to do what no Old Testament priest ever could have done because you don't need to go to the temple.
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You don't need to go into the holy of holies in the temple.
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Wherever you go.
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And it might sound ridiculous to say, you know, when you go to Costco and you're standing in line,
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you have with you, in you, the presence of the God who made the universe.
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You're a royal priest.
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So when you walk into a room, people may not know it, but you are the single most important person they could possibly talk to.
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Right?
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If they really knew what they were doing in terms of networking, everybody would line up to talk to you.
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Because you are the one with a royal priestly authority to bring them into the presence of the God of the universe.
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One conversation with you, and they have a chance to actually know and be reconciled to the God who made them.
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Because you're a royal priest.
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And if we understand the identity of the church as exiles and royal priests, I think that begins to shape our sense of why we're here.
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Our purpose.
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We're exiles called to seek the welfare of the society where we've been sent.
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To be present everywhere, but not to be assimilated.
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And we are royal priests who bring with us the authority of the kingdom of God and the presence of that God wherever we go.
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Now just let that sink in.
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And so the job of the people up here, the job of the people who work for a church, is to make sure you have everything you need to do that.
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It's to make sure you're well fed.
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It's to pray for you.
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It's to do all we can to equip you.
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And then when you go out and you fight on the front lines, and you get beat up and you get wounded and you get tired and you get hungry,
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you come back and we patch you up here on Sunday.
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And then we send you back out to the front lines.
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And that's how it works.
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So we're exiles.
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We're royal priests.
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That leads us into the second part, which is understanding the purpose of the church.
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The purpose of the church.
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He says,
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But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession,
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that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
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To proclaim God's excellence.
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That's essentially our purpose.
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To proclaim God's excellence.
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And that means to make it known far and wide.
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So the word proclaim here is not just speaking.
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It's also living.
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I make God's excellence known in what I say.
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I make God's excellence known in what I do and how I live.
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That's what a royal priest does.
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That's the job of a royal priest.
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So what does it look like to do this?
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I wanted to give you a few examples.
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You see them up on the screen right now.
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A few specific examples of ways we as a church proclaim God's excellence.
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The first example is simply this.
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Through evangelism.
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That's the most obvious example of proclaiming God's excellence.
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And evangelism is something that every Christian is called to do.
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It's a part of how we respond to Jesus.
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You see at the end of Matthew, that passage that I just read,
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that Jesus gives that commandment, go and make disciples of all the nations,
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to his apostles.
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And then he tells them, go and tell everyone you know, everyone you meet,
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everyone who becomes a disciple, to observe all that I've commanded you,
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including the commandment to go and make disciples.
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Right?
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And so this is something that applies to every Christian.
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And it's a quintessential job of a royal priest,
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is to make the presence and the glory of God known to people who need to know him.
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And honestly, at its core, evangelism is simply proclaiming God's excellence.
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Ideally, evangelism starts simply by telling people stories of how God has worked in your life.
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That's where evangelism really, I think, should begin.
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You know, this past week I was in Oregon,
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and I found myself one night sitting at a table with just the most random mishmash of people.
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And we're sitting there, and earlier in the trip,
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somebody had asked what we all did, and it got to me.
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And I said, you know, well, I'm a pastor back in D.C.
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I'm a priest of an Anglican church.
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And I could tell that that was sort of an unexpected answer.
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You know, it's like doctor, lawyer, lawyer, doctor, priest.
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And they're like, okay.
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And so another day goes by,
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and then the third night we're all together at dinner,
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and somebody brings it back up and says,
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well, how does somebody, none of these people were Christians.
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And they say, well, how does somebody get into that kind of work, you know?
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And I said, well, honestly, I don't think it's going to make much sense to you
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unless I tell you the story of how I came to faith.
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Would you be interested in hearing that story?
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And everybody at the table said, absolutely, we'd love to hear that story.
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And I'm inside thinking, really?
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You really want to hear?
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Not many people, okay.
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And so I just begin to tell the story of how I came to faith.
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And I get done with the story.
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And then somebody asks a question about Jesus,
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and somebody asks a question about the gospel.
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And next thing I know, the entire dinner conversation,
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until the end of the night, we're talking about the gospel.
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And we're talking about Jesus.
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And we're talking about grace.
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And we're talking about idolatry.
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And we're talking about how nothing that we put our hope in
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is ever going to last and deliver.
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And we're talking about how Jesus is the only thing,
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the only one that we're ever meant to know and follow.
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But it all launched out of just an opportunity to tell my story.
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And it was fascinating to me to realize that I'm not gifted in evangelism.
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If you know Lisa, our deacon, she's very gifted in evangelism.
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I don't have the spiritual gift.
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But as a Christian, I know that I'm called to do it.
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And what you realize is that very often, you know,
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I didn't go in there with any kind of strategy, any kind of game plan,
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any kind of approach that I was going to take.
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I was just showing up and eating dinner.
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And God created the opportunity.
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And that when God creates that opportunity,
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all we have to do is respond with the truth.
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Well, here's how I've experienced God in my life.
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Here's what God's done for me.
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We are proclaiming God's excellence when we do that.
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And then when people want to know more and they want to know more
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and they want to know more,
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all of a sudden you find yourself laying out
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all of the core aspects of our faith
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and why we put our hope in Jesus above anyone else.
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And I think that's where good evangelism starts.
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And, you know, we live in a culture
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that I think increasingly rejects the idea of organized religion,
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but story has a real power.
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People really put value on stories.
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And it's interesting how when you begin to tell your story,
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how people begin to rethink and question their own story
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in ways that I think God can use.
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So this is something that every single one of us can do.
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So this is one of the ways that we proclaim God's excellence
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through evangelism.
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Another way that we as a community
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proclaim God's excellence in the world
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is through ministries of justice and mercy.
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You know, unfortunately, you don't often see churches
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that emphasize both evangelism and justice and mercy.
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Typically, you have churches that emphasize evangelism,
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but they don't talk a lot about justice and vice versa.
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But I think if you read Scripture thoroughly,
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it shows you pretty clearly how much God cares
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about justice and mercy right alongside evangelism.
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You know, you read places like Isaiah 58
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where God says to His people,
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is not this the fast that I choose?
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In other words, do you really want to prove
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that you're my people?
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Do you really want to glorify my name?
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Do you really want to show your devotion to me?
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Well, loose the bonds of wickedness.
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Undo the straps of the yoke.
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Let the oppressed go free.
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Break every yoke.
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Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
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and bring the homeless poor into your house
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when you see the naked to cover him, right?
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This is God saying,
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if you want to glorify my name and proclaim my excellence,
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then you need to care about what I care about,
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to care the people that I want to care for, right?
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And then in Luke 11,
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Jesus actually accuses the Pharisees of hypocrisy.
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And what he's talking about there is,
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he says,
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you're overemphasizing certain forms of holiness and piety.
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You're tithing so meticulously
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that you're even tithing your herbs in your garden.
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You're tithing your mint and your cumin.
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And he says,
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and yet you're neglecting the people
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who are right in front of you,
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who are victims of poverty and injustice.
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He says,
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you're neglecting justice.
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And he says,
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this is a form of hypocrisy.
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He says,
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woe to you.
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Woe to you,
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Pharisees.
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Right?
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And so the Bible again and again says
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that some of the clearest evidence
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of genuine Christian faith
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is whether or not we care about justice and mercy
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for those who are vulnerable.
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And the Bible again and again and again
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has what many people have called
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the quartet of the vulnerable.
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Again and again and again,
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you see the widow,
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the orphan,
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the immigrant,
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and the poor.
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The widow,
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the orphan,
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the immigrant,
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and the poor.
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These are the most vulnerable people in society.
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And God says,
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if you care about me,
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then you've got to care about them.
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And the best evidence that you care about me
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is that you care about them.
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Right?
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So when we do the work of justice and mercy,
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we proclaim God's excellence
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because we're showing the world
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what God cares about,
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who God cares about,
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and we're giving people a preview
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of the kind of world,
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the kind of society
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that God is establishing
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through his kingdom.
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Right?
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We're saying,
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see this here.
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It's the same thing
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that Jesus did with his miracles.
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Right?
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Why does Jesus heal the blind
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and heal the lame
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and raise people from death?
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Why does Jesus do that?
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There are previews.
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There are ways for Jesus to say,
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one day when the kingdom
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is fully established,
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this is what everything
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is going to be like.
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And that's what we do
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when we do justice and mercy work.
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We're saying,
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you know,
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this is the kind of world
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that God is building,
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a kind of world
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where this is true for everybody.
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So this is why our church
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places a high value
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on supporting ministries
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like Little Lights
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and the mentoring work
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that they do.
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Or ministries like DZ 127
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and the foster care
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and adoption work
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that they do.
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Right?
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This is why we prioritize
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ministries that help us
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show the world
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the heart of God.
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It's why we have new ministries
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like the Antioch ministry
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that's devoted
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to building cross-cultural
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relationships
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with other churches
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in the city.
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It's the same reason.
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This shows the heart
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of God to the world.
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This proclaims His excellence.
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So we have evangelism,
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we have ministries
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of justice and mercy,
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and then finally,
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we have vocational ministry.
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And there's a reason
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that I wanted to end on this.
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Here's the reason.
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Evangelism,
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centrally important.
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Justice and mercy,
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centrally important.
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But when people ask,
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what ministries do you have
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at Church of the Advent?
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Get asked that a lot.
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What ministries,
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what are you guys doing?
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I say, you know,
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my first answer
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is pretty simple.
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I say, you want to know
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our primary ministry?
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It's our people.
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It's our people.
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You are our primary ministry
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through your vocation,
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through what God
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has called you to do
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and equipped you to do
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in the world.
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And the word vocation
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simply means calling.
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All Christians have
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two vocations.
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This is the way
-
the Puritans used
-
to break it down.
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They would say,
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all Christians have
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two vocations.
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You have a general calling
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and you have
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a particular calling.
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Your general calling
-
is everything that we've
-
been talking about
-
up to this point.
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You are called
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to follow Jesus.
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You're called to evangelism,
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to share the gospel.
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You're called to do
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the work of justice
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and mercy.
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Everything that we've
-
been talking about,
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that's all your
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general calling.
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All Christians are
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called to do those
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things.
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But you also have
-
a particular calling.
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This is a specific
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occupation that God
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has called you to
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that uses your gifts
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and that it uses
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your talents
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and uses your aptitudes
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and uses your passions
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to do things
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that other Christians
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may not necessarily
-
be called to do.
-
right?
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So whether you build
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or you cook
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or you raise children
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or you paint
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or you organize
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or you clean
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or you lead
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or administrate
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or sell
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or manage
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or counsel
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or support
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or advise
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or oversee
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or inspire
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or teach,
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there are certain
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roles that God
-
has designed
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and equipped you
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to fill
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roles that you
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play in his kingdom.
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And I'm not
-
talking only about
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you doing those
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things in the church.
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I'm talking about
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you doing those
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things as the church
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in all of the world,
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wherever God
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puts you.
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And the thing is,
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if you imagine
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two overlapping circles
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like a Venn diagram,
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your vocation
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may not necessarily
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line up
-
with your current job
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or career.
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Right?
-
Ideally,
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your vocation
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and your job
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or your career
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that there's
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some overlap.
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Some of us,
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it may be like this.
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You gotta make money,
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but this is really
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your calling.
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Ideally,
-
there's some overlap
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and ideally,
-
over time,
-
part of your Christian maturity,
-
part of your discipleship,
-
is getting more
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and more clear
-
on what your vocation is
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so that you can spend
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more and more
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and more of your time
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pulling those things together.
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And, you know,
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Amy Sherman
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writes about this
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and she says
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that our vocation
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is typically found
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at the intersection
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of three things.
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God's priorities,
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your gifts,
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talents,
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passions,
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interests,
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aptitudes,
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and then the world's needs.
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You pull all
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of those things together
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and you will find
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where those things
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intersect for you
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a sense of vocation.
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And it's the work
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of the church
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to help you
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figure that out.
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That's part of how
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we equip you
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for the work
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of ministry
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in the world.
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That's our responsibility
-
as a community.
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And so what I want you
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to take from this
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is that the work
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that you do
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day in and day out,
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that work matters
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to God
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more than you
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can possibly imagine.
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It is one
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of the ways,
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and I would say
-
as a church,
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a central way
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that God uses you
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to accomplish
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his purposes
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in the world.
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And Julian,
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if we could put
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this quote up
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on the screen,
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I want you to see this,
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I want you to hear it,
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I want you to remember it.
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N.T. Wright says this
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in his book
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Surprised by Hope.
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What you do
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in the present
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by painting,
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preaching,
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singing,
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sewing,
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praying,
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teaching,
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building hospitals,
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digging wells,
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campaigning for justice,
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writing poems,
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caring for the needy,
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loving your neighbor
-
as yourself.
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And you can add
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into that list
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however,
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whatever you feel
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called to do
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in the world.
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Whatever you do
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will last
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into God's future.
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These activities
-
are not simply ways
-
of making the present life
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a little less beastly,
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a little more bearable,
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until the day
-
when we leave it behind
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altogether.
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Last sentence.
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Listen to this.
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They are part
-
of what we may call
-
God built,
-
what we may call
-
building for God's kingdom.
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That when you do
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the work that God
-
has called you to do,
-
that is a part
-
of building
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for God's kingdom.
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It's building
-
for God's kingdom.
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So our primary ministry
-
at Church of the Advent
-
is you.
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Doing the work,
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doing your job,
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doing your vocation
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with excellence,
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with excellence
-
for God's glory.
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Right?
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So when I see you
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doing something
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that you're phenomenally
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good at
-
and something
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that you love to do,
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when I see your heart
-
singing
-
because you are
-
doing the thing
-
that God has put you
-
here to do,
-
that is proclaiming
-
God's excellence.
-
The world looks at that
-
and says,
-
and this is what Paul
-
says in Colossians,
-
do everything,
-
work hard,
-
work earnestly,
-
work with all your heart
-
as though you were
-
working for Christ
-
because that's exactly
-
what you're doing.
-
So you're our
-
primary ministry.
-
You royal priests,
-
you exiles,
-
you who are called
-
not only to generally
-
follow Jesus
-
but to the specific
-
things that God
-
has put you here to do.
-
So bringing all of this
-
back to the mission
-
of our church,
-
we exist to join people
-
to Christ's work
-
of renewal
-
in all of the ways
-
that I've just described.
-
Jesus has risen
-
from the grave.
-
One day Jesus
-
will resurrect
-
and restore this world.
-
And because of the cross,
-
we who were once
-
caught off from God
-
because of sin
-
are not only reconciled
-
to Him
-
but we gain the
-
unimaginable privilege
-
of joining in
-
the work of renewal.
-
And so part of what
-
we do as a church
-
is to join people
-
into the work
-
that Christ is already
-
doing in the world.
-
And this means
-
supporting and equipping
-
you in your general
-
vocation
-
to follow Jesus
-
faithfully
-
and be holy
-
and set apart,
-
to share the gospel,
-
to do the work
-
of justice and mercy,
-
and also supporting
-
and equipping you
-
for your particular
-
vocation,
-
helping you discern
-
what has God
-
called you to do,
-
how do you integrate
-
your faith
-
into your work,
-
and making sure
-
you understand
-
the importance
-
of your work
-
for God's kingdom.
-
Because God
-
has made you
-
for His purposes
-
and until you
-
understand that,
-
your life is never
-
going to make sense.
-
Let's pray.
-
Lord, we thank you
-
for your ministry
-
in the world.
-
All we do
-
is a response
-
to your ministry
-
in the world.
-
The fact is,
-
as your word says,
-
once we were not
-
a people,
-
once we were cut off
-
and alienated,
-
but now because of you
-
we are a people.
-
We thank you
-
for your ministry
-
and we thank you
-
for the honor
-
and the privilege
-
of not just sitting
-
on the sidelines
-
and watching you
-
do your thing,
-
but the fact that you
-
call us into your ministry.
-
You call us
-
to partner with you,
-
to join with you
-
in your work of renewal
-
in this world, Lord.
-
I thank you
-
for calling us, Lord,
-
in the ways
-
that we're all called
-
to tell people about you
-
and to show your heart
-
to the world
-
and those we care for.
-
And Lord,
-
I also thank you
-
for the particular
-
colleagues that you've
-
given each one of us
-
and I pray that
-
you would give us
-
through the power
-
of your Holy Spirit
-
greater and greater clarity
-
over what that is
-
and that, Lord,
-
you would inspire us,
-
that you would give us
-
the boldness
-
and the freedom
-
as a community
-
to speak truth
-
to one another
-
in our discernment,
-
that when we see
-
things happening,
-
Lord,
-
that remind us of you,
-
that put your glory
-
on display,
-
that we would speak up,
-
that we would affirm
-
that in one another.
-
Lord,
-
I pray that in all
-
that we're called to do,
-
all of the work
-
that we're called to do,
-
no matter how menial,
-
no matter how unimportant
-
it might feel,
-
that we would do all of it
-
with our eyes fixed on you,
-
Lord,
-
in the light of your pleasure,
-
seeking only to bring you
-
more glory
-
and proclaim your excellence
-
to the world.
-
We pray this in your
-
Son's holy name.
-
Amen.