Looking Unto Jesus, The Author and Finisher of Our Faith - Leland Zehr

Thank you, brother Eric, and welcome to each one of you. Again.

Greetings in the name of Jesus. Especially this morning, I

want to remind us the reason that we're here at

Halsey Mennonite could be various things, but it's because of

Jesus is the real reason. Without that none of us

would be here. Revelation describes it as Jesus, who is

the faithful Witness, the first begotten of the dead, the

Prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that

loved us and washed us from our sins in his

own blood, and hath made us kings in priests and

to God and his Father. To Him be glory and

dominion forever and ever. Amen. So I before you this morning,

because of that, appreciated different things so far this morning,

songs and words that were shared. Won't go into a

lot of that at this point, but just to get

right into the introduction of my thoughts and message this morning,

I want to start, maybe lay a backdrop with a

story from the Bible, something that you children can't understand

as well as the adults. The story that an Old

Testament story that happened in the Book of Numbers in

the wilderness, when the children of Israel were in the wilderness,

and at this point in their journey, we know that story, well,

how they came out of Egypt and we're sinned and

we're wondering around in the wilderness trying to make it

to the Promised Land. Pretty far into that journey, Miriam died,

Aaron died, and they were getting closer to the end

of that. But the Bible says that they the people

became discouraged. They were weary of the way that they

were in. It was a long drawn out life in

the wilderness, and we're you know, sometimes we read through

those stories or I do, and I think, man, they

were slow learners, but you know, it was really they

went through a lot, a lot of discomfort, a lot

of things, a lot of basic needs that they ran

up against. But nevertheless, I'm not making excuses for them,

just trying to say maybe that it's more relatable than

we would like to admit some time. But at this

point they became very weary, They became discouraged. Life was hard,

it was difficult, and you know, when we get discouraged

sometimes I don't know how you are. Some get more

discouraged than others, I suppose, but we need to be

careful when we get discouraged, because depending on how we

re respond to discourage, when it can quickly becomes sin.

And we've become tempted to start doing and saying and

being negative and complaining and using our mouth in a

way that dishonors God and dregs other people down. And

that's exactly what happened in the life of the children

of Israel. At this point. They started to complain, and

they talked bad about Moses, and they talked bad about God.

And they again like they had before, just saying out

loud to each other and complaining against Moses about why

they ever started this journey. Should have just stayed in Egypt,

where the food was good and at least they had

some security. So they complained and grumbled, they talked bad

about both God and like I said, Moses, and Moses,

unlike a lot of leaders, he was actually a really

good leader. He was a humble man, He was self sacrificing.

He wasn't there on his own agenda. He was asked

of God. He was just trying to do what he

was supposed to do. But the people complained against him.

And against God. And you know what happened children in

that story. At that time God bes different things in

different ways to get people's attention. But at that time,

what he did the Bible City sent fiery snakes, which

in our terms is poisonous snakes. And you know, we

none of us probably love snakes, especially poisonous snakes, and

some hate snakes more than other people hate snakes. But

if you could imagine what it would have been like

to be in a congregation of people, and I don't

know where they were, but in the mountain the desert

rocks congregated together, bunched up, complaining and talking, and all

of a sudden it says that God sent fiery serpents

in and among them. And if you could just imagine

for a minute as you sat here, that God would

send fiery serpents into this auditorium, this church, under the benches,

hanging from the lights, coming in and out from underdoors

and songbook racks, the chaos, the fear that would come

from that, and then you mix that into people actually

getting bit and the pain and the moaning and the

running and the chaos. And you know the thing about

a snake is that makes it in a way more

unique than a lot of animals. It's such a it

feels so unpredictable. It's going this way, and then just

it can just pinball around, it can swivel in a

dime and look back. It's just a real unsettling animal,

especially if it's aggressive and poisonous. And after you people ran,

people screamed, people moaned, people died, and through all that chaos,

I don't know how long that happened. I don't know

if it was an hour or a day. But at

some point the children of Israel realized that this was

the judgment of God upon them for their actions. And

they came back to this the very same man they

were complaining against Moses, and they begged him to pray

to God to get rid of these snakes. What did

did God take away the snakes? No, it doesn't say

that he took away the snakes. He told Moses to

do kind of a strange thing, and I still don't

seem like I probably fully understand it. But what he

told Moses to do, he didn't say it take away

the snakes. He just, as far as we know, they

stayed there and continued to harass the people said, make

a snake out of brass and put it up on

a pole, and stick that pole in the air, and

you go, tell all the people that are running around

to and dying and hurting and whatever they're doing, if

they look at that snake, that'll heal them, that'll bring

them life. And that I imagine, even years later, I

don't understand it, like I said, but I imagine that

it seemed quite foolish or simple and foolish and maybe

silly of an idea. It would make a lot more

sense as a man, as men to band together as

we have this problem, and to arm ourselves with sticks

and to make a plan maybe to clear out an

area to get the people inside, and to fight those

snakes and try to kill them. That would be what

would make sense to me, or to escape and to

get away. So why did God say to do such

a thing rather than just take the snakes away? Well,

I don't know. I guess all the reasons for that

at the time, but we have some indication later on

in life or in the Bible, in the New Testament,

about that this scene represented and represents even today a

something deeper than snakes and brass and the wilderness, but

it's a type of a very real reality that affects

each one of us even today. The poisonous snakes in

that day caused a lot of chaos, caused real danger,

It caused suffering, and it caused death. And those the

venomous snakes represent today the sin, the bite of sin

that each one of us has been born with that

we're dying. And there's different symbolisms and types in here.

I'm not trying to go unto that too deep. But

God didn't take away the snakes. He doesn't take away sin,

doesn't take away suffering today either, but he still he

provided a path, a unique path, and a unique way

to find healing. These snakes were the judgment of God

upon a wicked people, and the brass snake was the

mercy of God. God wanted his people to look and

be obedient and look to this statue of a snake

in faith, to actually look at it, to lift their

eyes up and look at it, and not to try

to fight the battle of snakes with their own means

and methods. The brass serpent was a foreshadowing of Jesus.

As you know, most of you would know. Maybe you

children don't know that. But you children, if you look

around even today, thousands of years later, and you look

at medical offices in different places, hospitals, you'll see sometimes

this symbol of this snake on a pole, symbol of healing.

It's interesting to me that that has made its way

all the way through time and cultures to where we

see that today. Jesus said in John in John three,

and there's a story of Nicodemus, the man that came

to Jesus by night, and he had conviction, he had

a need, and he wasn't sure what to do about it,

and he was he came at night because he was

afraid of his friends and his peers. He wasn't sure

about this whole Jesus saying what it meant. But he

asked Jesus some questions. You know, what does he need

to do. Jesus said, he must be born again, and

Nicodemus says, well, what do you mean be born again?

And so Jesus is explaining this to him, and I'm

not going to go into all of that, but when

he gets to verse fourteen and John three, he says

this as he's explaining and trying to tell Nicodemus, how

you be saved, he said, And as Moses lifted up

the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son

of Man be lifted up. And whosoever believeth in him

should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God so

loved the world that he gave his only begotten son,

that whoso believeth in him should not perish, but have

everlasting life. And so Jesus himself, the symbol that was

going to be not only the symbol but the real

that the brass snakes symbolized, was speaking of himself, that

he would have to be lifted up. He would have

to be like that serpent. He would die and suffer

and hang on the cross for the sins of the

people and for healing. And just like all those dying

people in the wilderness, had to actually lift up their

eyes and look at that snake. They had for for

a I don't know if it was a second or

if they had to fix their eyes. The Bible doesn't say.

But so they had to look. They had to look

up from that the fears all around them and the

threats that may be coming at any time. They had

to lift their eyes up from their dying son or

mother or whatever it is, or from their own bite,

and they had to they had to look up from

that and look at that snake to find healing, and

if they wouldn't lift their eyes up, they would die

in the spot that they lay, no matter how valiantly

they fought to try to overcome that. One of the

one of just the basic facts of that story and

the reality is that it was a very personal choice.

It was you couldn't look for someone else, and no

one else could look for you, no matter how much

you loved and cared and wished and wanted for a

loved one. And I don't know how it is. I'm

not really trying to make things up, but I can imagine,

with people human nature, that as that word got out,

some probably disregarded it and were hard hearted. Others were

desperate and tried it. And as a few people did

it and became healed, I imagine they became campaigners to the

bitten to look at that snake. It brought healing. And

I could imagine a maybe a mother or a son

pleading with her husband to look up at that snake,

and maybe in the hardheartedness they wouldn't. Or maybe and

they died as people helped tried to help them. Maybe

people died in each other's arms as they tried to

help and comfort and wrap up bandages and just intensely

loving that person, but they didn't look up. We don't

know what all happened. But again, the one thing that

we do know is that no one could save anyone else,

no matter how good the intentions. And so that that

thought brings me just a little bit closer to maybe

the heart of my thoughts and message this morning. But

moving on from this, maybe come back to the story

a little bit. But to expand on this a bit more,

if you cared to, you could turn to Hebrews twelve.

I want to read just a few verses from there

and to give a little context to this. These verses,

of course, it's right following Hebrews Chapter eleven, which Hebrews

Chapter eleven is what we call the Faith chapter. It's

a very interesting chapter. It's full of names and references

to people of faith that died in faith, that lived

their life in faith. And this time period is spread

out the Hebrews eleven from many many years and different

generations and different settings and different cultures and genders and

types of people at different stages of life, unique circumstances.

There's not a repeat in the story of Hebrews with

any one person. They're all different, all different stories, they

all lived a different life, and yet the thing that

they all had in common was a very personal faith

in God. That's really the only thing that gets them

in this chapter, a personal faith. I'll read one verse

out of Hebrews thirteen. It kind of represents maybe these

Hebrews eleven thirteen says, these all died in faith, not

having received the promises, but having seen them afar off,

and were persuaded of them and embraced them, and confessed

that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. So

Hebrews with that in mind, Hebrews twelve, verses one through three,

just going to read the first three verses, so it

just kind of merges in from eleven to twelve, the

chapter eleven to chapter twelve. But the same train of thought. Wherefore,

seeing we also are compassed about with so great a

cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and

the sin which does so easily beset us, and let

us run with patience, the race that is set before us,

looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith,

who for the joy that was set before him, endured

the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at

the right hand of the throne of God. For consider

him that endured such contradiction of sinners against him, lest

ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Verse one

talks about the reality well two things. It refers back

to the cloud of witnesses, all those that have went

on before. We're not alone. People have been through this battle,

this journey, this race that calls it, and he reminds

us that we're in a race, and it's probably more

of a marathon race than a quick race, but a race,

a difficult race that sometimes we get tired in. And

these verses, I believe are meant to encourage to spur

us on wherever you and I are at in life,

in this race, if we're trying to live the Christian

life in any level, trying to take that serious and

be faithful, we are in a marathon, a race that

some days we get tired, we get weary, we get discouraged,

And he's trying to encourage us that, And he's saying,

run with patients, the race that has set before you.

Lay aside the weights, the sin, Run with patients, run

with endurance, keep on a going, don't quit, don't give up.

So the title of my message this morning is out

of verse two, looking under Jesus, the Author and finisher

of our faith. And maybe I'm not quite sure how

to condense things, the thoughts, and I'm just going to

say a little bit here maybe where the emphasis of

the primary focus of this message is and what I

felt came to me for maybe my own realigning over

the last while, and it just has been on my

own mind. Is this struggle of personal faith in relation

to the role of church or corporate faith, fellowship, religious activities,

all the things you want to whatever falls under that.

There seems to be a tension in Christian people and

even Anabaptist people of this role of my personal life

and my church life. And too often they it feels

to me like you kind of got to sacrifice one

for the other, pit one against the other, You got

to kind of push the other one down to bring

the other one up. And there's you know, there's biblical

verses to try to prove both points, and it kind

of becomes even if we don't verbally say, we kind

of wrestle with those things in our mind somehow emphasize

the personal relationship with Jesus Christ and minimize or even

disregard the practical. Being part of a real local body

is kind of optional. Maybe get together for fellowship and

encouragement worship, but no, nothing much more than that. It's

Jesus is the one that saves, and then others say, yes,

the door is Jesus Christ. But most of the effort,

the energy, the focus is spent in practical church life,

focusing on interpersonal relationships within the church, unity of the church,

trying to keep that balanced right, working through current issues,

staying on top of all the administrative things, making sure

things are done decently in an order, keeping the business

meetings going, the job rotation's going so no one gets

burnt out, keeping less updated and sign up sheets, current activities,

sewing circles, Bible schools, singing school, social events, food ballgames,

you name it. Church life. And I'll just say right

up front, I'm not even attempt to pretending to know

all the answers to some of these difficult questions or

attempting to necessarily answer a lot of them. But I

do want to try this morning to prioritize maybe some

of these things how I feel are important, and maybe

just to bring it even a little bit more close

home and a little bit open my own personal struggle

that you might say I don't have struggle with this

is is that maybe birthed some of these thoughts. Is

you know I've been asked to minister to serve, to watch,

to guide, however you want to say, that'd be a

part of a ministerial team here to help guide, lead,

serve this church. And I care about this church. I

like it, I love it. I want to see us prosper.

I want to see us succeed. Whatever that means. Let

you fill that in. I feel jealous for this church

at times, especially when maybe I hear negative things. I

can feel worried about spiritual threats or I think they

might be spiritual threats that may threaten our church in

some way, the spiritual temperature, the unity, if there's ungodly

and difference in attitudes or other things. So I've spent

a fair amount of time thinking about that and praying

about that, and and discussing and listening and considering, like

what what is my role? What is what should I

be doing to promote foster healthy church life? So I

have a question for you to consider to help me

with this and just maybe for your own thinking as

much as anything, but always welcome practical feedback. But my

question is if it was up to you, you personally,

to come up with a ideas a plan to promote

healthy church life, harmony, unity, holiness, a love for God, life,

care for one another, all those things that I mentioned,

how would you go up about that? How would you

promote that? We could have a discussion. And I think

there are probably be a lot of good things that

could come and would come out of that, you know,

some of the things we hear And I'm not making

light of these things. I'm just mentioning these things are accountability.

Need more accountability for that. That's a common word, but

it's usually tied with less rules. If you listen, accountability

and less requirements. Just talk about it. Brethren's meetings. If

we would just have more brothers meetings and talk things out,

you know, we could that would be good, be healthy.

Maybe more church services and spiritual public worship services, or

maybe less church services and more in home visiting and

getting to know each other. If the ministry would take

their responsibilities a little more and produce spirit filled messages,

that could be a help. And I think I think

it is a help. Or maybe they should enforce the

standards better. Maybe we should promote mission and outreach, because

if we serve then our focus won't be on ourselves.

That's good too. I think all of those things have

their place. So now I would like to maybe we

could ask the question, kind of coming from the of

a different way, is what what is the greatest threat

to our church? I mean, there's lots of threats. The

Devil's alive, and real technology is just bombarding us. We

could talk about a list of those things as well.

I heard something interesting this just this last week that

made me think, here a little bit is it's kind

of not related, but it makes a point that if

you're a married person or in a romantic relationship in

the world sense, and you're murdered, statistically, the most likely

person that will murder you or did murder you is

your spouse. I don't know what you think about that.

I've never felt threatened, but you know, we think about

the threats in Portland and Eugene in different places, but

it's just statistically speaking, when a romantic partner or a

married partner is murdered in the United States, the number

one likely suspect will be their spouse, the one that

loves them the most, the one that lived the closest

to them. It's not the kidnappers, the drug dealers, and

the criminals. So I bring you back to the question,

what is the number one threat to our church? I

don't have any statistics on this, but you don't have

to live along or look around real far or along either

in our churches. I think with all confidence I can

say that the number one threat to the church of

the Antabaptist people comes from within. And why is that?

Why is that? Well? We could wax eloquently and probably

have a lot of theories, but the main point that

came to me in my own life, in the hubb

and the and and the thinking and all of the

idea is that can swirl through a person's mind on

how to promote healthy unity all the things of a

church is a simple fact that we all, individually and

personally must look and keep looking to Jesus, the author

and the finisher of our faith. Maybe that just seems

too simple, Maybe that sounds like I'm avoiding a lot

of tough questions, but looking to Jesus and the author

and the finish of our faith. And I'd like to

just look at and think about that thought a little

bit this morning. Just a few quick meanings of this

word looking, which is very simple, and we're and looking

is of course looking with their eyes. But it's a

little bit more than that. Here. It's considering attentively, and

it is to discern clearly, and it is to attend to.

So it's more than a casual glance. It's more than

a casual faith. It's more than just saying I believe

in Jesus Christ. But it is an actual focus of

the eyes and the heart on Jesus. When we give

our attention to something, we tend to move toward that

object in the natural sense. I don't know how I

think this is right universally, but I notice that if

I'm looking down, if I look this way, and when

I'm driving, or I look this way, I look this way,

I tend to drift with the direction that my eyes look.

It's just part of how we are made. When we

look and give our attention to something, we tend to

be gradually be conformed in a way to its lightness,

its direction, its priorities, and affects our choices in life.

It says here that Jesus is the author and the

finish of finisher of our faith. And I guess I

just want to say this too, that Jesus is the door.

The Bible says, he's the door the way, like he

said to Nacademus, he must be born again. No man

cometh under the Father but by me. But he's it

says he's the author and the finisher. He's the beginning

and the end. It's not something that we enter that

door and then we get into church life and Jesus

is behind us. He cleansed us from my sins with

his blood, and now we roll up our sleeves and

we get to work doing church. He is the finish

of our faith. And the finisher doesn't mean here either

that he's just there to usher us into Heaven when

we get to the other side of life. Finisher here

has a little bit more meaning to it as well.

It talks about gives the idea of maybe the perfector

to make complete, to fulfill our faith. So it is

it is the He's author, the complet and the finisher

of our faith. Now some of this is fairly basic,

maybe simple, but I think profound, I think life changing.

The Bible also teaches that we as Christians are to

grow in grace. We're not just to sit at the

foot of the cross in the sense of not moving

on in maturity. We need to stay at the foot

of the cross in the sense that we need Christ.

But it talks about we are born as newborn babes

desire milk. We need to move on to meet We

need to grow, we need to mature in our Christian life.

But that does not mean a moving pass the daily

looking unto Jesus. Isaac didn't I don't think seen my notes,

and I didn't know what he was talking about this morning,

but that fit very well with his One point on

hit is that it just it prioritizes our thinking, our

view of ourselves and God, to daily spend time with God,

to look to him and remember that he's a healer.

It's easy, and I speak from experience, it's easy to

become spiritually lazy to where we kind of move on.

It's not much of a personal connection. We just kind

of drift with the flow, show up when we feel

like it be a part my personal life. Is not

real vibrant, but it's a real threat. It isn't just

a hypothetical. I think you'll probably know what I'm talking about.

But when this happens, and when our eyes shift off

of that and it shifts to the things of the

church and the people and the problems and the snakes

and all that go with it, and we just look around,

we're just we're scared and we're mad, and we're hurt,

and they're real things. It's just a snowball problem in

the church, and it's hard to bring resolution and unity

when our eyes are not on Jesus. Jesus warned about

this very thing with his own words in John fifteen.

And if you had cared to you could turn there

John fifteen and Jesus was talking to his twelve disciples

and John fourteen and then to fifteen, and he's talking

about heaven and and the comforter, the importance of love

and obedience and just different good things that he's talking

to them because he's getting close to the end of

his earthly life, and in verse fifteen or chapter fifteen,

verses one, I just want to quickly read through some

of this here talks about the vine and the branches.

But I want you to listen to this. I know

this is familiar, but try to think about this. We're

talking about looking under Jesus, the author and the finish

of our faith. Jesus says this, at that time, I

am the true vine, and my father is the husband.

And every branch in me that beareth not fruit is

taken away, And every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth

it that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye

are clean through the word which I've spoken unto you.

Abide in me and I in you. As the branch

cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine,

no more can ye except ye abide in me. I

am the vine. Ye are the brand uncus he that

abideth in me, and I and him, and the same

bringeth forth much fruit. For without me, ye can do nothing.

If a man abide not in me, he is cast

forth as a branch and is withered. And men gathered

them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

If you abide in me, and my words abide in you,

you shall ask what you will, and it shall be

done unto you. Here, And is my Father glorified that

you bear much fruit. So shall you be my disciples.

As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you.

Continue ye in my love. If he keep my commandments,

ye shall abide in my love, even as I have

kept my father's commandments and abide in his love. These

things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might

remain in you, and that your joy might be full.

This is my commandment, that you love one another as

I have loved you. And he goes on gives us

illustration of the branches and the vines. This morning. I

want to build on what Jesus taught. They're a little

bit about the vine and the branches in this morning.

Here I got twelve vines. These are great vines that

I got from home clippings. There's twelve of them, not

a real significance in the number. We could say they're

twelve disciples. We could say they're twelve minute brethren's meeting.

We could say they're twelve families starting an outreach, twelve

youth at a youth group. There's different things. We could say.

The number twelve represents these branches here are are fairly

unified if you actually look at them. If you came

up and we laid them on a table, they're all

about the same length, right at sixteen inches long. The

diameter is close, the colors close. They all have about

two or three buds on them. Be hard to set

one aside and mix it up and not find it

again because there's so much alike. Jesus talked about branches.

He said that we're the branches. Me and you are

branches just like this. And if you were to think

about unity and trying to bring unity to these branches,

I'm not sure what would be the best way to

go about that. I mean, we could we could do

several things. We could we could make six rows of

two and that would be fairly unified. Or we could

do four rows of three. We could put them all

in one straight row, be really careful to get them

just right. We could put them in a circle. We

could bundle them together really tight. We could get even

like lookalike rubber bands, and they're both blue. Be very unified.

If you look at the ends of these branches, even

from yesterday. It's a little different, but there's still some

green in them. It's a little bit of leftover sap

juice that they had in these vines. But you and

I both know that these branches right here nothing but

a bundle of dead wood. And why is that, Well,

it's simply because they're not connected to the vine, to

the source of the life. Now, four months ago, all

of these branches were connected to the vine. They were

full of green leaves, they were hanging with fruit. They

weren't in a straight row or the same length, but

they were all tied in the vine or vines. The

branches were all different lengths, and they were a tangled

mess that stretched all over the place in and among themselves.

But those branches bore heavily with fruit. Why because they

were connected to the source of life. They were alive,

they were serving their purpose, they were producing fruit, and

they worked together and they were successful. And so this

very simple illustration that Jesus gave. I didn't come up

with this on my own. I'm just following Jesus teaching. Here.

He says, abide in me, for without me, ye can

do nothing as far as life producing. We can do

a lot of things. There's a lot of activity that

can happen, but not spiritual true fruit. You know, as

a follower of Jesus, it doesn't matter. Just like in

the days of the snakes in the wilderness, it didn't

matter which age you were, didn't matter if you're fifteen,

forty or eighty five. The solution was the same. Now

you didn't graduate past. It was in a different set

of rules. You lie was found in looking up at

the brazen serpent, and so it is today for each

one of us. A Christian life a Christian a church

life without individual people looking to Jesus. As a dying church,

you can have unity, you can have activity. And I'll

add this. If I'm out of line, you can correct me.

But I just say, if the only source of my

and your spiritual life comes from a public church service,

then most likely we are either a dying or a

dead branch. We must all personally look to Jesus and

abide in him. The church won't be there on Judgment Day.

We'll be standing there alone with our relationship before God.

And yes, it does matter how we related to others

that ties in that, but that's not my subject today,

and the subject might feel lopsided, and it probably is.

But we have sermons on the church and the importance

of it, and I probably just won't go into much

of that today, but I do believe in it, and

I don't want to be misunderstood in minimizing the church,

because I believe it's biblical. The Bible teaches that a

personal faith leads us to a body of Christ, and

so that is true. But what I can feel that

can gradually happen in my life, and I think in

all of our lives, is that we are so blessed

with faithful Forefather's rich heritage, five hundred years of Anabaptist

history that we celebrated this last year, but that we

need to be very careful not to let these things

become a priority a district and gradually take us away

from the simplicity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in

our lives. The Church does not replace Jesus, but it

is where life with Jesus is lived out. What is

our identity? I would like to and I'm talking personally now,

I'm trying intentionally to talk about each one of you personally,

including myself, But what is your identity, your primary identity

according to yourself and according to those around you and me? Like,

what are we first known for? What would somebody describe us? As?

We can be a lot of things. We can be

a farmer and a truck driver, and a dad and

a mom and a school teacher and a lot of

good things. But what is our primary identity? Where do

we find and wish to hide our identity in? It

could be our job, our business, our wealth. It can

be our mission work or evangelism. It could be our truck,

our hairstyle, our whiskers, our clothing, how many ducks we

shoot or elk we shoot? And those things maybe sound silly,

but stop and think about it. Sometimes our identity is

in silly things, and we say it doesn't matter until

it's touched, and then we find out how much it matters,

and that it represents me and I care about it.

And is our identity in christ like character and fruit?

Or is in a orderly religion or unorderly one? For

that matter, I have wondered if we would be stripped

of all earthly and physical forms of identity. And it

can be conservative and it can be liberal, because both

cling to that dearly at times, but stripped of whatever

it is, the big house in the fancy car, or

the dumpy house and the dumpy car, whatever we like

to put our identity in. If all of those things

would be stripped and we would be given a simple

robe and a pair of sandals, and we'd all get

the same haircut, then what would our identity be? Would

there be anything left? I think there would be. I'm

not bawling you all out. I'm just sharing what I

feel is very important for myself and our church. How

do we practically look and abide? Because that sounds good,

But how do you abide? And how do you look? Like?

How does that even happen? That all sounds good. Well,

just a few practical things, I think, and they're nothing new,

but they do take some time and discipline. I think. Again,

it's back to that I say daily. I'm not saying

if somebody skips a day because of things that. I

just think an abiding abiding that Jesus said, is not

jumping on and off the vine. It's an abiding It's there,

it's present, it stays there with the vine. But a

prayer and reading of God's word and meditating on it

and just being God aware of what He has in

my daily life. Jesus gave some pretty plain teachings, and

we heard some of them this morning. But if we

give them attention, attention and look at them and the

teachings that He gave and try to actually follow and

pattern them to the best of our clumsy ability. But

with God's help and grace we abide in Him in

that way, that is how we abide. He said, unless

people obey me, you cannot abide in me and cannot

be my disciple. Abiding is a discipleship and a sanctification

and a growth, and we fail. That is all true.

But we need to let the mind and the attitude

of Christ in us, in the spirit of God how

we relate and how we treat other people. And I

just want to say again, of course, abiding in Christ

does not eliminate all the practical relational challenges that we

face on a personal level and in church life. It

does not dissolve all the differences of opinion, or the

disappointments that we face, and all the snake bites that

happen in life. But when we, as each member of

a body, of a church, of a family of anything,

do our part in personally trying to look to Jesus

in our daily life. At least we are operating with

the same Holy Spirit, with the same common source, with

the same hopefully softness of hearts to be able to

work out our differences that do arise just a few

things in closing a few things that looking unto Jesus does.

And again we can look at the think about the

wilderness scene and today. But it doesn't necessarily change the

world and all the things in the world, but it

changes us. Doesn't take away the snake bites, doesn't take

away the problems, but it brings healing and grace to

our life. And then when that what happens, it does

change the world. The way that we see and look

at the world and those around us, and the more

that we look at Jesus and try to abide in him,

the more are we can see the problems of the

world through the eyes of Jesus. And that makes a

big difference in how we relate to them. We're not

so harsh maybe, or hateful or disgusted, but we're more

sympathetic and we would long to see people healed. Simple

obedient faith puts our eyes on the healer instead of

the pain. It takes our focus off our own hurts.

It takes the focus off the fears and the chaos,

and it puts our eyes and our focus and directs

our hearts and our steps in a certain direction. And

again it's not age specific, to the twelve fifteenth youth,

to the elderly, to the ones that are just battling

with so many little children. It helps with the passions

of youth looking into Jesus and brings humility and openness

to listen. It can soften the cynical, hard and experienced

heart like mine can be sometimes and can bring a

renewed faith as a simple child's faith. It can bring

patience and perspective to this chaos in my home with

all these children and the daily grind the messy house.

It can bring comfort to the elderly as a approach

the end of life and they're thinking about a lot,

and bring comfort to that. It can bring love to

unlovely situations. It doesn't take away all the differences, but

it gives grace for them. So bring you all back

to the one question, what is the single most important

thing that we can do for both our own spiritual

life and for the health and the unity of this church.

And I would say, well, what did the early Church do?

What did Jesus do or promote? And the primary focus

of the early Church and a lot of the writings

was on Jesus and that he is a solution. And

I know there's a lot more to that. So I

think the answer, I believe the answer is when we both,

when we all as members look to Jesus, the author

and the finisher of our faith, and through that the

effect will bring at least a grounds and a platform

for unity and love and all the wonderful things that

come and should come with a church. So thank you all.

Thank you all for being good examples to me. I

really mean that. I believe some of you have encouraged

me in many ways. So God bless you. Let's have

a closing song.