The Gospel-Centered Community - How Community Shapes Us In The Gospel

So today, I want us to take a look and begin it in Genesis, chapter 3, and if you want to get your Bible ready, or watch up here, we're going to pray and we'll get right into it.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

So, father, we're just grateful to be here together, all together in one place, and so we don't discount that.

Lord for what you want to do, lord today in each of our hearts, lord for what you want to do, lord today in each of our hearts, we ask you, holy Spirit, even now, lord, that you'd be glorified, the Holy Spirit, you would glorify Jesus.

Lord, you'd open up your word and teach us.

That's what you say.

You will do so.

Open our minds and our hearts and our understanding to receive your word, and may it transform us for your glory, in Jesus' name, amen.

Well, let's look in Genesis, chapter 3, and we're going to look at verses 6 through 13 and begin right there.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

It says so.

When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.

Then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

But the Lord called to the man and said to him where are you?

And he said I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself.

He said who told you that you were naked?

Have you eaten of the tree of which I command you not to eat?

The man said the woman, whom you gave to be with me.

She gave me fruit of the tree and I ate.

Then the Lord God said to the woman what is this that you have done?

The woman said the serpent deceived me and I ate.

And one of the greatest challenges that we face as Christians and in the life of the church, I believe, is how to deal with our desires.

This passage is about the desires of the man and woman at the beginning and if you look at that passage, there's nothing inherently wrong with food and beauty and wisdom.

But as St Augustine said, he said sin comes when we takea perfectly natural desire or longing or ambition and try desperately to fulfill it without God.

Not only is it sin, it is a perverse distortion of the image of the Creator in us.

All these good things and all our security are rightly found only and completely in Him.

And you see, as we go through this, we consider Adam and Eve's story.

As John last week told us that we were created for community, we're made for it.

There came the fall and then God comes along and he's going to do something significant to change all that.

You see, on our own, we're relentlessly self-focused people and we tend to be that way simply because of our fallen condition.

And we don't really want to be, if we're honest.

We don't want to be discovered for who we really are, and so we hide, just like Adam and Eve.

But thankfully, god doesn't leave us where we are.

God uses community to do some things in our lives.

He uses community to expose our sin, to invite us to believe the gospel which Tyler clearly presented to us today, and he uses it to allow us to work change gospel which Tyler clearly presented to us today, and he uses it to allow, to work change in our lives, and that doesn't come in any other way.

It brings change more deeply to our attitudes, our values, our words, our actions.

And what is he doing?

He's calling us out of hiding into the light of his glory, and that's what I want to talk to you about today.

So today we're going to talk about how the gospel shapes us in community.

That's the title of the message this morning.

So think about it.

Desire is a really it's a very powerful force in our lives, and I think it's the core of why we sometimes act like we do in church and in our society, in our workplaces, in our marriages, and our desire sometimes gets the best of us, and the reason we get into trouble is because our desires simply are not aligned with the desires of God, and the enemy deceives us in that way.

So let's look at it.

There are three things I want to focus on, three big ways of looking at this this morning.

The first one is this our desires distort reality.

Our desires distort reality Looking back at Genesis 3, what happened?

Satan appealed to their desires, and that's how he still operates to deceive us today, even though we have the gospel.

The enemy still works in our desires and through our desires to deceive us and to cause us to miss what God has for us.

You know, this past Friday I went with some friends out to a restaurant and after we got finished with the meal I went up and got ready to pay the bill and talked to the man paid my bill and I was looking as he was getting the register and getting it finished, there was on the wall a $20 bill taped up on the wall.

It was just taped right there and I looked a little closer and it said on the bill not good.

And I thought hmm.

And so I asked the man.

I said is that a counterfeit?

He said yeah, it is.

So I got up closer because it looked just like the real thing.

I mean, I was like I couldn't tell the difference.

And so I got up a little closer, saw the words more clearly not good.

And I couldn't tell at all.

I don't know how they picked it up.

So I asked the guy.

I said how did you know?

He said fill the paper.

And I began I put my fingers up there and felt it.

And I began I put my fingers up there and felt it and I thought that's different.

But boy is it subtle.

Boy is it subtle and in the same way.

That's the way the enemy works with us to make us think we have something that has value in it, and yet it's a deception.

It causes us to miss the reality and sometimes what we do is substitute counterfeits for the real thing, which is God.

It's important to note, as we look at this, by the way, that the image of God following the fall was not destroyed, but it was distorted.

We didn't lose it, it was marred by sin.

And so there is that opportunity.

As God takes note of what Adam and Eve did, he pursues them and their pursuit sort of opened up a Pandora's box, if you will, that they couldn't close on their own, and yet God wouldn't leave them as they were.

And so he calls out to Adam and he says where are you?

Of course, adam didn't know really where he was, but God knew where he was.

He's God, right, but Adam didn't know where he was in relation to God.

He had hidden among the trees.

And God says where are you, adam?

And he asked that question of us how far sometimes we get away from the presence of God and we don't even realize where we are.

Where are you?

Where are you today in relation to God?

Well, there's three significantly terrible things that come out of what happened, what occurred in the fall when they pursued their desires without God.

The first one is this that the man and woman felt shame for their nakedness.

That's what it says.

They were naked and they felt shame.

They weren't safe with each other anymore, and so we've all experienced that.

You know, we think about people who might see us when we're most vulnerable and we don't want to share the things that are close to us, and we're afraid of what might happen if we did share, and they might say something that was really devastating and would make this wound never really get healed in this relationship.

Go on in this way.

That makes it terrible.

So they felt shame for their nakedness.

Second thing happened is that the man and the woman feel fear for their vulnerability Fear for their vulnerability.

So what do they do?

They hide themselves from one another and they use what do they say fig leaves to cover.

Have you ever seen a fig leaf?

It's really small, deceptively small, and what we use to cover ourselves in our sin sometimes is just a facade, it really doesn't do the job, and though we think it will make things better, we hide just like they hid.

They hid in the trees.

And, notably, this is the very first mention of fear in the Bible.

Don't miss that.

Where fear begins is out of the presence of God.

So the third thing we see not only shame and fear, but the man and woman blame God and others for their sin.

Boy, this is a big one, isn't it?

Walt Brueggemann, in his commentary on Genesis, says this the speech of the indicted couple is revealing, for it is all I.

Therein lies the primal offense.

I heard.

I was afraid I was naked, I hid, I ate, and the woman says I ate.

Their own speech indicts them.

He says so.

It's a clear focus.

It's clear that their focus has moved away from the God who called them to a paradise, to a focus on themselves, a preoccupation with themselves.

And so I want us to sort of apply this idea of community into the church today, and I want us to begin with a couple of key distinctions here.

This is in your book, if you've read it, but how we often view community, if you will, and it's between two words, between what is called functional and formative community.

I put a couple of diagrams up here and the first one is about functional.

What is functional community?

Functional community you look at the diagram, you see the man who is at the center of the circle and you've got people waiting on him serving him.

And functional community is our view of ourselves, with ourselves at the center, and we value relationships, knowingly or unknowingly, for how well they function to serve and fulfill our needs.

And we come to church for that.

What do they do for me?

And if they don't function well or they aren't meeting my needs, I really have no need for them.

And that's the dominant worldview in our culture, isn't it?

It's all about me, it's all about me and my values.

So the driving force that sometimes we capture in our own thinking is that we are looking for meaning and purpose and significance and we'll do just about anything to get it, including go outside of God's will.

Problems and struggles and relationships result in what?

And I've seen this and you've seen it in fighting or fleeing.

How many people that I've seen come into churches I've served, who are here for a moment and the least little thing and they're gone.

They're hurt, get hurt, feeling someone says something and they're gone.

Someone didn't pay attention to them or didn't meet their needs because it was all about them.

We're going to find that this is an important thing to consider.

All of that reflects unbelief on my part in the power of Christ in me to stay and let God do a work that he couldn't do outside of community.

Now let's contrast that with another way we can view community, and this is the way God desires us to think, and it's called formative community.

This is about spiritual formation.

And so now, instead of man being at the center, what do we see?

Formative community?

Let me bring that one up.

Who is at the center?

Christ is at the center, and so I value relationships in my life as part of what God's will is for me, what it means to change me and remake me to reflect His image.

It's spiritual formation.

So problems and struggles in relationships what are they seen as?

They're not something to run away from or fight against.

They're seen as an opportunity to change me, and so we come with that in mind to believe the promises of the gospel more than the problems that I struggle with, and to let the Holy Spirit begin to work and make changes and adjustments in our life that actually make me look just like Christ.

By and by, to look just like Christ, you say well, wait a minute.

I thought.

I thought the hospital and I've heard it before it's a hospital for sinners.

Yeah, it is, but you don't want to stay in the hospital forever, do you?

None of us wants to be in the hospital forever.

Maybe a day or two, but if we stay there a long time, we wish we were out of there.

And so sometimes we can live in that state that I am being served and my needs are being met, I'm getting people to work on me and it's all about me.

And I'm in the hospital, and I will grant you that there are times when we've been so hurt by places we've been that we need some time just to heal.

But you don't stay there forever.

You don't stay there forever.

And the problem is and the Bible talks about it like this the problem calls it the flesh.

Now, he's not talking about your skin and bones, he's talking about the self-life.

And Paul, in Romans 5, describes it Romans 8, verses 5 through 8, he describes it as a mindset.

Romans 8:5–8

A mindset the mindset on the flesh, he says, is death, but the mindset on the spirit is life and peace in Christ Jesus, and so our desires often distort reality because we're typically focused on ourselves.

Now I want to kind of give you an illustration of this.

I love one of this movie.

Maybe you've seen it.

It's called called what about Bob.

And what about Bob is a movie about a guy who is dreadfully fearful of just about everything, and so he stays inside alone to himself.

He never gets out because his fears have so co-opted his ability to be in community, and he comes to see the doctor to get the things resolved.

And so watch this clip and then we'll talk about it here in a moment.

Bob is a lot like us at times.

I need, I need right, because it's all about us.

You know, it's interesting as you go.

Later in this movie Bob has gone to the seraphs because he's fearful and he's needy and he's a little crazy.

But by and by, by, a little bit further into the movie, bob slowly steps away and out of his problems, out of his darkness, and at one point in the movie Bob has gotten to be a little bit better and he's began.

He goes to this place to get healed, a facility, and it shows this scene where all the doctors and nurses are surrounding him and he is telling jokes.

He's holding them in the palm of his hand and he says Roses are red, violets are blue.

I'm a schizophrenic, and so am I.

By the end of the movie, though, bob is healed of his social anxiety and he sort of makes his therapist crazy, or at least reveals that he's got an anger problem.

But this is the way that the Holy Spirit wants to use the church.

You see, our biggest problem, folks, is ourselves.

Our desires distort reality, and so we ask them what is the real source of our problems?

The Bible teaches us and this is our second point our desires are rooted in the heart.

In other words, it all begins from within.

So James 1, let's look at that.

James 1, 14 and 15 says but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.

Then desire, when it is conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death.

And notice, james says four things about desire here that I think will help us as we consider how we need to live in community together.

The first thing he says is desire is personal.

Each person is tempted by his own desire.

See, temptations are tailor-made.

What is tempting for me might not be tempting for you, and what that person struggles with might not be what you struggle with.

And so what do we have to do?

We have to give each other grace.

Because we're not struggling with it Doesn't mean someone else isn't, and so our desires often lead us into temptation.

And but from there it's because of the deception.

And so these inner longings that we have and we all have them tend to pull us away from the Lord, and that's what happens, not only does our personal.

He says a second thing that desire is powerful.

It's powerful.

He is lured and enticed.

You say, how does that happen?

He uses two metaphors here, from fishing and hunting.

Fishing is like you know, you have a lure that is dangled out there for the fish, and Satan puts out there in front of you that what he knows is going to get you, what is going to get your attention.

And I believe, as we've said before, I think Satan must study us.

He knows what our Achilles heel is and he knows how to get our attention.

And so there is that idea, that metaphor of a lure, and he also talks about a fishing.

It's almost like he's saying that Satan not only lures us, but he traps us and we get caught up in it.

And the cycle of our sin doesn't just stop with one little thing.

It goes over and over and over till we're caught up in it.

So what begins as a casual glance turns into an affair.

What is said to us as a slight becomes a root of bitterness that grows up in us and we need to forgive.

So desire is personal, it's powerful.

And then he says a third thing that desire is progressive.

Look at it.

He says then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death.

So the metaphor.

He moves it to the imagery of the reproductive process and by it he reveals to us the cycle of sin.

Notice, it's a secret of events, sequence of events that follows one after another.

So we have inner cravings.

Those inner cravings turn into some sinful action.

As I said, it doesn't often end with that one thing.

He wants to get us and trap us in it.

It goes where we are caught up in that sinful action and becomes a sinful habit.

And then that habit turns into a lifestyle if we're not careful.

And so that inner craving turns to sinful action, and then he says it ends in death.

Undesire can wreak havoc in your spiritual life.

Desire is personal, it's powerful, it's progressive.

Then he says a fourth thing desire is perilous.

He says it brings forth death, and I think this can occur in both the physical and spiritual sense.

You might say well, that can't be as a Christian.

Well, james is talking to Christians here, and so, in some fashion, sin kills spiritual life.

What is going on with us is shut down, and it doesn't mean that we're spiritually dead or that we can lose our salvation.

What it means is that there is a loss of life in the spirit, and in some cases, sin can even result in physical death, and I can give you a number of scriptures that speak of that in the New Testament.

Let's look at this idea, though, of desire.

What does desire mean?

The word desire refers to any intense longing for an improper object, that is, anything that gets in the way of our pursuit of God.

An intense longing for an improper object.

Do you have any longings today that you know hinder your pursuit of God?

Think about that, and I would imagine all of us do, and the Holy Spirit will pinpoint those and say let's work on that.

Let's work on that want.

You know, judy had a scripture this morning that talks about the Lord is my shepherd.

I shall not want, we're going to get there.

But we have to understand the problem right that our desires can cause, can wreak havoc in our spiritual life.

So what does that mean?

The desires?

Then?

There's good news, because we're not trapped by our desires.

The gospel brings us hope.

There's good news in the gospel that Christians' desires are shaped by and for God.

See, when you come to Christ, the Lord doesn't just reform you.

You're not like Plato and he's going to shape you like a piece of Plato.

Guess what he replaces you?

He brings new life to you, he makes you a new creation, and so he's not just reforming the old you, he's creating a brand new you.

That means that you are no longer subject to the power of sin and you're not defined by your past.

So those people who say, well, that's just the way I am?

No, not anymore if you're in Christ.

Christ invites us out of that darkness and those things that we need to be pulled away from, and he brings us into fellowship with him, out of hiding, out of fear, and he brings us into a relationship with himself and with others who struggle just like we do.

That's what the church is.

When I talk about community, I'm not just talking about the Lions Club.

You can go to a number of places and find fellowship, but there's no place like the church.

When we're together, something special and spiritual happens.

Folks, there's grace in this place and God is moving.

And so when we come into the light of the community, he begins to change our desires.

He gives us his desire and it says he gives us both the desire and the begins to change our desires.

He gives us his desire and it says he gives us both the desire and the ability to do his will.

Philippians 2.13,.

So that the Christian life is really about becoming who we are in Christ.

So he declares us righteous.

That's justification.

But you know what sanctification is, which is what we're talking about.

It's actually him making you righteous.

So he declares that that's judicial.

That's the way he sees you.

When he looks at you, he sees Christ.

But guess what?

We all struggle in many ways.

The Scripture says and so sanctification requires the Holy Spirit to work on us, to change us and to make us into the image of Jesus, and of course, that doesn't mean that we won't struggle, does it?

And a true saying goes like this you've heard it you do what you want to do, isn't that true?

You do what you want to do, and so what we should do is ask God to teach us and change us and give us his wants.

We should ask him to give us the desires that are Christ's desires.

That's a great prayer.

God, would you make my desires line up with your desires?

And I'll tell you when we make that prayer, we can't just say, well, give it to me God, zap me and make me like Jesus.

No, we'll have to go to war with our desires to fight for that, to make it happen, we surrender ourselves and we cooperate with the Holy Spirit.

Because why?

Because it remains in our body, that old, unredeemed self called the flesh, as I talked about.

It's still out there trying to pull us back into the old life, that's the dead life.

And he calls us out of death into the kingdom of his beloved son.

And we do that.

When we receive Christ by faith, the Holy Spirit moves in and he begins to work to change us.

John Piper tells a humorous story.

He makes it up, but it's a story about celebrating his wife's 45th anniversary.

And he fronts the story with a question he asked what should motivate a guy to bring flowers to his wife on their anniversary.

So he says I bring my wife a bunch of a big bundle of daisies and I ring the doorbell, go to the door, ring the doorbell and my wife comes to the door and she says, oh, he whips out the daisies.

Oh honey, why did you do that?

Why did you do that?

And I say it's my duty, it's my duty.

Well, you kind of get the idea that that's the wrong motivation.

And so he goes on, piper, he changes the story a bit.

He has the same idea.

By this time he rings the doorbell Happy anniversary.

He pulls out the flowers.

Why did you, john, why did you do that?

Well, I couldn't help myself.

Bringing flowers makes me happy, bringing you flowers makes me happy.

And of course, again, it's the wrong motivation.

But then Piper flips it to the last version.

He has the same idea, but this time he rings the doorbell Happy anniversary.

There's nothing.

He says I would rather do than to be with you Makes all the difference, doesn't it?

When you come to church every Sunday, is that your heart and mind God.

There's nothing I'd rather do today than be with you.

Brooke talked about our worship.

That's what worship is all about, and here's the real thing.

Get this thought If you change your desires, that changes your actions and ultimately it will change your life.

If you change your desires, it will change your actions and ultimately it will change your actions and ultimately it will change your life.

And the way that happens is that God changes our hearts and he does so in large measure, in community.

So listen, church is not an option.

For us who are Christians, it's essential, and we're not coming with a laissez-faire attitude saying what am I going to get today?

Who's going to minister to me today?

In fact, we don't go even.

It's like who can I serve today?

We go with Lord.

I'm just here for you Doesn't mean we don't serve.

It doesn't mean we don't love, but our primary focus is God.

I'm so glad I can be with you today and that's why God asked Adam in the garden.

He says because of Adam's being alone where are you?

Where are you?

And why is this needed?

Because alone, you can't see yourself as you really are.

I can't tell you how many times that I've been in community, in church, and you have too when someone kind of tells me the honest truth and I might not want to hear it, but if they do it in love, as the Scripture says, it makes me think about it and makes me evaluate is this really what I need to be working on?

And so I brought today a block of wood and a piece of sandpaper, because sometimes we come to church and people that we come and get around are like spiritual sandpaper.

But you know what God does Instead of us being.

You know we feel it's abrasive to us what people say and sometimes it hurts and it doesn't feel good, but you know how God thinks of community and about the church.

It's like I've got a rough edge and someone speaks to me and says something I don't like to hear and what happens?

It's a little bit smoother In another sense.

Someone says something encouraging to me and when I felt rejection or feel like I'm not enough or I lack hope, somebody says something to me and things get a little bit smoother, little bit smoother.

Someone tells me something that is encouraging to me or really hard to hear and I don't want to do it, but he tells me anyway, and pretty soon all my rough edges are smooth and I begin to look more and more like Jesus Christ.

That's what happens in community.

Folks so important.

All the stuff that God wants to heal can only be on the surface in relationship until you get into community.

Christ's very own desires entice us to live as Paul describes it in Galatians 2, verse 20.

Galatians 2:20

He says I have been crucified with Christ.

It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, and the life I now live in the flesh.

I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

So it's no longer me who lives.

Think of that.

Christ literally lives in me and he lives in you.

If you're a believer, and because Christ lives in me and he lives in you, it means in a very real sense I dare not waste Christ's life because he's living it through me.

How is this possible?

How do you experience Christ living through you?

Well, he tells us later in Galatians 5,.

He says but I say walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh, you'll not be that old self that no one wants to get along with, for the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit and the desires of the Spirit are against the Spirit and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other.

They're in war with each other.

Your old self is at war with your new self to keep you from doing the things you want to do, but if you are led by the Spirit, you're not under law.

In other words, there's no rules and regulations.

All there is, it summarized.

Paul Jesus summarized the law and he says love God, love people.

How do you know, then, if you're driven by your desires?

Well, I would say one thing is listen to how you talk.

Is it all about I, me, my and mine, what I want and what I need?

Well, here's what he says later in Galatians 5.

Now, the works of the flesh are evident.

In other words, when you're living that way and your desires are running your life, your own selfish desires are running your life, it's obvious to everybody around you.

It might not be obvious to you, but he says they're evident.

The works of the flesh are evident.

Note, underline the word or circle it works, works, it's effort to live like this.

They're evident.

Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies and things like these.

He's given a representative list of all these things that look like the self-life when our desires take over.

I warn you, he says, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

And then he presents this contrast.

But the fruit of the Spirit, it's not works anymore, it's fruit.

And so you don't have to groan and strain to let the Spirit do His work in you.

You, just you cooperate.

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

And he says against that there is no law, because you're free to live in love.

Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

If we live by the spirit and I love this let us keep in step with the spirit.

Baby steps, baby steps.

Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

Folks he's talking to the church here, and how often our own self can get in the way of what the Holy Spirit wants to do.

We talk about revival.

You know, revival comes in large measure when we repent of the things that are displeasing to God.

I don't have any problems with me myself and I, I love myself.

I can spend time with myself.

We get along so well together.

But put me with someone who rubs me the wrong way or says something I don't want to hear, or with whom I disagree, and guess what?

Myself rises up.

I might not say things, but boy, it's in there.

And so you know.

My grandmother used to say well, when someone was doing something that they shouldn't be doing, well, he's just showing out, we act out, we work out the flesh, we work out the flesh.

But when we let the Holy Spirit control us, we surrender ourselves, we cooperate with the Spirit, say yes to God, and he begins to take over, even to the point of agreeing with a thing that we don't see but everybody else does.

And sometimes that is so hidden.

We don't want anybody else to see that we're living in unforgiveness or bitterness or hatred or disagreement.

I don't like what's going on there.

Well, I is the word that starts that very sentence.

Right, here's the truth.

I must be in community for my self-life to be healed.

You want to be healed, you want to be healed.

Invest yourself in the life of the church.

And yeah, the church isn't perfect.

Find me a perfect church and I'll leave Trinity and go join it.

There's not one.

Every one of us are flawed and fallen, and only because and through Christ Jesus have we the capacity to be conformed to the image of Christ.

But you can't do that outside of community, and I'm not talking about just sitting and watching what goes on on Sunday.

I'm talking about investing your gifts and your ministry that God has given you to serve the body and find out, you know what, if you do that, he's going to bring someone to you, that he's going to let work on you.

Get ready if you do that.

Speaking let me give you some examples Speaking against one another is a primary example of how we can act on selfish ambition.

Here's what James 4 says what causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?

Is it not this that your passions, desires, are at war with you within you?

You desire and do not have, so you murder.

You tell me there's murder in the church and Jesus said if you look at someone or you think in your heart, you call that person out of hatred, a name you have murdered in your heart.

You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.

You do not have because you do not ask.

You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions.

Do you ever think that your prayers might not get answered is because you haven't dealt with the dark desires that you want to hold on to that word.

War.

There is the word that he's used in James 3 when he's talking about our tongue.

And you know what we can do.

We can slice up people with our tongue.

We can use slander, we can falsely judge one another.

We don't really know the facts, it's just the way we see it.

But guess what?

It might not be accurate.

Well, the antithesis of that is Ephesians 4.

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth, but only such as good as is good for building up as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

Are you spreading grief or grace by the way you talk about people in the community, to others in the body of Christ?

Let me give you one other example.

And you think of these words of jealousy, power, hungry, a desire for being first to be seen.

What if your name was put in the Bible for one of those?

And it was the only reference in the Bible.

There's a man that that happened to His name was Diotrephes.

And here's Diotrephes.

This is what John says about Diotrephes in 3 John 1.

He says I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first, will not welcome us.

So when I come I will call attention to what he's doing, spreading malicious nonsense about us.

Not satisfied with that, he even refuses to welcome other believers.

He also stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church.

Here's a leader who was full of himself and he's remembered for being a self-seeking troublemaker, who's ambitious, who's proud.

He's disrespectful of apostolic authority, he's rebellious, he's inhospitable, and his name is in the Bible simply because of that.

So God sees all this he does.

Romans 8, 13,.

If you live according to the flesh, you will die, paul says, but if, by the Spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

So what am I talking about?

The Christian community is a training ground to help us all make war on sin in our life.

Spiritual formation can't occur when you fail to participate in the community.

Is that getting through?

So what does it do?

Christian community shapes our dark desires in several ways.

Let me just run through these real quick in a short list.

What does it do?

It provides us accountability.

It confronts us with biblical truth and tough love.

It causes us to pray and intercede for one another's needs.

It challenges us towards spiritual growth.

You see somebody who's really going after it for God.

Doesn't that motivate you?

It offers role models and mentors and it gives us a sense of fellowship and community that we can't find anywhere else.

There is no place like the church, even with all its flaws, and so as we walk with God, our desires get conformed more and more and aligned with his purposes.

It leads for us to a life of joy, peace and fulfillment that can't be known any other way.

So we focused this morning on our desires.

What did we say?

We said our human desires distorted by the fall distort reality.

We said our human desires distorted by the fall distort reality.

We said that those human desires are rooted in our human hearts.

And we've said it's God who transforms our dark desires to make us have the desires of Christ, and he does that in great measure in the Christian community.

So by engaging there, in the church specifically, what are we doing?

We're coming out of the darkness into the light, out of the darkness into the light.

And I say that because I have to intentionally do that.

I intentionally come into the light so that my sin is exposed, so I can be healed by the power of the Holy Spirit.

And let me say something about that word exposed, because that may frighten you.

I don't mean that we're here to tell all your deep, dark secrets, and God doesn't want to do that.

What is he saying?

He's saying that God will let you see yourself as you really are, in light of who he is, and that only happens when we are humble enough to say God, show me.

And we land this message by one other scripture and I'll be done.

Looking at how this can happen.

This is a great scripture.

Just to meditate on this week 2 Corinthians 3.18.

Paul says and we all with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord.

Philip Hughes says Mankind is allowed to see not only the radiance, the image of God which was marred through the fall of man.

Mankind is allowed to see not only the radiance of God's glory, but also the true image of man.

And so what happens in community?

You and I get repaired.

We're broken, we're broken, and only Christ can put us back together again.

You believe that.

So this is our challenge let's all come out of the darkness and into the light this week and begin to let God do what he wants to do in us.

Let's pray so, father, we're thankful that you don't leave us on our own, you don't leave us to hide and to be in places that are separated from you, that were ended up out of fellowship with you, and so I pray for every person here this morning, including myself, that, holy Spirit, you'd begin to pinpoint those places in our lives where we hide and try to keep things undercover, we wear masks and we hold on to things that are really, to be honest, dark.

But, lord, we pray that you'd bring him into the light of your presence and that you would show us, as we work to live with one another in community, the truth that we can be healed In Jesus' name, amen.