Family Traits Week 4 • Serving

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Thanks for listening.

Hey, well, good morning.

Glad that you guys are here with us and glad that you're joining us online.

If you've got your Bibles, go ahead and open them up to John chapter 13.

John 13 · chapter mention

And in typical fashion of how we're doing with this series, also open it up to Romans

Romans 12 · chapter mention

chapter 12.

We're going to look at two different passages of Scripture this morning.

As you turn there, a couple things that I want to point out to you or make you aware of.

First, especially if you're joining us online, but also if you're here with us this morning,

what we've been doing is we do one song after the message, and then we dismiss right after

that.

So if you're watching online, don't turn us off after the last song.

If you're here with us after the last song, don't turn to leave.

We've got an announcement to make that's important about our next series that we're going to be

starting here in a couple weeks.

And so please just hang tight.

Also, we want to remind everyone, right, that we have our drive-in movie on September the

11th.

And so you're all invited to be there.

We would love to have you.

Now, we've done things like movies on the lawn before where we gather out in the field

and then it's rain, and so we've had to come inside and different things that we've done.

We are going really traditional drive-in movie style in the parking lot with the big screen

in the parking lot for you to be able to come and enjoy a night in a movie together as a

family.

At 8 o'clock, we're going to have something no matter what your preference is.

We hope we have something for you, okay?

At 8 o'clock until the movie starts, number one, we're going to have Pelican Snowballs

are going to be there.

And so you can go and get Pelican Snowballs free of charge.

The church is paying for it, so we want you to make sure that you have that opportunity

to go and to do that.

But then also, if Pelican Snowballs isn't your thing, and coffee is, all right, we're going

to have a coffee bar open so that you can come through.

And we even have stuff, if you want to ruin your coffee and put flavor in it, right, you

can do that.

Or if you want to drink real coffee, which is coffee, beans, and water, we'll have that

for you as well, that you can just do that.

And so be a great, great, great opportunity for us to come together as a church family

and to have a night where we can do drive-in movie style.

I think it's a 30-foot screen.

There's going to be a sound system that's set up that all you have to do is roll down your

windows to be able to hear the movie.

And so we're going to be playing the 2019 Lion King version, which I haven't seen, so looking

forward to it.

But please, please, please be there with us as we kind of have this opportunity to gather

back as a family, whether you gather with us on Sunday morning here or on Sunday mornings

at home, an opportunity for that.

But then also, great opportunity, grandparents, bring your grandkids, invite your neighbors,

a wonderful opportunity for us to be able to reach out and to serve our community.

So we're looking forward to that.

Well, last week, as we continued on in our Family Traits series, we've been looking over

Acts chapter 2 and Acts chapter 4.

Acts 2 · chapter mention Acts 4 · chapter mention

And don't worry, I'm going to read a couple of verses out of there, even though I'd have

you turn there this morning.

But last week, we started looking at this concept of they, not some.

That when we read Acts chapter 2 and we read Acts chapter 4 and we see the great work that

Acts 2 · chapter mention Acts 4 · chapter mention

God does and people getting saved, that there's this commonality that we see amongst the believers.

That when it's described what the church looks like, there's this notion of the they and not

the notion of the some, meaning that there was great unity amongst the body of what was happening

and what was taking place.

And so as we look through this, this is an examination for us to say, is this what we,

not as I as an individual, but that we've embraced as a church, as a body of believers, as we look

together to press into what it truly looks like to be a family that God has called us to be.

And so we see some very unique circumstances that begin to unfold amongst the early church.

Now it's important for us to remember that there was great diversity in the early church.

There were people from different languages that had come together.

There were people from different countries, from different backgrounds, from different races,

from different socioeconomic backgrounds that had come together and we saw this great unity

of diversity so that diversity was there, but diversity wasn't the goal.

The goal for the church, which is the goal for us today, is yes to have diversity, but in that

as God begins to work and move in the life of diverse people, of what comes from that is unity.

That that's what the gospel does.

What the world says is separate, the gospel unifies.

And so we begin to look and see how this has played out in the life of the church.

So I want to read to you Acts 2 verses 44 and 45.

Acts 2:44

And so what we see is this sense of community living amongst the early church, that they looked at each other,

they saw where they had needs, and the body of believers together said, we take care of that.

And it's not a one isolated event.

Acts 4.32

Now a full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul,

and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own,

but they had everything in common.

Let's begin to understand what is taking place.

In the early church, what we begin to understand is this, nothing is mine.

The destruction of the self in early church was nothing that I own is viewed as mine.

So that in the church, I got my buddy Frank sitting over here, Frank and I are in Bible study together.

And so if I have something and Frank does not have that, and Frank needs what I have,

then my nature is to not let Frank borrow it, right?

It's to not let Frank buy it from me.

No, bud, you need this?

I got it.

Man, it's yours.

Take it.

That's crazy.

But that's what the church looked like.

And it continues on.

It says in verse 34 of chapter 4,

So there was the depth of relationship within the context of the early church that the Bible says that there was not a divide amongst them.

So if there was someone who had a need at a great depth, and that they see the aspect of need,

then what the church did was they stepped in because what is mine is not mine, but what is mine is ours.

So how does that play out?

So it means Joan and Lenny are here.

Hey, Joan and Lenny.

So Joan and Lenny go through a difficult time.

And Joan and Lenny are going to lose their home.

And so I look at what I have, what I've been blessed with, what God has entrusted to me.

And I say, but this doesn't count because they're in need.

And so I sell, and I get rid of, and I don't loan it.

I don't say, well, when you can pay me back, I say, no, no, no, no, this is yours.

Because what is mine is yours, and this is the depth of the relationship that we have.

I say, you know what?

I've got an extra bedroom in my home, and what I want to do is I don't want to just give you a room, right?

I want to give you my home so that what is mine isn't just mine anymore, but that this home, it's ours, so come be here.

And this is the depth of the community that we see.

There's no way to try to understand anything different than this is the depth of unity of the early church.

Nothing is mine.

Everything is ours.

Now, this is foreign to us, right?

We're good at borrowing.

We're good at loaning.

We're good at stepping in.

We're good at helping out with groceries.

But we're talking about people who say, no, no, no, no, no.

If I've got to gut the retirement because there's someone who's in need within my family, then I'm going to do it.

Now, we say it's foreign, but I'd like to argue that it's probably not.

Because when we begin to understand that that is difficult for us in this context,

here's a context where it's not different.

Think about your family.

Parents, what would you not get rid of for your kid when they're in need?

We're walking through that with my 94-year-old grandmother right now.

Right?

Whatever she needs, take it.

Whatever she can't do for herself, take it.

It's mine, but it's yours now in this.

And so have it.

And so there's a notion that we begin to understand that parents, when it comes to your kids, right?

Grandparents, when it comes to your grandkids, like, because I've learned once grandkids come in,

we just skip over kids and we go to grandkids, right?

When it comes to them, like, no, no, no, take it all.

I'll move into a tent in the backyard because of the depth of the love that I have for them.

But this is the way the church viewed each other.

And I think this is how we begin to see each other when we begin to see each other as family.

We begin to see things differently, not as church members, not as friends, not as people in community together,

but when we truly see each other as family.

Because here's the truth, right?

Emma and Grayson, my son and my daughter, that in this world, that's who they are.

They're my son and my daughter, and Joan and Lenny are my friends.

But spiritually speaking, Lenny is my brother, and so is Grayson.

But Joan is my sister, and so is Emma.

So do we live with the mindset of the world, or do we live with the mindset of the Spirit of God?

And we begin to see each other differently.

In church, like, we try to lessen what is talked about in Acts,

but it hit me in my face this week as we begin to see that this is what Scripture turns us to.

And it's a switch that we begin to flip and begin to look at things differently in our life.

And so we want to look at that and what it means to serve.

To be servant-minded does not mean just doing stuff for people.

To be servant-minded does not mean that we are simply completing tasks for each other.

But to be servant-minded means loving each other as family.

That's what it means.

I read a pastor this week who was talking about this.

And he said this.

He said,

The more Christ-like and selfless a church is,

the more powerful a tool that church becomes in the hands of our great God and King

for the purposes of redemption and restoration.

That if we want to be used for redemption for the kingdom,

if we want to be used for redemption and restoration amongst our people where God has placed us,

then the solution to that is not a new strategy.

The solution to that is not a better message, a more impactful small group, a new building.

That the means of this is that the body, the bride of Christ, be more Christ-like and be more selfless.

And that is where the redemption and the restoration and the power of God takes place.

It says in Acts 2 and Acts 4 that God added to their numbers day by day those who were getting saved.

In church, it was in the thousands.

And they could lose their life for it.

So what does that mean for us?

What does this look like as we begin to serve people in this capacity?

And what we have to understand is that we have to let Jesus be the standard.

That when it comes to serving, we must let Jesus be the standard.

So John 13, what we saw our wonderful cartoon about is the story of Jesus washing the disciples' feet.

And so let's start reading in verse 1.

This is now before the feast of the Passover.

When Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world.

He loved them to the end.

During supper, when the devil had already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him.

Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God, was going back to God,

rose from supper.

He lay aside his outer garments and, taking a towel, tied it around his waist.

Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

And so as Jesus gathers these disciples around him, he's trying to, one last time before the cross, explain to them what he's come to do,

what he's calling them to do, what he's calling them to do, and modeling this before them.

This is the time where he will implement the Lord's Supper and the breaking of the bread and the drinking of the wine to represent the sacrifice of what would take place.

Now, let's talk a little bit about what washing feet looks like, because that's kind of different for us.

If you come to my house, I'm not washing your feet, right?

If I come to your house, please don't offer to wash mine.

That's going to be awkward and very uncomfortable for me, right?

And now that you know that, you may offer to do that, right?

But here's the deal.

We're talking about sandals in the Middle East.

Let's explain kind of, in some grossness, what that would look like.

Most people walked.

Everybody had sandals.

And if you know about anything of walking long distance with sandals on, your feet get dirty.

Now, we have two types of dirt in the Midlands.

We've got clay and we've got sand.

That's not the dirt that they had in the Middle East.

I want you to think of dirt, not by what we know of dirt, but think of it like powder.

And so now think what happens when something is wet.

So imagine your feet are sweaty, right?

They're smelling bad.

And you're walking through and this dirt that's like powder begins to get onto your feet and

begins to turn into like a paste that's there.

Now, the roads in which you were traveling on are also the roads in which every form of

livestock, whether it's for processing or whether it's for travel, whatever it's for, they are

also using these exact same roads, right?

And just by the way, like the animals aren't using the rest stations, right?

And no one's walking around with their little plastic baggie to clean up after them.

So you go through your everyday journey and what do you think your feet begin to look like?

What do you begin, what do you think your feet begin to feel like?

Maybe even worse, what do you think your feet begin to smell like?

And let me just say, there's no doormat that's going to knock all that off.

There's no wiping that's going to take away every bit of that.

So when you're invited to someone's home, both to serve you and for convenience for the home,

there was a servant whose job was to make sure that your feet were clean and that the master

of the house would send the lowliest of the servants in order to do this.

They wouldn't grab a hand towel from a basin or from a hook on the wall and wipe your feet clean.

Instead, the servant who washed your feet would have had a towel around their waist

so that they could wipe off your feet once they were washed.

And then the servant who cleaned you now wears your filth for the rest of their time.

And this is the process that happens.

And so Jesus, the Bible tells us, who has been sent from his father,

takes on the role of the servant.

And he does what a servant would do.

And he takes off of his robe and he puts on a towel and he grabs water

and begins to wash the feet of those around him

and begins to dry them with the towel around his waist

so that when he is done, he has bore and he is covered in their filth.

Not because of what he's done, not because of where he's been,

but because of where they've been and what they've done.

There's nothing, absolutely nothing in our culture that compares to this.

But we begin to see the depth of serving of what this looks like.

And then we begin to understand who's in the room.

Who's in the room?

Two people are going to be pointed out.

One already has.

Judas Iscariot and Peter.

Peter, the one who will grab his knife and charge Roman soldiers in order to defend Jesus,

but later on deny him three times.

And Jesus washes his feet.

Judas, who will betray him.

Judas, who will sell him.

Judas, who will come up, embrace him, give him a kiss,

and in doing so, send him to the cross.

And Jesus washes his feet.

A depth of love that you and I cannot imagine

that Jesus models for us.

Verse 6, he came to Simon Peter, who said to him,

Lord, do you wash my feet?

Jesus answered him,

what I'm doing to you, you do not understand now,

but afterward you will understand.

And Peter said to him,

you shall never wash my feet.

Jesus answered him,

if I do not wash you, you have no share with me.

And so Simon Peter said to him,

Lord, then not only my feet, but also my hands and my head.

And Jesus said to him,

the one who has bathed does not need to wash except for his feet,

but is completely clean.

And you were clean, but not every one of you.

For he knew who was to betray him.

And that was why he said,

not all of you are clean.

So Peter begins.

He says, but Jesus, you're above this.

Jesus, it's not for you to do this.

And Jesus says, no, no, no, Peter, you're completely missing it.

This is exactly what I have been sent here for.

That I've been sent here in my majesty and in my royalty to serve you.

And yes, Peter, you haven't done anything to deserve this,

but I'm going to do it for you anyway,

in spite of all that you have done.

And so verse 12,

when he had washed their feet and put on their outer garments and resumed his place,

he said to them,

do you understand what I have done to you?

You call me teacher and Lord,

and you are right for so I am.

If I then your Lord and teacher have washed your feet,

you also ought to wash one another's feet.

For I have given you an example that you also should do just as I have done to you.

Truly, truly, I say to you,

a servant is not greater than his master,

nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.

If you know these things,

blessed are you if you do them.

Look at the question Jesus asks.

Do you understand what I have done to you?

Jesus says,

as my followers grasp the depth of my servant love for you.

Grasp the intensity of my love for you.

And when you grasp that,

when we embrace that as the bride of Christ,

as the family of God,

how should that change your love for each other?

And then Jesus says very clearly,

it's not just enough that you know that I do this.

It's not just enough that I've done it to you.

But then Jesus says,

go do it to one another.

That this should be what marks you.

Let what I've done be how the family of God interacts with each other.

How they love each other and what this looks like.

So Jesus gives us the command,

do it.

So now how to wash feet.

Let's begin to see in scripture how to wash feet.

Because here's what you're going to be called to do.

You're going to be called to go to church,

not church,

to work tomorrow and wash feet.

You're going to be called to go home today and wash feet.

You're going to be called to go to your neighbors and wash feet.

And if you show up right wrapped in a towel with a basin of water,

you're going to get fired at work tomorrow.

All right.

If you show up to your neighbor's house with a,

with a towel wrapped around you in a basin of water,

you're going to violate multiple HOA regulations in your neighborhood.

Okay.

So how do we as the body of Christ do something,

which is so foreign to us that nothing relates to in our culture.

And so let's look at Romans 12.

Paul walks this out for us.

Romans 12 verse one.

He says,

I appeal to you therefore brothers by mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice,

holy and acceptable to God,

which is your spiritual act of worship.

We have to understand that when we wash feet,

relatively speaking,

and the love for each other is that it is our response to salvation.

Our serving one another,

our love for one another is based in and rooted in the fact that God has saved you and that God has saved me.

Paul says,

because of the mercies of God,

that God's grace that he freely gives to us is going to be what we're called to love people,

to present our bodies as living sacrifices.

So we've got Romans 12 and we've got Ephesians 2.

Ephesians 2 tells us that before God saved us,

what we used our body for in everything was sin.

That we're the temple of sin.

Before Christ,

that's who we were.

The Bible describes us as objects of wrath.

But now Paul says,

because we've been saved,

we're no longer objects of wrath,

but instead we're used for God's glory.

So in all of this,

stop using your body to sin

and start using your body.

Start using everything about you for his glory.

Paul continues.

He says,

Do not be conformed to this world,

but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,

that by testing you may discern what is the will of God,

what is good and acceptable and perfect.

For by the grace given to me,

I say to everyone among you,

not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think,

but to think with sober judgment,

each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

So it's because we've been saved,

but it's also because we are being transformed.

That when we are saved,

what God begins to do is he begins to transform us

and we begin to seek transformation.

It's a beautiful act of a spiritual work

of what God is doing and his sovereignty.

And it is a wonderful picture

of how we are responding to that

in our will and in our desires.

And so Paul says,

in order to be transformed,

you have to be no longer conformed to this world.

Now, when we talk about that,

usually we give a list of sins.

Don't be conformed.

So don't do this, don't do this,

don't do this, don't do this.

Maybe do a few of these things.

Don't do this, don't do this.

And we look at that and we say,

I do struggle, I don't struggle,

I do struggle, I do struggle, I do struggle,

I don't struggle, I don't struggle.

I'm good, I got most of these covered.

But what if being conformed to the world

was not a list of sins,

but it was a position of the heart.

And that from the position of the heart,

that these sins came out as a result of that.

So in Romans 1, Paul talks about

what it means to be conformed to the world.

We're not gonna go back and read all that,

but here's what he says.

He says there's three basic aspects

of when your heart is conformed to the world,

and when we're not being transformed

by the power of God,

we can still have these tendencies resonate within us.

The first thing that he tells us that we do

is that we pursue the created

and not the creator, right?

We pursue the things of creation

and not the one who created them.

We make little idols.

When the creator God is like,

no, no, no, no, stop chasing that.

I made that.

Stop chasing stuff, that's just stuff.

Pursue after me.

We begin to understand that the second one

is that when we're conformed to the world,

that we believe that our way, right,

is better than God's, right?

So God, I know what your word says.

I know what the truth is here,

but I think I've got it on this one.

No, thank you.

Conform to the pattern of this world.

Another way that Paul talks about in Romans 1

that we're conformed to the pattern of this world

is that in all things,

not just in some,

in all things we fail to acknowledge him.

In all things that are good and lovely and pure,

we begin to take credit for it

and we fail to acknowledge him.

From everything,

from the sunrise to the cup of coffee in the morning,

to the marriage that we have,

to the love that we have for each other,

to the house over our head,

we look at all of these things

and we feel that somehow we deserve it

and we take credit for it

and we fail to acknowledge him in all things.

So you see, being transformed

is not a list of all of these behaviors

of what's there that we begin to push out

and to eliminate,

but it is an acknowledgement of God

and who he is in our pursuit of him.

And so Paul says how we battle against this

is we renew our mind, right?

Right, my mom used to tell me growing up, right?

Mom's here with me like trash in, trash out, right?

Glory in, glory out.

That that's what the renewal of the mind looks like.

The glory of God in,

the processing of God in,

the desperate pursuit of God in,

and then what begins to come out of me

is the same things.

The glory, the pursuit of God,

the glory of the pursuit of God

because this is what I consume

and God in that you renew my mind

and Lord this is who I am.

And that's how we begin to love each other.

And that's how we begin to pursue radical love

that cannot be explained

in any other way, shape, or form

because it's who we are.

And so Paul continues on.

He says,

for as in one body,

we have many members

and the members do not have all the same function.

So we through many are one body in Christ

and individually members one of another

having gifts that differ

according to the grace given to us.

Let us use them

if prophecy in proportion to our faith,

if service in our serving,

the one who teaches in his teaching,

the one who exhorts in his exhuration,

the one who contributes in generosity,

the one who leads with zeal,

the one who does acts of mercy

with cheerfulness.

And so Paul says

when we begin to go through this process

that we understand

that we're responding to our salvation,

when we begin to, right, right,

glory in, glory out,

being transformed,

that this becomes manifest

within the body of believers

and that you and I,

what we embrace in this,

what Paul had said previously, right,

that we count ourselves less

and that we embrace humility

within the context of the body.

Why?

Because it's one body.

And I think those are,

that's Christian cliches

that we use

when we just leave them

at surface level.

But it's true.

We are one body

and we desperately need each other.

We do in the they,

not in the some,

to do what we are called to do.

And so I began to think

about the beauty

of the unity

of the diversity

of the body, right?

So I want to use the example

that some of us

are looking at

and dealing with

as we look at one another,

as we see the gifts

and talents of one another.

There's some similarities

that's there,

but there's some diversity

that's there

and when they're unified.

So think of the hands

and the feet.

You know,

there's a lot of similarities.

I've got two hands.

I've got two feet.

When you look at the hands

and when you look at the feet,

I've got five fingers

on each hand

and I've got five toes

on each foot.

And so, yes,

there's a lot of similarity

of what's there.

They can both bend

in similar fashions,

but how God uses them

is going to be

extremely different.

Let me prove this to you, right?

I'm going to go out

to eat for lunch.

I'm going to order sweet tea.

How would you feel

if you pulled into

the Mexican restaurant

and I'm kicked back

with my feet on the table,

shoes off,

drinking my sweet tea

with my feet?

Number one,

please think that's impressive

because there's no way

I'm that flexible, right?

But you're like,

no, no, no, no.

Bo, that's not what feet are for.

Feet are for walking on.

And then I got up

from the table

and I did a handstand,

which again,

would almost be like

Jesus walking on water

level miracle, right?

And I began to walk out

on my hands

out of the restaurant.

No, no, no, no.

That even though

they're similar,

there's a distinct

different purpose

for how God uses them.

And so for us,

we're distinctively different

with different gifts

and different talents

and different passions

with different backgrounds

and different cultures.

But God says,

no, no, no.

I use all of them.

But then there's

some of us

and what's in our mind

is I know I'm saved.

I know I'm transformed.

But there's no purpose

for me.

I can just show up

and just leave

and there's nothing

that's there for me.

So this week,

I took a little journey

and tried to find

the part of the body

that's useless.

I wanted to test

the illustration

that Paul uses

in Scripture.

So I spent a lot

of time thinking,

what part of my body,

if it was removed

from me,

would I be just good?

Serving me

no function now

and I don't care

if it's gone.

Immediately went

to belly buttons.

They kind of grossed me

out anyways, right?

But no, no, no,

maybe not now,

but it was

at a point in time

then, right?

So here's what

I came up with.

Earlobes.

Right?

Thank you, Deborah,

for laughing at that.

Thank you.

Earlobes.

Right?

If you've got earrings,

that's great,

but that doesn't really

serve a purpose,

does it?

Like it makes your face

look even prettier,

but you know,

whatever.

Like if we had to do

without earrings,

we'd be okay.

So what purpose

do earlobes?

And I thought,

have I figured it out?

Have I found the loophole?

Right?

There's,

earlobes are useless,

so maybe.

So I went to the great

medical survey of Google

and I typed in,

what is the purpose

of earlobes?

And you know what

I found out?

That your earlobes

and mine

serve a purpose.

I didn't know that.

This is fantastic.

Here's what they do.

If you were,

and please,

at home,

like don't try this,

right?

Here,

don't try it either.

If you were to cut off

one of your earlobes,

do you know that your body

would begin to be

out of balance?

Do you know that you would

suffer from being dizzy?

Do you know that you'd be

more likely to suffer

from vertigo?

Because these useless

little things

that hang off the side

of my face

serve a purpose

and serve a reason.

So Paul's right.

Every part of the body,

regardless of what they feel

their value is,

regardless of what they feel

their benefit is,

regardless of what they think

their past is,

has a purpose.

And that when the body

of Christ

begins to embrace

that I serve

and I love

because I've been saved.

When the body of Christ

begins to serve

and love

because I'm being transformed.

When the body of Christ

begins to see

if another part of the body

is hurting

that I need to respond

in like.

So washing feet

is foreign to us.

And the illustrations

that I gave earlier,

unfortunately,

are foreign to us as well.

But do I believe

Acts chapter 2,

Acts 2 · chapter mention

John chapter 13,

John 13 · chapter mention

Romans chapter 12

Romans 12 · chapter mention

means

if Frank needs something

and I have it,

that I give it to him?

Yeah,

I believe it does.

Do I believe

that God's word

teaches

that the level

of dedication

and level of love

that I have

for my family

in Christ

mean that

Joan and Lenny

are going to lose

their home,

that it's my obligation

to step in for them?

Yeah,

it does.

It's not normal.

It's not how

we've been raised,

but it's what

God's word says.

That nothing is mine,

but it's all

ours

for the good

and the glory

of God.

Would you pray with me?

Would you pray with me?

God,

this passage

of Scripture,

Lord,

it just hits me

like a ton of bricks.

Lord,

it brings me

to repentance

because I see

so much

of my life

that has been

conformed

to this world,

that the radical

obedience

that you call

us to

of what

it means

to serve

is so

much

stronger,

so much

deeper,

where it's

so much

more

sacrificial

than any

surface level

obedience,

Lord,

that I think

that I've ever

embraced

within my life.

That I hurt

when others

hurt

and joyful

when others

are joyful.

because we

begin to

understand

that not

only are

we friends,

that not

only are

we church

members,

that not

only are

we brothers

and sisters,

but we're

of one

body.

Lord,

I pray

for us,

whether we're

here at the

church,

whether we're

at home

watching online,

Lord,

that your

spirit just

speak to our

hearts,

or to reveal

the depth

of our

selfishness.

Lord,

speak to us

and show

us

who we

are

and what

we're

capable of.

I just

thank you

for who

you are.

In your

name we

pray,

amen.

I said

at the

very

beginning

that Jesus

was our

standard.

I want

to close

and read

this,

Philippians 2,

6-8.

It's as though

he was in the

form of God,

he did not

count equality

with God a

thing to be

grasped,

but he

emptied

himself

by taking

the form

of a

servant,

being born

in the

likeness

of men

and being

found in

human form,

he humbled

himself

by becoming

obedient

to the

point of

death,

even death

on the

cross.

Jesus said

this is what

I've done

for you.

Go and

do it.

You stand

in worship.

Thanks again

for listening

to the

Willow Ridge

Church weekly

podcast.

We hope

that you

enjoyed

listening to

this week's

message.

If you'd

like to

learn more

about who

we are

or explore

additional

resources,

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www.willowridgechurch.com

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Thank you.