Why does AA need a higher power?
Because in going through your Inventory its easy to get caught up in the fact that its all about you.

When its all about you, you can get caught up in several traps:

One, you can’t really face yourself and your life because if you did you would be overwhelmed with grief, with guilt, and with shame. You can spiral into self-doubt, and discouragement so much that its paralyzing. You get can get caught in the trap of self-pity.

Two, you can get caught up in the trap of self-righteousness. As in, because its all about me, I am the standard by which I judge others and I focus on those who don’t live up to my standard. Self-righteousness says, “I’m in the right.” We judge others and we blame others. The result is we struggle to show mercy because no one deserves it. They haven’t sinned against God, they’ve sinned against me, so why should I have to show mercy, why should I have to forgive others.

If you are self-absorbed, how could you ever absorb the failings of others?
Why would anyone ever show mercy if its costs something? If someone is going to pay, it should always be the person who is responsible. Sometimes we say we are showing mercy, we say we are forgiving people but in reality we are making them beg, we are making them grovel, we are what? Making them pay part of the cost. We are exacting the debt by making them pay for it a little bit. We are going to vent to others about that person, we are going to gossip about that person before we ever get to the place where we are willing to forgive them. So we are making them pay for it just enough to let us bring down the debt to a manageable sum.

If I compare myself to many in this room about who is the better artist I may come out on top. I may be able to draw better stick figures than most of you. But what if I compare myself to Michelangelo? Jesus is the standard and He takes away our self-righteousness, our self-pity and we can never be the victims again because He is truly the only victim.

You can’t come to God and say you owe me, that God doesn’t live up to your standard.

This morning I want you to see that showing mercy costs you something and we know this because God showing mercy to us cost us His life.

BEATITUDE Matthew 5:7 NLT 7 God blesses those who are merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Jesus tells the merciful that they will be shown mercy because its only those who have received God’s mercy who show mercy to others.
But you say, “I see others showing mercy all the time who are not Christians. Here we have to remember that this Beatitude is part of a set that it cannot be separated from. Showing mercy to others over the course of a lifetime will wear you out and create emotional fatigue you won’t recover from. But that is why the first Beatitude says, “Blessed are those who are pour in spirit” meaning blessed are those who realize they need God. So the first sermon Jesus preaches He starts out by saying the first thing you need to know is that you need God.

Jesus lives out the Beatitudes perfectly, thats what His life was all about. He suffered that He might show us mercy, so that we could have the strength to show mercy to others that we might live a life that brings glory to God.

But how can I show mercy when the person hasn’t asked me for forgiveness?

Matthew 5:23-24 NLT 23 "So if you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the Temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, 24 leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God.

Mark 11:25 NLT 25 But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins, too.".

But how will we show mercy when all we feel is bitterness?

If somebody runs into and totals your car, and you say, “I forgive you,” does that mean somehow the car is suddenly repaired? No! If you don’t forgive the person the debt, that person pays whatever the car cost, or you pay whatever the car cost, because you replace your car. Either that person bears the cost, or you absorb the cost, but there’s no way the debt goes into the air. Somebody pays it. Whenever you forgive somebody, that means you absorb the cost.

You see when God said “Let there be light” there was light. But when God said I forgive you and I show mercy to you, it cost Him a great deal. He went to the cross for us. That is why some say the only problem God ever faced was showing mankind forgiveness.

How do I know showing mercy costs something? 3 examples.
The Good Samaritan-
Luke 10:30-37 NLT
30 Jesus replied with a story: "A Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road. 31 "By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. 32 A Temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side. 33 "Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. 34 Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. 35 The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, 'Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I'll pay you the next time I'm here.' 36 "Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?" Jesus asked. 37 The man replied, "The one who showed him mercy." Then Jesus said, "Yes, now go and do the same."
So we see that the Samaritan showing mercy cost him time and money.

2. The Debtor-
Matthew 18:21-35 NLT
21 Then Peter came to him and asked, "Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?" 22 "No, not seven times," Jesus replied, "but seventy times seven! 23 "Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. 24 In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars. 25 He couldn't pay, so his master ordered that he be sold-- along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned-- to pay the debt. 26 "But the man fell down before his master and begged him, 'Please, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.' 27 Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt. 28 "But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars. He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment. 29 "His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. 'Be patient with me, and I will pay it,' he pleaded. 30 But his creditor wouldn't wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full. 31 "When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened. 32 Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, 'You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. 33 Shouldn't you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?' 34 Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt. 35 "That's what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart.”
So we forgive others, we show mercy to them innumerably because the debt forgiven us was infinite. We never get to the place where the mercy we have shown others matches the mercy that God has shown us.
When we resist forgiving others its because we are self-aborbed, and self-absorbed people are unwilling to absorb the failings and debts of others.
So this is why AA needs a Higher Power, to take our attention off of ourselves and place it on someone who transforms our whole perspective.

3. Jesus
We see the costliness of God’s mercy through Jesus in so many ways.
If a child on the street makes fun of me I don’t really care. What does that child know about me? But if one of the members of my church community attacks me, it matters to me a great deal and I feel pain as a result. In fact it can be agonizing. But if my wife says, “I hate you” then I’m devastated. My life feels like it is collapsing in a moment. We have known each other 15 years and been married 12 1/2 years. But imagine the pain Jesus felt on the cross when His Father whom He had known for eternity turned His face away breaking fellowship with Him for the first time in all eternity. The more intimate the relationship, the more painful the rejection and Jesus suffered that rejection so that He might show mercy to us.

Luke 22:45 44 He prayed more fervently, and he was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood.

And Jesus does all this voluntarily. In the Garden of Gethsemane He comes face to face with what He is about to suffer. This is why He was sweating great drops of blood.

Luke 22:39-47 NLT
39 Then, accompanied by the disciples, Jesus left the upstairs room and went as usual to the Mount of Olives.
40 There he told them, "Pray that you will not give in to temptation."
41 He walked away, about a stone's throw, and knelt down and prayed,
42 "Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine."
43 Then an angel from heaven appeared and strengthened him.
44 He prayed more fervently, and he was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood.
45 At last he stood up again and returned to the disciples, only to find them asleep, exhausted from grief.
46 "Why are you sleeping?" he asked them. "Get up and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation."
47 But even as Jesus said this, a crowd approached, led by Judas, one of the twelve disciples. Judas walked over to Jesus to greet him with a kiss.

Jesus needs the support of those closest to him in the hour of His temptation but He doesn’t find it.
I believe the temptation for Jesus in His humanity was to turn away from God’s will for Him, to forsake the cup of suffering and the rejection of the Father. There in the Garden He feels the full intensity of what He is about to suffer.
Jesus uses the strength given to Him by the angel to even more fully face the temptation He is about to suffer.
You know when you are angry and in a fight with someone and you get a phone call from your pastor or your friend and suddenly you are able to regain your composure because this outside influence is able to change the situation and your behavior? That’s what Jesus’ death on the cross is meant to do for us. Jesus takes us outside of ourselves. It takes us outside of our self-pity and self-righteousness.
When you are tempted to withdraw from a person and to hold on to your bitterness and you struggle to forgive someone or be reconciled to them you are having a Garden of Gethsemane moment. We need to realize that right there in that moment we ourselves are in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Perhaps there are some of us here this morning that have already withdrawn from someone Jesus wants us to be reconciled to.
When the bitterness is welling up within us we need to learn at that moment to turn our eyes to Jesus so that we can say if Jesus was willing to voluntarily enter into His suffering so that He could forgive me, surely I can voluntarily enter into this suffering so that I can absorb the sin of someone else against me.
Our small cups of suffering are nothing compared to the great cup of His suffering.
This morning I want you to let the suffering of Jesus, the suffering that He suffered for you, let it wash over you, fully embrace it and let it change your whole perspective and be blessed for His grace in empowering you to show mercy to others.

This is why AA of necessity needs a higher power and we get to know this Higher Power personally. Jesus allows us to take the focus off ourselves and shows us what mercy and costly forgiveness looks like so that we might show it to others.

God says to Adam, obey and you will live. God says to Jesus, obey and I’ll completely crush you for the sins of the whole world.

So I ask you this morning, do you know and understand and are you willing to experience the mercy of God so that it transforms you and your relationships?

Pray this this morning:
Psalm 86:3-5 NLT 3 Be merciful to me, O Lord, for I am calling on you constantly.
4 Give me happiness, O Lord, for I give myself to you.
5 O Lord, you are so good, so ready to forgive, so full of unfailing love for all who ask for your help.

Right now I want to invite you to have a Garden of Gethsemane moment. I invite to right now to keep watch and pray that you enter not into temptation. I want you to focus on the mercy that Jesus voluntarily entered into for you at great cost to Himself and I want you to let the Holy Spirit whisper into your heart telling you who you need to forgive at great cost to yourself.

3 Paradigms of Engagement with Culture and Politics (Hunter, p. 213):
Defensive Against- Conservatives of all confessions have been angry about their loss of prominence, as well as anxious, on guard, and self-protective in ways that have created walls between themselves and the outside world. They have pursued this ideal by constructing a complex empire of parallel institutions in music, education, media, law, and the like that functions as a parallel universe to the secular world.
Those who embrace the Defensive Against paradigm continue to believe that the main problem in the world is secularization: if only God cold be re-enshrined in the social order, they assume, the culture would be restored. The church wold raging its standing in society, the family and local community would recover its Christian character, and the leading spheres of social life, including law and government, social welfare and reform, hospitals, education, etc. would again be influenced by the categories and codes of Christian moral understanding. Hunter p. 215.
Difference is always seen as danger and in creating alternative institutions they live in a pluralistic world without really participating in it. The engage in culture in ways that are often aggressive and confrontational.

Relevance To: The priority here is to identity with people’s felt needs and resonate better with the world around them. Theology is seen as divisive and is replaced with pseudo intimacy with celebrity Christians.
Their strategy is to downplay any difference between themselves and nonCHristians and the tendency is to lose their Christian distinctiveness.

Purity From: These take the view that there is very little that can be done for the world because in its fallen state the world is irredeemable this side of Christ’s return. The Church itself has been compromised by its complicity with the world’s sinfulness. The central task of the Church therefore is to extricate or dismiss itself from the contaminating forces of the world and by so doing, return to its authentic witness. Their engagement with culture and society is ironically a certain kind of disengagement.
The Church doing church within its own walls is seen as the only legitimate Christian expression. Christian witness exists exclusively in the in the Community of Christian believers when they meet together to worship and fellowship. The result is cultural disengagement and withdrawal from active presence in huge areas of social life.


Faithful Presence:
In so far as Christians acknowledge the rule of God in all aspects of their lives, their engagement with the world proclaims the shalom to come. Such work may not bring about the Kingdom but it is an embodiment of the values of the coming kingdoms and is thus a foretaste of the coming Kingdom. Even while believers wait for their salvation the net effect of such work will be a contribution not only to the good of the Christian community but to the flourishing of all.
Any good that is generated by Christians is only the net effect of caring for something more than the good created. if there are benevolent consequences of our engagement with the world, it is precisely because it is not rooted in a desire to change the world for the better but rather because it is an expression of a desire to honor the Creator of all goodness, beauty, and truth, a manifestation of our loving obedience to God, and a fulfillment of God’s command to love our neighbor.

Revelation 2:1–7 “Write this letter to the angel of the church in Ephesus. This is the message from the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand, the one who walks among the seven gold lampstands:

20 This is the meaning of the mystery of the seven stars you saw in my right hand and the seven gold lampstands: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.
Angels- 19:10; 22:9; 8:3–4
Churches- Revelation 11:3–7, 10 Lampstands refer to those who are God’s prophetic witnesses.
Mark 4:23; Luke 8:16 16 “No one lights a lamp and then covers it with a bowl or hides it under a bed. A lamp is placed on a stand, where its light can be seen by all who enter the house. 17 For all that is secret will eventually be brought into the open, and everything that is concealed will be brought to light and made known to all. 18 “So pay attention to how you hear. To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given. But for those who are not listening, even what they think they understand will be taken away from them.”
Matthew 5:14–16 14 “You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. 15 No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.
The statement that Jesus walks in the midst of the 7 lamp stands is intended to remind the introverted readers that their primary role in relation to their Lord should be that of a witness to the outside world.
Leaving their first love is their failing to be a prophetic witness.
2 “I know all the things you do. I have seen your hard work and your patient endurance. I know you don’t tolerate evil people. You have examined the claims of those who say they are apostles but are not. You have discovered they are liars. 3 You have patiently suffered for me without quitting.
4 “But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first! 5 Look how far you have fallen! Turn back to me and do the works you did at first. If you don’t repent, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches. 6 But this is in your favor: You hate the evil deeds of the Nicolaitans, just as I do.
7 “Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches. To everyone who is victorious I will give fruit from the tree of life in the paradise of God.

So having right doctrine is not enough, defending against compromise and maintaining the church’s purity is not enough. We must maintain a faithful witness to the outside world and to do this we must love people and seek to build them up.


Church is personal. Are we careful with people’s feelings? We maintain the balance between our love for God and love for people. Our love for God is expressed partly in our love for people. You cannot have one without the other. We don’t love God and ignore people. We don’t love people and ignore God’s truth, and our witness of that truth to the people we are called to love.




Knowledge makes us prideful, but love builds people up.
We demonstrate we love God by loving people.
We can love people we disagree with.

We protect people from feeling rejected by shutting down gossip.
Gossip- idle talk or rumors especially about the private affairs of others, tattling. casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about other people, typically involving details which are not confirmed as true.
Is there a conflict? Yes. Is this something we need to bring the other person in here to talk about? No. Then we don’t need to talk about it at all. End of story.
You are either seeking to obey the Matthew 18 process or you are involved in being divisive.
We only talk to people who are either part of the problem or part of the solution. Either way, we are seeking reconciliation, not division.
We protect people from feeling rejected by privately addressing individual issues as they arise.
Confidentiality (This is what we’ve been talking about on the last two points)
When we love people by demonstrating that we accept them regardless of their behavior or beliefs the result is that they feel safe with us, and they begin to share things with us.
Maintaining confidentiality is how we get to the 3rd thing, honesty.
People will share things with us that are above our pay grade and we won't know all the answers, but here we need to remember that we are not the Savior but we are here to point them to the Savior, Jesus. When they see us not know all the answers they see us exercising faith and this encourages them to exercise their own faith and to trust ultimately not in us but in Jesus.
We must maintain the balance between maintaining confidentiality and knowing when to seek help. This is centered around 3 things.
Being hurt
Hurting others
Hurting themselves
Honesty
We we give people acceptance and they know we can maintain confidentiality, the result is we have created an environment where honesty can take place.
People will not be honest with us, until we are honest with them.
Maintaining our testimony with people doesn’t mean we have to make them think we are perfect people. Rather, they should be able to see our struggles but know that we bring our struggles to Jesus.
Parents, create this culture and environment in your home when your children are young, and they will be honest with you when they are teenagers.
Honesty means people can be themselves, share their doubts, ask you hard questions, and admit to you their struggles.
Getting to the place where people can be honest with us is how we create a culture of discipleship.
If people can’t be honest with us, because they will feel rejected or that we can’t keep their confidences, then we will never see where they need the Gospel applied to their hearts.
If they can’t share their doubts about their faith with us, and their struggles with sin with us, then they are forced to do the Christian life alone.
If people can’t ask us the hard questions, they are going to ask someone else.
If they cannot share their struggles, then the struggles stay in the darkness where they can thrive.
Church should be a place where you can ask hard questions, not just a place where you have to be very confident in your faith in order to be accepted.
Loving people doesn’t mean we have to set them straight on every issue right away, even if we feel strongly about the things they are involved in.
Honesty also means we are free to admit when we don’t know the answer to their questions. We can say “I don’t know.” Remember that our dependency is on the Holy Spirit, not to be the Holy Spirit.
It’s a Process
Building up people in love is a process. There is no finish line, or trophy that says “congratulations, you are now finished with growing to be like Jesus.
Building up people in love is a process that happens over time by shaping, crafting, and molding people by applying the Gospel to their life experiences.


So we are seeking to create a church community that is not just for the few and the committed.

What if a farmer only planted seeds randomly.
What if an athlete only exercised when he felt like it.

Revelation 2:4 4 “But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first! 5 Look how far you have fallen! Turn back to me and do the works you did at first. If you don’t repent, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches.

This is going to be a cultural message. What is culture? Culture is the values and the expression of those values in a people group. So if you are new here u get to hear about the culture we are trying to create here at GL and we invite u to be a part of creating our culture.

1 Corinthians 8 (NLT)
Now regarding your question about food that has been offered to idols. Yes, we know that “we all have knowledge” about this issue. But while knowledge makes us feel important, it is love that strengthens the church. 2 Anyone who claims to know all the answers doesn’t really know very much. 3 But the person who loves God is the one whom God recognizes.

1 Corinthians 8 The Message (MSG)
1-3 The question keeps coming up regarding meat that has been offered up to an idol: Should you attend meals where such meat is served, or not? We sometimes tend to think we know all we need to know to answer these kinds of questions—but sometimes our humble hearts can help us more than our proud minds. We never really know enough until we recognize that God alone knows it all.

1 Corinthians 8 English Standard Version (ESV)
Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up. 2 If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. 3 But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.

Should you eat food offered to idols? How should you treat those who do or don’t?
There is a kind of Knowledge-Pride-Lovelessness-destruction (hurts people)
There is an imaginary knowledge that leads to pride.
There is a true knowledge that leads to building people up.
Loving God is interchangeable with a true knowledge.
So true knowledge leads to two things-loving God and loving people.

James 3:13–18 13 If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom. 14 But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying. 15 For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. 16 For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind.
17 But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and the fruit of good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere. 18 And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness.

Romans 14:19 19 So then, let us aim for harmony in the church and try to build each other up.

Romans 15:1b–3a We must not just please ourselves. 2 We should help others do what is right and build them up in the Lord. 3 For even Christ didn’t live to please himself.

2 Corinthians 10:1 Now I, Paul, appeal to you with the gentleness and kindness of Christ

Knowledge makes us prideful, but love builds people up.
We demonstrate we love God by loving people.
We can love people we disagree with.

The Servant Leader has priorities in order:
Divine Perspective
Church Perspective
Individual Perspective
Personal Perspective

We are not going to do away with conflict in our lives or in the church, so what’s important is how we manage it.

In order to build each other much we must value at least 3 things:
Acceptance
Confidentiality
Honesty

Acceptance, but is acceptance of people, especially sinners, biblical?
First, we are ALL sinners.
Second: Romans 5:8 8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.
If people are going to be honest with us, the 3rd thing, they must experience acceptance, the 1st thing.
Acceptance means we can love people we don’t agree with.
If you can’t love and accept people that you have things against or that you don't agree with how will you ever be able to love your neighbor, or your enemies?
Acceptance of people can be demonstrated by:
Remembering their name
Remembering the details they share with you
Making eye contact.
What does it mean when someone won’t make eye contact with you? It means they so associate you with your actions that they disagree with that they cannot look at you. Failure to make eye contact can be an expression of rejection.
Being positive with the person and celebrating them and their accomplishments.
People’s accomplishments are really the image of God being worked out in them, so in celebrating their accomplishments we are really celebrating God, and in this way our love of God flows out into a love of people.
What is the opposite of Acceptance? Rejection.
Without Acceptance of those we disagree with community cannot happen.
“Us 4 and no more, bar the door.” Its only us 4 because I could only find 3 other people who agree with me on all points, but I even have my doubts with them.
This is sometimes why a small church is small.
Creating an environment of acceptance is how we create a safe environment, an environment where discipleship can happen. Creating an environment of acceptance is how we leave conditional love behind. Its says, “I will love you, even though I don't agree with you.”
If you can only love and accept people who are just like you, you are not going to have anyone to build up or disciple, and you eventually will end up alone.
Acceptance is a fragile thing.
We protect people from feeling rejected by celebrating everyone equally.
When we only hang out with our friends at church, yes we are accepting those people but this requires us to reject everyone else, and the result is that we have cliches in the church.
Our God is a pursuing God. He leaves His cliche to pursue people who are more unlike Him than like Him.
When we form cliches, we deny Romans 5:8.
When we understand what Romans 5:8 says about God, do you know what we do when we come to church? We look around for the persons who are new, or who are by themselves, or who are walking out the door because no one is talking to them. Why? Because the love of God seeks to bring people in to community, the love of God pursues people. This is why we give up the idea that we can’t talk to people because we have nothing in common with them. No, its not easy to talk with people you don’t have a lot in common with but neither was it easy for Jesus to get up on that cross and die for people that He didn’t have a lot in common with.
Do you realize that when we create exclusive cliques we are actually passively abusing people? How so? The essential property to any relationship of abuse is that one of the parties has a privileged status, that is to say, one person is superior and the other is inferior.
You say, “Yes, but this person does evil things.” We all do evil things but guess what, one of the gracious things God has done for us is that He has established that HE is the righteous judge. We don’t have to be the ones that exercise judgement or vengeance, because He promises that He will do it. The result is that we are left with a dependency on the Holy Spirit. Sometimes I think the Holy Spirit doesn’t work because He sees that we have taken things into our own hands, and in doing so we actually deny the power of the Holy Spirit, and God’s timing.
Acceptance means we are going to be patient with people because God is patient with people. Sometimes the judgement He brings takes generations.
We protect people from feeling rejected by shutting down gossip.
Gossip- idle talk or rumors especially about the private affairs of others, tattling. casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about other people, typically involving details which are not confirmed as true.
Is there a conflict? Yes. Is this something we need to bring the other person in here to talk about? No. Then we don’t need to talk about it at all. End of story.
You are either seeking to obey the Matthew 18 process or you are involved in being divisive.
We only talk to people who are either part of the problem or part of the solution. Either way, we are seeking reconciliation, not division.
We protect people from feeling rejected by privately addressing individual issues as they arise.
Confidentiality (This is what we’ve been talking about on the last two points)
When we love people by demonstrating that we accept them regardless of their behavior or beliefs the result is that they feel safe with us, and they begin to share things with us.
Maintaining confidentiality is how we get to the 3rd thing, honesty.
People will share things with us that are above our pay grade and we won't know all the answers, but here we need to remember that we are not the Savior but we are here to point them to the Savior, Jesus. When they see us not know all the answers they see us exercising faith and this encourages them to exercise their own faith and to trust ultimately not in us but in Jesus.
We must maintain the balance between maintaining confidentiality and knowing when to seek help. This is centered around 3 things.
Being hurt
Hurting others
Hurting themselves
Honesty
We we give people acceptance and they know we can maintain confidentiality, the result is we have created an environment where honesty can take place.
People will not be honest with us, until we are honest with them.
Maintaining our testimony with people doesn’t mean we have to make them think we are perfect people. Rather, they should be able to see our struggles but know that we bring our struggles to Jesus.
Parents, create this culture and environment in your home when your children are young, and they will be honest with you when they are teenagers.
Honesty means people can be themselves, share their doubts, ask you hard questions, and admit to you their struggles.
Getting to the place where people can be honest with us is how we create a culture of discipleship.
If people can’t be honest with us, because they will feel rejected or that we can’t keep their confidences, then we will never see where they need the Gospel applied to their hearts.
If they can’t share their doubts about their faith with us, and their struggles with sin with us, then they are forced to do the Christian life alone.
If people can’t ask us the hard questions, they are going to ask someone else.
If they cannot share their struggles, then the struggles stay in the darkness where they can thrive.
Church should be a place where you can ask hard questions, not just a place where you have to be very confident in your faith in order to be accepted.
Loving people doesn’t mean we have to set them straight on every issue right away, even if we feel strongly about the things they are involved in.
Honesty also means we are free to admit when we don’t know the answer to their questions. We can say “I don’t know.” Remember that our dependency is on the Holy Spirit, not to be the Holy Spirit.
It’s a Process
Building up people in love is a process. There is no finish line, or trophy that says “congratulations, you are now finished with growing to be like Jesus.
Building up people in love is a process that happens over time by shaping, crafting, and molding people by applying the Gospel to their life experiences.


So we are seeking to create a church community that is not just for the few and the committed.

What if a farmer only planted seeds randomly.
What if an athlete only exercised when he felt like it.

“Holiness is the habit of being of one mind with God, according as we find His mind described in Scripture. It is the habit of agreeing in God’s judgment, hating what He hates, loving what He loves, and measuring everything in this world by the standard of His Word. ” J C Ryle

“Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshipers met together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be, were they to become 'unity' conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

Without the pursuit of holiness the church is open to division and conflict:
James 3 13 If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom. 14 But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying. 15 For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. 16 For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind.
17 But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and the fruit of good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere. 18 And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness.


1 Corinthians 5
I can hardly believe the report about the sexual immorality going on among you—something that even pagans don’t do. I am told that a man in your church is living in sin with his stepmother. 2 You are so proud of yourselves, but you should be mourning in sorrow and shame. And you should remove this man from your fellowship.
3 Even though I am not with you in person, I am with you in the Spirit. And as though I were there, I have already passed judgment on this man 4 in the name of the Lord Jesus. You must call a meeting of the church. I will be present with you in spirit, and so will the power of our Lord Jesus. 5 Then you must throw this man out and hand him over to Satan so that his sinful nature will be destroyed and he himself will be saved on the day the Lord returns.
6 Your boasting about this is terrible. Don’t you realize that this sin is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough? 7 Get rid of the old “yeast” by removing this wicked person from among you. Then you will be like a fresh batch of dough made without yeast, which is what you really are. Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed for us. 8 So let us celebrate the festival, not with the old bread of wickedness and evil, but with the new bread of sincerity and truth.
9 When I wrote to you before, I told you not to associate with people who indulge in sexual sin. 10 But I wasn’t talking about unbelievers who indulge in sexual sin, or are greedy, or cheat people, or worship idols. You would have to leave this world to avoid people like that. 11 I meant that you are not to associate with anyone who claims to be a believer yet indulges in sexual sin, or is greedy, or worships idols, or is abusive, or is a drunkard, or cheats people. Don’t even eat with such people.
12 It isn’t my responsibility to judge outsiders, but it certainly is your responsibility to judge those inside the church who are sinning. 13 God will judge those on the outside; but as the Scriptures say, “You must remove the evil person from among you.”

As a church we are in a battle for holiness and against sin. We can get distracted and think its about other things.
This is what we are doing in CG, when we listen to messages, when we sing worship songs, when we get together for fellowship. People not interested in holiness will not understand why we do what we do and will not have much interest in it.

We MUST understand that God’s love is an invitation into his holiness. If we are not pursuing holiness we really don’t understand the love of God.
Hebrews 12 14 Work at living in peace with everyone, and work at living a holy life, for those who are not holy will not see the Lord. 15 Look after each other so that none of you fails to receive the grace of God. Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many.
You are going to be ultimately satisfied with something and you can call yourself a Christian but really have very little interest in pursuing holiness.


The sin of one affects us all. ILLUSTRATION: My dad sick in the hospital.

One of the first signs of new life is that the individual takes sides with God against himself.”
― Donald Grey Barnhouse

“Keep in mind that when sin is viewed superficially, it is dealt with superficially.”
― Erwin W. Lutzer

Putting the man out of the community was not mean.

We celebrate Jesus by pursuing holiness:
2 Chronicles 29 4 He summoned the priests and Levites to meet him at the courtyard east of the Temple. 5 He said to them, “Listen to me, you Levites! Purify yourselves, and purify the Temple of the Lord, the God of your ancestors. Remove all the defiled things from the sanctuary.

2 Chronicles 30:1 King Hezekiah now sent word to all Israel and Judah, and he wrote letters of invitation to the people of Ephraim and Manasseh. He asked everyone to come to the Temple of the Lord at Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover of the Lord, the God of Israel.

2 Chronicles 35 6 Slaughter the Passover lambs, purify yourselves, and prepare to help those who come. Follow all the directions that the Lord gave through Moses.”

Ezra 6 19 On April 21 the returned exiles celebrated Passover. 20 The priests and Levites had purified themselves and were ceremonially clean. So they slaughtered the Passover lamb for all the returned exiles, for their fellow priests, and for themselves. 21 The Passover meal was eaten by the people of Israel who had returned from exile and by the others in the land who had turned from their immoral customs to worship the Lord, the God of Israel.

John 2: 13 It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover celebration, so Jesus went to Jerusalem. 14 In the Temple area he saw merchants selling cattle, sheep, and doves for sacrifices; he also saw dealers at tables exchanging foreign money. 15 Jesus made a whip from some ropes and chased them all out of the Temple. He drove out the sheep and cattle, scattered the money changers’ coins over the floor, and turned over their tables. 16 Then, going over to the people who sold doves, he told them, “Get these things out of here. Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!”


Paul is saying, we celebrate Jesus by living out what Jesus has done for us. He has made us holy, so we pursue holiness.

Here is what it looks like:
Luke 18 9 Then Jesus told this story to some who had great confidence in their own righteousness and scorned everyone else: 10 “Two men went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a despised tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: ‘I thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else. For I don’t cheat, I don’t sin, and I don’t commit adultery. I’m certainly not like that tax collector! 12 I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income.’
13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.’ 14 I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

A Pharisee is hard on others and easy on himself, but a spiritual man is easy on others and hard on himself. Tozer


The greatest test of whether the holiness we profess to seek or to attain is truth and life will be whether it produces an increasing humility in us. In man, humility is the one thing needed to allow God’s holiness to dwell in him and shine through him. The chief mark of counterfeit holiness is lack of humility. The holiest will be the humblest. Andrew Murray








Psalm 100 1 Shout with joy to the Lord, all the earth! 2 Worship the Lord with gladness. Come before him, singing with joy. 3 Acknowledge that the Lord is God! He made us, and we are his. We are his people, the sheep of his pasture. 4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name. 5 For the Lord is good. His unfailing love continues forever, and his faithfulness continues to each generation.

John 20 23 If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

No man should desire to be happy who is not at the same time holy. He should spend his efforts in seeking to know and do the will of God, leaving to Christ the matter of how happy he should be. Tozer

I may no longer depend on pleasant impulses to bring me before the Lord. I must rather response to principles I know to be right, whether I feel them to be enjoyable or not. (Jim)

I am only as significant as the things which I am idolizing

The Christian God seemed the most offensive to people precisely because he was the most godlike.

“Holiness is as much about what you do on a Monday morning on the factory floor as it is about what you do on a Sunday morning in a church gathering. Holiness is as much about the kind of neighbor you are as it is about the kind of church member you are. It is as much about who you are when you are holding a steering wheel as who you are when you are holding a Bible.”
― Tim Chester

“Holiness is found in how we treat others, not in how we contemplate the cosmos. As our experiences in marriages, families, and friendship teach us, it takes relationships to provide the friction that wears down our rough edges and sanctifies us.”
― Terryl Givens

Aseity- existence originating from and having no source other than itself.

“I Am” is the verb “ehyeh” meaning to be. The verb form here is a first person singular translated “I Am”. When His people refer to Him as Yahweh, which is the third person masculine singular form of the same verb, they say "he is."
Exodus 3:14–15 14 God replied to Moses, “I Am Who I Am. Say this to the people of Israel: I Am has sent me to you.” 15 God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: Yahweh (He is), the God of your ancestors—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you. This is my eternal name, my name to remember for all generations.
Matthew 14:27 27 But Jesus spoke to them at once. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Take courage. I am here!” (Take courage. I am. Do not fear.)
Revelation 1:17 17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as if I were dead. But he laid his right hand on me and said, “Don’t be afraid! I am the First and the Last.

Revelation 1:4,Grace and peace to you from the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come.
Revelation 1:8 8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega—the beginning and the end,” says the Lord God. “I am the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come—the Almighty One.” ,

Revelation 4:6–11 In the center and around the throne were four living beings, each covered with eyes, front and back. 7 The first of these living beings was like a lion; the second was like an ox; the third had a human face; and the fourth was like an eagle in flight. 8 Each of these living beings had six wings, and their wings were covered all over with eyes, inside and out. Day after day and night after night they keep on saying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty— the one who always was, who is, and who is still to come.” 9 Whenever the living beings give glory and honor and thanks to the one sitting on the throne (the one who lives forever and ever), 10 the twenty-four elders fall down and worship the one sitting on the throne (the one who lives forever and ever). And they lay their crowns before the throne and say, 11 “You are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created all things, and they exist because you created what you pleased.”

Revelation16:5–7 5 And I heard the angel who had authority over all water saying, “You are just, O Holy One, who is and who always was, because you have sent these judgments. 6 Since they shed the blood of your holy people and your prophets, you have given them blood to drink. It is their just reward.” 7 And I heard a voice from the altar, saying, “Yes, O Lord God, the Almighty, your judgments are true and just.”


"The fact that the ascending scale of life is marked by increasing differentiation of faculty and function should rather lead us to expect in the highest of all beings a nature more complex than our own. In man many faculties are united in one intelligent being, and the more intelligent man is, the more distinct from each other these faculties become; until intellect and affection, conscience and will assume a relative independence, and there arises even the possibility of conflict between them. There is nothing irrational or self-contradictory in the doctrine that in God the leading functions are yet more markedly differentiated, so that they become personal, while at the same time these personalities are united by the fact that they each and equally manifest the one indivisible essence." Strong, p. 346

Everything in creation moves from simplicity to complexity and this is all to point us to the Creator who exists in absolute simplicity and complexity simultaneously. The point of creation moving from simplicity to complexity is to point us to the reality of His existence for the heavens declare the glory of God.
How could a being so powerful, so complex, have always just been, and yet the alternative is to say that matter itself has always just been. But how could matter, without personality or will, be self-existent?
So they way I have often said it provocatively to capture the immensity of this reality is to say, “God had nothing to do with his own existence, yet it is in his very nature to exist.”
So this is the first good news of the first creation, that God exists and what a marvel that this is so, just as the good news of the new creation is that we can again be in fellowship with and regain the greatest thing man could ever possess, a relationship with the self-existent one.
Psalm 19:1–4 1 The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship. 2 Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known. 3 They speak without a sound or word; their voice is never heard. 4 Yet their message has gone throughout the earth, and their words to all the world.

Romans 11:36 36 For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory. All glory to him forever! Amen. 36 For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory. All glory to him forever! Amen.

Psalm 33:6 6 The Lord merely spoke, and the heavens were created. He breathed the word, and all the stars were born.

In the new heavens and new earth we will see his glory declared through creation all the more.


In his classic book Knowledge of the Holy, A. W. Tozer writes:

The Almighty God, just because He is almighty, needs no support. The picture of a nervous, ingratiating God fawning over men to win their favor is not a pleasant one; yet if we look at the popular conception of God, that is precisely what we see.
Twentieth Century Christianity has put God on charity. So lofty is our opinion of ourselves that we find it quite easy, not to say enjoyable, to believe that we are necessary to God. But the truth is that God is not greater for our being, nor would He be less if we did not exist. That we do exist is altogether of God's free determination, not by our desert nor by divine necessity.

“In creation, God "went public" with the glory that reverberates joyfully between the Father and the Son. There is something about the fullness of God's joy that inclines it to overflow. There is an expansive quality to His joy. It wants to share itself. The impulse to create the world was not from weakness, as though God were lacking in some perfection that creation could supply. "It is no argument of the emptiness or deficiency of a fountain, that it is inclined to overflow.” Desiring God, p. 44.

If God exists then it's worth our every effort to bring everything in our lives into conformity w who He is.

Righteous is the correspondence between who he is and what he does. So I ask you, are you righteous, or rather living righteously?

Beauty Justice It's the correspondence between beauty and who God is.

If u can't accept him as the lamb he comes at u like a lion and if you accept him as the lamb he defends you as the lion.