Get In The Game 1

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=50 BGCOLOR="#333366" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <B>Get In The Game 1</B></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=165 BGCOLOR="#CCCC99" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <B> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="132" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="VOID" RULES="NONE" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 35 ><NOBR><div> <A HREF="id412.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Prisoner With A Purpose"><U><B><IMG SRC="007151d0.gif" border=0 width="21" height="29" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></U></A></div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=TOP><NOBR><div> <A HREF="id415.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Get In The Game 2"><U><B><IMG SRC="008151d0.gif" border=0 width="21" height="29" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></U></A></div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=TOP WIDTH="20"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="35" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="20" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></tD> <tD VALIGN=TOP><NOBR><div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="29" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" WIDTH="13"></div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=TOP><NOBR><div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="29" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" WIDTH="27"></div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> </TABLE></B></div> <div> Previous/Next Sermon</div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="www.stanbaker.org"><U><B>Home</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id2.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Biblical and Theological Studies"><U><B>Biblical and Theological Studies</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id3.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Church Ministry"><U><B>Church Ministry</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id15.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Sermon Notes"><U>Sermon Notes</U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id4.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Links"><U><B>Links</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id5.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Personal"><U><B>Personal</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> www.stanbaker.org</div> <div> <A HREF="mailto:stan@stanbaker.org" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:stan@stanbaker.org"><U>stan@stanbaker.org</U></A></div> </td> <td valign="top" height=430 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <B>"Get In the Game," </B><A HREF="http://www.biblegateway.com/bible?passage=Eph+4:1-6" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.biblegateway.com/bible?passag"><U><B>Ephesians 4:1-6</B></U></A></div> <div> <B>Berean Bible Church, </B><B>November 9, 2003am</B></div> <bR> <div> <I>     </I>On Labor Day this year, the Boston Red Sox beat the Philadelphia Phillies in extra innings. During that game, star hitter Manny Ramirez was not in the regular lineup, but during the late innings he was asked to go in and pinch hit in place of another hitter. He said he was too sick and refused to go in. Now he had been sick, and he had missed the weekend series against the Yankees in Boston. But during the weekend, during his sickness, he was seen out socializing with friend and Yankee player Enrique Wilson. Though feeling better on Tuesday, the day after the Phillies game, Manny Ramirez was benched for one game. The theory was, if you can go out and socialize with your friends when you are supposedly sick, you can pinch hit for a baseball team that is paying you millions of dollars. When it comes to being the church, and contributing to the work of the God's church, we need to get off the bench and get into the game.</div> <div>      Ephesians 4:1-16 tells us two things we are all responsible for in the body of Christ. The first: unity in the body (next week, contribution to growth of the body). "A New Location, a New Life" begins when we find ourselves united with Christ and with each other. Corporate and individual Christian maturity demands unified relationships. We can't very well be built up and maturing in the faith if we are divided from one another. (Being built up includes outreach, reaching the lost. It is both qualitative growing up, as well as quantitative growing up). Inappropriate division is disease to the body.</div> <bR> <div> <B>I. We are called to live a life worthy of our calling in Christ (vs. 1). </B></div> <div>       The "Change" issue . . . our desire is to develop, to become changed. Our problem is that we have a million-dollar salvation and a five-cent response" (Snodgrass, 217). Remember that obedience always responds to God's grace, it does not achieve or attain God's grace.</div> <bR> <div> <B>II. Five qualities of living a life worthy (vs. 2-3). Context of relationships. </B></div> <div> A. Humility. "...Humility is a continual awareness of God, of our own sinfulness and frailty, and of the equal value of all other persons" (Snodgrass, 218). Disunity is based in pride and ego and arrogance and selfishness. </div> <div> B. Gentleness. Meek; opposite of self-assertion, rudeness, and harshness.</div> <div> C. Patience. Able to wait, to bear up under provocation, self-restraint; not easily getting angry; not rushing people to get with <I>your</I> program.</div> <div> D. Forbearance in love. We have all said it: "Bear with me." Putting up with each other. Making allowance for one another's faults, weaknesses and quirks.</div> <div> E. Living in peace with other believers. We keep, guard, maintain what the unity that only the Holy Spirit can create.</div> <bR> <div>      It takes great strength to live humbly and kind and loving. Only the strong can (or, it takes great strength to) choose humility, gentleness, patience, forbearance, etc. It is the weak who are proud and demanding and arrogant and violent - they have no control over their impulses and desires; they feel they must assert their power, but what they assert and display is their need. "The refusal to exalt self does not lead to incompetence and passivity; rather, it means a person is strong enough to not require attention and pampering" (Snodgrass, p. 220).</div> <bR> <div>      "Make every effort" (vs. 3). "Rather than making every effort to maintain unity, we sacrifice it at the first airing of differences" (Snodgrass, 210). It is not leftover efforts, but enthusiastic, diligent efforts. Unity is a <I>proactive</I> pursuit. Both <I>creating</I> disunity or division and <I>failing to contribute</I> to unity are sin.</div> <bR> <div>      Excuses for not maintaining unity: we would rather have control, have our way. We are comfortable in our environment, around the people we have known forever and who are just like us. We are unwilling to forgive for an offense we or our family suffered (even 30 years ago?). </div> <div>      Are the commands clear enough? "what part of humble, gentle, patient, loving, forbearing, peacekeeping don't you understand"? We plan to bring personal exhortation and discipline to areas of sowing seeds of discord and disunity in the church. We are drawing a line in the sand. Confess and repent.</div> <bR> <div> <B>III. Foundation of unified relationships (vs. 4-6).</B></div> <div>      Living the life to which we have been called means having unified relationships in the church. This is only possible based on the foundation already established for us.</div> <div> A. We don't unify around our preferences or personalities. We unify around what we share in Christ. Unity is not created by us, it is only maintained by us (vs. 3). <U>One body</U>, the church - all the people who have faith in Jesus Christ. <U>One Spirit</U>, the Holy Spirit who lives in each of us, as promised by Jesus himself. <U>One hope</U>, the certainty of our salvation, forgiveness, and eternal life. <U>One Lord</U>, Christ, the head of the church. <U>One faith</U>, the manner of our entry into the family of God. <U>One baptism</U>, which is identification and union with Christ and his church through the Holy Spirit. This union is demonstrated by water baptism. <U>One God the Father</U>, who is over all and through all and in all who believe. </div> <bR> <div> B. What can divide us when we have this in common? Preferences about music or personalities or ethnicity or preferences about how a church spend money or what programs it has?</div> <bR> <div>      During Superbowl XXXVII, FedEx ran a commercial that spoofed the movie Castaway, in which Tom Hanks played a FedEx worker whose company plane went down, stranding him on a desert island for years. Looking like the bedraggled Hanks in the movie, the FedEx employee in the commercial goes up to the door of a suburban home, package in hand. When the lady comes to the door, he explains that he survived five years on a deserted island, and during that whole time he kept this package in order to deliver it to her. She gives a simple, "Thank you." But he is curious about what is in the package that he has been protecting for years. He says, "If I may ask, what was in that package after all?" She opens it and shows him the contents, saying, "Oh, nothing really. Just a satellite telephone, a global positioning device, a compass, a water purifier, and some seeds." God has given to the church the resources she needs for growth. ("Holy Spirit, #354.)</div> <div>      Being unified together in what we have in common in Christ is the first step toward spiritual growth and maturity. God has given to the church what the church needs to grow up and become what he intends it to be. And it is in <I>us</I>. And you need to get in the game. We are a part of the body of Christ, and each part needs to do it's work to help the whole body grow. Next week we will talk about how.</div> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> copyright, 2003, Stanley Baker</div> <div> www.stanbaker.org</div> </td> </tr></table></body>