Gospel Community

Yeah, it's good to see all of you here this morning and good to be back with you after being away last week. I had the privilege of Being in Florence, Kentucky, speaking at a counseling and discipleship conference and sharing, with them over the length of 4 sessions, things that we have learned together as a church body. So it was a blessing to be able to represent you, last Friday and Saturday, and then last Sunday evening to preach in our home church back in Indianapolis, Indiana.

so thank you for allowing me to do that and again to represent you, but I also just want to say it's good to be back home, with our family here.

before we get underway, looking at the word this morning, just, I want to draw your attention to an insert in your bulletin. This is, regarding the men's leadership meetings. You might wanna, pull that out. we have the MA forum, that meets at 6 o'clock on Tuesday mornings from 6:00 to 7:05 and it usually meets in the back of the auditorium here.

That's on Tuesday mornings at 6:00 a.m. That is open and available to all of our men to just come together and encourage one another, in the Lord and in our walk with God and in our calling as husbands and dads, and as men of God. starting, this Tuesday, In addition to the man forum, we're going to be, relaunching our men's leadership meetings, and there are two times where these meetings will take place on Tuesdays. one is at 9 in the morning on Tuesday and the other is at 6 p.m.

on Tuesday. We do the same thing in both of these meetings. We just have it at two different times in order to accommodate as many people's schedule as possible. Our passion here at Cornerstone.

is one of our mottos is every man a pastor. we believe that God calls every man to be a pastor of his household, and to be a shepherd and a leader to others as well. So anything we can do to invest in you, we want to do that. And, so, these men's leadership meetings, all of our men are invited to.

If you're able to come, we would love to have you, join us for this time. We're gonna be focusing on Romans 7. I'm gonna be walking us through, Romans chapter 7, and we're going to try to come to an understanding of this issue of indwelling sin and how we as believers in our struggle with sin can walk in victory, even though sin, continues to indwell us on this side of glory. So, I look forward to meeting up with as many of you as I can on Tuesday mornings at 9:00 to about 10:15 and then Tuesday nights, 6:00 to 7:15.

Also, as has already been mentioned, I would encourage you guys to take advantage of our Sunday school program that began last week. As elders, we have a deposit of truth that We feel that God has called us to deliver to the church body here and a part of that deposit gets delivered from this pulpit, and a part of it gets delivered on Sunday, through our Sunday school and adult equiping school ministry. So, if you want the full package of what we're wanting to deliver to you on Sundays, then make Sunday school and the adult equiping school a part of your Sunday morning routine.

That's, from 9 o'clock to 10 o'clock.

If you're an adult and you want to, I made a list this morning during Mike's lesson, you want to learn. what the meaning of words like hermeneutics and geshita. And exegesis and isosis and propiscuity, if you want to know what those kinds of words mean. come to the adult equiping school class and you'll learn that and so much more as Mike focuses on the issue of how to study the Bible.

Wonderful material in this class that's laying the groundwork for our study of the Book of Genesis that will begin in a few weeks, OK? It's just good to see you guys. it's good to be home. Well, we're going to continue with our study of, what our purpose is as a church, helping people to journey from brokenness to wholeness.

And we have studied gospel conversion and gospel immersion. These are two of the critical points in the journey from brokenness to wholeness. And this morning we're going to focus on gospel community as a critical part of that journey that we are on from brokenness to, wholeness, complete and utter wholeness in Christ. Community is absolutely vital for us to become all that God wants us to be.

it is with great reluctance that my wife just a few minutes ago, gave me permission, I'm gonna call it permission to share this with you. But when we were on vacation, a month and a half ago, my wife and I had a pretty long, probably 2 or 3 hour conversation. about our marriage and the ups and the downs over the 25+ years of our marriage, and Near the tail end of that conversation, Donna, said to me, she said, Milton, there are 3 reasons why I'm still with you. And That really got my attention.

And I don't even remember what all three of them were. I remember the first one was, where else would I go? And the third one was this. She said, I stink and love you.

And that really touched me and it inspired a love song. I immediately began working on this on my vacation. And it's called I Stink and Love You. It goes like this, I've had my reasons to walk away, to give up hope, and to go astray, but I'm still here and my heart is too, all because I stink and love you.

You've made me mad and you've made me cry. You've made me wish one of us would die. But you're still living, and I am too, all because I stink and love you. I love you.

I stink and love you. Let other lovers do whatever they want to do. I'll be with you when the day is through, all because I stink and love you. I've watched you grow.

I've changed a lot too in ways not possible apart from you. When holding me close, you make me see I'm blessed because you stink and love me. You love me. You stink and love me.

Let other lovers be whatever they want to be. You're holding me close after all you've seen, all because you stink and love me. I love you. I stink and love you.

Let other lovers do whatever they want to do. I'll be with you when the day is through, all because I stink and love you. Yes, doc. Like, Yeah.

I have given that the lyrics to Mike Berry and to Jonathan Langley. And I've asked them to put some music to that, and I have not yet heard back from them. Anyway, marriage is quintessential community between two people. It is community in its most succinct and powerful expression between two fallen human beings in a broken and a fallen world.

And what we've observed in our marriage is that I know there are ways that I have grown and flourished and been transformed because of my wife, both the good that is in her, as well as the fallenness that is in her, the brokenness, and she has grown and experienced transformation because of the good and the grace that is in me. And also because of the brokenness that is in me as well. I know this, I am the perfect person to make my wife more Christ-like. And whoever you're married to, with the grace, the beauty, and the fallenness that is in them, they are the perfect person to make you more Christ-like.

Amen. That's the power of community. This is true for all of our relationships, including in the church, this thing that we call gospel community. God wants to grow you.

And and me in ways that are not possible apart from your brothers and sisters in the Lord. The grace that is in them as well as the brokenness that is in them are all a part of this wonderful package that we call gospel community. We've been talking about this journey that we are on from brokenness to wholeness in Christ and gospel community is a vital part of that journey. You will never succeed in arriving at wholeness in Christ, apart from community.

Let me define what we mean by community. let's see here. Here we go. I think you have this on your notes.

Gos gospel community is this, we can define it two ways. It is gospel believing and gospel practicing Christians doing life together in local churches, or B, Living life in a context of brothers and sisters in Christ, covenanted together into a local church assembly of saved persons who possess varied giftings and deficits, responsibilities and functions, all of which are integral to everyone's journey from brokenness to wholeness. We are tracking Saul of Tarsus, who later became known as the Apostle Paul in his journey from brokenness, the brokenness of sin all the way to wholeness and glory.

In the presence of the Lord Jesus where he is, right now.

And so we're just using his life to be able to look at what this journey, is shaped as, so that we can get some clues for ourselves as we are on this journey also. We've observed Paul's conversion. We have seen how Paul lived a life that was drenched in gospel grace and gospel truth, and today we'll observe Paul with regard to this issue of gospel, community. here's how we'll frame things in the moments that, that we have, together.

We're gonna make 6 observations about Paul and his doing. Of gospel, community. And here's the first thing that we'll observe in Paul's journey. After conversion, Paul sought to do gospel community with Christians right away.

As soon as Paul was saved, Paul began seeking To do community with his brothers and sisters in the Lord. In Acts chapter 9, verse 26, it says this, this is after his conversion when he came to Jerusalem, he was trying to associate with the disciples. He was trying to associate with the disciples. The word that is translated associate is probably a richer word in the Greek than the word associate captures.

This word means to attach oneself to for the purpose of becoming a part of. the word join is a good translation of this word. This is the word that would be used to speak of someone joining a team of some sort. A person joins the team with the result being that they become a part of the team.

The Greek word literally means to glue together. This is the word used in Ephesians 5:31, where Paul says, for this cause, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to His wife be joined to his wife on every level, physically and spiritually and emotionally, and the two shall become one all the way down to their physicality. So obviously this is a very intense word. Just when you see this word, just think of joining.

Together with something to where you are now a part of that thing that you have joined yourself to. And Luke is telling us that Paul, Early in his journey, upon becoming converted to Christ, comes into Jerusalem, and he was trying to join himself, to glue himself to the disciples. He wasn't just wanting to hang out with them, he wanted to join up with them and to be a part of what they were doing, to be a part of the team. This is one of the signs of Paul's true conversion to Christ, one of the earliest signs of a true convert.

is a desire to join up with other believers in Jesus. If someone says that they have believed in Jesus, and they love Jesus, and they want to be with Jesus, and yet they don't love his people, or want to join up with his people, the people for whom he died, then one could wonder whether that person has truly been born again. Let's say it this way, at least. If someone says that they're a part of the body of Christ, and yet they don't want to be practically and committedly attached to other members of the body of Christ, then they're definitely not behaving consistently with their profession, right?

Does that make sense? Well, Paul comes into Jerusalem and he's wanting to associate with, to join himself to the disciples in the Jerusalem church, and yet notice how this goes. Paul's first venture in the gospel community did not go well. Look at what the text says.

He was trying to associate with the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple. Luke tells us two things about how these early Christians in the Jerusalem church responded to Paul. Number 1, they were afraid of him, and number 2, they didn't believe he was a disciple. Imagine this happening to you.

You're saved and you come into the church, and you try to join yourself to a body of believers, and everyone's afraid of you. They have a look of terror on their face whenever you walk into the room and they don't believe you're a true Christian. You share your testimony of faith in Christ and They just sit there and say, I don't believe a word of what you just said. Imagine that They, they look at you and they can't imagine you actually being a Christian.

Other people, they can imagine being converted and being a true Christian, but you being saved and transformed by Christ, they look at you and they're like, no, no, no, that's not possible. And so they're afraid of you and they don't believe that you're a true disciple of Christ. If that's how your first attempt. At doing gospel community went.

How would you respond? Would you be hurt Would you want to give up on doing community with Christians in the church? Would you grow fed up very quickly with these believers? Would you give up and walk away from the church and say, fine, I'll just spend the rest of my life without you Christians in the church.

I don't need the church, and then spend the rest of your life going around and telling everyone about how unfriendly that church was and the people were in that church. Paul didn't do that. Amazingly, The text tells us that he kept trying. The tense of the verb trying is imperfect, which means that he kept on trying.

When he observed people being freaked out by him and not believing he was a disciple, he didn't quit. He tried again and then he tried again and then he tried again. Coming back again and again in his attempt to join up with these believers in Christ in the Jerusalem church. Look at what happens next, verse 27, but Barnabas took hold or literally seized him.

and brought him to the apostles and described to them how Paul had seen the Lord on the road and that he had talked to him and how at Damascus Paul had spoken out boldly in the name of Jesus. This is the mercy of God on display towards the apostle Paul, who was called Saul at this time. For years, Paul had been seizing Christians and bringing them before the authorities and accusing them. Before the authorities and now Paul is being seized.

By a Christian named Barnabas and brought before the apostles of the very church that Saul used to persecute. And Barnabas is speaking as Saul's advocate. And defending him. And explaining to the apostles how Saul had seen the Lord on the road and that Christ had talked to him and how at Damascus, he had spoken out boldly, in the name of Jesus.

And even greater mercy from God is that the apostles end up receiving Saul. And embracing him as a brother in Christ, and allowing him to become one of them. In verse 28, we see the result, quote, he was with them. He was with them.

You might want to underline those two words, he was with them. Going in and going out throughout Jerusalem, speaking out boldly in the name of the Lord. I love the language here. Luke is telling us that Paul didn't just move about Jerusalem, and he didn't just speak out boldly in the name of the Lord, but he did those two things with them.

With the disciples, with the apostles. He is now a part of the team and doing all that he does, ministering and doing life together with them. There are 2 miracles here. Two miracles of gospel community.

Number 1, that Saul would want to be a part of the very community he once hated. And number 2, that the people that he once terrorized were able to overcome their fear, their cynicism, and even their instinct to retaliate and welcome into their community a man who was once their worst enemy. This is the miracle of gospel community. Community that bears the imprint of the gospel in every way.

There's a second observation we make about Paul's. Doing of gospel community, and that is this throughout Paul's ministry. Paul was not just a sole winner, but he was a community organizer. A gospel community organizer.

Paul went from place to place planting churches, which means that he was planting communities of believers in Jesus. He didn't preach merely the gospel to get individuals to be saved. He cultivated. Those saved individuals and the communities with delegated functions and responsibilities, and with leadership and with each member having a designated role to play.

He called these communities a household of faith or churches of the living God. Paul's big concern on his heart wherever he went was not simply how individual Christians were doing. But he says in 2 Corinthians 11:28 that he felt the daily pressure of concern for all the assemblies, all the churches. It's interesting to me that Paul doesn't say I feel the daily pressure of concern for all the Christians, even though he could have easily worded it that way.

He did care about the well-being of individual Christians, but he says, I feel a concern. Every day regarding the welfare of the communities of faith, of the churches, of the assemblies, not just of individual Christians. In Titus 1:5, we see Paul, the community organizer, saying to Timothy, for this reason I left you in Crete that you would set in order what remains and appoint elders in every city as I directed you. He left Titus there to oversee the communities of faith that were on the island of Crete.

There's a certain order to how gospel communities operate, and a key ingredient of that order is having elders who are at the helm. Paul wants Titus to appoint elders in every city. These are men who would be overseers of Christians and local church communities of faith, who are called to teach and be an example for the flock, and to whom the Christians are called to submit. And to follow.

Paul is always thinking not just about individual Christians, but about the communities that they're a part of, and he wants to ensure that those communities are well shepherded, well led by elders. In 1 Timothy 3:5, Paul is writing to Timothy, who was overseeing a collection of assemblies. And he says to Timothy, I write, so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God. I'm writing this letter, Timothy, so that you will know how a person ought to conduct himself in the household of God.

And then he goes on to say, which is the church of the living God. I'm writing this letter so that you will know how a person ought to behave himself as a part of a local community expression called a local church inside of that gospel community. If all you read of 1 Timothy was this verse, you would know two things. Number 1, that a Christian apparently should conduct himself within the context of a local church, right?

Man, however, I'm living my life, I need to make sure that I conduct myself within the context of a local church family. And that my life is tied to that. And then a second thing that you can infer is that obviously 1 Timothy is written in order to give you an idea of how to go about conducting yourself in the local church. 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, and other books of Paul are classic examples of Paul being a gospel community organizer.

He was not just a sole winner, he was a church planter. A planter of gospel communities. There's a 3rd observation we can make about Paul and his doing of gospel community, and that is this, Paul ministered to people, to Christians. In the context of life on life gospel community, this is the way he did ministry in First Thessalonians 1.

Paul is looking back on his time with the Thessalonian Christians, and he says to them, for our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. He's saying when, when I was with you, and the way that I went about ministering to you, I can say this, that the gospel did not come. To you, from me, merely through the words that I spoke. But the gospel also came to you in the form of the man that I was among you and for your sake.

look at what he says next. he says, our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit with full conviction, just as what men we proved to be among you for your sake, and you became imitators of us and of the Lord. I gave you the gospel through the words I spoke to you, and I also imparted the gospel to you in the form of the man I was. Among you for your sake.

In other words, the man I was in relationship with you. And to my delight, I noticed that you became imitators of me and my colleagues and ultimately of the Lord. Paul began to notice that the Thessalonians began imparting the gospel to Paul and his colleagues through the words they spoke and through the people they were toward Paul and his ministry colleagues. Paul noticed that the Thessalonians turned around.

And went out into the world and began imparting the gospel to those who were lost through the words they spoke and also in the form of the people they were in relationship with those that they were seeking to reach. Imagine a community of Christians. Just imagine Cornerstone and, and, and on so many levels. I, I get to watch you and be blessed and see this already on display.

But just imagine us even excelling still more, being a community of people. who whenever we're together, we're seeking to impart gospel grace, gospel truth to one another, not simply through the words we speak, but also in the form of the people we are in relationship with one another. That's gospel community. That's what Paul did and we're not surprised that the Thessalonians said, I really like this.

I'm gonna imitate this in the way that I relate to other people. There's another passage that Paul. Rights that gives us some insight on this very thing. look what he says in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, verse 7 and following.

Again, he's looking back at his time with the Thessalonians and he says, but we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children. And having so fond an affection for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives because you had become very dear to us. Paul is saying, I, I drew you close to me, the way that a mother would draw her child to her bosom. And I gave you not only the gospel, but I gave you my gospel-laden life.

I gave myself away to you. As I gave the gospel to you. Paul would say, I didn't just give the gospel to you through words, but through my gospel infused life. As I gave my life away to you, I was giving you gospel.

Paul was a living embodiment of the gospel to them, and he imparted it to them in a context of affection and close relationship. In fact, he says here, we tenderly care for you. this, this verb that is translated tenderly cares literally means to warm. To warm, we warmed you the way that a nursing mother does her own.

Children. In a context like this, for Paul to use this word, what, what it means is to give to another person your warmth, a warmth that is passed from you to another person in the context of close relationship. Does that make sense? just to illustrate, when my son, Benjamin, was younger, he's 18 now, he would often wake up on winter mornings and get out of bed and he would, in just a minute or two be cold and shivering.

For some reason, he wouldn't dress warmly, he wouldn't put on socks or shoes. He would come downstairs with his bare feet on our cold tile floors. And he would pour himself a bowl of cereal. And while eating the cereal, the cold milk would make him even colder and more shivery, and I would look at him sometimes in the mornings and his lips were practically purple.

And he could hardly hold the spoon steady in his hand, and his teeth would be chattering between bites, and I would see him. He just looked so pathetic, and my heart would go out to him. And so here's what I would often do, and sometimes Donna would do this as well, but I would come up behind him and I would wrap my arms around him and I would press his body. Into mine And as I gathered him into my body, I could feel him shivering, just shaking violently.

But as the seconds wore on, the shivering would subside and then stop altogether. He was no longer cold. As a dad, I always loved doing that. What was I doing?

I was noticing that my son was cold and he needed warmth. I could have thrown him a blanket. Said, here, wrap this around you and that probably would have met his need, but instead, I realized that he needs warmth, and I have the warmth that he needs, and the only way that warmth is going to pass from me to him is if I get up from where I'm at and I draw close to him and I hold him tightly against myself, and then the warmth that is in my body will pass from me to him. Does that make sense now?

hard, I would have him come up this morning on stage so that we could demonstrate, but he's 18 now and he's not the huggy type. When I asked him last night for permission to share this, he said, Dad, no, tell them you were cold in the mornings, and I would. so it's better we not give him any role in, in sharing this. But, but anyway, that's the way Paul was with people.

He had what people needed, and he knew that. I have what these people need desperately. But then he thought through, how will it pass from me to them? He could have shouted truth at them.

He could have lobed truth from a distance at them, but he didn't do that. He moved toward them, he gathered them to himself. And then he would teach them. And nurture them and feed them in a context of close relationship and over time what was in Paul would pass from him to those that he was in close relationship with.

To Paul's great joy, Paul noticed that the Thessalonians started imitating him. They're like, wow, I like this. And so they turned around, they, they drew Paul close to them. So that what was in them would pass from them to Paul, and they turned toward each other and towards others and moved toward them so that the grace that was in them would pass from them.

To others as well. This is, this is Paul coming into a community and doing gospel community and then people would imitate him, and this is how gospel communities would be formed. There's a 4th observation we can make about Paul and how he did gospel community, and that is that Paul longed to be with people. He longed to be with Christians in order to unleash the mutual benefits of gospel community.

Paul loved being with Christian people. Keep in mind, this is a man who has been to the 3rd heaven and back. He has seen things he could not even tell people about. This is a guy who was an apostle so close to the Lord, and yet he longed to be with Christian people.

Look what he says to the Romans, he says, for I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you, so that you may be established. These aren't. There we go. That is that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other's faith, both yours and mine.

I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that often I have planned to come to you and have been prevented so far, so that I may obtain some fruit among you also. The beauty of what we see here is Paul longed to see these Christians, and he had several reasons that he states here. I long to be with you so that I can impart some spiritual gift to you. I got something I want to give you, a spiritual gift.

That I want to grace your lives with. And whatever that blessing is that Paul had in his mind that he wanted to give to them, he needed to be with them face to face. To impart that to them. Obviously he's writing them a letter, so he believes some blessing can be imparted through a letter that he writes, but Paul wants, even in writing this letter, he longs to be with them face to face because there's power there and being together with them in the flesh so that he can impart some special blessing.

To them I think we do well to remember this in our techno savvy age. That we live in where more and more communication is what we could call disembodied communication, right? We send text messages and we send emails and we communicate via social media and all of that is fine, but, but it is sad that more and more of our communication is happening in a disembodied way, a non-incarnational way. Electronically rather than face to face, we lose something.

With that, we're impoverished as a result of that. There's power in face to face communication of people being physically together. This is part of why Christ didn't just shout the truth about himself from heaven, he became a man, took on human flesh, and he put his feet under people's tables and went into their homes, and he loved them. And related to them.

This is what Paul is doing, being an imitator of Christ. He's longing to be with the Romans. In the flesh so that he can impart some blessing to them. I love this attitude.

Just imagine that we all thought this way. Whenever we show up for church on Sunday morning, or show up at our care groups on Sunday afternoons or evenings, that our mindset is, man, I long to see my brothers and sisters so that I can impart. A spiritual gift to them. I'm coming to church, I'm coming to care group.

I'm coming to this man former ladies Bible study because I want to impart, I want to be A blessing In fact, I would ask you today, as you're anticipating your first care group meeting of the year, if your care group today. is only as good as your contribution is to it. How good will it be? How good will it be?

You say, well, I'm in Jonathan Jones' care group. Actually, you're not in Jonathan Jones' care group. You're in your care group. Right.

Your care group has your name on it as much as it may, whoever your care group leader is, your care group leader should not be the only one today feeling the weight, of making sure that the meeting today is a blessing for everyone, you should be feeling that. You should be praying, and you should come this afternoon or this evening, ready to impart a spiritual blessing to everyone who is there. Don't be sitting here thinking, I sure hope my care group leader puts together a good care group meeting tonight.

Don't think that.

That's as much on you as it is on your leader. Whatever your age, whether you're a young person or an adult, go to care group tonight, intending to be a blessing. You might say, well, I'm just a kid. what, it's not even fair.

when I go up to someone and say, hey, how's it going? How can I pray for you? That's a blessing to them. But when a young person goes up to someone and, and takes an interest in an adult and says, How are you doing?

How can I pray for you? Or you just speak to them. It's more powerful than even what I can do. You can rock some adult's world by going up to them and taking an interest in them and engaging them in conversation and being a blessing to them.

No matter what your age, you can be a huge blessing. So we should long to see our brothers and sisters so that we can impart a blessing. Paul also longed to see the Romans so that he could establish them, that word established means to strengthen them. There's a strength that is in Paul that he wants to pass on to them, and he wants to be with them in the flesh so that he can strengthen and establish them in their faith.

But not only that, but look at this, he, he didn't just come or want to be with the Romans so that he could strengthen them and give them a blessing. But he saw that he needed a blessing. He had something to gain. He says that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other's faith, both yours and mine.

This is Paul, the apostle Paul, the man who's been to the 3rd heaven and back, and he's got a burning desire to be with these flawed, imperfect, broken Christians because he feels like he has something to gain from them as much as they have something to gain from him. It's good to want to meet up with your brothers and sisters to impart a blessing to them. But if that's your only agenda, Then you can come off like everyone else is your project. And what, here's the way this relationship works.

I give, you receive. I don't really need anything from you. that's not the way Paul was. Paul says, I want to bless.

I have so much that I want to give you. And also, I see that I have so much to gain in the way of blessing and encouragement from you also. He also wanted to be with them so that he could obtain some fruit while among them. Paul viewed the Roman Church as a lush garden containing fruit, and Paul wanted to be with them in person so that he could pluck and obtain fruit that would bring refreshment and nourishment to his own soul.

Paul also had a harvest mindset. He knew God is working in the lives of every believer in the Roman Church, and I wanna be with them. I want to talk to as many of them as I can. Because I know that in every one of them, and each one of them are multiple seeds of God's working that's germinating inside of them, and I may just get the chance to talk to one of them at exactly that right moment where some seed that is in them comes to fruition, and I get to be a part of harvesting and nurturing that.

Paul was so community-oriented in these ways, longing to be with the Romans to unleash the benefits and the blessings of gospel community. Let's, let's hasten on to a 5th observation that we can make, and that is that Paul did not allow brokenness in Christians to diminish his enthusiasm for community. this longing to be with, this longing to see, this enthusiasm, you often see that enthusiasm. In new Christians, or in someone who's new to a church, and they've not really seen a lot of brokenness yet.

And they have all of their brothers and sisters on a pedestal and this church they're now a part of on a pedestal, and they're like, man, I really love being here and being with these people. That's the way often a young Christian is. But then we get hurt. We get cut Brokenness and our brothers and sisters, we begin to see that brokenness and we get caught.

And wounded by that brokenness, and then our enthusiasm begins to wane and we're not so thrilled about community anymore. But what, in the history of the church, Few people have been more wronged by Christians in the church than the apostle Paul. Paul bore On his back as it were, the scars of sins committed against him by people even in the church. No one had more reason to give up on the institutional church than the apostle Paul.

Just real quick, just some examples, Of this And here we go. Philippians 1:17, he's talking about Christians who were preaching Christ out of selfish ambition, literally to cause him distress in his imprisonment. In 2 Corinthians 10:10, Paul is quoting criticisms of his preaching. That has gotten back to him from the Corinthians, the people he's writing to.

They said of Paul that his physical presence when he would speak was weak and unimpressive, and his speech was contemptible. Paul actually quotes what they would say about his preaching, and he's basically saying, I heard that. I heard that. When I was in college, I tried to manipulate a class that I was in and I, I, I got some inside information I, that I thought was right and so I signed up for a particular class at a particular time because my favorite professor was gonna be there teaching that class.

And so I'm sitting there on the first day and this other professor walks in. And I groaned when he walked into the room, and I didn't even think it was audible, but it was audible, and he heard it. And he turned to me and said, I heard that. I heard that.

He went on to become one of my favorite professors, but Paul is saying to the Corinthians, I've heard what you've been saying. I heard that. Talking about my physical presence being weak and unimpressive, my speaking contemptible, the Corinthians were enamored with Apollo. and other orators.

Who were very eloquent in their speech, and they looked down on Paul's speaking ability. We also know that the Corinthians refused to support Paul financially. He worked his tail off when he was among them, ministering to them full time and then being a tent maker in his off hours so as not to be a burden to them. They never offered to Support him in any way.

Some of them were even suspicious that Paul was trying to take financial advantage of them. We see Christians throughout the epistles in churches that are disregarding what Paul has taught them, turning around and in some cases doing the exact opposite. The Corinthians were practicing immorality. They were suing each other.

Getting drunk at the weekly church potluck. They were abusing the Lord's supper, they were selfishly ambitious and full of jealous jealousy and a party spirit. They were aligning themselves with Apollo and Peter, and even Christ as opposed to Paul. And they were moving away from the gospel that Paul had preached to them at great sacrifice to himself.

Some doubted that he was even an apostle, and they would say that he wasn't an apostle. And Paul had to complain to them saying to the Corinthians, it seems like the more abundantly I love you, the less you love me in return. The Galatians The Galatian Christians caused Paul such pain. That Paul equates it to the labor pains of a woman when delivering a child, and I hear that's pretty bad.

The Galatian church was a mess. They were biting and devouring one another. Their love for Paul had waned. And the Corinthian church was the biggest mess of all, and yet Paul moved toward the Corinthian church.

He wrote them a total of 4 letters, 2 of which made it into our New Testament. He Made a painful visit to them? And he never gave up on them. Paul could have looked at the Corinthians and said, what, you're dead to me, and walked away, and none of us in this room would have blamed him for that.

But he didn't. He never gave up, and he moved toward them. And loved them and ministered to them. Paul never gave up on any of the churches, and rather than turning away from them, he moved toward them and he loved them all the more.

Why? Why? Let me just throw a few things at you as we wrap things up this morning. That brings us to the 6th and final.

observation we make about Paul, and that is Paul had very definite beliefs about gospel community. Very definite beliefs about gospel community. Paul believed. That Christ loved the church and he died for the church.

That's why Paul loved the church the way that he did in Ephesians 5. He says Christ loved the church. He gave himself up for her so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, that he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless before Him. In Paul's theology, Jesus didn't just die for Christians.

He died for the church. The assembly, the community. He didn't just die so that you would be saved, and your brothers and sisters would be saved, but he died for the relationship between you and those brothers and sisters in the Lord. He died for what connects us and brings us together.

He died to eliminate The barriers that once divided us outside of Christ. And Paul goes on to say that Christ died for the church in order that he might be the one who gets to clean up the church's mess. And beautify The church. Jesus, according to Ephesians 5, was not looking for the perfect church.

He was looking for the putrid church, the messed up church, and he died for her. He died to be the one who gets to clean up her mess and beautify her. Into a glorious state. It's almost as if Jesus saw us, the church, in our filthiness, and our brokenness.

And he said to his father, Father, can I love her? Can I love her? Can I be the one who cleanses her and renders her lovely and beautiful? And the father said, yes, you can, but if you want to do that, you must die.

And Jesus said, I will happily die, so that I can be the one to beautify and to cleanse and to wash. And to make lovely. The church In the mind of Paul, if Christ loved the church this much, then the church must be worth loving. Amen.

If you want to be like Christ, if you say, man, I want to be Christ, like, that's my goal in life. Well, then love the church, like Christ loved the church. Joshua Harris says this beautifully. Listen to what he says.

The strongest argument I know for why you and I should love and care about the church is that Jesus does. The greatest motivation we could ever find for being passionately committed to the church is that Jesus is passionately committed to the church. As Christians we're called to be imitators of God, or to be conformed to the image of His Son. Can there be any question that part of being like Jesus is to love what he loves?

Christians often speak of wanting God's heart for the poor or the lost, and these are good desires. But shouldn't we also want God's heart for the church? He goes on to say this, if Jesus loves the church, you and I should too. It's that simple.

Paul, he got his cues from Jesus. He's like, I love, I love the church because Jesus did. Let's just look at one other thing that Paul believed that about the church, and then just for the sake of time, we'll wrap this up. And that is that he believed that the church is the very fullness of God.

He says in Ephesians 1:22 and 23, he says, and God put all things in subjection under Christ's feet and gave him his head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. Amazingly, this is Paul, a man who's been more hurt. By the church and by people in the church than most anybody else. And yet he still refers to the church as the fullness of God.

That's an amazingly high endorsement of something that is so full of mess and brokenness and hurt that Paul has been on the cutting edge of himself. In the mind of Paul, even though the church is full of brokenness, That pained and disappointed him. He still says the church is the ultimate location where you can experience God's fullness more fully than anywhere else on the planet. God has so chosen in His providence to locate his fullness in its thickest density.

Inside the church, and if you're humble enough. To become a part of a congregation of broken people on their way from brokenness to glory, you bring yourself in closest proximity to the fullness of God on earth. Do you believe that? How could Paul talk this way?

Yes, the church is the fullness of God. How could he talk this way? How could he look at a community of broken sinners on their way to glory and call that? The fullness of God.

You and I might look at all that mess, and we have a bunch of different other names for it. I don't know that we would have said, yep, that's the fullness of God right there, but Paul did. Paul did this and spoke this way because he was clued into a secret. And here's the secret, the church is not the fullness of God on earth, in spite of its imperfections.

But partly because of. It's imperfections. All the brokenness and the mess that you experience in the church, that's not Plan B? That's plan A.

All of the distresses and the hurts and disappointments that you encounter in the church require you to forgive and really learn how to love. And it ends up producing a flourishing and a maturing in you that takes you deeper into the experience of the gospel than you would ever otherwise go if God had put you in a perfect church. Where you encountered none of that. This is the way it is in marriage with an imperfect spouse that we began the message with this morning.

That it's, it's experiencing not only the grace and the beauty but the fallenness and the imperfections in one another in the church that takes us into the experience. Of understanding our need and our experience of the fullness of God. As God grows us through that. For Paul, a seasoned man to call the church the fullness of God is a startling thing.

there are times where people come to Cornerstone. And they're here for a week or two, and they're like, man, Cornerstone is the fullness of God. They don't use those words, but that's their vibe. This church is awesome.

You should see the church I came from. And they speak so highly of Cornerstone. And when I hear that, I always think, and I sometimes say, just give us some time. And we'll let you down real good.

Just give us several more months and you'll realize we're as broken as anyone anywhere else in any other church. We're going to disappoint you, we're going to hurt you with our brokenness. It's inevitable. And sometimes I see that smile on people's faces as they stay at Cornerstone a little longer began to go away.

And they realize this is not just going to be a honeymoon. This is going to be a slugfest, and we're in this for the long haul, and there's brokenness that's here. And when that honeymoon's over, and, and I hear their resolve, like, no, no, I'm a part of this church. And I want more of it.

That's the heart of Christ in them. Imagine someone after 30 years of experiencing life and brokenness in a church, and at the end of all of that, they say the church is the fullness of God. It just is not in spite of the brokenness, but even because God uses even the brokenness to take me straight to the very heart of the fullness of God. In the gospel I think I can say that.

I've been here 23 years. And I can say that cornerstone is the fullness of God. And in saying that, I'm not saying this is a perfect church. It's not.

I'm so not there, and I know that you're so not there. But in spite of those imperfections and even because of the brokenness that still persists, I can say that this is The fullness of God. The fullness of God. Let me ask you to bow your heads.

I encourage you, if, if there's any, Ways that God's spirit has spoken to you, let us know that on the back of the connection card so that we can be praying for you or talk with you about. Any issues that you want to pursue further? If you want to be a part of a Of a care group or get involved in any of the ministry venues here at Cornerstone that allow you to come alongside of other brothers and sisters and experience community with them. Please talk to us afterwards.

And I believe there will be a table, that you'll hear about in just a moment, where you can go to that table if you would like to be involved in a care group, even starting as early as today. But live your life in community. With others, it's an essential element of your journey from brokenness to wholeness. Father, we thank you for the gift of brothers and sisters.

We are a part of each other's gospel inheritance in Christ. You've been so good to give us to one another. We're, we're grateful that the Christian life is not a life that we live alone. It's not a journey that we journey alone.

But you've not only saved me, but you saved brothers and sisters, and you bring those brothers and sisters to me as gifts and say, these are gifts for your journey, and they'll take you further than you would ever otherwise be able to go. We thank You, Lord, for our husbands and our wives so that in the context of marriage, we can experience this. Truth and all of its beauty, and all of its brokenness on our way to glory. And then in the larger community, Lord, as we experience The blessings of community.

We thank you for all that we're understanding about community and the ways that we as a church have grown. But Lord, we, we have a long way to go. We're still klutzy at this. And we just confess to you that we want to learn, we want to grow, and we want to learn from you.

Teach us and take us deeper and show us how to do this thing called community. We want to do it right. And be a blessing to one another and to glorify you in the process. Lord, we thank you for this opportunity to give up our offerings to you, receive these funds and do much with every penny that is given for the glory of Jesus.

And we ask all of these things in the name of Jesus, and all God's people said,