United To Christ, United to One Another

here and i am a child of god and i'm no longer a slave to fear and i am a child of god [Music] from my mother's womb you have chosen me love has called my name since i've been born again into your family your blood flows through my veins [Music] and i'm no longer a slave to fear and i am a child of god [Music] and i'm no longer a slave to fear and i am a child of god sing no longer i'm no longer a slave [Music] [Music] to fear and i am a child of god [Music] sing i am surrounded i am surrounded

by the arms of the father and i am surrounded by songs of deliverance we've been liberated [Music] from our bondage we're the sons and daughters let us [Music] [Music] you split you spit the sea so i could walk right through it my fears were drowned in perfect love [Music] you rescued me so i can stand and see i am a child of god singing split you split the sea so i could walk right through it my fears were drowned in perfect love [Music] you rescued me so i could stand and sing i am a child of god i'm no longer i'm no longer a slave

to fear and i am a child of god and i'm no longer asleep to [Music] a fear of god saying i'm no longer i'm no longer a slave to fear and i am a child of god [Music] i'm no longer a slave to fear i am a child of god saying i'm no longer i'm no longer a slave to fear [Music] i am a child of god i'm no longer a slave to fear [Music] god thank you for the freedom [Music] please remind us how beautiful [Music] because we're children of god [Music] how easy it is for us to look around compare our lives to

others and in doing so lose our joy it's been said that uh comparison is the thief of joy and deep down we know it is yet it is so easy to look around and begin to compare our lives with those around us and in doing so take our eyes of jesus and what he has done and is doing in your life and there's so many ways we compare ourselves but i would say my biggest is just business-wise um kind of in my industry like we publish something called comparison reports and so you can see everywhere every single person's at every single metric and so when

you're a competitive person you know it's it's super easy to just look at the people around us and justify things and a lot of times you justify it could like one one thing i do is i justify it by like saying the word stewardship right like hey i'm just trying to be a good steward or um we justify it saying hey we're competitive nothing's wrong with competition right um but at the end of the day like being five years in in i guess my arena man every single time even if it's just like a little a little thing man it steals my joy makes me

feel uneasy takes away my peace and i would say one of the biggest thing is it just leads to like wack decisions you know like i'll make decisions that are maybe good for the business but it like it changes like priorities right it's like instead of instead of like really thinking about my people or my leaders or whoever it is man like just to like try to try to move myself up a notch you know i'll make a decision that ends up only maybe benefiting me but at the end of the day like it there's always somebody still ahead of you you know um on

and on we look at others and we compare our lives to theirs and we take our eyes off god and the beauty of the bible is that it shows us we are not alone um so a couple more comparison examples you know maybe family we look at families we look at their kids maybe somebody's kids are really well behaved you're like man i wish that was my kid um maybe maybe we'll just look at their parenting we compare ourselves to their parenting style we compare our church to others and and we wonder why we can't have what they have or we forget to see what

god is doing among ourselves we become envious of others financial situations by comparing our finances and maybe our stuff to theirs maybe we believe we live more wholly than someone else so we compare ourselves to one another even other christians instead of comparing ourselves to god's perfect law and in our holy god in psalm 73 asaph a worship leader is bearing his soul to the lord he shares his frustrations with god lamenting because he sees the unfairness and injustice in the world and how the unrighteous live in comparison to the righteous he compares how he has kept god's commands yet his life has not gotten

any better while those who are wicked seem to be continue to prosper but listen to what he says when he realizes how futile this way of thinking is how his joy is taken away from him when he lives like this and this is what he says it says until i went into the sanctuary of god then i discerned their end truly you set them in slippery places you make them fall to ruin when my soul was embittered when i was pricked in the heart i was brutish and ignorant i was like a beast towards you whom have i in heaven but you and there is

nothing on earth that i desire besides you my flesh and my heart may fail but god is the strength of my heart and my portion forever for asaph it was by going to the house of god hearing the word preaching god's goodness to himself and confessing how he let his heart wander into comparison and after he did that he was able to then rest in the joy and the steadfast love of the lord and the same is true for us so this morning as we think about i pretty much guarantee each of you have thought of ways you compare yourself to others i mean it's

easy i can think of 100 ways right now but let's take some time to confess those comparisons where we're not content in jesus where we long and thirst for other things that we've done it a hundred times like we know it doesn't fill us up we know it doesn't satisfy but we do it again and again and so let's confess those times let's remember and preach to ourself the truth of god's character so that we are able to say like asaph but god is the strength of my heart and my portion forever so again confess those sins and then even in your prayer preach the

truth of god's word to yourself as you confess so i'm going to give you guys a few minutes [Music] lord we've we've tasted and we've seen that you're good and nothing else can give us what you do god lord we want to be content we want to find a rest in you lord we know that you satisfy lord you you don't just fill us up once god but you you keep us full lord god and i pray that we would run to you lord jesus in the midst of all these ways we compare ourselves to others god and i pray that we would compare ourselves

to you lord and when we do that it drives us to our knees lord and we see who we are next to you god and we praise you for your this gift of grace lord and the gospel and jesus what you've done on the cross and so help us lord i pray even in this room this morning god that you'd set us free lord from comparison you'd rip off those chains god so many of us need that lord rip off those chains and point out those places where we offend you and how we compare ourselves to others and we don't we don't look to you

god we love you god thank you for this time and just thank you for your word as we get ready to hear from josh and just bless him and his lips lord and i pray that they had fallen ears that are are ready lord and hearts that are ready god um we love you in jesus name amen good morning how are we doing good you guys survived the cold morning this morning so that's good everybody have a good christmas here yes no maybe okay two people had a good christmas that's good three people good um well i i'm glad to be back here um before

christmas i get to go and see my family out in north carolina and then uh just celebrate with them but i don't know if you feel like me when you go and visit family there are times where it just becomes apparent that you're ready to come home i love my family i love my nieces nephews my sisters my brother but by the end of the christmas break i'm ready to come home and it's mostly because i'm ready to come home because of worshiping with you guys and just being with the family of god it is great to be back here and just being able to

celebrate what god has done for us in christ as well as worship with you all it's it's good to be back so um if you haven't been here before when we walk through our new year's and kind of new year's series epiphany we are walking through what we would consider the manifestation of christ and if you're not familiar with epiphany or either haven't been here at our church before or have seen the liturgical calendar what epiphany recognizes in between the time of christ's birth up until a point between the easter and the end of lent is just the the life and event of jesus and

what we hope to do is highlight how his life overflows into who we are and how it changes us how we should rest in this truth and how we should pursue more likeness of christ as his disciples and so that's what we're going to be jumping off into this year um and for me i enjoy preaching this sermon i get a yearly text from some of my friends typically it's a meme and it often reads like this happy happy let your youth pastor preach weekend is what i often get and we don't have any youth but it just kind of signifies the lead pastor needed

a break right but even in the funny memes like that i enjoy preaching this new year's because one i enjoy new year's i enjoy the lists and the resolutions so i don't know if any of you are like me but i enjoy kind of taking a look and taking stock of my own life i don't like the areas where i failed but i know that they help and so oftentimes what i like to do is is help us think through what will this next year look like for our lives as well as for our church and so that's what we're going to be doing through

this next series as well as as i preached this morning is kind of taking a look at what we hope to accomplish in 2022 as the district church so we're two two days in um and as i said you know new year's brings resolutions has anybody our new year's resolution anybody have a list one two yes okay has anybody failed their resolutions already yes awesome so have i that's good uh what's interesting i was looking through this week some information on new year's resolutions and this apparently has changed most people now quit their new year's lists or resolutions by january 19th so you guys still

have 17 days to create a list and quit to fall into the average of what people do it used to february so now it's shortened which is very interesting to see how people are responding to their own resolutions but for 22 i'm hopeful in this fact i i know for some of us a year do i keep going in and out okay that's going to be hard for me not to move back and forth but anyways so 2021 was was a hard year for some of us 2021 was also a good year for some of us and what i want us to be able to

do as believers is to look back at 2020 2021 whatever year it might be and reflect in the goodness of god and be thankful for what he has done for us as we are reminded in james as we walked through that book james's opening line to his brothers and sisters in christ is to count it all joy count it all joy my brothers when you meet trials of various kinds for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing so as we walk into this new year i

hope that we're able to look back at the good and the bad and say god is using that to make me perfect and complete that i may lack in nothing what a beautiful promise that is for us but as we walk into this year i want us to begin to reflect on what i would call a rule of life and if you've heard me preach this sermon before or you understand what a rule of life is great for those of you that don't rule of life is something that is similar to your resolutions but it has more to do with the habits that you have

created and formed into who you're going to be and so my hope for this church as we walk through this epiphany series is that we would begin to or even tweak our culture of discipleship and that would be our rule of life is that people would know our church to be a church that makes disciples and that we are disciplers of jesus christ and so one of the things that you're going to hear throughout this year is becoming a better disciple that's why we've chosen the next couple of weeks to take a look at what it means to fulfill the one and others there's 59

of them in the new testament and we go through all 59 of those but we do plan to take a look at the four themes in which they fall under and how you can fulfill those one another's inside the body of christ to become a better discipler and a better better disciple of jesus now for those of you who like hear that and go man that makes me nervous because discipleship is not something i am good at here's how i want to define discipleship for us to help alleviate that fear mark dever defines discipleship like this helping others follow jesus that's it helping others follow

jesus and so my hope this year is that we would elevate that idea we would elevate that definition to helping each other follow jesus better to love him more to know him more to pursue him more and the reason i give this definition and why we want to stick to this definition of discipleship is to break down the preconceived ideas or false notions that discipleship is only done by the pastors or only done by the educated or only done by knowing everything about what the bible has to say that's not what discipleship is discipleship is helping others follow jesus so you can do that by

going and watching a mom take care of her kids and trusting in the lord as she's about to freak out on them you can go do that helping someone change the tire do their shopping everyday life it can include bible studies and coffee but it can also just include and be included in everything that they do and so we want to elevate what discipleship looks like in this next coming year so i'm hopeful for that i was texting our leadership team yesterday that i have a hopeful anticipation of 2022 because i believe that if we can really press into this definition of what discipleship looks

like if we can pursue faithfully the 59 1 and others what it looks like to love and serve and honor one another i truly believe that our rule of life as a church can be defined by discipleship and i don't want you to hear that we're pushing aside evangelism or missions or hospitality that's not what we're doing in discipleship i believe that those things will overflow into our lives as we are helping others follow jesus it should naturally overflow that we are sharing jesus with those around us that we are being hospitable because we recognize what jesus has given to us in grace and so

that's my hope for us that our rule of life that we would begin to or as i said tweak our culture to be better disciplers of jesus and so as we continue through january we're going to see how that works but this morning what i want us to do is i don't want us to talk about the how i want us to take a look at the why why we pursued discipleship and it's found in this beautiful doctrine of the union with christ and so my main point this morning that everything is going to flow through and fall under is this that the one and

others start with being united to christ or to make it a little bit easier for your notes and i think this sounds better united in christ united to one another this is where the foundation the root of why we pursue one another why we love one another we fulfill all of these one another commands is because we have been united to christ and united to each other so if you have your bibles go ahead and open them to philippians chapter two starting in verse one we're going to see how paul expounds upon this pursuit of unity in the body that's rooted in being united in

christ starting in verse 1 paul says this so if there's any encouragement in christ any comfort from love any participation in the spirit any affection and sympathy complete my joy by being of the same mind having the same love being in full accord and of one mind do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit but in humility count others more significant than yourselves let each of you look not only to his own interests but also to the interests of others have this mind among yourselves which is yours in christ jesus who though he was in the form of god did not count did not count equality

with god a thing to be grasped but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on a cross therefore god has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that so that at the name of jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that jesus christ is lord to the glory of god the father this is god's word let us go to him

in prayer this morning lord thank you for your grace thank you for your mercy that you've shown to us thank you that it is through grace we are united to you as sons and daughters and we are united to one another to serve to love to honor to respect to pursue and so lord i pray that as we take a look at this beautiful doctrine of the union with christ that it would compel us to pursue unity inside this church and it would compel us to pursue unity inside the body the universal church that you have given to us lord thank you for this great

grace it's in jesus name i pray amen so i don't know if any of you have experienced this reality before but people can rob us of joy am i right maybe some of you felt that this past christmas maybe parents gave kids gifts and their response was not as expected maybe you saw nieces and nephews were ungrateful for the gifts that you gave i have a story of my own life when i was nine my parents blindfolded me and brought me out to the front yard and they videotaped this entire thing so i can't get rid of it they blindfolded me brought me out my

dad had a brand new bike and he takes the blindfold off and on video you can see me being very very ungrateful by saying i wanted a skateboard yeah very ungrateful and something that we all laugh about now even 35 years later right some of us have experienced this ungratefulness from children or siblings some of us have experienced unruly family members who take conversations too far and they rob us of the joy of being able to celebrate christmas and new years with friends and family some of us have been around or sometimes even we complain so often that we rob the joy of a situation

because we can't recognize what we do have over what we don't have there's an old charlie brown comic strip that i read this week where linus says this i love mankind it's the people i can't stand sometimes people can rob us of joy and as paul pens this letter to the philippians this is what he's facing he's facing people that is trying to rob him of his joy we find in the beginning of the chapter there are people in rome who are preaching the gospel against him to defame his name and then we find later on in the book of philippians that it is the

very church that he helped start that have division that are splitting in their unity and yet as he pens this letter you can see that it is the people in the church that are his most is where his most concern goes to it's the reason that he writes this letter you see in chapter one he says this i desire that you stand firm in one spirit with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel he goes on in chapter two to say complete my joy you see when epaphroditus had brought a generous gift to paul in rome he brought two pieces

of news one good and one bad the good news was that the church had concern for him being in prison and he was thankful for that you can see in his writings as he closes the letter that he recognizes their gift but the bad news that epaphroditus also brought was that the church was fighting amongst themselves that there was division and a threat to the unity in the philippian church we see in chapter three there's false teachers from the outside that are trying to come in and preach a false gospel and in chapter four we see that there's division among members who are disagreeing from

within and so paul is appealing here in chapter two as he begins his letter he's appealing to this church to pursue unity and pursue unity through humility warren rearsby says true spiritual unity comes from within it's a matter of the heart and so this is what paul does is that he appeals to the heart of the philippian church and he appeals to two things that get after the heart of the believer the first thing that he appeals to is the highest spiritual motive if you look to verse 3 we see that paul says complete my joy by being of the same mind having the same

love being in the full accord and of one mind and then he gets after their motives from the heart he says do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit but in humility count others more significant than yourselves and he follows this up by saying let each of you look not only to his own interests but also the interests of others paul is graciously saying here your disagreements reveal that there is a spiritual problem in your fellowship it isn't going to be solved by rules it's not going to be solved by threats or external changes it's going to be solved when your hearts are made right

with christ and with one another so he's appealing to their motives he's appealing to their hearts to think about others better than yourself paul wanted them to see that selfishness and pride were being revealed through these disagreements and that there could not be any joy or unity in their hearts until this was addressed paul not only appeals to their motives but he also appeals to their character but in appealing to their character he gives the greatest example of humility that we have in scripture and that is christ look at verse 5 he says have this mind among yourselves which is yours in christ jesus who

though he was in the form of god did not count equality with god a thing to be grasped but he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on a cross paul gives an example for the philippian church as well as us as believers to look to christ as our example of humility who he was god didn't count being equal with god a thing to be grasped and he put on flesh and became a servant and died you see

oftentimes this passage and rightly so is used to prove how jesus is both god and man how he was god but he put on flesh and so he lived here on earth is what is known as the hypostatic union and this is a beautiful and right doctrine but oftentimes we can use this doctrine without thinking about what paul is actually trying to do in this passage paul isn't thinking about or writing about this hypostatic union he's not talking about or trying to point to the fact that god was jesus was fully god and fully man what paul is doing in this passage is pastorally showing

the people of god in philippi that the greatest example of humility is christ that the son of god would put on flesh and become a servant to give us an example of what true servanthood looks like by dying on a cross he's encouraging the church at philippi to remember this example and to have this mind amongst themselves as they pursue unity with humility this humility is the foundation for why we live selflessly this humility and this example is why we count others better than ourselves why we look not only to our own interests but also the interest of others because this is what christ did

and it gives us this example to follow and it's important for us this type of humility this biblically correct view of what humility looks like because like meekness humility is often looked at as something to avoid in this world but biblical humility as andrew murray says is this it is the displacement of self by the enthronement of god the displacement of self by the enthronement of god i love this example by corey tenboom she fits exactly what andrew murray has to say billy graham came to her many many years after she began speaking and he would ask her how she handled all the nice things

people would say to her after she would do her presentations and she said billy i just gathered them all up like a bouquet of flowers and at the end of the day give them to jesus this is what true humility looks like it's not she's not putting herself down but she's ultimately lifting god up it is the displacement of self by the enthronement of god the true the true humble servant of god paul says yields themselves to christ to be a servant to use what he is and has for the glory of god and the good of others and this is the example that paul

is calling us to this is paul's appeal to the church to live in unity to not allow divisions to split the church to not allow quarrels to separate brothers and sisters in christ strive he says in chapter 1 to live side by side with one another for the sake of the gospel and paul's root paul's foundation for his appeal for unity is found in this doctrine of the union in our unity with christ he doesn't give an external example he doesn't say well be in unity because you guys have given so much to me be in unity because you guys look like you should be

able to strive with one another or because you do so well outside of the church he doesn't give external examples as to why they should be striving for unity and living in humility with one another no he gives an external he gives an intern sorry he gives an eternal example as to why we strive for this unity it's our union with christ this is the root for all of our interactions when it comes to the people of god now some of you in here might not know what the union of christ means what it looks like and that's okay because for the rest of our

time i want to give you a definition of what it means and why it's important and why it's one of the most beautiful doctrines that we should hold on to and i would even make this claim it's one of the most important doctrines when it comes to our salvation more important than justification sanctification glorification because all of those things are wrapped up in being united to christ so what is this beautiful doctrine louis burkhoff defines it like this it is the intimate vital and spiritual union between christ and his people in virtue of which he is the source of their life and strength of their

blessedness and salvation the phrase in him or with him is the most important language as it relates to our salvation see this union with christ is as kyle worley would say our identification participation and in into the body of christ we identify with christ and he identifies with us we participate in this union because it's not just a static thing when we are saved but it is a dynamic relationship that we are called into and it is an incorporation we have been brought into union with christ and it's not just that christ is now our representative but he has brought us into a body as

we would call the communion of saints the church so it's not just individualistic and we see this in the new testament specifically in paul's writings we find in ephesians 1 3 3-10 where the ultimate example of the our union with christ has found i'm not going to read the entire passage to you but i would encourage you to go back this week and read paul's writing starting in ephesians 1 and see this beautiful example of your union with christ galatians 2 20 is another one for i've been crucified with christ for it is no longer i that live but he that lives in me romans

6 4 and 5 shows us our union with him acts 9 where most theologians and most pastors would believe that the foundation for paul's understanding of his union with christ starts if you guys remember acts 9 is the salvation story of saul right he's on the road to damascus and what happens he's blinded by jesus and what does jesus say to paul why are you persecuting persecuting me jesus so identifies with his people that when they were persecuted he was persecuted and this is the foundation for all of paul's writings this union with christ it anchored everything he wrote and i would encourage you if

you have time through this week or maybe take the next month or two and read all of paul's letters and highlight these phrases of with christ in christ through christ and into christ you'll see them scattered and littered throughout all of paul's writings because he was so enamored and in love with this union he talks about it most commonly in his letters we also find it in the old testament it's not just something new that comes on scene anytime that you see a covenant being mentioned in the old testament it is a foreshadow of your union with christ so here's the reality of this union

and why it's so important that we identify we participate and we are cor incorporated in and with and through and into christ because in christ in his life in his death in his resurrection in his ascension and in his heavenly session we are united to him in all of it we are united to christ in every bit of his life and his ministry this is a pivotal part for us to recognize because being united to christ means that we are you we are knit to the one who obeyed perfectly on our behalf and his righteousness has been imputed to us in christ's death we are

knit to the one who has paid the full penalty of sin that penalty that we deserved but could never fulfill christ's resurrection we are knit to the one who triumphed over death that's why we too can say death where is your sting death where is your victory in christ's ascension we are knit to the one who is in the very presence of god the father and in christ's heavenly session which is his ongoing work we are participants in his mission to the world what can be said about christ can be said about you and can be said about me this is why this doctrine is

so beautiful it's because what can be said about him can be said and be about me because we are in him and he is and it doesn't just have implications for being justified before god this union with christ also has implications for how we live and how we are sanctified and made holy because this beautiful truth also calls us to live as christ has lived that's the whole point of what paul is saying in verse 5 right when he says have this mind among yourselves which is yours in christ jesus how can we do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit how can we count others

better than ourselves how can we think of others and their interests because this is the mind that christ had and this is the mind that we now have because we are in him and so we are called to live as christ lived to those around us and most importantly to those inside the body of christ jesus says in john 13 15 that you they will know my disciples by what how they love one another this is why we are leaning into looking at those one and others found in the new testament because jesus calls us to love one another and this love is going to

be a reflection of what and who we believe in christ to the world around us so we need to be pursuing this unity as a church because christ has been united to us in us to him and here's why as i've already kind of talked about this doctrine matters why i've spent so much time building and showing you what this unity with christ looks like and means because oftentimes as believers we can feel like we aren't in unity with christ right we can feel like our union with christ isn't there whether it's we've fallen into sin whether there's temptations that we keep falling into whether

it's a relationship that has been broken that has now caused our relationship with the lord and fellowship to not feel like it's there our union can feel like it's incomplete but this doctrine shows us that the scriptures are clear that we are not fundamentally righteous and saved because of anything that we have done right there is security in this union because it's not based on anything that we have done but it's based on what christ has done on the cross for us and in our place john calvin says it is the same that we are now righteous in christ not in respect of our rendering

satisfaction to the justice of god by our own works but because we are judged of in connection with christ's righteousness which we have put on by faith that it might be ours this is what we preach week in and week out when it comes to second corinthians 5 21 right i hope you guys have memorized this first because i think we say it every single week if not almost every other week that he made him who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of god this is the good news of our union with christ that you have not cannot will

not contribute anything to your salvation except the sin that separated you the entirety of your salvation is sourced in being placed in this union with christ it is god's grace to you to me accomplishing what we could not accomplish for ourselves and because we could not do anything and because this salvation is based on being in christ we have security we are secure in knowing that our union with christ can never be taken there's nothing as romans 8 says that can separate us from the love of god in christ he is our security as we've sang before no power of hell no scheme of man

can ever pluck me from his hand and that includes your own schemes right that includes things that you have done or have tried to do no power of hell no scheme of man can ever pluck you from his hand this is what we get to worship in have hope in security in in this union with christ that's why it's so important for us to have this foundation that we are secured in him but that doesn't mean that our communion with god doesn't feel distant that that may be true and the reason i wanted to bring up union versus communion is our union is what is

secure because of christ but our communion with god may feel off because of sin because of relationships our fellowship may feel distant we may lack assurance because there may be things that need to be repented of or and this reality is true we live in a fallen broken world which means that we're not always going to feel like we are in fellowship with god just because but it's the reality of our union that should bring us hope and joy and should lead us to pursue enjoyment with god and pursue enjoyment with one another reunion with christ helps battle these deceptions that we can fall into

where we feel like we've been separated from the love of god and the beautiful reality of this as well is that this union with christ even though we are secure in christ we have a double kind of security paul shows us in ephesians 1 that our seal of being in christ is sealed with god himself the holy spirit listen to what he says in ephesians 1 verse 13. he says in him you also when you heard the word of truth the gospel of your salvation and believed in him were sealed with the promised holy spirit who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire

possession of it to the praise of his glorious grace think about that for a second that there's nothing that can separate us from the love of god in christ because god himself the holy spirit is securing that promise and so when our communion with god feels off i hope that you can run to this union run to the new testament and see run to the covenants in the old testament and see that there is nothing that can separate you from the love of god in christ and go back to these beautiful reminders of this union that you have and that you now celebrate but this

union should also compel us to be united to one another this is what paul is preaching in philippians 2 and throughout this book is to be united to one another because this is who you are and you are united to christ and so live in humility towards one another fulfill the one and others that we are going to talk about in these next coming weeks because you recognize that your union with christ and being incorporated into the body of christ is taking you beyond an individual faith an individual corporation that is just you and god this union with christ becomes our foundation and bond for

our fellowship with one another as rc sproul says we all now share a common adoption so that we are all a part of the family of god and we are all a part of the communion of the saints what i hope you guys see in the next coming weeks is that all of these 59 one and others they're all in the language of family right they're all in familial language that is calling each other to understand this is our unity we are brothers and sisters in christ we have been adopted in we have been brought into this family and this is why we should pursue

each other this is how we should look to one another and so here's my challenge for us this morning as well as for the rest of the year what would it look like to indianapolis to the world around us to your neighborhood to your workplace wherever your spheres of influence are what would it look like if the culture of the district church so heavily emphasized this unity and pursued discipleship you remember the definition of discipleship helping others follow jesus what if we so heavily pursued this that the world around us takes attention to it that they know we are disciples of jesus based on how

we love one another what if this rule of life was persistent year in and year out when people came to the district church they could see that we had a culture of discipleship because our union with christ should lead us to this union with one another and so i'm praying and hoping that that would be our resolve as a church i know it's going to be for me i know it's been something that our elders have talked about dwayne and rants for to myself we are praying and hoping that this would be our culture not just for 2022 but for as long as god sees

fit to have this church here in indianapolis and i hope that that would be a part of your prayer for your own life and the life of the church because here's the thing and i know i said this earlier the more that we pursue discipleship with one another the more evangelism should happen the more hospitality should happen the more missions in this city should happen but we need to as paul says in philippians 1 make sure that our culture is striving side by side standing firm in the faith in one spirit and with one mind for the faith of the gospel so that's my challenge

for us this year and i hope that we can take on this challenge i hope that you would join me and those who would hear this message pass today and join us pursuing a culture of discipleship because we have been united to one another in this beautiful faith and one of the ways that we celebrate physically this unity with christ is through communion it is a physical presence for us to show us that we have been given this grace but it's not just a physical means of grace for us to in it's for us to be able to look around and see those who are

taking this communion are also a part of this union with christ we should be able to look around and celebrate hey that's my brother that's my sister in christ that's who i need to pursue and love and help follow jesus more and so if you don't already have the elements of bread and juice i would ask that you go and grab them so that we can celebrate this communion together i'm going to give you time to do that and as you are doing that i want to instruct us communion as paul talks about in first corinthians 11 gives us some instruction maybe there's some of

us in here that need to examine ourselves and confess some sin before the lord maybe you haven't pursued discipleship as we have been called to pursue discipleship that's something that you need to bring before the lord and repent of maybe there is some relational conflict that needs to be dealt with before you take this jesus would say that it is far more important for brothers and sisters in christ to be in unity before we take this and finally if you have not been united to christ i would ask that you refrain from this gift and i would ask you come talk to me or ransford

or dwayne and we'd love to to share with you what union with christ looks like it means so i'm going to lead us through first corinthians 11 here and then we're going to celebrate together what christ has done for us by the breaking of his body and the shedding of his blood paul says this for i received from the lord what i also delivered to you that the lord jesus on the night when he was betrayed took the bread and when he had given thanks he broke it and said this is my body which is for you do this in remembrance of me in the

same way also he took the cup after supper saying this cup is the new covenant in my blood do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim the lord's death until he comes let us proclaim together this lord's death and celebrate this union with christ that we have let's pray lord you are good and lord we thank you for this beautiful reality that we have as believers in christ united to you and in you and with you and you are united to us lord may this be a rule

of life that we live not only individually but also corporately as that we pursue helping one another follow jesus more that we would take the call of being a culture of disciple leaders of men and women who pursue discipleship and long to see it in our church and may that overflow into this world may our love for one another be a reflection of who we are in you we never lose sight of our union with you that despite our feelings despite fellowship feeling fractured may we be able to run back to your word and see this truth that we are in you you are in

us and there is nothing that can separate us from the love of god in christ jesus may we hold on to this truth lord may 2022 be a reflection of this truth in this church and in our lives we praise you for the gift of grace that you've given to us in christ [Music] did you find a posture of worship for our last song today whatever [Music] [Music] is [Music] stride [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Laughter] [Music] so [Music] glory be to christ [Music] [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] when on the day the great i am the

faithful and the truth the lamb who was for sinners [Music] is making all things new and behold our god shall live with us and be our steadfast light and [Music] [Music] all glory be to christ our king all glory be to christ [Music] oh glory be to christ his rule and reign will ever sing all glory be to christ oh glory be to christ the king all glory be to christ [Music] his rulers [Music]