Introduction:
Philippians 2:3-7 – 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 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.
3 Reasons I Want to Fight for Unity (1 Corinthians 1:10-17)
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Because I Am RESPONSIBLE for the Church's REPUTATION. (1 Cor 1:11)
John 13:35 – By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
John 17:20–21 – I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
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Because FIGHTING is FOOLISH. (1 Cor 1:12–13)
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Because DISUNITY DISTRACTS from the Mission. (1 Cor 1:14–17)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:51-00:57
Open up those Bibles to 1 Corinthians 1.
00:59-01:10
But as we turn to God's word, I'm going to ask, we just pause for a second and then please pray for me to faithfully communicate what God has said in his word.
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And I will pray for you to have a heart open to receive what it is that the Lord wants to teach us from his word today.
01:17-01:18
All right, let's pray.
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Father, just now returning to Your Word, I pray that our minds and hearts would be just so focused on what you said, and that we are eager to obey what it is you've laid out for us in your word.
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We pray in Jesus' name.
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And all of God's people said, amen.
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1 Corinthians chapter one.
02:01-02:08
You know, every so often at Harvest Bible Chapel, we do a Q&A day where we take questions from the congregation and answer them.
02:08-02:16
And I think it was the last Q&A day, we had a very, a question that kind of threw me for a loop.
02:16-02:22
I was wondering who asked it and why, but the question was, do the leaders of the church like each other?
02:27-02:40
Well, you know, we're working on seeking the Lord on building a church building on a piece of property up in New Swickley.
02:42-02:53
And there is wind of opposition to building, which probably means building is of the Lord because that's what happens, right?
02:53-02:54
Read the book of Nehemiah.
02:58-03:21
But in our staff meeting in my office around the conference tables, we were in a staff meeting and our children's director, Missy Howells, I got permission to tell this story by the way, but our children's director was telling us about one of the individuals who is sort of against us building a building on that property.
03:23-03:29
And then Missy capped off her update by turning to Pastor Rich.
03:30-03:58
And she said, "Yeah, she's really going after you people." And I said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you people." I said, "Well, at what point, Melissa, did you go from staff member of the biggest demographic of our church to now it's you people?" And we have been laughing about that ever since.
03:58-04:02
And if you know Missy, it's even funnier.
04:04-04:13
But how quickly some people actually seriously detach themselves from the church?
04:15-04:28
How quickly people detach themselves and they don't see themselves as part of the body, don't see themselves as wanting what's actually best for the body as a whole.
04:30-04:36
How many people, show of hands, have ever been involved in a church where there's been fighting?
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Raise your hand.
04:39-04:39
Alright.
04:40-04:45
How many people have ever been involved in a church where there was a split?
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Raise your hand.
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Way too many of you.
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Alright. Way too many.
04:54-04:57
Listen, it's nothing new.
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It's been happening from the very beginning of the church.
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And it just seems common now because there's more churches and there's easier ways to communicate in our day, but it happens.
05:17-05:25
Fighting and divisions in the church is, unfortunately, one of the sins that the church has been dealing with since day one.
05:28-05:37
And last week as we started 1 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul told the Corinthian church, look, the foundation for unity has to be in knowing your salvation.
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That has to be the foundation.
05:40-05:45
You have to know the grace of God by which you're saved.
05:45-05:48
You have to know that He has gifted you to serve.
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You have to know that you are guiltless in the day of Christ Jesus.
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He will sustain you.
05:53-05:54
And that's how Paul starts the letter.
05:54-05:57
He says, "This is who you are in Jesus Christ.
05:58-06:05
Now act like it." And that's the theme of the whole book of 1 Corinthians.
06:08-06:12
You know, the Corinthian church, they had a lot of problems.
06:12-06:13
Have you read this book?
06:13-06:15
They had a lot of problems.
06:17-06:32
They had a lot of problems concerning sexuality, and marriage, and liberty, and worship, and spiritual gifts, and the resurrection of Jesus, and money, and...
06:32-06:41
Paul wrote this book, he wrote them this letter to correct their sinful problems.
06:42-06:58
But you know, Paul must have thought that their biggest problem was disunity, the fighting, because this is what he addresses first in the letter.
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Look at verse 10.
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And really, like, verse 10 could have been like the only thing he wrote in the whole book.
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the point.
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He says, "I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.
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Now verse 10 obviously flows from verse 9, and verse 9, he tells the church that they, by extension we, are called into the fellowship of his Son.
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That's a foundation here for the Corinthian church and for Harvest Bible Chapel.
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This is not my church.
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This is not Pastor Taylor's church.
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Corinth was not Paul's church or Apollos' church.
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Harvest Bible Chapel, it's not your church.
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Whose church is it?
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It's God's church.
08:21-08:27
And you're like, "Man, Pastor Jeff, "if only there was a way that you could remind us of that "on the regular." What do you think this is?
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Do you know what this is?
08:30-08:30
It's an arrow.
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That's all it is.
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It's a fancy arrow.
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But that's, people ask me, "What's this symbol mean?" It's just an arrow.
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And this is to remind us why we're here.
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We're here for God.
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We're here to exalt His Son.
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We're here to proclaim His Word.
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That's all that is, is a constant reminder, it's not about me, it's about Him.
08:57-09:02
So Paul says, he's appealing that what?
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He says that all of you agree.
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Like, all right, agree.
09:11-09:12
Agree on what?
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Right?
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Agree on politics.
09:17-09:20
Agree on who has the best football team.
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Agree on who makes the best pizza.
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agree, what are we agreeing on?
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Well, there's two things church that we have to absolutely agree on.
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And number one is doctrine.
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We should all agree on what we believe.
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Now listen, we might have different views on things like an eschatological timeline or the doctrine of election or whatever, whatever.
09:51-09:55
But on the major points of doctrine, We must agree.
10:00-10:11
If you're like, I'm not sure if I should agree on this or if I should fight about this, well, there's things that there are hills to die on, right?
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Things like the authority of God's Word.
10:15-10:17
That's something we should all agree on.
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Things like the person and work of Jesus Christ, we should all agree on that.
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He is God who became man, who died to take away sin, who rose from the dead to give eternal life, who is coming again.
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We should all agree on that.
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And speaking of, we should all agree on salvation.
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How does somebody get saved?
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It's through faith in Jesus Christ.
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It's receiving the gift of eternal life that God has given through Jesus.
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We should all agree on that.
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All the stuff we talked about last week, we should all agree that is how gets saved. We should all agree on the mission of the church. We're not here to scratch itchy ears. We're not here to make a nice social club. We are here to make disciples. Those are things we should agree on. And that's what Paul goes on to say, that there be no divisions among you. Literally that divisions in the Greek can be translated no difference of opinion. Paul says you We should not have a difference of opinion.
11:22-11:24
We should all have the same opinion.
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And you're like, "What, Jeff, yours?" No, God's.
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We should all have God's opinion.
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See, that should be the mindset of this church.
11:37-11:39
But it's like, well, what do you think about abortion?
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What does God think about abortion?
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What do you think about marriage?
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What does God think about marriage?
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That should be our opinion too.
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What do you think about work?
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What does God say about work?
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We should share His opinion.
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What do you think about parenting?
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You got any opinions about parenting?
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Yeah, I do got opinions about parenting.
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It's God's opinion about parenting.
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What does the Bible say?
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So we should all be agreeing on doctrine.
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And another thing we should all be agreeing on is Look at verse 10, he says, "That you be united in the same mind and the same judgments." You see, doctrine speaks to what we believe.
12:29-12:31
Submission speaks to how we act.
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In other words, unity, listen, unity will occur naturally when we agree on doctrine and live in submission to one another.
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Now, I hesitated to even bark up this tree, but I felt like we had to because this could to be a whole nother sermon series.
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But look at what Paul told the Philippian church.
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What is the attitude that we're supposed to have?
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This attitude of submission is going to result in unity.
12:56-13:11
He tells the Philippians, he says, "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, "but in humility count others more significant "than yourselves, that each of you look "not only to his own interest, "but also to the interest of others.
13:12-13:35
"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 emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of man." That's saying a lot.
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Here's a couple of things I want to highlight from that regarding submission that unifies us.
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is destroyed when we start thinking it's all about me.
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My ideas are the best, my ideas are the smartest, everyone should do what I want in the church and the church will be good.
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And he says, you have to, each of us, we have to humble ourselves that we consider others more important than you.
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That you walk in the doors and you're like, everybody here is more important than me.
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Unity comes when we all share that mindset.
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Like, well, how do we do that?
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Well, he tells us in Philippians, we have to have the mind of Christ.
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Now, this says a lot, like I said, but you know, we preached on this a couple times in past time, but look at that next to last statement.
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That's the one that really jumps out to me.
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That Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, took the form of a servant.
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This is where the attitude of submission comes.
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When you walk in the doors, not to say, okay, things need to happen my way, I'm gonna set everything straight.
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You need to walk in the doors and say, I'm here to serve.
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I'm a servant.
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If God was willing to make himself a servant, as an example, I should have the same mindset, right?
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So are you?
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Are you a servant?
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Well, we'll know when somebody treats you like one, whether you are or not.
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We'll know when you don't get your own way, if you really see yourself as a servant.
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Really, Paul could have stopped at, verse 10 says so much here in 1 Corinthians 1, he could have stopped there.
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But, he goes on to lay out three reasons why we should each do our part for unity.
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So on your outline, I want you to jot some things down.
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Three reasons I want to fight for unity.
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Like, you want to fight about something?
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fight, okay, let's fight for unity. Let's fight for that. You're like, "Well, why do I want to do that?" Well, Paul tells us, number one, because I am responsible for the church's reputation. Because I am responsible for the church's reputation. Look at verse 11. He says, "For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers." Stop there.
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Chloe's people.
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You know what we call them today?
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Whistleblowers, right?
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You know what we called them when I was a kid?
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You know what we called whistleblowers when I was a kid?
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A narc.
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How many people remember narc?
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Okay, somebody tattles to the teacher on you.
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You narc.
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I'm kidding, they weren't being narcs.
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They weren't being narcs.
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No, I don't know who Chloe's people are.
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The Bible doesn't really tell us, but here's what we do know.
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They were so concerned over the fighting that was happening in the church that they had to get message to Paul, and it would have been a lot harder in that day.
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They couldn't have just posted something on Insta or sent Paul a text, right?
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So Chloe's people were concerned.
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And Paul's like, this is a reputation that's getting back to me.
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Chloe's people says, all you do is fight.
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Not good.
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Yeah, I heard a commercial just the other day for a product that I didn't even know existed.
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It's called the Reputation Defender.
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How many people have heard of the Reputation Defender?
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Okay, Randy, okay, me and Randy, okay.
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Okay, so only a few of us heard that commercial.
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All right?
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The Reputation Defender, do you know what this is?
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I had to look it up online.
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I was so intrigued by the commercial, Randy.
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I had to look it up online.
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Since 2006, a leader in online reputation management.
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What they do is they, and again, this is from their website, They fix online search results and remove personal information.
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Meaning, if there's bad stuff about you on the internet, they erase it.
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If somebody, you know, whether you're applying for a job or you just wanna sort of clean up your reputation, it's just, boop, it's erased from the internet.
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It's gone.
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Like that part of you no longer exists.
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It's just, boop, gone.
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And I heard that commercial and I'm like, man, I wish we had this for other things.
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Or you know what I mean?
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You know what I mean?
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Like I do something stupid at home and I upset Aaron.
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I wish that I could just be like, whoop, gone.
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Or have you ever been like at a party and you meet somebody and you say something really awkward and stupid and you're like, Why did I say that?
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Wouldn't it be nice to just be like, whoop, now nobody remembers that, right?
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Or you got ejected from the church softball game because you lost your temper.
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Whoop.
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Well, you know, there is no such service for the church.
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I think with the church, more than probably just about any organization on the planet, the reputation sticks.
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For better or for worse, the reputation sticks.
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And if you're like, well, I really don't care what people think about me.
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Okay, do you care what people think about Jesus?
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Because disunity doesn't just affect the church's reputation, it reflects on Jesus himself.
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Look at John 13, 35 here, we're gonna have it on the screen.
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Jesus said, "By this, all people will know "that you are my disciples, "if you have love for one another." Now, you know what I want to think Jesus said here?
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My mind wants to make it say that Jesus was like, "The world is going to know that you love the world "by the way that you love the world." That's not what he said.
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He said, "The world is going to know that we are disciples of Jesus, not by how we love them, but by how we love each other." Our reputation for unity, according to our Lord, confirms our discipleship to the world, and it also directly affects our witness, right?
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Jesus, again, you jump over to John 17, Jesus praying specifically for us, for Harvest Bible Chapel.
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You see it right here.
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Jesus is praying, "I do not ask for these only, "but also for those who will believe in me "through their word." That's us.
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We believe through the word.
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He says, "That they may all be one, "just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, "that they also may be in us." Why does Jesus want us to be one?
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Here's a reason.
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He says, "So that the world may believe that you have sent me." Our witness church is directly affected by our oneness.
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I mean, that just makes sense, doesn't it?
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I mean, it just follows.
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Imagine if you're talking to your neighbor about church and you say things like, "Well, you know what at Harvest Bible Chapel, our worship leader can't stand our children's director.
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I mean, our children's director is constantly throwing fire at staff meetings and the worship leader just has had enough." And then you tell your neighbor, "You know, our associate pastor, oh, he is way too aggressive with people." And you're like, "Well, how's the youth group?" Either they say, "How's the youth group?" You're like, "Well, our youth group's nice, "but you know what?
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"Those youth group moms, all they do is fight." That's all they do.
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They're just constantly fighting and arguing and bickering about everything.
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And then you turn to your neighbor and say, "Hey, would you like to come to our church sometime?" And they're like, "Not a chance.
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"Why would I wanna walk into that circus?" Our witness is affected by our reputation.
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Jesus prayed that we would be one.
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He died so that we would be one.
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So our reputation that we should have is that we are one.
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So, nix the cliques.
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All right, nix the cliques.
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Why?
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Because you're responsible for our reputation.
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You're responsible for our reputation.
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Number two, why I wanna fight for unity, why I wanna nix the cliques.
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Number two, because fighting is foolish.
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Fighting is foolish.
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Look at verses 12 and 13.
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Paul is calling them out on their foolish immaturity.
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He says, "What I mean is that each one of you says, 'I follow Paul,' or, 'I follow Apollos,' or, 'I follow Cephas.'" That's Peter.
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"Or, 'I follow Christ.'" Is Christ divided?
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Was Paul crucified for you?
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Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
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See what he's doing?
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He's pointing out how stupid this is.
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Why are you fighting about this stuff?
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Verse 12, he says, "Each one of you." Each one of you, you should have that underlined.
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Why?
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Because when there's disunity, who do we blame?
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Everybody else, right?
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Paul's like, "This is not an everybody else problem.
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This is a you problem.
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Stop blaming everybody else.
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What are you doing for unity at the church?" And you see, they were boasting about which minister they identified with.
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Some people were like, "I follow Paul." I mean, Paul was pretty great, huh?
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Like what an awesome missionary, right?
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apostle to the Gentiles, and endured so much hardship and was so faithful in his ministry.
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And it's easy to see why there were people that loved Paul, but some maybe overly attached to him, right?
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But then you had the people that were like, Paul, all right, okay.
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Paul's okay.
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But you know who really is the best minister is Apollos.
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Apollos was known for his eloquence.
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Apollos was a fantastic speaker.
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We learn about that in the book of Acts.
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And I'm sure that there were people here that were like, you know what, Paul might have good theology, but there ain't nobody that preaches a sermon as beautifully as Apollos.
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He is the best preacher I've ever heard.
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And then you had people that are like, you both are whack.
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Paul, Apollos, no, no, no, no, no, no.
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Cephas, that's Peter, right?
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Like, how can we even be arguing about this?
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Peter, OG, Peter, right?
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Like, he wasn't just like one of the disciples, he was like one of Jesus' besties, and he was there for all of it, and he had some ups and downs, and look at what, look at like Pentecost, and Peter is the man.
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And then you had people that just had to Jesus-juke everybody that are like, "Oh, you like human ministers?
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Well, I follow Christ." Doesn't that just sound so pious?
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"I follow Christ." You see what the Corinthian church was doing.
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It was the adult version, the church version of my dad can beat up your dad, right?
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It's my pastor cannot preach your pastor.
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Aren't all four of these men preaching the same gospel?
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Oh, by the way, the last group there, I follow Christ.
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You're like, oh, wait, wait, wait.
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Isn't that who we wanna follow?
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Yes, Jesus, obviously.
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But somehow they turned even that into an occasion for fighting.
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And you're like, well, how in the world could somebody pull that off?
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Well, people still do it today.
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People still do that today.
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Like, what do you mean?
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You heard these people that are like, "Oh, I don't need to go to church because I have a relationship with Jesus.
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So I don't need church." You can't defend that biblically.
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There is no such thing as a Christian detached from a church body.
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There is no such thing.
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years ago there was the whole short-lived 15 minutes of fame of the whole "I love Jesus but hate the church." You remember that?
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"I love Jesus but I hate the church." Doesn't that just sound so pious?
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It sounds so obnoxious.
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"I love Jesus but I hate the church." Bad idea.
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Do you know what the church is?
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The church is the bride of Christ.
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If you came to me and you said, "I love you, Pastor Jeff, but I hate your wife." We're gonna have some problems.
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I think that's what was going on here, that there were people that were like, "Oh, I don't need churches and preachers because I have Jesus." And look, there are some things, as we said earlier, that are worth fighting for.
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There are some things I will fight to the death for.
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Things like preaching the word of God.
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Things like biblical music.
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Things like confronting unrepentant sin.
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Those are the things that the church should be fighting for but sadly, when there's fighting in the church, those aren't usually the kinds of things that people are fighting over.
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Honestly, church, we find weird things to divide over, just like the Corinthians.
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We just come up with all kinds of stupid things to fight about.
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You want to hear some examples of some of the stupidest things?
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I don't have time to give all of them, but over the years I've heard so many stupid things that people fight about.
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Here's one.
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I had a friend that attended a church, that I'm like, "Hey, how are things going at your church?" And he goes, "Oh, Jeff, we're really in a bad spot right now "everybody's fighting." I'm like, "What's the problem?" He goes, "People are really upset with each other "and people are not talking to each other "and it's gotten really ugly." I'm like, "What are we fighting about at this church?" He says, "Well, when you walk in the entryway, "there's a bulletin board.
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"And they're fighting about how to divide it up "among the ministries because the Sunday school "thought they were getting all of it "and they were told they can get half "and they wanted to divide it this way, "but no, no, no, the admissions department "wanted to divide it this way, blah, blah, blah." And he goes, "It is nasty." I'm like, "Are you serious?" He's like, "Yeah." He goes, "What do you think we should do?" I said, "I think you should rip that bulletin board "off the wall and throw it in the garbage.
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"It's what I think you should do." He's like, "Whoa, whoa, but that's evangelism." I said, "No, it's not.
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"The only people that are seeing it "are the people that are walking in the door." I said, "If it's causing that much division, trash it." Isn't that dumb?
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Here's another one.
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My old church, there was a family that have four daughters at the time they were teenage, early adolescence to teenage years.
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And there were people at the church that were upset with this family.
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They said, "Those girls are a click.
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Those girls are a clique.
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I'm like, those girls are sisters.
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Like, and now we're demonizing them because they like each other?
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There were people angry at them because they got along.
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Isn't that stupid?
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This might be the stupidest, but I have a pastor friend, he was a pastor of a church up in Canada.
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Every Christmas they had a tradition.
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Like for years, at the end of the Christmas service, this is true and I can't say it without laughing, but this is true.
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At the end of the Christmas service every year, they sang Feliz Navidad.
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You know that horrible song?
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You know the one I'm talking about?
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♪ Feliz Navidad ♪ Feliz Navidad So cringe.
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Well, this new pastor came and he's like, you know what, there's not really spiritual content in that song and let's really focus our attention of worship towards, I don't know, Jesus.
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So let's not sing that song this year.
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It caused a church split.
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And my pastor friend said, I've never seen people so angry.
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over one of the worst songs ever written.
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Isn't that dumb?
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We find such weird things to divide over.
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That was the Corinthians.
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They had their dumb thing too.
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Who's the best preacher?
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That's why in verse 13, Paul gives some questions that we can, here we can unify here, right?
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Because these questions require us all to give the same answer, right?
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Let's try it, let's see if we get the same answer.
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Question number one, I'm gonna ask the question, you shout out the answer.
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Is Christ divided?
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No, obviously not, right?
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Christ is not divided.
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All right, question two, and now they get harder.
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Was Paul crucified for you?
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No.
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All right, final question.
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Were you baptized in the name of Paul?
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No!
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Meatballs.
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Right, look, please, I want you to hear me very closely here.
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There is nothing wrong with having a favorite preacher.
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I do.
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There's a preacher whose podcasts I listen to all the time.
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There is nothing wrong with that, okay?
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We clear on that, there's nothing wrong with that.
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I encourage you to do that.
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But can we at the same time admit that some people get strangely attached to preachers, messengers?
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Like go back a generation to the Bill Gothard people.
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Look, I used to go to Bill Gothard conferences all the time and you know what I saw there?
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there were people that were very strangely attached to him.
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They were like the I follow Apollo's people, right?
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And there are people that are like that with John Piper.
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There are people that are like that with Jack Hibbs, that we attach to these people so much though that we say the gospel isn't the gospel unless you gospel their way.
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And when we do that, were just as foolish as the Corinthians.
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So these men that you're attached to, on what basis are you attached, right?
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Paul would say, "Was Jack Hibbs crucified for you?
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"Were you baptized in the name of John Piper?" No, our union is in Jesus with Jesus.
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So, nix the cliques.
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Why?
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Paul shows us fighting is foolish.
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Fighting is foolish.
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And finally, number three, why do we wanna fight for unities?
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Because disunity distracts from the mission.
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Disunity distracts from the mission.
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Look at verse 14.
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Paul says, I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name.
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I did baptize also the household of Stephanas.
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Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else." Now listen, Paul is not diminishing baptism.
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Okay?
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not saying baptism isn't important.
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This is all Paul is saying.
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He's saying, "Corinthians, if you're going to fight about this stuff, I am so glad I didn't baptize more of you.
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If you're going to act like children because of who baptized you, I'll thank you God that I didn't baptize more of you." In verse 17, he says, "For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power." Paul is saying, "I was sent to preach, to make men one in Christ, not baptize to make teams." You miss the message.
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When you praise the missionary, you miss the mission.
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And Harvest, Satan would want anything, anything to distract us from the mission of making disciples.
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Nothing's changed.
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Read the book of Acts.
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You know, in the book of Acts, the church is born.
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You know, Satan tried to destroy the church from the outside through Acts chapter four.
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From the outside attacks, outside attacks.
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What happened to the church when Satan tried to attack from the outside?
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What happened?
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It got bigger and stronger.
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Kind of like the Charlie Kirk thing that happened recently.
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The outside attack resulted in getting bigger and stronger.
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But do you know Acts chapter five, Acts chapter six, Satan changes his strategy.
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Instead of attacking the church from the outside, he attacks the church from the inside.
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And he found that to be so much more effective to distract the church from the mission.
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And Satan will do that to us.
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You see, if Satan can get us divided and fighting with each other, then we're distracted from doing what we're supposed to be doing.
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The gospel of Jesus Christ has to be the core of everything that we do here.
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It has to be the cause of everything that we do here.
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It has to be the motivation of everything that this church does, a pure focus on a pure gospel.
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not with words of eloquent wisdom.
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In other words, we're not sugarcoating it.
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We're not dressing it up.
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We're not making it a performance.
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The power is in the pure gospel of Jesus Christ.
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So, nix the cliques.
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Why?
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Because disunity distracts from the mission.
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Our worship team will make their way forward.
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I'd like you to just bow your heads for a moment.
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Excuse me.
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I'd like you to just bow your heads.
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As we said at the onset, when there's any kind of disunity, when there's any kind of fighting, it's so easy to blame the other guy.
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God's word tells us that we need to look at ourselves first.
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I just want you to bow your heads, I just want you to do a little self-examination.
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I want you to consider your role in this church, your interactions with people in this church, and I want you to ask yourself, "Am I an agent of unity or disunity in this church?" Am I trying to bring people together or am I dividing people?
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Oh, another question that goes with that.
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Ask yourself this, "If everyone in the church acted like I do, what kind of church would this be?" And finally ask yourself this, am I committed to the pure doctrine of the gospel and submission to our Lord and to one another?
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Or have I really made lesser things my focus?
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Father in heaven, you have called us to unity.
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And Father, it's real easy for us to sit in this room and sort of laugh at the foolishness that was happening in the Corinthian church, bragging about which preacher's the best.
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It just seems so silly to us, but Father, we fight about things that are much more silly than that.
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Father, I just pray for the unity in this church.
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We believe, Father, that Christ died to make us one.
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And I pray, Father, that we would do everything we can on our part to strive for unity in the body of Christ.
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Father, if there's any complaining, negative, divisive attitude within any of us, Father, I pray that you would grant repentance and bring us to the place that we care more about your reputation and the ministry to reach the lost and to build up the saved.
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I pray that we would be so focused on what you've called us to, that we're not distracted with personal preferences. So thank you God. Thank you God for what you've clearly laid out for us in your Word. Have us faithful to do it, Father, we pray in Jesus' name.
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Amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read 1 Corinthians 1:10-17
What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
What are some specific doctrines church members must agree on (1 Cor 1:10)? What are some doctrines that are okay to not all agree on? What makes the difference?
What are some ways people overly attach themselves to certain preachers today (1 Cor 1:12)? Why do you think many Christians do this?
Why was Paul thankful that he didn’t baptize the Corinthians (1 Cor 1:14)? Is Paul saying baptism isn’t important? Why or why not?
How exactly do “words of eloquent wisdom” end up “emptying the cross of its power” (1 Cor 1:17)? What does this say about how we should evaluate a sermon?
Breakout
Pray for one another. Pray for unity at HBC among elders, staff, ministry leaders, and members.