Sermon Notes

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REach: They Will Know We Are Christians By Our … 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Introduction Glass Ceiling

Four Minute Mile • •

It was once thought by some to be impossible Roger Bannister o May 6, 1954, o but since it was first achieved in 1954 the 'four minute barrier' has been broken by many male athletes, and is now the standard of all professional middle distance runners.

Travis Pastrana Motorcycle & Double Back flip NITRO CIRCUS video http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=203479077439301309&q=double+backflip+travis +pastrana+NITRO+CIRCUS&total=26&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1 • Once I came close I thought – Oh man, now I have to do it. • After he did it o I did it and I don’t think I’ll ever do it again o BUT … Now that its been done, its going to become easy pretty soon o Maybe not this year, maybe not next year, but soon junior high kids will be doing double back flips in their backyards o Now that the glass ceiling has been raised, it will become an every-day stunt.

What is the Glass Ceiling In Your Life? Dark Night of the Soul Where is the Joy? ILL – Dwight Edwards Eagle Story

What is the Glass Ceiling in Our Church? Love the Lord with all heart, mind, soul & Strength Love neighbor as yourself Matt 28:18-19 "Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit"

What New Heights Can We Reach? Dynamics of 1 Corinthians 12 & 1 Corinthians 14

A. We Should Have Power 1 Cor 14

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1 Cor 2:4-5

"My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power."

B. We Should Have Rich Community 1 Cor 12 Even they struggled with this 1 Cor 3:3-4 "You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere men?" 1 Cor 6:6 "But instead, one brother goes to law against another—and this in front of unbelievers!" (1 Corinthians 6:6, NIV)

C. We Stop Short of these Ideals, and then Explain Away our Situation Lloyd Jones

[a very real danger in the church] is being satisfied with something very much less than what is offered in the Scripture, and the danger of interpreting Scripture by our experiences and resucting its teaching to the level of what we know and experience.

If we lack Unity, if we lack POWER … its easy to point at those as the reason our Christianity falls short. That’s not the mark of a Christian. David Koresh Are you really a Christian? The apostles of old used to heal the sick and raise the dead. They were spiritual men. What are you? Do you do these things? Do you? How can these stupid churches talk about the Spirit when they don’t do what the apostles did 2,000 years ago? So they have sinned against the Holy Spirit. They have committed the unforgivable sin. They are not lead by the Spirit, they are lead by the Devil. 1 Cor 13:1-3 point out that this is a terrible error. Its lethal! Our Christianity is not marked by our acts of power. Our Christianity is marked by our LOVE. Vernon McGee (Through the Bible) Look at it this way: Write down a string of zeros—eloquence alone is zero, prophecy alone is zero, knowledge alone is zero, faith alone is zero, sacrifice alone is zero, martyrdom alone is zero. Six zeros still add up to nothing. But you put the numeral 1 to the left of that string of zeros, and every zero amounts to something. And, friend, love is the thing that needs to be added to every gift of the Spirit. Without love your gift is worthless.

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The Glass Ceiling Limits our REACH John 13:33-35 A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. Francis Schaeffer from The Mark of the Christian …if people come up to us and cast in our teeth the judgment that we are not Christians because we have not shown love toward other Christians, we must understand that they are only exercising a prerogative which Jesus gave them. And must, must not get angry. If people say, “You don’t love other Christians,” we must go home, get down on our knees, and ask God whether or not what they say is true. And if it is, then they have a right to have said it. (not on screen anymore) We must be very careful at this point, however. We may be true Christians, really born-again Christians, and yet fail in our love toward other Christians. As a matter of fact, to be completely realistic, it is stronger than this. There will be times (and let us say it with tears), when we will fail in our love toward each other as Christians. In a fallen world, where there is no such thing as perfection ( until Jesus comes), we know this will be the case. And, of course, when we fail, we must ask God's forgiveness. But, Jesus is not here saying that our failure to love all Christians proves that we are not Christians. What Jesus is saying, however, is that, if I do not have the love I should have toward all other Christians, the world has the right to make the judgment that I am not a Christian. John 17:21

That all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

Schaeffer Now comes the sobering part: Jesus goes on in this twenty-first verse to say something that always causes me to cringe. If, as Christians, we do not cringe, it seems to me we are not very sensitive or very honest, because Jesus here gives us the final apologetic. What is the final apologetic? That all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. This is the final apologetic. [our ultimate defense] … We cannot expect the world to believe that the Father sent the Son, that Jesus' claims are true, and that Christianity is true, unless the world sees some reality of the oneness of true Christians.

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Now that is frightening. Should we not feel some emotion at this point?

How To Shatter the Glass Ceiling? LOVE Re-Read 1 Cor 13 This is not a check-list of things ‘I CAN DO” to be loving. Its not “We can do ____” But “LOVE IS” He’s confronting us with love. Tim Keller – before you can “do” love, you have to have a head-on collision with love.

Definition of Love Love is marked by the word “ALWAYS” If you love ever gives up on someone, it is because that person failed to give you something you wanted. o Affection o Respect o Approval o Gratitude o Completion That’s not real love! •

REAL LOVE doesn’t seek the joy and happiness the other person brings to you. REAL LOVE seeks the other person’s joy & happiness as an end in and of itself!

Two Key Marks of Love (v.6) 1) Does Not Delight in Evil Delight = to be filled with joy / rejoice REJOICE = A Feeling of a better self perception To make merry To laugh, joke, tell others, share the joy To be filled with joy so that you fill others with joy. ILL – a great movie Did you see it? You weave it into conversations You share lines as jokes among friends ? What does it look to rejoice in evil? • Your imagination starts going • You assume the worst • You share little inside “jokes” or lines about how bad the other person is 4

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You keep the buzz going

Angry Circle Internal Conversation How to stop it? Fill thoughts with goodness. ILL – Wednesday – BAD DAY Putting Tahlia to bed Story & memory verse from Psalm 118:1 “O give thanks to the Lord for He is good” Instead of rejoicing and imagining the evil Phil 4:4-9 "Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you." (Philippians 4:4-9, NIV) [TS] If the first way to build love and shatter the glass ceiling is to stop ourselves from rejoicing in evil, the second way is to learn how to rejoice in the truth.

2) Rejoices in the Truth This sort of rejoicing literally means “to sing along with in joy” So we could say, “LOVE SINGS ALONG WITH THE TRUTH.” • The Truth is already there • The Truth is already singing ? How can “truth” sing? Colossians 1:6 "All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God’s grace in all its truth.” ILL – Singing lessons Goal – to tune your voice to the notes, words and pitch of the Song Find Scripture, and match your soul to it. Psalm 118:1 – O give thanks to the Lord for He is Good.

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How To Change Our Culture Into A Culture of Love? How do we make this happen? The heart problem in each of us can be so overwhelming we loose objectivity.

ILLUSTRATION- Doctor in Bahrain and his heart attack. • •

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Asked to write an article from a medical practitioner’s perspective on the pain of a heart attack Ever pain he had had in his life, there was some possibility of objectivity o I have a headache o My arm is broken o I have a sore throat This time, I WAS IN THE PAIN Remembers being in the car, stretching his body as mocus as he could to make it feel better But he couldn’t He couldn’t stretch far enough He couldn’t encompass the pain The pain was bigger than He was

Jesus came to bring new hearts The Gospel is that for the love of me, Jesus lost the love of the Father, so that the Father could love me. Ezekiel 36:22-28 “Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone. I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Sovereign Lord, when I show myself holy through you before their eyes. “ ‘For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. You will live in the land I gave your forefathers; you will be my people, and I will be your God."

We Have to Be People Of New Hearts Matthew 3:11 “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire."

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Conclusion Like Travis Pastrana the first time he tried the double back-flip. I’ve seen this sort of Christianity out of the corner of my eye … I know its possible. But there is a glass ceiling, I’m not getting there. How will we shatter it? 1) Lets agree not to delight in evil 2) Lets agree to sing along with the Truth 3) Lets agree to become a community of burning hearts Next week is communion – last week of this series.

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