Knitted Together in Love: Building Christlike Community

It's not enough to be an expert in your head, but you have to be an expert in your hands, don't you? Which comes not just by reading God's word and then moving on, but by wrestling with the passage to understand its meaning and prayerfully think through how the truths that you're helping to seek by the Holy Spirit can be applied into your own life and change the way that you behave and the way you think, even in your mind, even in those quiet thoughts that no one else sees, to actually change you as a person. [00:09:06] (30 seconds)  #LiveTheWord

because the church is really to be a radical new community, which is unlike any other community you might see. It's not a social gathering, it's not an association of people, it's a community that holds ourself individually to a high standard, but looks to show grace towards each other. And one at the same time, looks outward to those for opportunities to love more without the expectation that we love would be reciprocated. [00:11:36] (28 seconds)  #RadicalGraceCommunity

In other words, this new community will become more and more like Christ. Christ who deserves to be worshipped but made himself a servant. Who achieved his own righteousness but died the death of a guilty man in order that he might share his righteousness with us. Jesus who had the right and power to demand for himself but fight for us. He certainly confronts us but always in love. [00:12:05] (28 seconds)  #ChristlikeService

``He he doesn't need us to love. And so it really is a willing offering, an act of his desire. In fact, an act of God's longing that he brings you and me into his community. There's nothing he has to do. It's it's the most selfless act ever in all the world and ever in history, and God makes it for you and for me. [00:13:47] (30 seconds)  #DivineInitiative

spirit. It's the spirit who comes to us and reveals this truth of the gospel so that we can not only read it in the scriptures but understand it and believe it for ourselves and act upon it. The gift of faith comes as the Holy Spirit reveals it to us. And so this great work is done by all of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We worship him for his great plan, his great work, and the God who is naturally in community with himself. It's totally natural, isn't it, that he brings us into community with him and with each other as a result. [00:14:33] (36 seconds)

It's the spirit who comes to us and reveals this truth of the gospel so that we can not only read it in the scriptures but understand it and believe it for ourselves and act upon it. The gift of faith comes as the Holy Spirit reveals it to us. And so this great work is done by all of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We worship him for his great plan, his great work, and the God who is naturally in community with himself. It's totally natural, isn't it, that he brings us into community with him and with each other as a result. [00:14:35] (36 seconds)  #SpiritRevealsFaith

That's why it's the father who delivers us into this kingdom. We're to praise him for what he's done, which he alone can do, and has done without any worthiness from us, but purely by grace and generosity in love. God's proactive. Before we ever loved him, he loved us. In fact, while we were still enemies of him, he loved us. That's why we give thanks to the father. [00:15:11] (32 seconds)  #FatherOfGrace

And it's worth clarifying, just for the sake of clarification, that it is not the case that God the father was angry against sin and Jesus stands in the middle and tries to intervene with us like someone, you know, when there's two people fighting and someone stands in the middle and says, you know, calm down, calm down. That's not what Jesus was doing. Far from it. The gospel is clear. God the father's anger against sin wasn't an out of control outburst of anger, but a controlled, righteous and appropriate response from the righteous God against the sin in this world and the way it's destroyed the world like a disease and destroying the world. [00:15:43] (36 seconds)  #RighteousWrathExplained

Doesn't always maybe feel to you like a first taste of heaven, but church is this first taste of heaven and so it's no surprise as we wait for the Lord's return that we're kind of in a battle between two different kingdoms. Our old kingdom, the kingdom of the flesh and this new kingdom, this kingdom in the spirit. [00:17:43] (23 seconds)  #FirstTasteOfHeaven