WEBVTT

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 When I was at university, I was in a hall with about ten or twelve bedrooms and we were amongst

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! some other halls as well, similar size, and we got a real community between us. We were

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! all on different courses, we had sports, science, physiology, related arts, all sorts,

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 but somehow we formed this great sense of friendship and we would do a lot together,

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 we'd support each other from the highs and lows of university life and relationships starting and

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 failing and it just was a really kind of harmonious group and one of the group was less integrated.

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 His friends were elsewhere and he'd usually be away and not so much around with us as a little

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 community. And one time he went out and he left his music on with his massive stereo pumping out at

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 really high volume so none of us could sleep. So I broke into his room and turned it off and we went

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 to sleep and said the next day, hey can you not do that? It's a bit irritating. So he did it again.

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 So I broke into his room and stole the fuses out of his stereo. And so we had about five days of quiet

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 until he worked out what was wrong and got some new fuses. And he did it again and wasn't back until

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 you know very very late in the morning and we couldn't get into his room or you know he had another

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 key or something. So what we did the next time was we broke in when he was out and we removed his whole

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 room. We put it on the roof. And now all credit to him is that when we came out in the morning we got

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 up to go to lectures he was in bed on the roof which I thought was pretty impressive. Which is better than

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 a friend who had a friend whose story was this that at university in Birmingham I think it's Aston

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 there's a bit of a tower block quite a few floors a few stories. And when one of their friends came

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 back incredibly drunk that they decided to put him in a room on the ground floor when his room is on

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 the sixth floor put some of his things around him and in the morning rushed in woke him up when he was

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 confused and threw him out the window. That's quite a prank. Anyway so we had this community and it was a

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 really key part of our time through those four years of college. And there's something of that story here

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 in Ephesians about community and the importance of community and being the body of Christ together.

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 So it's a book widely viewed to be the apostle Paul writing to the church in Ephesus and this is once a

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 Greek colony but now the capital of Rome in the region of Asia. And it's often thought to be sometimes

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 described as the gospel of the church. It's a almost an intercessory book and there's an incredibly high

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 view of what it means to be church to be the body of Christ. And essentially there are four themes

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 throughout the book. One, a new life in relationship with Jesus Christ. A new community as those together

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 as the body of Christ, the church. A new way of living and behaving that's really required

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 an expression of being the body of Christ as you heard Catherine just reading. And a new relation that's

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 in harmony with God and is hostile to the devil. And we're going to look through those first three.

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 An encounter with Jesus. What does it mean to be community? And what does it mean to then have the

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 fruit of the spirit in our lives? Now I've read a paper in which there's a theme of people who have

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 coronary heart disease, have had a heart bypass operation, who are then told by the medics,

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 if you don't change your lifestyle, you will be dead certainly within five years and probably two.

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 But if you can change your lifestyle, you could live for 10 years or longer, certainly over five.

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 So if you were told this by your medic, do you think you'll change?

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 Yeah, we think we would. However, it turns out that this particular paper written by the CEO of John

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 Hopkins University and the Dean of the medical school said one of their biggest challenges was

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 90% of people don't change. The threat of death is not enough to change behavior.

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 So here in this reading today, we have quite a lot of do not, do this, you must.

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 And the issue is, being told this doesn't really tend to change our behavior.

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 And the psychology of this is that most of our behavior is driven unconsciously,

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 really established by patterns from the early years of our life that become unconscious,

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 unconscious, like an unconscious operating model that just spins. And so it's not enough to say,

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 do this or don't do that. More must be required if we're actually going to change our behavior,

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 not just a list of instructions. It's very hard to move away from don't do this,

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 from a set of behaviors, unless we know what we're moving towards.

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 And there's a really helpful psychological pattern, which is understanding the routines and some of

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 these unconscious drivers of our behavior. One of these is called away from or towards. And we are

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 at different places on that continuum, depending on the early years. If we're a towards person,

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 we really know what we want and we go after it in a very focused way. If we're an away from,

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 we typically try and avoid and create circumstances that that doesn't happen. You'll notice it in

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 marketing. The marketing for sports car is adventure, passion, beauty, drama, thrill, adventure,

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 and it costs you a lot. But you don't worry about the money because you're going to get this

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 incredible experience. Marketing for a Kia car is away from, typically, seven-year warranty,

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 all service included in the price. And so which one appeals to you more might be a reflection

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 of that meta program that's running for you. What I think this means for us is it's really

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 important to know what is it we're moving towards that might make it possible then to think about how

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 our behavior could flow out of that. And at the start of Ephesians, the Apostle Paul is writing about

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 what are we moving towards about life in Jesus Christ, in the acceptance of the love and grace of God,

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 and then the miracle of forgiveness and the capacity to be reconnected to the living God.

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 And we read this earlier in Ephesians. In 1.3, Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

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 who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

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 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.

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 1.5, In love he predestined us to be adopted as sons and daughters through Christ Jesus.

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 1.7, In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. And the redemption here

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 really does mean the clearing of a debt. 1.13, And you were also included in Christ when you heard the

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 word of truth and the gospel of salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal,

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 the promised Holy Spirit. 1.18, I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened,

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 in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious

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 inheritance in the saints, and the incomparable great power for us who believe. And it goes on and on.

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 And we hear this incredible description of what is the towards, encounter with the living God.

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 grace, which means there's forgiveness for sin, and empowering and resourcing to the Holy Spirit to

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 live the kind of life that God is calling us to. In 2.22, and you too are being built together to

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 become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. I became a Christian when I was 18 and had a really

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 profound encounter with God. And then shortly after I was baptized in the church I became a Christian.

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 We did a sort of full immersion, like we do here in the old paddle pool at the front. And I remember

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 giving my story about having met with God and the sort of incredible miracle of knowing I could be

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 forgiven and experience the love of God in a very profound way daily. I shared this and then I was

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 baptized in the freezing cold water as it was. And then just afterwards, a friend of mine was there,

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 who was I think a solicitor at the time, stood up and said, I want to get baptized as well.

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 And he was in this very fine suit with quite expensive brogues. You look like a solicitor,

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 don't you, and dressed like that. Sorry, solicitors. Actually, I worked with quite a few

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 and they're a bit more casual now, I think. And so when we said, do you want to take your shoes off? No,

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 no, he said. I want all of me and every aspect of my life to go into that water and come out again

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 and to give it all to God. It's an incredible story of he just knew what he was moving towards,

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 an encounter with God, a sense of relationship, the experience of forgiveness and of life.

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 So if we have a sense of what we are being drawn towards, this incredible truth about knowing the

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 love and grace, life, forgiveness of God, then that's key to us beginning to think about,

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 well, how might my behavior reflect that? So let's think a bit about church community.

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 For the recipients of this letter in Ephesus, they would have given their lives to Jesus on the whole,

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 and then been baptized as well. And it was quite ceremonial. Often they would be given a white robe

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 after being baptized. And this letter is intended to remind them and encourage them as they start to

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 fall away from a way of life that reflects this encounter with Jesus. Actually, this is what you've

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 been called to. This is what it means to know the love and grace and forgiveness of God. And this is

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 what it means to be the community of Jesus in Ephesus. So if you go back to those who are facing heart

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 disease, surgery, and then being told if you change your lifestyle, you could live for much longer.

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 What medics started to do in the late 90s, early 2000s, was start to create little groups,

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 help groups of all the people who might have been through surgery or were trying to avoid surgery,

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 but needed to change their lifestyle, that have a shared purpose, that have shared content around

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 how to live your life and how to eat healthily, that have a little bit of support. And this profoundly

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 changed the results. Rather than 90% failing to change and dying prematurely, it went up to 80% to 90%

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 changed and lived a longer, healthier life. You can hear this description of the power of a community

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 with a shared purpose and focus, meeting together with intent. And there's a really strong description

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 here in Ephesians about being the body of Christ, about being the church, about being the society

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 of God and meeting together with shared purpose. And what that might mean in terms of being the hands

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 and feet of Jesus. We read it there as Catherine read, do not let any in the wholesome talk come out

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 of your mouth, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs,

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 that it may be a benefit to those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God with whom you

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 were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling and slander,

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 along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another. Forgive each other,

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 just as in Christ God forgave you. Follow God's example, therefore, as dearly loved children.

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 And walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself for us as a fragrant offering

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 and sacrifice to God. There's a theme throughout the Bible of this, in Isaiah 35 8. And a highway will be

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 there, it will be called the way of holiness. It will be for those who walk on that way. And in Psalm 24

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 as well, the one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not trust in an idol or swear by a false

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 God. A story of in an encounter with God, then in community, actually a way of being, a fruit of that

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 needs to be evident. So with this sort of new status of not only meeting and encountering Jesus,

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 but then a new status of being the body of Christ, the church in a community requires some new standards

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 of behaviour. And there's a strong metaphor from Paul here, where he talks about taking off the old

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 and putting on the new, a bit like clothes. You can imagine you see prisoners in films often,

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 I don't know if they still do this in prisons, but wearing the prison clothing. And they come to the

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 end of their term and they're released, take off that clothing and put on their own clothes. There's

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 something here very powerful about dressing in the conduct, the way of being, the encounter with God,

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 that reflects the new life, not the old life.

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 An old friend of mine called Jim, I'm out of touch with him now, once he told me this story,

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 he said he had a cleaner. He's a wearlot with a pretty important corporate job. He said one of his

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 cleaner was actually a practicing witch. And he just prayed for her, wasn't particularly worried

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 about it. And one day she said to him, look, see all these books you've got there. He said,

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 oh, which books are those? These books about God, about Christian faith. Can I borrow one of those?

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 He said, yeah, sure. Help yourself.

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 A few weeks later, he happened to be at the house when she was there. And he said, oh,

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 how'd you get on? She said, oh yeah, really well. Thank you. And I've got it with me to give it back

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 to you. And actually, I prayed the prayer at the back of the book. He said, what was the prayer?

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 He said, well, I gave my life to Jesus. He said, that's fantastic. That's so good.

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 You'll never regret it, he said. And also, I'd really encourage you to maybe find in local church that

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 you can share this with. And you'll be in community to help you as you find this new

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 journey with knowing God. She said, yeah, I'll do that. Thank you.

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 Then she said, look, I've got all my old books on witchcraft, and I was wondering what to do with

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 them. I mean, I was thinking about maybe giving them to a friend or giving them to someone else.

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 He said, well, did they do you any good? She said, no, not really. He said, well, no point

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 giving them to anyone else then. She went, that's a good point. I wonder what I should do.

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 And he said, oh, maybe you could burn them. She went, do you know what?

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 That's exactly what I'll do. Paul describes this process of becoming a Christian as experiencing

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 being a new creation, and then receiving a new mind and a constant renewal of that mind.

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 So as we consider this challenge and encouragement in this book of Ephesians to

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 encounter the love of Jesus, a new relationship, to be in a new community where we are sharing together

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 and the new standard of behaviours that then reflect that love and grace of God.

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 God, I think we're helped by being really clear about what we're moving towards.

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 the grace of God, forgiveness, this experience of salvation, of knowing we are in a new chapter of our lives.

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 The old has gone and the new has come. We're into a new adventure, a new mystery to explore.

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 And Isaiah 64, 8 says, yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay. You are the potter. We are the work of your hand.

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 So my question for you is, do you know the love of Jesus in that way? Have you given your heart to God and asked God to be in your life?

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 Or do you need to re-engage with God and reconnect at a deeper level?

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 If so, what will you do about it?

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 And when will you do it? So time just doesn't slip by.

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 The second insight here is that we are helped by being in a community. We're called to be the body of Christ, the hands and feet of God in our community with a shared culture, with encouragement, with support, with empathy, with grace for each other.

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 We read in Acts 2, 42, they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, the breaking of bread and to prayer.

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 Everyone was filled with awe and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles.

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 All the believers were together and had everything in common.

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 Not that we create some holy huddle. This is just for ourselves.

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 But actually we strengthen each other to be an expression of God's love to those around us, our neighbours and those in Clevedon.

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 Those who don't yet know the love of God.

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 So my question for you is,

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 how could you be more a part of this community?

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 through your home group?

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 By investing in your relationships?

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 By taking time to pray together?

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 To meet up?

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 To support?

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 So what will you do?

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 And when will you do it?

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 So the time just doesn't slip by.

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 And third,

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 we're helped by being filled

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 and led by the Holy Spirit,

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 the presence of God

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 on earth with us.

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 Throughout our series,

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 from September to November,

00:21:16.279 --> 00:21:16.839
 we explored

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 what does it mean to be filled,

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 equipped,

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 and enabled by

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 the tangible presence and love of God

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 with us.

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 To become a temple

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 in which the Holy Spirit lives.

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 In Acts 1,

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 we read Jesus' last words

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 to his disciples.

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 Do not leave Jerusalem,

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 but wait for the gift

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 my Father has promised you,

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 which you have heard me speak about.

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 For John baptized with water,

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 but in a few days

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 you'll be baptized

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 with the Holy Spirit.

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 You'll receive power

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 when the Holy Spirit comes on you

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 and you will be my witnesses

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 in Jerusalem,

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 all Judea,

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 Samaria,

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 and Clevedon.

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 So have you been baptized

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 in the Holy Spirit?

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 Or have you recently

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 allowed the Spirit of God

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 to fill you afresh?

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 What will you do about that?

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 And when will you do it

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 so time just doesn't slip by?

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 Okay.

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00:22:29.680 --> 00:22:30.200
 Now,

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 I don't do very well

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 being told what to do.

00:22:40.019 --> 00:22:42.099
 I'm pretty stubborn.

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 But actually,

00:22:45.099 --> 00:22:47.000
 as I think about this passage

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 and knowing what I'm being

00:22:49.599 --> 00:22:50.799
 drawn closer to,

00:22:51.639 --> 00:22:53.980
 this incredible description

00:22:53.980 --> 00:22:54.920
 in Ephesians

00:22:54.920 --> 00:22:56.079
 about what it means to know

00:22:56.079 --> 00:22:57.539
 the love of God,

00:22:58.000 --> 00:22:59.240
 forgiveness, grace,

00:22:59.359 --> 00:23:00.799
 involvement in our lives.

00:23:00.799 --> 00:23:04.299
 when I think about

00:23:04.299 --> 00:23:05.460
 actually I need you,

00:23:06.819 --> 00:23:08.019
 we need each other,

00:23:08.759 --> 00:23:09.919
 together we can encounter

00:23:09.919 --> 00:23:11.460
 more of God's love

00:23:11.460 --> 00:23:11.980
 and life

00:23:11.980 --> 00:23:12.819
 and truth

00:23:12.819 --> 00:23:13.960
 together.

00:23:15.419 --> 00:23:16.639
 As I think about

00:23:16.639 --> 00:23:18.619
 it's not

00:23:18.619 --> 00:23:19.799
 through my effort,

00:23:19.919 --> 00:23:20.680
 it's through grace

00:23:20.680 --> 00:23:22.079
 and through the Holy Spirit.

00:23:23.500 --> 00:23:24.180
 I feel like

00:23:24.180 --> 00:23:26.319
 maybe I could be

00:23:26.319 --> 00:23:26.940
 a bit holier.

00:23:28.139 --> 00:23:29.019
 Maybe I could be

00:23:29.019 --> 00:23:29.819
 more of a highway

00:23:29.819 --> 00:23:31.039
 for the Holy Spirit

00:23:31.039 --> 00:23:32.000
 to land.

00:23:35.079 --> 00:23:35.919
 And as

00:23:35.919 --> 00:23:36.799
 Paul wrote

00:23:36.799 --> 00:23:37.759
 in chapter 2,

00:23:38.859 --> 00:23:39.839
 for we are God's

00:23:39.839 --> 00:23:40.659
 workmanship

00:23:40.659 --> 00:23:43.220
 created in Christ Jesus

00:23:43.220 --> 00:23:44.899
 to do good works

00:23:44.899 --> 00:23:46.960
 which God has prepared

00:23:46.960 --> 00:23:48.220
 in advance

00:23:48.220 --> 00:23:49.579
 for us to do.

00:23:52.759 --> 00:23:54.079
 So let's just

00:23:54.079 --> 00:23:55.399
 pause and pray

00:23:55.399 --> 00:23:57.399
 in response to that.

00:23:59.819 --> 00:24:14.720
 Lord, we thank you

00:24:14.720 --> 00:24:15.519
 for the miracle

00:24:15.519 --> 00:24:17.279
 that as we give

00:24:17.279 --> 00:24:18.319
 our lives to you,

00:24:18.700 --> 00:24:20.299
 we are a new creation.

00:24:24.759 --> 00:24:25.299
 And that,

00:24:25.399 --> 00:24:25.799
 Holy Spirit,

00:24:25.899 --> 00:24:26.779
 you meet with us

00:24:26.779 --> 00:24:27.659
 and help us

00:24:27.660 --> 00:24:28.580
 spread off the old

00:24:28.580 --> 00:24:30.320
 and live in the new

00:24:30.320 --> 00:24:32.000
 in relationship

00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:32.540
 with you.

00:24:36.060 --> 00:24:37.019
 We thank you,

00:24:37.120 --> 00:24:37.259
 Lord,

00:24:37.320 --> 00:24:38.160
 that you designed us

00:24:38.160 --> 00:24:39.380
 to work in a community,

00:24:39.880 --> 00:24:41.360
 your body,

00:24:42.620 --> 00:24:43.620
 each of us together.

00:24:43.619 --> 00:24:50.379
 we thank you

00:24:50.379 --> 00:24:51.500
 that in you

00:24:51.500 --> 00:24:55.259
 we can start

00:24:55.259 --> 00:24:56.019
 to be more

00:24:56.019 --> 00:24:57.059
 of you

00:24:57.059 --> 00:24:58.359
 to our community.

00:24:59.500 --> 00:25:00.239
 We ask,

00:25:00.399 --> 00:25:00.479
 Lord,

00:25:00.559 --> 00:25:01.459
 that you would lead us,

00:25:01.879 --> 00:25:03.039
 stir us this week

00:25:03.039 --> 00:25:04.799
 to be a very tangible

00:25:04.799 --> 00:25:06.059
 expression to others.

00:25:06.879 --> 00:25:07.279
 We ask,

00:25:07.339 --> 00:25:07.659
 Holy Spirit,

00:25:07.719 --> 00:25:08.459
 you would lead us

00:25:08.459 --> 00:25:10.000
 and keep in our minds

00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:11.099
 what our response

00:25:11.099 --> 00:25:12.419
 might need to be

00:25:12.420 --> 00:25:13.680
 from what we've heard

00:25:13.680 --> 00:25:15.000
 in Ephesians today.

00:25:16.380 --> 00:25:17.100
 In your name,

00:25:17.180 --> 00:25:17.539
 Lord Jesus.

00:25:18.960 --> 00:25:19.259
 Amen.

00:25:19.259 --> 00:25:19.380
 Amen.

00:25:19.380 --> 00:25:19.380


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