Speaker: Well, some might say, I'm not saying that I would say this, some might
say that the Dodgers are ruining baseball.
Some might say that, but really all they're doing is what every little kid
does with their baseball video game.
They're just maxing out their roster.
They're, they're playing with funny money and they're, they're ignoring
any potential threat of a salary cap.
And that may be why they're ruining baseball for everybody, because it's
the Dodgers that are gonna make us not have any baseball next year.
But really, the, the reason why we don't like what the Dodgers are doing is
because our team's not the one doing it.
The, the reason we don't like the, what the Dodgers are doing is because
it's working, they're back to back.
World Tears champions, and it seems that whatever comes their way,
they're, they're successful in it.
It's not that there aren't obstacles.
There are the, the Toronto Blue Jays were quite an obstacle for them last year, and
if Isaiah Erfa had led off a little bit further down third base, then we wouldn't
be talking about the Dodgers anymore.
But he didn't, there were obstacles, but they overcame them.
And the reason they overcame them is because they were
strong enough to overcome them.
They built a team that could weather the storm.
They built a team that even in the face of opposition, they were gonna
be the last team standing In the end, they built a team to last.
What would it look like for us to do that with the church?
What would it look like for us to build a church that will last.
What would it look like for us to develop the strongest
team possible here at Compass?
That no matter what comes at us, no matter what happens to us, we would
make sure that we are going to last, that we are going to come out on top.
Well, just like a team sets out with an objective.
We have an objective, just like a team sets out with the objective
to be the best that they possibly can be in their respective sport.
We want to be the best that we can be at following Christ in a christless world.
That's our goal.
That's our mission.
We want to follow Jesus in a world that stands against Jesus.
If we're gonna do that successfully, we have to be the type of
church that's built to last one.
Peter three eight is gonna walk through what that looks like.
The reality is we don't need outside help like the Dodgers.
We don't need to go out and sign in and bring in superstars in
here to be that type of church.
Yes, we need to be reaching people like I preached about last weekend.
But, but right here, we don't need superstars to come in here
and personalities to come in here to make this a stronger church.
We have all the potential we need right in this room this morning.
What we need to do is commit to being the type of church that is built to last, the
type of church that Peter's gonna define for us here in one Peter three eight.
So take your Bibles open back up to one Peter.
It's been a little while since we've been in first Peter, but we're back.
We're back together and we are gonna pick up in one Peter chapter three,
verse eight, and it says this.
It'll be up on the screen too.
It says, finally, all of you have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love,
a tender heart, and a humble mind.
Peter begins this verse with the word finally, which can sometimes mean he's
drawing a conclusion, but here what he's doing is he's actually wrapping up a
section that's just to catch us up again.
He's been dealing with in chapter three on and in part of chapter two on what
it looks like to live as elect exiles.
That's his audience.
If you'll recall from the very opening of the letter to the elect, exiles of the
dispersion, and we talked about in that opening message so long ago that that
just like those people, these Christians that Peter was writing to, even though
we're not physical exiles, we are indeed spiritual exiles that we are not home.
Remember, we're not the church on vacation, we're the church in exile.
And so as the church in exile, as those that are like Peter's audience,
spiritual exiles, we need to think about, okay, what does it look like for us to
follow Christ in a christless world?
Well, Peter's been talking about this a little bit.
He's been talking about the corrupt evil rulers.
You remember when he talked about here's how you should submit to the
governing authorities in your life, and then he talked about this is what
it looks like if you're in a, a cruel employment relationship, or at that
time, a master slave relationship.
He said, this is how you deal with a cruel master.
And then he talked to the marriages and he said, if you've got an unbelieving
spouse, this is what it looks like for you to follow Christ in a
relationship with an unbelieving spouse.
Well, now he's gonna turn to the church at large, and that's why
he says, finally hear all of you.
He's saying, Hey, church together, all of you, every single one of
you, here's my instructions for you.
And from here, what he's gonna do is he's gonna give us a bunch of adjectives.
There's five adjectives in this verse.
And so what he's doing is he's describing the type of church that's going to
be able to hold up and last, because where he's going after this is he's
going into, here's how you suffer.
Well, suffering's coming.
A a and now again, there's, there's questions about exactly when Peter
wrote, wrote whether Nero had been on, installed on the throne yet, or if this
was still future, but, but Nero's coming.
God knows that.
And so God is through Peter's writing, preparing this church for a level of
suffering that they've never known.
But if they're going to be able to suffer, well, they first have to be the type of
church that's gonna be able to suffer.
Well, and that's what he's writing about here in one Peter three, eight.
That's why he gives these adjectives.
These are descriptions of the type of church that as a whole, finally,
all of you, this is the type of church that, that they needed to be.
And this is the type of church that we need to be in this
verse there, there is no verb.
It's just finally all of you.
And then five adjectives.
And so you'll notice in the ESV, there's a verb supplied have.
And then they give these adjectives afterwards.
Other translations will supply a to be verb, I believe the
LSB says, finally, finally, all of you are to be or should be.
Some translations say live.
Finally, all of you live as any verb that we supply.
The, the point is still the same.
These are traits, these are attributes.
These are things that we should be looking for in each other
and cultivating in ourselves.
If we want to be the strongest team that we possibly can be here as a church.
If we wanna be a church that's gonna last.
If we wanna survive, as we follow Christ in a christless world.
If we want to be ready for whatever opposition may come our way, then
we need to be this type of a church.
And the first one that we find here is the attribute of unity.
Look down at the text.
It says this, have unity of mind.
Have unity of mind.
The word there that's translated is unity of mind is Homo Fran, homo, meaning
same in in Fran meaning mind mentality.
It's a word that means same thinking if we're to literally translate it.
Harmony sharing one heart being united in how we think, in how we feel.
This was considered, uh, an attribute that was an important
attribute of true friendship.
In fact, the Greek poet, even in the worldly system, the Greek poet Homer,
identified having unity as something that is a, a key attribute in friendship.
In Philippians chapter two, verse two, the apostle Paul wrote this, complete my joy.
He said, by being of the same mind, having the same love being
in full accord and of one mind.
United in mind being of the same mind.
Unity in the church is a consistent theme in the New Testament.
Over and over again, the writers in the New Testament write about
how the church is to be one.
The church is to be united.
The church is to to hold fast together.
The reason being is because this is essential for us.
As we, as the church pursue Christ in a christless world,
we need to stand together.
Protecting this unity is something that every single person in
this room should take seriously.
To protect and preserve the unity of the church is not just something for
the, the, the pastors and the a, a select few in the church to, to guard
against division is something that all of us in the church need to take
seriously and take a responsibility for.
If I could, and I guess I could, but I won't, I, I would have us all stand
up and publicly say, I am committed to preserving and protecting and
praying for the unity of the bride of Christ here in Compass Bible Church.
It's this important to what we're trying to do.
It's something that we should be pursuing, promoting, and praying
for as we stand guard against the divisive activity of the enemy.
Our first point is we're talking about what does it look like to be that church
that's built to last, to survive as we follow Christ in a christless world.
Our first point along those lines is this zealously guard against
division, zealously guard against division in the body of Christ.
Zealously passionately, right?
This isn't just like a Okay.
Yeah, I'll sure.
Unity of the church is great and all.
No, this is so significant that, that this needs to be a passion
of ours to see that this body, this church is, is a united body.
The Apostle Paul says in one Corinthians one 10.
He says, I appeal to you brothers.
Notice the language I appeal to you.
There's this is an emotional plea from Paul and he's writing to a church that
was divided in the church at Corinth.
You had some that said, well, I'm of Paul and others that said, I'm a Pauls.
I'm of Apollos and I, I'm of CEUs.
And so Paul is writing and he's saying, I appeal to you brothers, and then notice
this by the name of our Lord Jesus.
In other words, he's aduring this church by the authority of Christ.
He says that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among
you, but that you be united in the same mind, in the same judgment.
This is a task for the church at large.
In fact, that's what the Bible tells us.
The apostle Paul in Romans 1617 says this, I appeal to you.
Notice the language there.
Again, I appeal to you.
I plea with you brothers to watch out.
Watch out for, be on the lookout for those who cause divisions and create
obstacles contrary to the doctrine you've been taught and avoid them.
So the Apostle Paul here is saying, this is our responsibility as the
church to look out for these people, to watch out for them because the
damage they can do to the church.
There's two primary ways that divisiveness really shows up within the body of Christ.
I think the, the, the first way is through the, the infighting and the,
the, the backbiting and the quarreling.
We, we read about that, for example, in Galatians five 15, Galatians five
15, which says, but if you bite and devour one another, watch out that
you're not consumed by each other.
I, if we begin to have infighting, if we begin to have conflict that's not
resolved, if we harbor unforgiveness, if we despise and and have spite towards
our brothers or our sisters in Christ here in this room, that is a threat to
the unity of the body of Christ because all of a sudden from that quarrel,
that fight can come sides that emerge.
Well, I'm on this person's side.
Rather than what we need to do, which is deal with conflict biblically extend
forgiveness, seek forgiveness, confess sin with one another, and reconcile together.
That's one form of disunity in the church.
The second form of disunity, though, that I believe is, is probably the
greatest threat that we need to be on guard against, is described
by Paul in one Timothy six four.
Here, the apostle Paul says to the divisive person, he is puffed up
with conceit and understands nothing.
He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels
about words which produce envy.
Dissension, which is another word for division that we're talking about
here, and slander and evil suspicions.
This is the type of divisiveness that that keeps me up at night when
it, when I think about our church.
It is the, the quarreling in over, over words.
The, the person who has an unhealthy controversy craving for controversy,
who's after creating their pocket of people that, that they want to agree
with them and and disagree with others.
This is something that unfortunately, I'm more familiar with in the church.
Oftentimes this type of divisiveness is cloaked with words
like discernment and maturity.
This is gonna be somebody that's gonna take an issue that is not a
tier one issue, but they're gonna elevate it to make it a tier one issue.
This is somebody that's going to approach, not in the, the, the full revealed
side of saying, I'm here to take down the church, but this is the person
that approaches with, you know what?
This church is really good except for this.
I don't know why they don't do this this way.
I wouldn't have done it that way.
In fact, my old church used to do this, and I think that's better, don't you?
This person is somebody who needs to be encouraged to either decide
they can put those issues behind them and work towards the unity
of the bride of Christ, or perhaps decide to move on to another church.
If they can't,
okay, but, but isn't there a time that we should say something?
Yes.
Don't hear me say, I don't wanna be the pastor that's up here saying you
can never disagree with the church.
You can never disagree with church leadership and just sit there
and be quiet and agree with me.
I understand that preaching on the unity of the church can be,
can become something that, that is abused by those in authority.
That's not my heart here.
Okay.
And so what does it look like when and how should I approach when and
how should I bring something up?
Well, a few suggestions here.
Number one, I, I make sure that this is a matter of, of conviction, not preference.
I I, if this is a preferential issue, for example, I, I don't know why they preached
from the ESV and not this version over here, or if this is a situation where
you're saying, you know what, I, I, I wish the pastor would preach in a coat
and tie, Hey, come talk to me about that.
I'm willing, I'm willing to have the conversation with you.
The problem comes in when we go to other people about that.
Well, I don't know why they don't do this.
I don't know why they use that version and not this version.
This is the, the holier version.
So make sure it's not a matter of preference.
Second, make sure it's informed, whatever it is that you wanna
bring up, make sure it's informed by clear biblical convictions.
The, the, the best time to go talk with somebody is when you can open up the
word of God with them and say, look, I'm concerned because here's what I
understand God's word to be saying.
Here's what I see us see us doing, and I see a, a, a chasm there.
Can you help me understand?
Make sure that that is con informed by clear biblical convictions.
Third, make sure to approach in humility with a teachable heart
because sometimes the way something's being done may be being done that
way because of information that maybe you're not privy to in that moment.
So come willing to listen.
Don't come with your decision already made.
You're wrong.
I'm right and, and I'm here to tell you how wrong you are.
Fourth, be willing to move on from the church for the good of the church.
And I say that gently, uh, there are, I understand there are tier two issues
that aren't gospel issues, but they're tier two issues that are significant
enough that you would say, you know what?
I think for me to be able to worship without obstacles of distraction and so
forth and so on, it might be best for me to go and find a church where they are in
agreement with me in these, these matters.
That's fair.
That's, that's part of the beauty of the variety of, of churches
that we have in our area.
So long as the gospel is there, there's freedom there.
Right.
And then finally, and this is probably most important here,
take it to the appropriate party.
Take it to the person primarily concerned.
Look, if you have a doctrinal issue or you've got a church issue, you've got a
Theo Theology issue, please come to me.
I'm, I'm more than willing and happy to talk with you.
Please come to one of our other pastors, pastor Rob, pastor Mark,
I, if, if I preach something and, and you walk out scratching your
head, I've got an email address that that's out there, pj@compassntx.org.
I would love for you to shoot me emails.
Emails and say, pastor, can we get together?
I've got questions about something.
I'm happy to do that.
Or if you've got an issue with a ministry, go to the ministry
leader over that ministry.
Talk to them.
Right.
The, the worst thing to do is for you to go talk to 5, 6, 7 other people about this
thing, and all of a sudden you've, you've tainted where, where their perspective is.
And then you go and talk to that ministry leader.
And that ministry leader says, well, hey, let me help you understand why
we're doing things the way we do it.
And you, the light bulb goes on in that moment.
You're like, oh, okay, I get it.
But then you've got these 5, 6, 7 other people who are upset over
this thing now that you've gone to them, instead of first going to
the person that you need to go to.
And so this is an open door for you guys to, to come to me.
Okay?
I, I want you to hear that this is not just be quiet and get
over whatever you don't like.
This is, I'm, I'm willing to talk with you.
I'm willing to hear from you, but let's do this the right way.
If we're gonna do it, we have to work for, and preserve and fight for
the unity of the bride of Christ.
In short, you can put it this way, be slow, be sure and be humble.
Be slow.
Be sure and be humble.
Why WW why is this so important?
Well, a few reasons.
Number one, I believe pursuing the unity of the church is a matter of, it's a
sign of salvation For us to work for the unity of the bride of Christ is part
of what it looks like to be a believer.
Paul writes this in, in Ephesians chapter four.
He says, therefore, I, a prisoner of the Lord urge you to walk in
a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called that.
That is to walk as a believer.
And if you're gonna walk as a believer, you should be eager.
Verse three, to maintain the unity of the spirit, your primary desire should
be to maintain the unity of the spirit.
It it, one of the, the greatest, perhaps most divisive figures
in all of church history.
Right?
What did he do?
He took 95 theses and he nailed him to the door of the Denberg church.
Who was that?
Martin Luther.
Luther wasn't trying to take the church down.
He wasn't trying to start something new by his own testimony.
He wanted to do what to the church.
He wanted to reform it.
He felt convicted that these things needed to change, but he wasn't there to divide.
He wasn't there to say, we're gonna go over here and do our own
thing and leave you guys over here.
It's a sign of salvation for us to, to maintain.
We want to be eager for the unity of the bride of Christ and care about that.
The second reason, though, is that this is something that
Christ desires for us as well.
John chapter 17.
In John chapter 17, the high priestly prayer, Jesus is praying and he says,
I don't ask for these, only meaning just the 12, but also for those who
believe in me through their word.
That would include all of us in this room and and I'm praying,
Jesus 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 so that
the world may believe that you have sent me the glory that you've given to me.
I've given to them that they may be one even as we are one.
And so we should pursue the unity of the church because it's Christ's desire for
his church, Christ's desire for the bride.
Third, though we should also pursue the unity of the church because the threat of
divisiveness is so significant to God's mission for the church that he instructs
through Paul the church to deal swiftly and forcefully with the divisive person.
Paul writes this to Titus and Titus three 10.
He says, as for a person who stirs up division after, warning him once and
then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is
warped and sinful and self condemned.
Notice here that Paul provides a method of church discipline that even circumvents
the full formula of Matthew 18.
In order to deal with somebody who is a divisive person, warn them once, warn
them twice, and then you remove them.
Why?
Because it's that significantly serious to the body of Christ because it's that
much of a threat to the body of Christ.
And so we should care about, we should pursue the unity.
We should zealously guard against divisiveness.
This is an essential characteristic and essential attribute to us being a church
that's gonna stand the test of time, us to being that that church that's gonna
come out on top in the end, us to being that that church that's gonna follow
Christ in a christless world and, and.
Win, for lack of a better term, the unity of the body is essential to this.
Sin needs to be dealt with.
Hear me say that sin needs to be dealt with.
Things that need to be addressed, need to be addressed in the church.
But here's the thing.
Churches have been destroyed, and I'm sure in a room like this, you could all
tell stories by one or two divisive people who take a tier two or a tier three issue
and say, we're gonna make this a tier one issue and I'm taking other people with me.
That's what we have to guard against here in the church.
There are no perfect churches.
We can all agree with that.
Yes, there's no perfect churches.
I, I love this place and I hope you do too, so much to say, you
know what, I, I don't wanna allow the enemy to have a foothold here.
I don't want there to be any cracks in, in the ranks here, so to speak.
I wanna make sure that all of us are pursuing the unity of the church.
If we're doing that, true unity is gonna be characterized by
these next three attributes, which we're gonna take together.
I mentioned there's five, so we cover number one.
We're gonna take the next three together because I think they go together.
Peter says this, all of you have unity of mind.
And then he says, this sympathy, brotherly love, and a tender heart sympathy,
brotherly love, and a tender heart.
You might look at, at this and, and specifically sympathy
brother love and tender heart.
Some translation say compassion there.
And we're gonna get to that in just a second here.
But before we do that, I, I want you to, to notice something in the
structure of what Peter's doing here.
And, and it's called a a chiasm.
A chiasm.
And so what this is, is it's a way that the, the authors would write
sometimes to draw attention to something as the point of emphasis in a text.
Okay, so what he's doing here is there's parallels and the parallel concepts, the,
the parallel concepts sandwich, the part that is the, the most significant one
for us to notice and pay attention to.
So these list of five, five adjectives here are in the form of a, a chiasm.
So you've got.
A one unity of mind.
Look down at the bottom, A two humble mind.
Okay, so both of those deal with our, our mindset.
We want unity, we want humility.
Then you've got B, one is sympathy, and B two is having a tender heart or compassion
that has to deal with our emotive state and how we act towards one another and
then highlighted right in the middle there is that attribute brotherly love.
And so what Peter's doing here is he's wanting us to understand that brotherly
love is foundational to everything else that we're talking about in this list.
That if we have true, genuine, brotherly love for one another, that's when
we will be united, when we will be sympathetic, when we will have compassion
and tender heart towards one another, and when we will pursue humility.
So this middle section here in this middle point, I just wanted to, to call
our attention to the fact that this brotherly love Phil Philadelphia, which
by the way, pastor Rob preached on this back when I was gone in California in
the fall from one Peter 1 22 through 23.
Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a
sincere, brotherly love, love one another, earnestly from a pure heart.
So now Peter's coming back to this saying, this is essential for us.
This is, is huge, that we need to pay attention to this.
And so he's dealing with, with this concept of, of brotherly love, and he's
saying this is is part of the attributes.
This is what we need to be pursuing together.
So back in our verse, sympathy, brotherly love and a tender heart.
Let's unpack those three for a second here.
Sympathy is, is what?
Sympathy is the motive component of our love for one another.
This is feeling the, the, the joy with those that are rejoicing.
This is feeling the sorrow with those that are weeping.
This is how the Lord as he knits us together, and as we have brotherly love
for one another, this is how we, we have that, that feeling of I'm entering into
your joys, your sorrows alongside you.
In fact, this verb sympathy, or the word sympathy shows up in the book of
job with his three friends, even though they turned out to not be great friends.
When they first show up and they see job sitting on the ash heap in the
state that he is in, it says that they felt sympathy for him there.
Their hearts go out to him.
That's something that is, is part of a, a church that's gonna stand the test of
time, is that we love one another, another to the point that we have an emotional
reaction and response when somebody is hurting, when somebody is rejoicing.
We're not just stoic to that, but we en engaged with them in that.
So sympathy.
And then again, yes, brotherly love.
This, this, that is the result of our purification, the
result of the gospel, right?
Again, one Peter 1 22.
You've purified your souls by your obedience to the
truth that is the gospel for.
A sincere brotherly love that this should characterize.
Those that are are Christians, those that are believers, and this is the foundation.
Without that, we can't, we won't be sympathetic, and without that, we won't
be tenderhearted, which is the third attribute there having a tender heart.
Uh, this is a fun one.
In the Greek, you know what it means?
Having good intestines.
Yeah, we should all have good intestines towards each other.
And you wonder, what in the world does that mean?
Well, the intestines were considered kind of the, the, the source of,
of that feeling, that emotion, the, the, the heart as we put it now.
And that's why it's tender heart in the ESV.
Other translations translate it as compassion.
Now again, this is emotive, but I do believe there's a distinction
between sympathy and compassion.
So allow me to thread that out a little bit for us, sympathy is, is more focused
on the emotive connection to the person.
Compassion is sympathy in action, okay?
Compassion is taking the emotion and then acting on it.
Lemme show you what I mean.
Luke, chapter 10, verse 33.
Luke chapter 10, verse 33 is, is from the Parable of the Good Samaritan.
And so Jesus says this, but a Samaritan, as he journeyed,
came to where the man was.
And when he saw him, he had compassion.
Now, what did that compassion result in?
It resulted in him stopping and bandaging his wounds and putting him
on his donkey and taking him to the end and offering to pay the bill for
his stay there while he re recovered compassion in his, his sympathy in action.
Or in the parable of the prodigal son, when the father sees the son
coming from a distance, it says there that he felt compassion.
And what did the dad do?
Did he just wait there and say, well, you need to come apologize
to me because what you did?
No, no, no.
The father felt compassion and ran to the son and embraced him and put
the robe on him and got the ring and put the ring back on his finger.
Again, compassion is sympathy in action.
Mark chapter six, verse 34.
We see our own savior in this regard.
He comes ashore and he sees the crowd and it says that he had compassion on them
because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and so he began to teach them.
He had compassion and that compassion produced the actions.
He in our text here, back in one Peter, God knew what was
waiting for these believers.
He knew suffering was coming.
He knew they were gonna go through hard times.
He knew that the heat was gonna get turned up, and so he's trying to prepare them.
Peter's trying to prepare them to be as strong as they possibly can.
And to do that, man, they're gonna need relationships with each other
that are genuinely built on brotherly love, that are genuinely built on
a care that transcends the surface.
As a church that's built to last, we have to have relationships that
go beyond, uh, the surface niceties.
We, we have to have relationships that go beyond a, a once a week.
Check in on how the weather's been doing and what did you do when it was cold?
We have to have relationships that are more substantive than the exchanges
that you have while you wait for your kid in the car line or where
you wait for your kid to be released so you can walk home with them from
school and you're talking to the other parents that are waiting there too.
We have to have relationships that are, uh, deeper and different, and
there's a qualitative difference than the relationship that you have with
the dads on your kids' baseball team.
We have to have relationships that are relationships built on this.
A sympathy that causes us to feel the, the feelings of one another and enter
into those because we love one another.
And then to feel compassion that promotes us and, and propels us and compels us
to act for the good of one another.
This is the type of relationships that we need in the church.
If we are going to be a church that's built to last.
And so our second point this morning is this genuinely care for one another,
genuinely care for one another.
Lemme say I, I love the way that our church does on this.
I think we do this really, really well.
I was reminded of this within the last month as as I watched a family
who was going through their own trial, come to me and say, pastor,
here's another family in the church that's going through a trial as well.
What can we do?
How can we support them?
How can we love them?
And I'm looking at this one family going, you, you guys are the
ones that need us to love you.
And yet they were saying, no, no, no, no.
We, we, we want to love others.
As we're going through our own trial, we want to support others.
And, and so let me just say church.
You guys are doing this and doing it well, and I love that anytime a, a meal train
goes out, it's like, it's a race to see.
Are there any empty spots left?
That is so good.
And, and at at heart we are an action oriented people.
We like the meal trains 'cause it's like, I can, I can do that, I can bake,
I can't, don't ask me to be on that.
I can, I can, I can grab a spot.
I, that's something that I can do and it feels good because it's
something tangible for us to do.
I, I think we also know need to be ready to, to have the sympathy
side of things with people.
Sometimes it's, it's the meal train's full.
And so then we have to say, how do I, how do I love my, my brother or sister
in Christ who's hurting right now?
Or sometimes, you know, it's not the meal that's needed, it's the ear to listen.
It's the the shoulder to, to be there to, to let them cry.
It's being present with them.
It's feeling the sorrow that they're feeling.
It's praying with them through the grief that they're going through, and, and,
and sometimes it's celebrating with them.
I saying, man, praise God.
That is so great.
We were praying for that.
You've been praying for that, and you just shared your request,
your your answer to that request.
Thank you for bringing me in with you on that.
I'm rejoicing with you in that.
Sometimes this kind of love even looks like the painful process
of coming alongside somebody and saying, Hey, brother, hey sister.
You know what?
I, I see sin in the camp in your life, and I, I love you enough to
say I'm, I'm not gonna let you go without talking to you about this.
And confronting that person, Galatians six to, to restore
that person in a spirit of love.
All of this is driven by that brotherly love.
Again, this is family language that Peter is using here.
Brotherly love, sympathy.
This is language used for the family and that's how God
wants us to view the church.
That's how he wants us to view one another as brothers and
sisters in Christ as a family.
I, I don't mean to be a broken record, but here at Compass, the way this works
is to get involved in community groups.
I know I just preached a message called, called Out and called into
community where I really stress the emphasis of community groups.
But this is where these relationships form you don't form these
relationships on on a Sunday morning.
Once a week.
You form these relationships when you get in community with each other.
And I know there's objections that are out there.
Some people might say, well, I'm, I'm just too busy right now for community.
This type of community though is what it means to be part of the church.
And so I would suggest if you're saying, man, I'm too busy for this, then I
would say, I think you should prioritize community and evaluate some other
commitments that you've got in your life.
Again, these relationships aren't relationships that
that just form overnight.
When, when you need these relationships, if you haven't
built into these relationships.
They don't just happen at the spur of the moment,
maybe you're saying, well, you know what, I'm, I'm too far away
from any of the open groups.
Maybe a valid concern.
My personal conviction is a, a good church is worth driving for.
Worth getting involved in saying, okay, I'm gonna count the cost.
I'm gonna drive, I'm gonna be there and it's gonna be worth the payoff.
Or maybe you would say, you know what?
I've been hurt by church groups in the past.
I've been hurt by getting too involved in the past.
I acknowledge that that's probably the reality for, for a few people in the
room, and I I'm sorry that that happened.
I, I also want to tell you, that doesn't change what God's
design is for the church.
That doesn't change what God has called us to in the church.
Trust is plan.
Trust is design.
Be vulnerable again, connect again.
Or maybe you say, you know what?
I've, I've got another Bible study that I'm a part of.
I, I would push back and say, I think your primary source of fellowship
should be with those in your local church, those that are under the
same sermons, week in and week out.
Those that are, are gathering together as brothers and sisters
in Christ week in and week out.
Those that are under the same pastoral care week in and week out.
That should be your primary source of fellowship.
I'm not telling you, you have to quit your other Bible study.
I'm just saying don't export community outside the walls of the local church.
If you want this kind of genuine love for one another, you, you need
to get in community with us again.
Our community groups are available on our website.
You can look there, but I come back to this, I if you want to have those
people who are gonna weep with you when the results come back as malignant.
If you want to have brothers and sisters who will encourage you through
unemployment, if you want to have brothers and sisters who's gonna pray for and
support your marriage, if you want to have brothers and sisters who are gonna show
up at the hospital when the baby's born.
If you want to have brothers and sisters who are gonna show up in the middle of
the night to watch your kids so that you can get to the emergency room.
If you wanna have brothers and sisters who care enough about you to confront
you and sin, and, and care about your godliness and your holiness,
you need to get in community with us.
At some point you've needed that, and likely at some point you'll need it
again, if we wanna have the strongest team possible here at Compass.
And that looks like a body that's committed to doing life with each
other beyond Sunday mornings.
It looks like showing up for each other, being a church that, as we
say, man, we're, we're trying to follow Christ in a christless world.
We need to invest in relationships that are gonna help us do that,
to spur us on towards that, like I talked about a couple weeks ago.
And so we wanna be a church that genuinely cares for each other.
But there's one final attribute here in this list in one Peter three,
eight, and it's this a humble mind.
A humble mind.
Humility is an attractive.
Trait in a teammate when the best guy on a team isolates himself and looks
at his teammates as burdens and just says, well, I guess I'm just gonna
have to carry all of you losers on my back and, and do it all myself, man,
that's equally unattractive, isn't it?
So it follows them, that humility would be another attribute that we wanna
see in each other to be the strongest team possible, to be the church that's
gonna be built to last as we seek to follow Christ in a christless world.
The text again says, have a humble mind.
The word mind there is the same word from the first attribute
of being united in mind.
It's the word throne, which means mind or mentality, and, and this
time it's paired with a word that means low to be of a low mindedness.
Humility is one of the essential characteristics of the follower of Christ.
This is part of what it means to be a a a Jesus follower.
In Matthew chapter five, verse three or five, verse five, forgive
me, it says, blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth.
Meekness and humility go hand in hand.
They're, they're handmaiden is with one another and Jesus says that we
should be pursuing that meekness.
In Colossians chapter three, verse 12, we find meekness,
but also paired with humility.
Here, Paul says this, that as those that are our followers of Jesus, we
should be putting on then as God's chosen ones, wholly and beloved,
compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.
And so humility is a, a, a definable characteristic in scripture of
what it looks like to follow Jesus and even in in the world, right?
The world would say humility is an admirable attribute.
Today, we live in a world that would say it's a good thing for people to be humble.
That's not the world that Peter wrote to when Peter was writing this.
The Greco-Roman culture considered humility to be a sign of weakness.
It was something that was despised because people looked at somebody
who was considered humble as somebody who was unable to defend their honor.
And so why then would Peter say to this church that's getting ready to
face opposition, that's getting ready to find the persecution that some
of which they've already experienced to be ratcheted up even more.
Why would he put this church in a position where the world would despise
them even more and look at them as even weaker rather than wanting to see
them as strong in the world's eyes?
Well, the reason is a, a, a couple things here.
Yes, because the church is called to be counter-cultural, but the
more important reason is this.
The reason humility is suggested here and commanded here by Peter is because
we want to be like Jesus and we will never be stronger as a church than
we are, as we're more like Jesus.
And what did Jesus himself tell his disciples?
The son of man came not to be served.
But to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.
And in that context, he said, you want to be first.
You need to be last.
You want to be great.
You need to be the slave of all.
Philippians chapter two, the Apostle Paul in this passage says this, do nothing
from selfish ambition or concede, but in humility, there's our word Count
others more significant than yourselves.
Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also
to the interest of others.
And then he says, have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in
Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality
with God, a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of
a servant, being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form.
He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
We want to be humble because we want to be like Jesus, one Peter 2 21.
For to this you have been called because Christ also suffered for
you, leaving you an example that you might follow in his steps.
We wanna be humble as our savior was humble.
If we want to be a strong church, we can't neglect to follow our
savior in showing humility.
We can't neglect to cultivate that humility in our own lives.
It's humility that will preserve unity.
It's humility that will spur our affections for one another, such that
we will genuinely care for one another, and it's humility that needs to be
a consistent pursuit in our life.
Our final point this morning is this consistently seek Christlike humility.
Consistently seek Christlike humility.
You know, sometimes the most valuable players on a team aren't the superstar
athletes, but they're the clubhouse guys at, at times a team will make
a trade towards the trade deadline and, and they'll bring in a guy and
everybody will kinda look at, at that trade and, and scratch their heads and
be like, why did you go get that guy?
You've got another guy that already plays that position, or you've
got a better guy, or That's not really a position you needed.
And a lot of times the reason why teams will go out and do that
is because they know that that guy's a good clubhouse presence.
He's got a humility that's gonna be a good source of, of encouragement to the team.
He's gonna lead the team.
He's gonna be a veteran that's gonna build the team up.
And so we want him on our team.
We want that here in our church.
When a team makes a trade for a guy like that, they're not trading for
him, so that he's gonna be the MVP.
They're not trading for him, so that he's gonna be the one that's gonna get the, the
individual award at the end of the season.
But that guy's not interested in those things.
He's interested in the good of the body, the good of the team church.
There's, there's no MVP or individual awards handed out at the end of the
year for being a part of the church.
We are here for each other, like I preached on a couple weeks ago.
I need you and you need me.
We are here to be a part of this body, to be humbly working together
for the good of the body of Christ.
That's what the Apostle Paul said.
Just as the body is one and as many members, all the members of
the body, though many are one.
So it is with Christ.
There's a lot of us in here, different gifts, different strengths, different
weaknesses, and yet all of us need to be aimed at being together, uniting together,
humbly seeking the unity of the church.
What we're doing here is bigger than any single one of us in this room.
It's not about us.
I'll be the first to say it's not about me.
What we're doing here is about Jesus.
And so we in humility come and we pursue that, and that begins, as
Peter says, with a humble mind.
It begins in how we think about ourselves.
In fact, the apostle Paul wrote this in Romans chapter 12, verse three.
He said, for by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to
think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober
judgment, where does humility begin?
Humility begins in how we assess ourselves.
How should we assess ourselves each according to the measure
of faith that got us assigned?
We need to assess ourselves in light of, of our identity in Christ y'all.
This pursuit of humility is something the enemy hates, and so he's gonna
do everything he can to undermine it.
He's gonna do everything he can to sow the seeds of division and discord.
He's gonna do everything he can to convince us that we don't need each other.
He's gonna do everything he can to convince you that, man, this whole
message about needing each other and relationships and community groups.
Man, that's just legalistic.
You don't need that.
You're fine.
He's gonna do everything necessary to promote and fuel pride and
self-sufficiency while doing everything he can to kill Christlike humility.
And that's why we have to consistently be seeking Christlike humility.
It's not something we're ever gonna check the box and say, I'm done.
And that's why we have to discipline our minds how we think, how we perceive
of ourselves, and where we fit.
And so maybe you're thinking though, how do I know if I'm humble minded?
Isn't humility one of those things that as, as soon as you're aware
you have it, you've lost it?
How do I know?
Well, part of the answer is looking at points one and two.
I mean, if we're working for the unity of the bride of Christ, if
we're genuinely caring for each other, humility's gonna take care of itself.
It's a natural byproduct of those things, but the humble minded person
is a person who does things like this.
The humble minded person is a person who seeks the, the unity of the
body over their own preferences.
The humble minded person is gonna seek discipleship, relationships, relationships
that go deeper than the surface.
The humble minded person is gonna say, what, what can I do?
What more can I do?
How can I, how can I serve?
The humble minded person is gonna say to the Lord, Lord, use me
anything, any place, anytime.
It's something that we talk about called add apa here,
anything, any place, anytime.
God, wherever you need me, I wanna be there.
The humble minded person is gonna feel the hurts and the joys of their
brothers and sisters in Christ.
The humble minded person is going to send the text to encourage the
brother or sister during the week.
The humble minded person is gonna reach out to get the
update on that prayer request.
I know so often in community groups, it's easy to show up and, and you do
prayer requests in community groups, and then you don't really think about
following up until the next week.
You see that person, you're like, oh, yeah, I've been praying for you.
How, how's that going?
The humble minded person is saying, no, I'm gonna, I'm gonna text on Tuesday.
I'm gonna text on Thursday.
I'm gonna text on Friday.
I'm, I wanna know how you're doing.
The humble minded person is gonna get help when they need it, not just him.
I'm good.
I don't need any help.
The humble minded person will be grateful for the body of Christ.
Yeah, we are the strongest.
When we are the most, like Jesus and Jesus set the tone.
He set the example.
We know from Proverbs, pride goes before destruction in a
hottest spirit before the fall.
If we wanna be a church that's built to last, we have to be humble minded.
We have to pursue humility because we want to be like Jesus consistently
seek Christ-like humility.
Christ's example of humility was most clearly seen at the cross.
That's what Philippians two says.
He humbled himself to the point of death, even death on a cross.
And so I think it's appropriate, as we've considered in this message, uniting
together, loving one another and pursuing humility together, that we are going to
conclude our time together by communion.
What took place on the cross is significant because it's that
which is the foundation of what we unite around as believers.
We unite together around the death of Jesus on our behalf.
What took place on the cross is so significant because it is what
fuels our love for one another.
We love because he first loved us and greater love has no
one than this, than a man.
Lay down his life for his brothers.
And what we do is we observe the cross, we unite around the cross.
We are motivated by the cross.
And the cross again gives us the greatest example of Christ's humility such that
we would be able to look to him and say if he humbled himself to that degree.
I need to humble myself as well.
Communion is significant.
It's important.
We need to be careful with these things.
And so I wanna encourage you, make sure that you think about this.
Be careful about a lack of of conversion here.
Communion is something that's for believers.
And so if you're not saved, you can let these elements pass by.
It's better for you that you do that than you take them, as Paul
would say, in an unworthy manner and incur judgment as a result.
So communion is for believers to be aware of a lack of conversion.
Second, communion needs to be thoughtful.
Be aware of a lack of of concentration.
We can sometimes just go through the motions.
Okay, here comes the cup.
I'm gonna pull it out.
Here comes the bread.
I'm gonna grab that, and then I'm gonna sit here until the pastor tells
me I should eat it and, and drink it.
Be thoughtful during this time.
Don't just go through the motions with this, which leads me to my third
encouragement to you, which is communion requires us and, and tells us we need
to be careful of a lack of confession.
Part of our concentration needs to be thinking through our lives,
being like David in Psalm 1 39, Lord, try me, search me, know me.
If there's any grievous way in me, reveal that to me.
I wanna confess this.
I, I, I wanna be able to take these elements having laid all my
signature feet that I'm aware of.
Because it's there that forgiveness is found, so the elements are gonna
be passed, the music will play all come back up and we'll take them
together after they're all passed.
There are a lot of different things that a, a church can unite around.
Common worship style.
The same Bible translation, the nomination, what the pastor wears,
when he appreciates what he doesn't.
Those are all things that can unite people.
But the one thing that universally as the Christian Church that unites all
of us, and just think for a minute that this morning is Sunday morning.
Think of the countless numbers of churches that are meeting and have
met throughout the world today
filled with believers.
Not everyone, but a lot of them.
Right?
And the thing that unites us all.
The thing that when we get to heaven, we're gonna be able
to say, Hey, brother, sister.
Is this,
there's nothing magical about those elements.
Like I often tell you they're from Kroger.
If you really like Matza bread, you can find it on the shelf there.
But rather what these are is what God told us they are.
They're a way for us to look and, and even as, as you look at this piece of
bread, it's, it's not clean, it's broken.
Because it's meant to remind us that the grape juice, we don't choose lemonade.
We choose grape juice because it's the color of the blood that is shed for us.
So these are meant to cause us to remember that which unites us together.
And that's why the Apostle Paul said this in one Corinthians 11, verse 23.
He said, I receive from the Lord what I also delivered to you.
That the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed, took bread and when
he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.
In the same way, also, he took the cup after supper saying, this cup
is the new covenant in my blood.
Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim
the Lord's death until he comes.
And we gather together on Sunday mornings to proclaim his
resurrection as well until he comes.
And so that is our great Hope Church as we go out from this week.
Let me pray for us and then you will be dismissed.
Also, don't forget, we've got sweatshirts on the back tables back there.
We would love for you to stop and grab one.
If we don't have your size, we plan on probably doing another
run, so just let us know.
But we do have sweatshirts back there for you as well.
Let's pray.
Lord God, thank you for Christ.
Or that, the great reality that, that all of us are so vastly
different in so many different ways.
We come from different families, different histories, different backgrounds,
different jobs, different neighborhoods, communities, different makeups of our,
our family, and yet we are here to gather as one body because we unit.
Around Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.
What?
What a glorious reality that is.
We thank you for that.
We thank you for Christ.
We thank you that he came, that he lived that perfect life on our behalf,
that he went to the cross and took our sin on himself and gave us his
righteousness, Lord, and that he paid the penalty that we deserved Rose from
the Deads, that we might have hope that we too will one day rise to be with him.
What, and he did that all because of your great love for us.
And so we are here to, to give thanks for that and to praise you
for that and to unite around that.
And so we pray that you'd be pleased with us as a church, that we would
indeed be a church that's built to last.
We pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen.