Philippians 3:1

We're going through our mission series that we have at the beginning of every year. Last week, Miles discussed connecting with God, and today we are talking about connecting with one another. So that's what we're focusing on.

The first thing we should do is pray, and then we'll get started. How about that?

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your Word. Thank you for the opportunity, Lord God, that we have to approach your Word and hear from you. Father God, I pray that you would help me order my thoughts. Lord, we pray that you would speak to your people, and I just thank you so much for this opportunity. I pray, Lord God, that you would be glorified as we approach your Word, and that your Word would comfort us where we need comfort, correct us where we need correction, and do everything that you promised it would do. We pray for that today. We pray these things, Jesus, in your name. Amen.

All right, life in connection with one another is part of our mission at Cross Connection Church. The first question that comes up is why. Why is that important?

Point one in your outline, if you're ready to take notes, is that it is not good to be alone. In Genesis chapter two, verses 15 through the end of the chapter, we read that the Lord God took the man and placed him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to watch over it. The Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for the day you eat of it, you will certainly die."

Then the Lord God said, in verse 18, "It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper corresponding to him." The thing to notice here is that this is before sin. This is before sin has entered the picture. Everything is perfect; everything is good in the garden as it was created, except for one thing. God looked at that and said, "It is not good for man to be alone."

Like just about everything we come across, God realizes this long before Adam does. So, God leads Adam to that same conclusion through circumstances. The Lord God formed out of the ground every wild animal and every bird of the sky and brought each to the man to see what he would call it.

And whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the sky, and to every wild animal. But for man, no helper was found corresponding to him. God brought all the animals—the rooster and the hen, the boar and the sow, the bull and the cow—all of them before Adam. And Adam named them.

Through this process, he was observing and realized that everything was in a pair. Everything had two parts, and he was there all alone. That’s when Adam realized, "Hey, it’s not good for man to be alone," just like God had already figured out.

So, in verse 21, the Lord God caused a deep sleep to come upon the man, and he slept. God took one of the ribs and closed the flesh at that place. Then the Lord God made the rib that He had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man. The man said, "At last!" This indicates that it took a while. Adam exclaimed, "This one is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. This one will be called woman, for she was taken from man."

Verse 24 explains why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh. Both the man and his wife were naked yet felt no shame. There they were in the garden, alone in perfect community—the two of them, with no sin in the picture, nothing separating them, not even clothing.

I taught youth ministry for 20 years. We are much better at not laughing out loud at these parts as adults, but I know for some of us, there’s still that inner giggle. We will get past it because the whole point here is that they were naked and unashamed. It’s interesting to read, but if you think about it, what does that actually mean? There was no distance, no defense, and no hiding from each other. Everything was just wide open.

That is not the case for us now, and we will see why that is in just a moment. When we look at this, we see this perfect community. We see that God Himself is community—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three distinct persons in one God. He created us to be in community. It is not good for man to be alone, and the same applies to us. So, God creates others and puts us around each other.

If you flip over to Genesis chapter 3, at least in my Bible, Adam...

Eve had one rule: don't eat from that one tree. Everything else was permissible. Wouldn't life be so much easier if we had just one rule? And yet, they had one rule, and they broke it. You can read about that a little further in the text.

After they ate, the first thing that happened was that the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. So, they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. The first realization was that they needed to protect themselves; they could no longer be wide open. Now there was shame, hiding from each other, and embarrassment. All these feelings emerged immediately, and we see that the first sin enters and wrecks everything. The first consequence is shame, that shame that leads to hiding.

Then, the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. The Lord God called out to the man and said to him, "Where are you?" This is an ironic picture because they are in God's garden, in God's creation, and they think they can hide. This illustrates another aspect of sin: we are convinced that we can hide from the effects of our sin. We think we can conceal the fact that we are sinning, creating an even greater fig leaf behind which we try to hide and pretend, "Oh, that's not us. That's not me."

God asks, "Where are you?" Adam responds, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid." Then God asks him, "Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"

Here, we see the second consequence of sin. Adam replies, "It's the woman; she gave it to me." God does not scold Adam but instead turns to Eve and asks, "What about this?" She responds, "Well, it's the serpent."

The second consequence we see here of sin, which causes a break in their fellowship or community, is a lack of personal responsibility. It's not my fault; both Adam and Eve blame someone else.

We see that sin distances us from God. We try to hide from God, and it breaks the community that we have together. This is still the case even now.

If you flip over a little bit further to Genesis chapter 4, which for me is just another page, verses 1 through 9 say, "The man was intimate with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain. She said, 'I have a male child with the Lord's help.' She also gave birth to his brother Abel. Now Abel became a shepherd of the flocks, but Cain worked the ground."

In verse 3, it states, "In the course of time, Cain presented some of the land's produce as an offering to the Lord, and Abel also presented an offering, some of the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions." The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but He did not have regard for Cain and his offering. Cain was furious, and he looked despondent.

Cain and Abel both brought a sacrifice to God. God looked at Cain's and said, "No, I don't like that." Cain looked at Abel's and thought, "That's the sacrifice that I want." Cain got mad and wondered why God preferred Abel's offering over his. He started having a temper tantrum, and God, in His kindness, came to Cain and asked, "Why are you furious? Why do you look despondent? If you do what is right, won't you be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door; its desire is for you, but you must rule over it."

God pointed out that the issue was not with the kind of sacrifice but with the heart behind it. Abel offered his sacrifice with the right heart, while Cain did not. God told Cain that if he did what was right, he would be accepted. However, He warned him that if he did what was wrong, sin was waiting to pounce, like a lion crouching at the door, wanting to destroy him. Cain had to master over it, or it would master over him.

So, Cain was left with a choice. In verse 8, Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let's go out in the field." While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, "Where's your

And he said, "I don't know. Am I my brother's guardian?" We are one generation from the Garden of Eden. We are one generation removed from absolute and complete perfect connection between two humans. In the very next generation, we have siblings, and we have a sibling murder. One generation out of the Garden, Cain chooses to murder Abel instead of choosing to do the right thing. Instead of choosing right, he says, "It's easier to murder my brother."

We often have this same tendency. We often choose the same way. For us, it's much easier to murder a relationship than it is sometimes to ask for forgiveness, give forgiveness, or do the right thing. It's easier for us to say, "Well, I'm never talking to that person again. That person did that. I can't believe they did that," or "I can't believe they said that to me. I'm never speaking to them again." We are just like Cain and Abel. We take the relationship and we murder it rather than deal with the consequences of our sin or do what God has called us to do and forgive others.

Abel is killed for just doing the right thing. All Abel did was the right thing, and he was killed for it. Often, we will be treated the same way. Doing the right thing is often not popular with sinners and, unfortunately, is often not popular among saints. Sometimes, when we choose to do the right thing, it is going to have a cost. Relationships are going to be impacted, and friendships will die. Sometimes, all we do is the right thing, and we will still suffer those consequences.

Then Cain responds to God, asking, "Where's your brother?" He says, "Am I my brother's guardian? Am I responsible for him?" It's like, well, yes, we are. We are responsible for each other. That's what God calls us to be. But Cain is like, "I don't know. I'm not in charge of that." Yet he is the one who killed him.

When we are not held responsible for our actions, we only get worse. The more of anything that we have, the wider the effects of sin are going to be on the people around us. Adultery in two families is very destructive; it generally destroys two families.

But when one of them is Bathsheba and the other one is King David, the effects are so much wider. Lying destroys relationships between people. If one is lying who has political power, that can result in war and the death of millions of people. We need to be held responsible for our actions, or we only get worse. This is all part and parcel of being human. We are one people that has been shattered by sin.

I missed point two. Let me go back to point two real quick. Point two in your outline, which will be quickly followed by point three, is that it is hard to be together. Point one is that it's not good to be alone. Point two is that it is hard to be together. We are not good at being together. Pretend we did that in the right order.

Point three in your outline is that we are wearing out pens, pencils, and hands today. We need Jesus desperately. The only cure for the problems that we have with sin is Jesus. Jesus is the cure for sin and its effects. The law does not work. We know this because, currently, as of 2020 anyway, California had 395,608 regulatory restrictions. We've solved all the problems, right? There's no more problems left in the state of California, right? Well, it wasn't quite that simple. Because in 2024, as of January 1st, 2024, we added 890 new bills in California. So now we've clearly solved it, right?

The problem is that the law cannot change the human heart. The law can try to restrict it, but it cannot change the human heart. The law shows our guilt. We see this in Galatians 3:24-26, which says that the law then was our guardian until Christ. Another translation says it's a schoolmaster to drive us to Christ. The law is meant to point us to Christ because we find that we cannot fulfill the law. The law lays out structures, and we cannot fulfill them. And when you get to human law, not even God's law, you get to human law, and all of a sudden...

You find that we have laws that are contradictory. The laws are applied unjustly. The only cure for sin and its effects in our lives is not the law; it is Jesus.

In verse 25, it says that since faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. Through faith, you are all sons of God in Christ Jesus. The law shows us our guilt, but Jesus sets us free from the guilt of law-breaking by paying our price. Jesus was sacrificed as an offering for our sin; He was a payment for our sin. Our own sin was a death sentence. If we were put to death, that would only be our just desserts for being sinners. That is the penalty.

Jesus shows up, has never sinned, does not sin, suffers, and dies as a sinner, and rises again, which buys us freedom from sin and death. As soon as we accept that, we are given the position of being guiltless before God. Now, as Christians, as the body of Christ, we have a bond together through this. Positionally, we are now guiltless before God. Emotionally, we are like Adam and Eve in the garden before the fall. That is the position that God sees us in because we are covered by the blood of Christ. He does not see our sin; He sees Jesus.

Experientially, we know that we really struggle with being guiltless because we find ways to be guilty over and over again. So, where do we find help in learning how to be more like Jesus, who is the second Adam?

Point four in your outline: God uses us to help each other. God gives us gifts, talents, and abilities that are meant to be used in community with each other.

Let’s flip to Romans chapter 12. I can do it quickly because I have the tabs in my Bible—little Pharisee tabs to make it look like I’m really good at this. Here we are, Romans chapter 12, starting in verse 4.

Now, as we have many parts in one body, and all the parts do not have the same function, in the same way, we who are many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. According to the grace given to us, we have different gifts. If prophecy, use it according to the proportion of one's faith. If service, use it in service.

If teaching, in teaching, possibly even in the children's ministry, we are called to exhort, give with generosity, lead with diligence, and show mercy with cheerfulness. We are one single organism as the body of Christ, and we have many parts. Each part is important, even when we don't know why.

Sometimes we struggle to find a use for the people around us in the body of Christ. We can look around and think, "I'm trying to make eye contact with anybody here. I don't know why this person's here, Lord. They don't seem to have any purpose at all in the body of Christ." We look at them kind of like we used to look at the tonsils or the appendix—just weird portions of the body that aren't there for any particular reason, so we just get rid of them.

Yet, as we increase in our medical wisdom, we find out that both the appendix and the tonsils have valid functions. Do we have people that have no purpose? No, not at all. God put all of us together in the body for a reason—to minister to each other. Do we sometimes feel like we have no purpose in the body of Christ? Yes, sometimes we do. That is no more true for you than it is for anybody else. God placed you in the body of Christ on purpose, with gifts, talents, and abilities to be used for the building of the body as a whole.

Every one of us is important. Every one of us is vital. Each part of us affects all of the other parts of the body. When one part suffers, all suffer. If you want an object lesson in this, stub your toe. All of a sudden, you realize, "Oh, my toe is suffering," and it affects your entire body. I actually broke my pinky toe at one point, and it never quite healed the right way. So I have a floppy pinky toe, which, of course, is the one that always catches on anything when I walk by. It's like, "Oh, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy."

When one part of the body suffers, we all suffer. There's this scene in "Castaway" where Tom Hanks is on the island. He's stranded there, and he has a tooth with an abscess that is making him miserable. It is destroying every part of his life at this point. So he grabs the ice skate and the rock and does some at-home dentistry.

We all feel that when we see it, and it's like, oh, man. There are times in the body where some part needs treatment. There are times when we're not okay. There are times when we look at it and go, God, there's a problem here. Yet, so often, we would never look at somebody with a broken arm and say, "Well, why don't you do your part and help carry this stuff?"

But sometimes, when it comes to the body of Christ, we look at somebody who's having a hard time, someone who's broken in some way, and we think, "Well, they're just clearly not pulling their weight. They just need to do better." No. We are there to minister to each other. When someone is having a hard time, we are called to bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. We are called to lift each other up and to take care of each other. Yet, so often, we're looking at amputating appendices and cutting out tonsils.

Every part of the body is valuable. Every part. God has given each one of us gifts. Some gifts seem cooler than others. Sometimes we look at our gifts and think, "Well, I really wish I had a different gift." We don't get to make that call. God gives us gifts and says, "I want you to use the gifts that I've given you to build up the body around you."

God, I don't know how that's going to work. God uses the gifts that He's given His body to benefit and build His body. That's what life in community is; that's what life in connection is.

Let's jump over to Ephesians chapter 4 really quick, going through our Bible gymnastics today. Once again, I have my tab so I can get there before everybody else. Look at Ephesians chapter 4, starting in verse 1. Paul says, "Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, urge you to live worthy of the calling that you have received, with all humility, with gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope at your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all."

Paul says, starting out here, "Walk worthy."

I want you to walk in a manner that is worthy, to live in a manner that is worthy, with humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another in love. It is interesting that the gifts he is talking about are not gifts that benefit the individual; they are gifts that benefit the body as we live in connection with each other. I don't need patience with myself very often; I need patience as I deal with other people. I don't need kindness very much for myself, but I need kindness with other people. The gifts he has given to us are meant to be used in the context of community with each other.

Then he says, "making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace." Making every effort. When he says making every effort, what does that mean? It is going to require effort. It means it is going to be work. Very often, we want unity to show up as a feeling before it shows up in practice. We want to feel unity before we do unity, but it doesn't work that way. The feeling follows the action. We are called; we are required to live in unity.

Unity is hard. Unity is not natural in a sinful world. Unity is not natural in sinful people. Unity requires constant focus and effort. It requires that we look for ways to show unity. I was watching a goofy reel the other day, and there was a lady talking about red cars. She asked the guy she was talking to, "Did you see any red cars today on your way to work?" He replied, "Probably." She said, "If I had offered you $50 for every red car you saw on the way here today, would you remember how many red cars you saw?" He responded, "Oh, yeah. I remembered every single one of them."

She said, "That's what the world looks at and says: look, it's intention." Unity is out there. We have to look for opportunities to maintain unity, to build unity, to hold on to unity, as he says, in the bond of peace, to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. He also says there is one body, and we know from practice that we are one body, the Church.

Of Jesus Christ, we are constantly in rejection. We are constantly pushing each other away. We're constantly putting on fig leaves, as it were, to make sure that we're hiding from other people. We are marked by dysfunction, and yet God calls us to unity. How do we do this? It requires work. Unity does not just happen; it requires effort.

Flip over to Colossians chapter 3. Now, don't you wish I had given you these ahead of time so you could put tabs in and say, "Hey, look at me. I'm right there"? And I still can't find it. There we go. Colossians chapter 3. We're going to go through a good portion of this chapter, starting with the first four verses.

So, if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. As we go through this chapter, notice the action verbs that are in there. These are things that we are called to do. He says, if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above and not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

He starts out saying to seek the things above. Look for those things that are godly. When you find them, set your mind on them. The Greek word there has the idea of taking something and setting it on something else. So, take your mind and set it on things above. Place it there. Put it there. We know that when we try to focus on the things above, our flesh will want to look at everything else. It will want to go in every other direction. No, we have to put our mind there.

Therefore, he says in verse 5, put to death what belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, God's wrath is coming upon the disobedient. You once walked in these things when you were living among them, but now put away all the following: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and filthy language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self. You are being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your Creator. In Christ, there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave.

And free, but Christ is all and in all. He says to put those things to death. That requires effort. We have to look at those things that He calls us to put to death, put a stake in their heart, and leave them there dead. We must put to death what belongs to our earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, God's wrath is coming upon the disobedient. These are all things that break community and distort connection. So He says to put those things to death. When something is dead, it doesn't have the same effect anymore. He calls us to put those things to death.

Then, in verse 12, He tells us to put on. We put off the things that are away, put those things away, and do not lie. We are to put on the new self. When He says to put on, the word has the idea of putting on a uniform or armor, or robing ourselves in this. He says to put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of our Creator. In Christ, there are not these arbitrary differences; there is not Jew and Greek, nor barbarian and Scythian. We are one body in Christ.

It's a good thing we've got that figured out; then we won't have any more problems, right? But then He goes on to say in verse 13, "Bear with one another, forgiving one another. If anyone has a grievance against another, just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive." This is a very vital point. He says to forgive one another. He doesn't say to go to the person and ask for forgiveness; He says to forgive them. Very often, we want to wait until someone asks us to forgive them, or we want to go to them and say, "Well, I'm forgiving you for what you did." That's not forgiveness.

Forgiveness is saying, "Lord, I will not hold this against them anymore. I am going to erase it from my heart." The reason why that is so important is that unforgiveness is too heavy for any of us to carry. We cannot go anywhere if we are carrying unforgiveness.

It will hamper us every step of the way. I can tell you this because I'm really good at trying to carry that. I'm really good at going, "Well, that person did this," and I'm reminded that God says, "No, I want you to forgive them." But they don't even know why I'm forgiving them. They don't have to know. You're not forgiving them for them. You're not forgiving them for you. You're forgiving them, God says, for me, because I forgave you.

Well, it's really hard to carry this when you put it that way, Lord, but that's the point. Get rid of it. Give forgiveness and take off that weight. So He says, "Forgive one another. If anyone has a grievance against another, above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity." And let the peace of Christ, to which you were called in one body, rule your hearts.

Put on love because that's where unity is. Let the peace of Christ rule in your heart. As we go throughout our day and the opportunity arises to lash out at, let's take an example that nobody struggles with: children or a spouse or something like that. He says, "No, I want you to put on love, which is unity, forgive, and let the peace of Christ rule your heart."

This does not come naturally to us. This is not something where we're like, "Okay, I'm a Christian now, and these things are all gone." When I became a Christian, I had been working on the trucking docks. If you would talk to me, you would be able to tell that I didn't become a Christian in a church. I had a horrendous mouth. I had a vocabulary that was marked by certain adjectives that I couldn't seem to get a sentence out without.

When I became a Christian, that disappeared. I didn't pray for it. I didn't ask for it. It was just gone. I remember one day, a conversation I had with my wife. She said, "You know what? You don't cuss anymore." It totally took me aback, like, "I don't? Well, that's weird. It's just gone." But see, God left me with other things.

I was a smoker, and God left me with that one. Quite honestly, it probably would have been easier if He had just left me with cursing and taken smoking. Quitting smoking was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. God let me struggle with that for a long time, and I'm convinced that one of the reasons He allowed this struggle was so that I would know never to be foolish enough to pick that up again. If I were to pick it up again, I would be a smoker blissfully in a second. However, because I had to struggle with it, I can confidently say, "No, I'm not touching that again." It is too hard to put down, and I am not picking that back up.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, He says, and be thankful. He calls us to do the work and then to be thankful about it. Lord, this is a tall order. Let the word of Christ dwell richly among you, not just in you. He says, "Let the word of Christ dwell richly among you in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts." We see thankfulness bracket this whole thought: be thankful and full of gratitude.

Notice what He says in verse 16: "Let the word of Christ dwell richly among you in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs." Teaching and admonishing one another is part of a pastor's role, but that does not exempt any of us in the body from teaching and admonishing one another. It is a gift, a calling, and something that God tells us to do here. He says, "I want you to let the word of Christ dwell richly among you in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another."

Let the word of Christ dwell richly in you, in your mind and in your hearts, and then teach each other about it. There was a time when I was asked to teach, and I looked at that and thought, "You are out of your mind. I am never doing that." God chuckles. But it's not about the position from which we are called to teach; it's because we are Christians. We are called to teach one another. We are not exempt from that. We cannot dump that responsibility on those with the gift. These are important things we all have to do as Christians, and this is one of them: admonishing one another through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing to God with gratitude.

In your hearts, thankfulness is a huge mark of this. Then he says, "This is where it gets painful." We're running short on time, so we are going to miss a little bit of verses 18 and onward. I know that's always hard for people. So, we're not going to get to the wives, "submit to your husbands," and the husbands, "love your wives," and "parents, don't exasperate your children," and "slaves and masters," all that stuff. Sometimes, if you inhabit one of those roles, read those on your own, or even if you're really a glutton for punishment, read it with your spouse. Then you can ask each other, "Do you feel like you submit to me? Do you feel as if you love me as Christ loved the church?"

You want to go get coffee? Yeah, let's do that. So, in jest, but it's not entirely in jest.

Look at verse 23, where he closes this chapter out. He says, "Whatever you do, whatever it is that you do, do it from the heart, as something done for the Lord and not for people." He emphasizes that whatever these things are that you do, all the gifts, talents, and abilities, whatever you're operating in connection with one another, do it from the heart, as if you're doing it for God.

I'm convinced that one of the reasons he says that is because if we were doing it for people, we would stop doing it about the third time. The first time, it might be like, "Hey, you know, God really doesn't want you to act the way you're acting. How about I punch you in the nose?" This is weird. God, you told me to. But if we do it for God, we're going to be willing to take those steps, even when it's painful, even when it's embarrassing, even when we don't feel qualified for it, but God puts it on our heart.

He says, "I want you to maintain unity, but not unity at the expense of love." Whatever you do, do it from the heart, as something done for the Lord and not for people, knowing that you will receive the reward of an inheritance from the Lord. You serve the Lord Christ. Remember who it is you serve, Christian. We serve Jesus, and we serve each other.

Then, because he knows the objection is going to show up, in verse 25, he states, "For the wrongdoer will be paid back for whatever wrong he has done, and there is no favoritism."

The wrongdoer will be paid back, God says. But that's His responsibility. It is not our responsibility to punish people for their wrongdoing. Sometimes we want to be in that role. We want to be those who say, "Ho, ho, ho, buddy," but God says, "No, you're going to maintain the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace, and I will repay."

Sometimes that's hard because we are affected deeply by the things that other people do. We are hurt in ways that are extremely difficult, if not almost impossible, to recover from. We want to see them pay. We want justice. I was having a conversation with somebody earlier, and they were talking about how hard it is to see horrendous criminals out there. You see people who do horrible things, and all they have to do is repent at the end, and God would welcome them. That is hard for us to wrestle with sometimes. It's hard for us to deal with the thought that someone like Jeffrey Dahmer could, at the end, say, "You know what, Jesus, I'm sorry." That doesn't feel like enough payment.

Jesus sees enough value in each and every one of us that His sacrifice is worth it, no matter what we have done. None of us are so distant that God is going to say, "Yeah, no, I have no use for you anymore." It is very easy to look at Jeffrey Dahmer or someone like that and think, "Well, they're not worth it." But then we might think, "Me? I'm kind of a catch."

We need to see the sin in the eyes of the Lord. He sees enough value in each and every one of us that His sacrifice was worth it. I realize this is kind of a long chapter. If you need the Cliff Notes version, we're going to flip over to Ephesians chapter 4 really quick, which I'm already at thanks to the beauty of these little tabs.

Ephesians chapter 4, verse 32, is the Cliff Notes version. This is the one you want to write on a Post-it note and stick on your mirror. This is the one you want to memorize. This is the one you want to put on your desktop at work. If you have kids my age, this may sound familiar because this was in one of the Auto-Be Goods.

They sang it, and I can still hear the song in my head every single time it goes through. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another just as God also forgave you in Christ. This is the best way to have unity and connection in the body of Christ: to be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other the way that Christ forgave us. We are going to continue to need to give forgiveness and to be given forgiveness in order to do this thing that we call living life in connection. Without that, there's no possibility of unity. We have to be able to be kind, tender-hearted, and forgiving.

Point five in your outline, as we are here at the end: not being an active part of the body is defying God. God has called all of us who are Christians to be part of His body, and when we choose not to be an active part of the body, we are defying God. When we defy God, we call that sin. God calls all of us to fill the role that He has given to us—to be kind to one another, forgiving, tender-hearted, and all of the things we've talked about. He calls us to those things.

The last thing we're going to flip to really quick, and the worship team is going to come up, is Matthew chapter 28. This is the last time we're turning around, I promise you guys, Bible fingers are getting tired. Matthew chapter 28, starting at verse 19. This is where Jesus appears to His disciples, right before He leaves. This is His last conversation with them, and He says to them in verse 19, "Go, therefore, into all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always to the end of the age."

Go make disciples of all nations. People are the mission. Teaching them, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them everything to observe everything I've commanded. People are the mission; people are the problem. God sends us out to people because people are problems. But the crazy thing is that God uses people to bring the solution.

We are in every part of this equation. We're the mission, we're the problem, and we carry the solution with us.

So the exhortation here at the end is to go and make disciples, teaching them to do what Jesus taught, and to remember that Jesus is with us always.

Let's worship together. Amen.