Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Good.
[00:00:03] Well, welcome once again.
[00:00:08] So a while ago I was doing a few preachers on the book of Hebrews, which I just love, one of my favorite books. And back then as I was going through it, there was one verse that stuck with me and it was Hebrews 6, verse 1 and 2, it says this.
[00:00:31] Therefore, let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death and of faith in God.
[00:00:47] Instruction about cleansing rites, that's baptism, the laying on of hands, the, the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.
[00:00:57] There's six things there.
[00:01:00] And I just knew for right from the beginning of this year that I felt like the Lord wanted us to go back to the basics and to really get them right and understand them properly.
[00:01:16] Because the thing about an elementary teaching is that without it, it's very difficult to progress. Right.
[00:01:28] When you go to school, you go to elementary school and that is supposed to prepare you for the future, for high school, for the world. And without that foundation, it's going to be extreme, it may be impossible, or at the very least very, very difficult. And it would put you at a huge disadvantage. And so just so practically you think about maths and you think about all the complex maths that there is, but if you don't know your numbers and your addition, subtraction, division, multiplication tables, you're going to battle big time. I mean, that's the first step that we have to take. So same with reading and writing, which is our lives, we've got to learn the Alphabet, we've got to learn those simple words.
[00:02:18] And after we get that, so we progress.
[00:02:21] And so it's the same with these elementary teachings. And I don't know if you noticed, but I was a bit intrigued at what Paul mentioned there.
[00:02:33] I was a bit sort of surprised.
[00:02:38] And so there's going to be quite a few things we'll go through, but today we're going to start off with the most important thing.
[00:02:49] All right, so the Bible is an incredible book and it uses some very simple metaphors to help us understand possibly very complex, very complex things of the faith.
[00:03:11] And two of the most commonly used metaphors is anything to do with agriculture, farming, and also building, construction.
[00:03:20] Often those, those two metaphors are used all over.
[00:03:32] So we can read through.
[00:03:36] We're going to turn to Ephesians chapter 2 and read 19 to 22.
[00:03:42] It says, Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people and also members of his household. Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. Notice all the construction metaphors there.
[00:04:04] In him, the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him, you two are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his spirit.
[00:04:20] Amazing, isn't it?
[00:04:23] Again, just notice all the building metaphors. There's 1 Peter 2, 4, 5, as you come to him, the living stone, rejected by humans, but chosen by God and precious to Him. You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Christ Jesus.
[00:04:50] And so just again, these awesome simple metaphors are supposed to take complicated spiritual matters and explain them in such a way which help us to understand better and something that we can relate to much easier.
[00:05:09] So we're going to start off with the building foundation.
[00:05:13] As you all know, a foundation is the most important part of, of any building.
[00:05:21] It actually sets the limit to the building that you can build upon it.
[00:05:26] You can only build according to what the foundation was designed to carry.
[00:05:31] Right?
[00:05:34] And so a house, a foundation of a house is small, but it can carry what it's designed to. But you could never build a high rise building on that. A high rise building's foundation is something completely different, something much bigger and more heavy duty.
[00:05:54] And so the, the foundation of our faith is Jesus.
[00:05:59] Okay, so that is what we're looking at today. And here's some interesting facts about, about the cornerstone that I would like to share with you. As I was, you know, again, I say this so often, but we've lost so much meaning in the translation to English from that rich Hebrew and Greek. Right?
[00:06:22] And so we always have to go back to what the hearers would have understood when it was first written to them.
[00:06:30] And so here's some interesting things about a cornerstone. I'll just read them for you.
[00:06:36] In ancient Near Eastern and Greco Roman construction, the cornerstone and the Greek word for that is agrogonias. Literally the stone in the extreme corner was the first and most critical stone laid in a building's foundation.
[00:06:52] Everything else was literally built in reference to it.
[00:06:56] Specifically, it set the angle of the two intersecting walls.
[00:07:02] Getting this wrong would even.
[00:07:05] Getting this wrong, even slightly would cause the entire structure to be misaligned with errors compounding across the whole building.
[00:07:16] It bore the greatest load sitting at the intersection of forces from multiple directions.
[00:07:24] It had to be perfectly square and perfectly level.
[00:07:28] It was chosen with extreme care from the best available stone and it could not be replaced once the construction began, without dismantling major portions of the structure.
[00:07:42] As I read through this, just think about it in the terms of your own life and in the terms of Christ building his church. Because all of those things point to something.
[00:07:55] It goes on. It says stone masons of the ancient world were highly skilled professionals and the selection and placement of the cornerstone was serious, deliberate act, often even ceremonial.
[00:08:10] For someone in the first century, the metaphor communicated several things. Instantly remove the cornerstone and the whole building collapses.
[00:08:21] Christ isn't decorative. He is structurally essential.
[00:08:28] Everything must be aligned to him.
[00:08:32] Walls that deviate from the cornerstone's angle are by definition crooked.
[00:08:41] He was chosen before construction began.
[00:08:46] The cornerstone was pre selected, it was not retrofitted.
[00:08:52] And then finally the experts in the law, the so called experts, they missed it.
[00:09:00] We read earlier in that, in that thing rejected by man, the religious and political authorities who rejected Jesus made the classic professional blunder of the stonemason who discards the crucial stone.
[00:09:14] And so it is possible to miss it if we don't know what we're looking at and what we're looking for.
[00:09:24] So with that in mind, God is building his home and we are it.
[00:09:35] God does not live in buildings.
[00:09:38] God has chosen to build his temple out of living stones and that's us.
[00:09:44] That is inconceivably incredible and we should not just gloss over that. Let's read 1 Corinthians 3, verse 9 to 17 together.
[00:09:55] For we are co workers in God's service.
[00:09:59] You are God's field.
[00:10:01] God's building is the two metaphors.
[00:10:04] By the grace God has given to me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder and someone else is building on it.
[00:10:13] But each one should build with care.
[00:10:16] For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.
[00:10:26] If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, oh, we think we short of. There's a few chairs in the front here as well.
[00:10:48] So if. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is. Because the day, that's the day with a capital D will bring it to light.
[00:11:05] It will be revealed with fire and the fire will test the quality of each person's work.
[00:11:13] If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward.
[00:11:19] If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss, but yet it will be saved, even though only as one escaping through flames.
[00:11:33] Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple? And that God's spirit dwells in your midst.
[00:11:43] If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy that person.
[00:11:47] For God's temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.
[00:11:52] There is so much to unpack in that passage of scripture that I definitely will be coming back to that on another day.
[00:12:00] But the incredible thing is that Jesus, when you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, he actually, and you will hear later on another verse that he and his Father come to live in you. They come to abide in you again. That is just the most extraordinary thing, that the God of the universe, the Creator of everything, would come and live in you and me.
[00:12:30] And this means the fact that he can do that, the fact that he will come and live in us.
[00:12:36] And literally, I mean, the word was.
[00:12:38] I think there's a word used elsewhere as to tabernacle with you is to like to really do life with you, every part of your life.
[00:12:47] And that means that we can have intimate and personal relationship with God because He is closer to us than anyone else could ever be.
[00:13:01] So we're going to look at the revelation of Jesus to people now, and we're going to read Matthew 16, 13, 18.
[00:13:11] When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, who do people say the Son of Man is?
[00:13:18] They replied, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.
[00:13:29] But what about you?
[00:13:31] He asked, who do you say I am?
[00:13:36] Simon Peter answered, you are the Messiah, the son of the living God.
[00:13:42] Jesus replied, blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.
[00:13:54] And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.
[00:14:07] Amazing passage. We're going to just talk about a few things here.
[00:14:11] Firstly, something that I questioned a little while ago, and it was where Peter.
[00:14:21] Where Jesus said, peter, I will build my church on this rock. Okay. But I want to show you something, because people often think that Peter is the rock that Jesus will build his church on.
[00:14:31] It's not.
[00:14:33] And thank goodness for that, because he's a man just like us. We need Jesus as the foundation to build the church.
[00:14:39] But so, interestingly, when it says, here you are, Peter, the word there in Greek is petros.
[00:14:49] And that is. Actually, it's a. It's a rock, or at most a boulder, something that they would have used to stone someone with. So it's something that you could pick up and handle. That's what that word means then it says here on this rock, which is a different word. It says Petra, not Petros. And the meaning of Petra is that it is actually. Got it here somewhere.
[00:15:18] Might be later on in my notes, so I might get it again. But it's basically a stone that extends, a huge stone that extends from the bedrock.
[00:15:27] So it is a big stone that is connected to the bedrock. And we'll read through a couple of verses later where they use the same.
[00:15:36] The same word. And you can see it implies like bedrock material, not just a stone or a rock.
[00:15:44] So that's just interesting. And I think for me, it was good to know that we build his house on Jesus, not on Peter, although Peter is. Praise the Lord for Peter.
[00:16:00] The other thing is that no one can know Jesus except by God through the Holy Spirit.
[00:16:08] We see there when Jesus says to him, you are blessed, Simon, because that revelation that you just received, you didn't figure that out yourself.
[00:16:20] You realized that because my Father in heaven revealed it to you. So you are blessed. And so that means that every person on earth needs that revelation from God himself about Jesus.
[00:16:34] We want to know who Jesus is. God has to reveal him to us.
[00:16:40] The other thing is that no one can change unless we encounter Jesus. Unless we have a real encounter, a real life encounter with the living Jesus, we will not change.
[00:16:57] It is only Jesus that can change us.
[00:17:01] And in order for this change to happen, In order for this change to happen, there's four things that must happen. And we see it in this passage here. Firstly, we need to have a confrontation.
[00:17:22] We need to have a direct and personal confrontation with Jesus.
[00:17:28] Just like how Jesus asked his disciples, who do people say I am? And then he says, but who do you say I am? That is literally what Jesus has to say to each one of us.
[00:17:41] He will ask you, Eric, who do you say that I am? Because that is of ultimate importance.
[00:17:48] It doesn't matter what other ones, what anyone else says, what anyone else does. The question that Jesus asks you is, who do you say I am?
[00:17:58] The second thing is revelation, which we discussed already.
[00:18:02] And that revelation is only given to us by God through the Holy Spirit.
[00:18:08] Without that, we will not see.
[00:18:13] The third thing is acknowledgement.
[00:18:15] We need a response, or we need to give a response.
[00:18:20] And the response that Peter says is, was that you are the Messiah, you are the Savior, you are the Son of the living God.
[00:18:30] That's worth meditating on, because that's the same conclusion that we need to be. We need to have. We need to have that conviction in our hearts that Jesus is the one and only son of God, the one and only. And we need to be able to say it. And that's the last thing is a public confession.
[00:18:51] When I was going through this, I could. I could just imagine the scene.
[00:18:54] Peter always seems to be the bravest one. Always put his neck out there.
[00:19:00] He's the one who says, now, He said, just imagine that. Even though some people may be thinking that, remember that Jesus wasn't like, floating in the air there. He wasn't glowing.
[00:19:18] He was just a man. He was a man in front of him.
[00:19:22] And in order to see him for who he really was, God needed to show him.
[00:19:28] But now, what did everyone else think when Jesus said, you are the Messiah, you are the son of the living God? You know, other people who heard that may have thought, Jesus, this guy for real. It's just a man, you know?
[00:19:41] And so the same thing needs to apply to us. And it's the same awkward moment that we need to encounter when we give our lives to God, when there's an altar call or whatever, and that people say, Who wants to give their life to the Lord? Would you put your hand up? Would you stand? Would you come forward?
[00:20:03] That's you giving the same kind of response that Peter gave on that day.
[00:20:09] Because, yeah, people will think it's a bit weird. It's a bit crazy.
[00:20:16] All right, so public confession, Right?
[00:20:27] Matthew 10, 32 and 33 says, Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.
[00:20:43] And so that's another pretty good reason why we need to make sure that we can acknowledge that and we can confess it before people so that Jesus can do the same before his Father for us.
[00:20:58] Have you ever wondered if it is possible to have the same kind of relationship with Jesus as Peter did and the 12 did?
[00:21:09] Have you ever wondered? I always used to think maybe in a way, not. I mean, they literally walked with him for three years.
[00:21:19] And sometimes I feel a bit jealous. I'm like, oh, I wish I had that.
[00:21:24] But the truth is, we can have that relationship with God, with Jesus. We can, because Jesus was revealed to Peter not as the son of a carpenter. He was revealed to Jesus as the son of the living God.
[00:21:39] And that's the same for all of us.
[00:21:42] He got that revelation from God himself, and that same revelation can come to us.
[00:21:47] And secondly, it was the Holy Spirit who revealed that to him.
[00:21:55] And it's the same exactly the same eternal Holy Spirit who reveals who Jesus is to us. There's no difference there.
[00:22:04] So I believe we can have that real relationship with Jesus like they did. Remember, Jesus left and they were in the same position as you and I are in, and they still walked with Jesus in their hearts.
[00:22:22] So a wise person builds his house by hearing and doing.
[00:22:30] I'm stressing the word and doing.
[00:22:34] Matthew 7:24, 27.
[00:22:38] Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who builds his house on the rock which is Petra.
[00:22:50] The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against the house, yet it did not fall because its foundation was on the Petra.
[00:23:03] But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against the house, and it fell with a great crash.
[00:23:24] How does a Christian enter the kingdom of heaven?
[00:23:28] Through many trials and tribulations, we are promised that that will be the case.
[00:23:35] And so one thing you can be sure of in this life is that we will face many hardships.
[00:23:41] And if we are not planted and built on that bedrock, on that foundation, we will crash and fall.
[00:23:54] So again, I'll say a wise person builds by hearing and by doing.
[00:24:01] And just to drive the point home about that word Petra and the reason that it is not just a rock, but actually the bedrock.
[00:24:10] Luke's account in Luke chapter six points so nicely to it. There's a slight difference.
[00:24:18] He says, why do you call me Lord? Why do you call me Lord, Lord? And do not do what I say. As for everyone who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like. They are like a man building a house who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. You see, if you go out, you dig a hole and you dig deep, eventually you will hit that foundation rock. So that's the slight difference.
[00:24:49] And here we can see what he's talking about. That the again, that the foundation is Jesus and he is the bedrock.
[00:24:57] All right.
[00:25:01] The other thing that's interesting is that to dig down deep, to dig a deep hole is actually very difficult.
[00:25:08] It's a lot of hard work. And the same will apply for us when we dig down deep to lay our foundation for our lives and for the church's existence. We have to dig down deep and we have to work hard to make sure that we lay that foundation on the bedrock so I'm saying it's not going to be easy.
[00:25:34] And you know, the easiest way to build is on a clean slate. A lot of people who come to know the Lord and they have no religious background sometimes are the easiest people to teach or to also for them to learn about God because they carry no junk with them.
[00:25:56] And the converse of that is also very true is that many people who have come to Christ have unfortunately maybe been taught things or have heard things or have believed things that are not aligned properly to that cornerstone and they have learned wrong things. We've all learned wrong things.
[00:26:18] And, and to unlearn those things are extremely, extremely hard.
[00:26:25] But like we learned earlier in the description of the cornerstone, sometimes we have to break down major parts of the building in order to build correctly again.
[00:26:41] So a few things that can get in the way of us learning clearly and easily about the Lord is traditions and culture. Potentially not all, not all traditions and culture are bad or wrong, but definitely there are some that can drive us and very difficult to get rid of that or to look past that.
[00:27:06] Prejudices.
[00:27:08] A prejudice is a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.
[00:27:16] And we have prejudices like racial prejudice, denominational prejudice, social prejudice, and personal prejudice, amongst other things, you know.
[00:27:37] Yeah. So prejudices can really be a stumbling block in the way of us coming to know the Lord. Right.
[00:27:45] Preconceptions are false views of Jesus. That's so easy as well. We can have a wrong view of Jesus.
[00:27:54] And then there's one which is probably the most important one. Rebellion.
[00:27:58] Rebellion.
[00:28:00] Every descendant of Adam is a rebel.
[00:28:04] We all have that streak inside of us.
[00:28:08] And unfortunately this is the truth. The only way to deal with that man is to kill him, put him to death.
[00:28:20] That's the rebel within us that always wants to go against God, to go against his plan, to go against his word.
[00:28:29] That's the rebel inside of us. And there's only one way to deal with him.
[00:28:38] So going on to about the last, the last part of what I want to share is what is your attitude toward the Bible, the word of God? Is it like Jesus attitude towards scripture?
[00:28:59] In John 10:34,35, Jesus says this. Jesus answered them, is it not written in your law?
[00:29:07] And so obviously he means that it's a law that you live by and that you believe. He says, have I said, have I said you are gods?
[00:29:18] If he called them gods to whom the word of God came, the scripture cannot be set aside.
[00:29:28] That is what Jesus said. That's what I Want to focus on? Jesus says the Scripture cannot be set aside. And he also mentions before to whom the Word of God came. The Word of God through the prophets was the very. As if the words came from God's own mouth.
[00:29:47] So to whom the Word of God came.
[00:29:49] The ESV says, when it says the Scripture cannot be set aside, the ESV says the Word of God cannot be broken.
[00:29:59] So that's what Jesus says about the Word, and that's what Jesus believes about the Word.
[00:30:07] So if the Son of God believes that, how much more should we.
[00:30:14] And how seriously should we take his Word, this precious, precious thing?
[00:30:24] So these. We know that this. I'm going to get into it now, but we know that this is the Word of God.
[00:30:29] This is as if the words from this page came from the very words, the very mouth of God himself. And the question is, do you know that?
[00:30:39] Do you believe it?
[00:30:50] So Jesus says that the Scripture is the Word of God and that it cannot be broken.
[00:31:00] But the Scripture is the Word of God, the written and revealed Word of God, while Jesus is the living Word of God.
[00:31:12] And as I explained, as I explained I think a few Sundays ago, it's not one thing or the other. It's always both.
[00:31:27] So this is the Word of God. It is alive and active, but it's the Holy Spirit who does that, who reveals it, who works with the Word to change you.
[00:31:38] The Pharisees, the teachers of the law. They had the Word, and we know what the Lord Jesus said to them.
[00:31:44] One of my favorite scriptures has said, you study the Scriptures so diligently because you think salvation are found in them and found on the words and the page.
[00:31:54] But it's the Scripture that points to me.
[00:31:57] I am the one who gives life. That's what Jesus said.
[00:32:05] And we know that Jesus is the word.
[00:32:08] John 1:1:3 says, in the beginning was the Word.
[00:32:13] Okay? So at that point, we're like, okay, cool. Then it says, the Word was with God. So differentiates the Word and God.
[00:32:23] Then it says, and the Word was God.
[00:32:26] And so two different people, but the Word is God.
[00:32:32] He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made.
[00:32:36] Without him, nothing was made that has been made.
[00:32:41] And in Revelation 19:11, 13, it says, I saw heaven standing open, and there before me was a white horse whose rider is called faithful and true.
[00:32:58] With justice he judges and wages war.
[00:33:01] His eyes are like blazing fire. And his head. And on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but himself. He is dressed in a Robe dipped in blood. And his name is the Word of God.
[00:33:17] That's Jesus.
[00:33:21] And so what we can say from all of that is that there is total agreement between Jesus and the Word.
[00:33:33] And Jesus was the Word made flesh.
[00:33:37] It's a.
[00:33:39] It's something that you can spend hours and days and years probably meditating on and learning about.
[00:33:50] So in John 14, this will be the last scripture we do. John 14, 18, 24, he says, I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me because I live.
[00:34:11] You also will live.
[00:34:13] On that day, you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in Me.
[00:34:19] And I am in you.
[00:34:22] Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me.
[00:34:28] The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too, will love them and show myself to them.
[00:34:38] Then Judas, this is not Judas Iscariot, said, but, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world? Jesus replied, anyone who has love, anyone who loves me will obey my teaching.
[00:34:54] My Father will love them, and he will come to them and make.
[00:34:59] And we will come to them and make our home with them.
[00:35:06] Anyone who does not love me will not obey my. My teaching.
[00:35:11] These words you hear are not my own. They belong to the Father who sent me.
[00:35:20] So the question there is, how will the Lord manifest himself to the world?
[00:35:29] Or how does he manifest Himself to the world?
[00:35:34] So the first thing there is that it's the keeping of the word.
[00:35:41] It's in keeping the word of God, as in reading, studying, meditating, treasuring, treating the word of God as though which. They are the very words of God Himself coming out of his own mouth. If you treasure.
[00:35:59] That's one way that Jesus will reveal Himself to us is through His Word. And he'll do that if we treasure His Word and meditate on His Word.
[00:36:11] So that's the first thing. The second thing is by obeying His Word, Jesus makes it very clear. And it was one of the verses that absolutely changed my life, is that you can say you love God or Jesus, but if you are disobeying him, you are not loving Him. That is the truth. And that is what I used to do. I used to live my debaucherous life, and I used to pray at night and say, lord, I love you.
[00:36:41] And that verse would hit me like a ton of bricks. If you love me, you will obey me. You'll do as I say.
[00:36:49] Yeah, I fought that, fought that for years.
[00:36:55] And so by keeping God's Word, obeying Him, that shows and proves your love for Jesus.
[00:37:04] And when he sees that, then he will reveal Himself to us.
[00:37:11] Remember, where does it say that?
[00:37:13] There the one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show Myself to them.
[00:37:23] Jesus manifests Himself to us primarily through His Word.
[00:37:30] There are other ways in which he does, and we know that. We've experienced it.
[00:37:35] Okay, but primarily it's through the Word. I mean, this is a personal love letter to us.
[00:37:43] You want to know about God, you want to know how he feels about you. It's all there. We don't need to be looking elsewhere. God has already given you his love letter.
[00:37:57] And God the Father and God the Son will make their dwelling place in you through their Holy Spirit.
[00:38:12] So in conclusion, now primarily we know that Jesus will reveal Himself to all mankind through His Word.
[00:38:22] We must be lovers of His Word as Jesus was lovers of Scripture.
[00:38:30] And we must be lovers of the Word and doers of the Word. We mustn't just hear.
[00:38:35] Hearing is not. It does nothing. At the end of the day, we have to do.
[00:38:43] You don't love God more than you love His Word. Meditate on that one. You don't love God more than you love His Word, because His Word is Him.
[00:38:55] If you love God, you will love His Word, the Word of God. So that brings us to the end of that. And it's the beginning of our foundational elementary teachings.
[00:39:09] And we start this journey by laying the one and only foundation which is Jesus Christ and the Word of God.
[00:39:20] Okay, so I'm looking forward to getting into all the other things.
[00:39:25] Remember, there were six things there and yeah, it's going to be amazing to dig into them.
[00:39:30] Obviously we know that it's repentance from acts that lead to death, faith in God, instruction about cleansing rites or baptism, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.
[00:39:46] Those things are foundational.
[00:39:49] And if we don't get those things clear in our minds, clear in our hearts in such a way that we were able to teach it ourselves to everyone who asks us, then we will not move forward.
[00:40:01] We won't.
[00:40:04] So we pray.
[00:40:05] Heavenly Father, we thank youk so much for your Word, Lord.
[00:40:12] Lord, your Word, through your Holy Spirit, is living and it's active in our lives.
[00:40:20] And you speak to us through your Word. Lord, how often do we read a passage and it's like you literally touch our hearts and you say, this is what I am saying to you now.
[00:40:34] We thank you, Lord. We thank you for your word.
[00:40:38] Thank you, Jesus, for you.
[00:40:40] We really pray, Lord, that we can take heed to this. We can really pay attention and to earnestly and seriously seek to build correctly, both in our own personal lives and in the life of this church.
[00:41:00] We build according to the cornerstone.
[00:41:04] We build according to what Jesus tells us and how he tells us. So often throughout scripture, there have been pictures of things like the Ark of the Covenant and Noah's Ark, these things that you wanted to build exactly according to your plan.
[00:41:26] And, Lord, how much more important those things have come and gone.
[00:41:30] But, Lord, you are busy building your temple, your home, which you will forever live in.
[00:41:38] And, Lord, we have to be perfect.
[00:41:41] Nothing can be.
[00:41:46] I mean, it has to be built fit for the King of Kings, Lord. It has to be perfect.
[00:41:51] So, Lord, I pray that you would really impress on our hearts the urgency and the need to do this right, to pay careful attention, Lord.
[00:42:01] Yeah. And we thank you, Lord, that we have your word, we have each other, and that you've given us everything we need in order to do this. Well, help us to hear you and to seek you with all our hearts. I pray this in Jesus mighty name. Amen.
[00:42:20] Right.
[00:42:23] Oh, yes.
[00:42:25] Can we send the baskets?
[00:42:30] Here we go.
[00:42:32] Thanks.
[00:42:43] Thanks so much.
[00:42:45] Oh, I wanted to explain.
[00:42:53] Right. You know, I prayed about this. I was like, do I see this? Do I. This is a very. This is a very personal thing to me. Okay. Now.
[00:43:05] But I think so. Why not?
[00:43:07] I've always wanted to. I've asked the question, if my spiritual man were to be drawn in the form of a body, what would I look like?
[00:43:19] And to be very honest with you, and I can say that even to this day, I mean, you got. You don't know what. We don't know what goes on in each other's minds and our hearts. If I were to be honest, I think I would look like that.
[00:43:32] That's what my spiritual man would look like. Because every day I'm like, oh, I fall so short.
[00:43:39] So short.
[00:43:40] I fail in so many things, and I get down so often.
[00:43:46] And I think it's good to be able to honestly ask that question, what does my spiritual man look like? Because what I want to look like is that kneeling before Jesus, my king, that is what I want to look like.
[00:44:03] So.
[00:44:10] Thanks.
[00:44:11] Yeah. So have that image in your mind and know that that's what we're striving for.
[00:44:17] We need to be ready for Jesus looking like a warrior.
[00:44:26] Okay.
[00:44:27] Watch out. It's with you.
[00:44:30] It.
