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Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in the name of Jesus, Amen.
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We didn't have Twitter when I was back at Concordia Seward in the
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1990s.
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If we did, news would have trended even faster.
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There was an occurrence that would happen every once in a while on the
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campus that would set the whole place ablaze.
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It was something that happened not infrequently in chapel.
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Everybody would notice.
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The buzz would begin to build even before the benediction was
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finished.
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And by lunchtime, the whole campus was in a frenzy.
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Did you hear what happened in chapel today?
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Rob and Amy were sharing a hymnal.
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It was big news.
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Seward is in Nebraska.
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This came to mind this week for me on Thursday.
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It came to mind because this past week I came to chapel just a little
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bit late and the sermon hymn was or the the opening hymn was already
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going and I came up the side aisle.
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I was sitting right there, Brandon, where you're sitting.
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And Dr.
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Seifrid was sitting right next to me.
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And I sat down, the hymn was already going and I reached for the
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hymnal and the hymnal wasn't there in front of me.
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And so Dr.
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Seifrid, very graciously and generously leaned over and shared his
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hymnal with me.
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I chuckled to myself.
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Of course, sharing a hymnal is a very superficial sign of unity.
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There was a kid at Seward who shared a hymnal with a different girl
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every week.
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But people noticed.
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People noticed because it was a symbol.
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It was a symbol of a more intimate sharing.
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The theme for this academic year is about sharing Sharing the Gospel
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and sharing our lives.
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It's a nice theme.
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I really, really like this theme.
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And it's taken from the reading that Nick just read a couple of
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minutes ago from First Thessalonians Two. We were ready to share with you
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not only the gospel of God, Paul writes, but also
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our own selves.
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The two go together, the gospel and our lives.
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Jesus and our very selves.
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But the problem is we're not very good at sharing.
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We're not good at sharing our lives.
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And for that matter, frankly, we're not very good at sharing the
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gospel either.
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It's very easy to put a theme on a T shirt and on a website, but to
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give and receive in the way that Paul is talking about in our text,
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well, that's a whole another story.
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And so here we are midway through the academic year and I suppose it's
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time for us to do a little self reflection.
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How are we doing?
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How are we doing with sharing the Gospel and sharing our lives?
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Now, anytime we start thinking about sharing, we have to remember that
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we don't start thinking about sharing by thinking about what we share.
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Because sharing for us Christians, begins with God.
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What He shares not only what He shares with us, but even more so, what
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He shares in Himself.
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There's a lot we don't understand about the Trinity.
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Dorothy Sayers is right.
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The Father is incomprehensible.
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The Son is incomprehensible.
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The whole thing is incomprehensible.
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But there's one thing we can comprehend, and that is God's internal
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being.
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His essence is a sharing,
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it's a relating, it's a communing.
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The Father shares life with His Son in the power of the Spirit,
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eternal, divine, communal sharing that's God in Himself.
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But God is such a sharing God that his sharing spills out into his
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creation.
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He shared His breath with the man he made out of clay.
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He shared His image with male and female.
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Male and female
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He made them in His image.
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He made them.
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He shared his dominion over creation with his human creatures.
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Will Willimon, the theologian at Duke Divinity School, was asked one
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time to summarize the Gospel using only seven words.
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Summarize the whole story.
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The whole story of everything.
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You don't even need a thousand words.
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Seven words.
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And Willimon said, God refuses to be God without us.
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The sharing God refuses to be God without sharing life with us.
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Even when we don't share it with Him, even when we hide from Him. Adam
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and Eve, even when we're unfaithful to Him Abraham and Isaac and
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Jacob. Even when we turn our backs on Him and wander away from Him,
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the faithful, unfaithful people of Israel.
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God still refused to be God without them.
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He kept calling, He kept gathering, He kept speaking to them.
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And then Jesus, the vineyard owner, said to himself, I will end
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I will share with them my son.
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Surely they will receive my son.
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And this sharing God shares Himself in person, exposing Himself,
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emptying himself.
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And what do these people do?
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They take his sharing.
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They take his self giving.
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They take his longing to gather them together as a hen gathers its
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chicks under its wings, and they kill Him.
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The God who shares is a God who suffers at the hands of his own
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people.
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We are familiar with sharing, and we are familiar with suffering.
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You live in these gray and latter days too, and some days are grayer
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than others.
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The darkest days, in my experience, at least.
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And I'm guessing you can understand and can relate. The darkest days
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and the most painful suffering comes from the hands of those to whom
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we should be closest.
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I'm thinking of the abusive husband.
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I'm thinking of the child who grows up and disowns her parents.
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I'm thinking of the friend who stabs you in the back.
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The people to whom we should be the closest are the ones who cause us
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the most suffering.
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In our text, Paul mentioned kind of offhand toward the beginning, the
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shameful treatment he received in Philippi.
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Do you remember what happened in Philippi?
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It's in Acts16.
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Paul and Silas had been preaching the gospel as they did.
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They had just spoken the word to Lydia, and she and her entire
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household were baptized.
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And as they're there in Philippi, they're bothered by this slave girl
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who's possessed by a demon.
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And Paul kicks the demon out, cast the demon out of her.
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And do you know what happened?
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The owners of that girl whipped the crowd into a frenzy.
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And they convinced the authorities to strip Paul and Silas bare, to
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beat them with rods, and then to throw them in jail.
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And not just in the cell on the first floor.
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It was the inner dungeon, the deep, dark one in stocks and in chains.
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And here was the kicker.
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It was their own people who were doing this.
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Fellow Roman citizens, beating them and locking them up.
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Their own people.
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Many of you are preparing for full time work in the church.
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You are preparing to give yourselves to the people of God, to share
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your life with them.
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At times it's beautiful and at times you get burned.
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As lovely as that hymn is that we just sang, it only told half the
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story.
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Yes,
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in Him we all are one.
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And yet sin clings so closely to all of us.
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As Richard John Neuhaus put it, not infrequently life together is
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mainly strife together.
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And then he goes on and listen to this.
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So you're not surprised.
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There is no adequate preparation for the virulence of sheer nastiness
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that so often erupts in the life of the Christian community.
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Now, you will also cause some suffering, and not the good kind.
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You're just as sinful as I am.
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But that's not the point I'm trying to make here
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this morning.
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Right now, I want you to think about the suffering you will
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experience
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and maybe you are right now at the hands of those who should be the
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closest to you.
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The question is this what are you going to do with that suffering?
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Paul shared it.
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He shared it with the Thessalonians.
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He shared his burdens.
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He shared his troubles.
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He shared his suffering.
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He shared his life
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because that's what Christians do.
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We share our lives with one another.
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Whatever suffering you experience, there will be sisters and brothers
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who will share your suffering with you.
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That part the hymn nailed.
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You see, God refuses to be God without us, and God refuses to let us
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be Christian without one another.
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The people who will share the burden with you, they may be sitting
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right here in the chapel with you.
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Look around.
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I'm serious.
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Look around.
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Look around at one another.
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There will come a time in your ministry where the darkness is too much
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for you to bear alone.
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At such times, you will get in your car and you will drive
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on a Saturday afternoon to a friend's house, a brother, a sister in
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Christ.
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And you will sit in the living room with your close friend.
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And you will vent together and you will yell together and you will cry
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together and you will pray together.
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And you will mourn how broken it all is.
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But that's not all you'll do.
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It's not all you'll do.
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You will console one another.
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You will speak the promises of Jesus to one another.
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You will strengthen each other with the good news that the Son of the
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vineyard owner is risen from the dead and that incomprehensible,
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incomprehensibly, he still reigns graciously even in this.
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He still reigns.
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He is still lord over all, and He is still good.
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You will console each other with this promise, and you will rejoice
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with one another as you look forward to that day when that Son of the
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vineyard owner returns and he judges all that is wrong and broken and
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sin.
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And he rids the world of darkness and sin.
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And he brings about perfect unity and perfect peace and complete joy.
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We have a name for this Smalcald Articles 3.4.
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It's the mutual conversation and consolation of the brothers and the
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sisters.
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It is the means of the gospel that we need most regularly, but that we
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name far too seldomly.
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To share our lives is to share the gospel with one another as we share
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our suffering.
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But we don't only share our suffering.
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We also share a calling.
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You know, Paul says in verse twelve how like a father with his
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children we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged
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you to walk in a manner worthy of God.
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We share, you and I, a calling to walk in a manner that is worthy of
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God.
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And what does that look like?
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Well, we could spend all day on that, but I've got class at 10:25.
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So for now, we'll just stick with what Paul says
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in First Thessalonians. How do we walk
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as Christians? We are gentle with one another.
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We conduct ourselves in ways that are holy and righteous and
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blameless.
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We increase and abound in love for one another and for all.
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We keep awake and we stay sober.
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We encourage one another and we build each other up.
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We help the weak.
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We abstain from every kind of evil.
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We pray without ceasing.
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We give thanks in all circumstances.
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We test everything, and we hold fast to what is good.
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Incredibly, God still refuses to be God without us, and he refuses to
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let us be Christian without one another.
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So according to my office as preacher of the Word and following Paul's
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lead in this text, I charge you all this morning in the name of Jesus,
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walk in a manner that is worthy of God.
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Share your lives with one another by sharing your burdens with each
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other.
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Share the promise of Jesus with one another and with all.
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Or share the gospel.
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Share your lives, for God has shared his life with you.
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In Jesus name.
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Amen.