Jason Robinson emphasizes the necessity for the church to come out of worldly influences and to embody a distinct lifestyle that reflects Christ. He discusses the importance of meaningful relationships within the church, urging believers to separate themselves from cultural norms that conflict with their faith. Robinson warns against merely reforming existing church structures without seeking God's guidance, highlighting the need for a genuine transformation in values and priorities. He stresses that true discipleship requires forsaking all for Christ and that the church should be a community of believers who support one another in living out their faith authentically. Ultimately, he calls for a return to the essence of the church as a body of believers who are set apart from the world.

So we saw yesterday, we looked at the church and the purpose of the church and different aspects of the church. And I wanted to finish something that I started speaking on last night. We looked at the word church in the Greek and we saw that it is ekklesia, people that are coming out of the world to assemble. And I wanted to look at what that means practically a little bit more today. If we could look at 2 Corinthians, because again, it's not about pattern, it's not about where you meet. I'm not at all promoting meeting in a house. The church that I'm a part of rents a building. And it's not about how you sit, whether you sit in a circle or have pews in a pulpit or don't have pews in a pulpit. It's not about any of these things that men come up with. A lot of times in Christianity, somebody will see a problem. They'll see the problem of Christianity and they'll diagnose it. If I go to the doctor and he diagnoses that I have some kind of cancer, it's good. It's good to be diagnosed. But if he doesn't give me a solution, it's pointless. And a lot of groups spring up out of Babylon. Sincere people get saved. They come to Christ. They begin to grow. They begin to read the Bible. They begin to see things in the Bible that are different than what they see in their church. And so they leave. They are able to see the problem. They have the diagnosis, but they don't have the solution. So they don't go back to the drawing board. They take the old wineskin of the church that they left and they try to reform it. And Jesus said, if you pour new wine into the old wineskins, it'll burst. And so they'll leave some dead system and start something new. And then they'll become everything they left within one generation. And if you study church history, you'll see that all throughout church history. And maybe when they left, they saw this, this, and that were wrong with our church. So we're not going to do these three things. But there may have been 500 other things that were wrong. And instead of going back to the drawing board, going to God and saying, we know nothing, we value nothing, we learned, teach us. Instead of doing that, they just reform what they already came out of. And so we were looking at renewing our minds, coming to God and saying, what is a church? And it's people that have come out of the world. And 2nd Corinthians chapter 6, he says in verse 14, As God has said, I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God and they shall be my people. Therefore, come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean and I will receive you. I will be a father to you and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord almighty. So it's very important, this portion of scripture is very important for us to see the essence of the church. It is people that have come out of the world. It's not people that are going the same direction as the world with the same goals and the same tastes and the same lifestyle. But they've just added Jesus to their existing lifestyle. It's people that have come out of it. They're coming out of the world. Now, it's not talking about geographically. It's not saying move to the middle of the desert and don't live where people in the world lives. But a change of lifestyle within a culture to where your goals are different. Your value system is different. Your heart is different. Your spirit is different. You're restructuring your life in such a way as to where the spirit of the world isn't what's influencing you, but the spirit of Christ. Look at Acts chapter 2. In Acts chapter 2, Peter preaches a pretty hardcore message of Christ and salvation. At the end of it, the end of this salvation message, he wraps it up in verse 40. And he says, King James says, He's saying, look, there is a God, there is a heaven, there is a hell. The answer to knowing God is Jesus. And you need to save yourselves from this generation. And the same is true for us. As you look around and you see society and you see the direction it's going and you see the hearts of men waxing cold, God is saying to us, save yourself from this generation. He's saying that to us today, to you guys here in Kansas City. This generation that you're in, save yourself from it. Don't be in it. Don't have your heart in it. Don't have your value system invested in this generation and be 99% like it. But you don't do drugs and you believe the Bible or something. You're just a little bit different. No, he's saying come out. Come out of it. Like withdraw yourself from it. And so it's really important when we're looking at this word church, it's really important for us to see the need to come out of our culture and our subcultures, especially in the areas where our cultures are grieving to God. A lot of times, especially in America, there's this emphasis on being relevant and the relevance movement. A lot of churches, again, they didn't throw out the old wineskins. Maybe they were in some traditional church and the pastor wore a three-piece suit and was boring and irrelevant. And so some young guy gets saved and wants to be relevant, so he puts some gel in his hair and gets an earring or something, and now he's going to have volleyball games or whatever. So then he starts some little youth group thing. Now they're playing volleyball all the time, and they've got some Christian contemporary music playing on Friday night. And maybe for ten minutes at the end of it all, they'll read the Bible. Just hold on, guys. We're almost done. We'll play game two after this. And so then that church grows up, and you see these things. We're going to have a coffee house, and we're going to play music and this and that. And I'm not against any of them. There's nothing wrong with coffee houses or volleyball or whatever thing that people try to do to reach people for Christ. But we need to see that what's the point of me reaching someone if I'm just like them? What's the point of me? What message do I have for them if my value system is the same? If I'm still defeated by lust? If I'm still defeated by anger? If I still love money? What message do I have to say to them? Did you add Jesus to your life? I did. No, the message has to come out of the world, come out of these subcultures. When we're in America in a Christian nation, it's harder for us to understand this because everything's been Christianized. But imagine you're in India, and you're a Hindu, and you come to Christ. Your culture is Hindu. All the holidays are Hindu, and all the little things that they do are based on Hinduism. I've been to Africa and Ghana, Africa. I went way up in northern Ghana, the jungles of Africa. And that culture is voodoo-based, basically. For instance, when somebody dies in Ghana, everybody will take off work in that village for an entire week. And they'll basically party for a week. And they'll have a fire, and they'll be dancing and playing music. And the belief is that the person that just died, their spirit is going to come upon someone at the party, and then we can still be with them a little bit. And that person begins to talk like the person that just died and act like them. And it's kind of like a comforting thing to them that, hey, he's still with us. And then that spirit comes upon another person at the party, and they're still enjoying this person that just died. So the society cannot progress at all, because they take a week off every time somebody dies. So three weeks in a row, nobody worked for three weeks. And then when somebody gets married, they'll take another week off. Every time there's a marriage, they'll take a week off and party. So basically, in the Stone Ages, with everything, because there's just no work going on, people are either getting married or dying. So for example, let's say you're in that village and you come to Christ, and that's your culture. Are you just going to be a light in that culture and just hang out all day and party, but tell people about Jesus? No, you'd have to get a job, because the Scripture teaches that. There are things that your obedience to Scripture would cause you to have to go against the culture you're in. And so we see that in other countries. We see that in obvious cultures where babies may be killed, or if the mom dies, they'll bury the babies with the mom. In crazy cultures like that, we see how people have to come out of their culture. But somehow, in America, Christians have concocted this mindset that they can totally embrace culture and just add Jesus to it. And as we saw in 2 Corinthians and in Acts there, that's not the message of the New Testament. The message of the New Testament is to come out, and to come out of this culture and the direction of this culture pertaining to music, pertaining to entertainment, the overall influence that culture has on us, we have to come out of that. Not necessarily externally. I'm not saying we're going to dress Amish and ride buggies. But like I said, the value system of it, we come out of that. A lot of people, I was this way growing up, a lot of people before Christ were already what's called counterculture. Maybe they grew up in the suburbs, and mom and dad were working all the time, and that was my testimony. I was called what they call a latchkey kid. Mom and dad are working, and you come home and make your own dinner and do your homework and watch TV, and at 8 o'clock mom and dad come home because they were working to pay for the house they couldn't afford. A lot of kids grow up in these suburban neighborhoods, and they see the greed and the covetousness of their parents, and they see the vanity of the American dream, and they don't want it. Their personality over the years morphs into counterculture, and forget all this. I don't want to play on the baseball team, get a four-year college degree, and be an insurance agent. So there's this kind of like a rebellion to anything that's normal, and just I want to be different for the sake of being different. That's how I grew up over the years. It manifests itself differently in each generation. So what happens is, like in my case, when I came to Christ, I simply took my personality, my counterculture personality, and then I added scripture and I added Christianity to it, and then I became a Christian counterculture guy. Now I wanted to interpret everything different than the norm within Christianity. It basically ended with me, maybe ten years ago, if you would have saw me, you would have laughed, I was basically Amish, which is like the extreme of counterculture. I had a big honking beard, and my wife wore cape dresses, because it was just like, forget Christianity, I want nothing to do with American Christianity. This was my external, Pharisaical way of saying, I want nothing to do with American Christianity. What I'm here to say is, that's not the solution. Remember we were talking about the diagnosis, diagnosing a problem, and then coming to a practical solution. In your typical high school, you have all of these cliques, made up of people that are insecure, they want to find love, they want to find acceptance, and so they gravitate towards different groups. You have the hipsters, and the geeks, and the nerds, and the skaters, and the burnouts, and the jocks, and you got all these groups in my suburban neighborhood, and there was white kids that wanted to be gangsters, and dressed like that. You have all of these cliques, and then you have the Christian Young Life group, that goes to the coffee house, the Christian coffee house, and all these cliques of people that are wanting love, they're just wanting acceptance, and they're finding it with these cliques, and with each clique comes the clothing with that clique, and the music with that clique, and the entertainment of that clique, and then some kids would switch cliques, if you will, and then they'd have to get all new clothing, and all new music, and all new everything. They're just constantly trying to find love, and then you have the Christian Youth group clique, where a lot of times it's the kids that aren't too popular in the school, and they aren't really well accepted, and now they find their acceptance. They're not born again, they don't have a clue who Jesus is, but they find acceptance in the youth group, because in the youth group people usually don't make fun of them or something, so they're there, and there's all these different people in your typical high school, college age group, and that's a subculture, and God is calling us out of that, too. He's calling us out of culture, He's calling us out of subculture, not because He's a jerk and just saying, Hey, leave this. He's saying, I have something better. He's saying, this thing called the church, it's not a clique. It's not a subculture. It's not something where now you have new music and different clothes. No. It's meaningful relationships. Relationships that are meaningful. Look at 2 Timothy. 2 Timothy chapter 2, and verse 19, He says, Nevertheless, the solid foundation of God stands, having this seal. The Lord knows those that are His, and let every man who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity. If somebody is naming the name of Christ, they need to depart from iniquity. Verse 20, But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but there are also of wood and clay, some of honor and some of dishonor. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, the vessels of dishonor, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the master, prepared for every good work. So, we need to see that the church is made up of those that have not only come out of the world, not only saved themselves from the world, but they've also cleansed themselves from vessels of dishonor. And notice here the context, okay? Go back to verse 19. In the middle of verse 19, Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity. So, he's talking here, there are people that are naming Christ's name, saying, I'm a Christian, but they are in rebellion to Christ. And then the very next verse he says, But in a house, but in a great house, there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also vessels of wood and clay, some of honor and some of dishonor. Therefore, if a man cleanses himself from the latter, the vessels of dishonor. So, what are vessels of dishonor? Vessels of dishonor are those in the house, in the church, that name the name of Christ, but will not depart from iniquity. And he's saying you need to cleanse yourself from them. And so, the church is not only made up of people that have come out of the world, but it's also made up of people that have made the decision to withdraw from relationships that are not meaningful, relationships that are harmful, relationships that have bad influences. Here, look at John chapter 15. John chapter 15 and verse 19. See the, how, you know, it's a very obvious verse here. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet, because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. So, we see here, when somebody is following Christ, what is the conclusion to them following Christ? How are they going to be received? The world is going to hate them. So, if the world, it's kind of like a math equation. He's saying, if you were in the world, the world would love you, but if you're following me, the world will hate you. And so, if somebody says they're a Christian and the world isn't hating them, then are they a Christian? Are they following Christ? It's just real simple. And so, I read this, you know, 18 years ago or so, and I have to ask myself, why are people not hating me? Why is it that everybody thinks I'm a nice guy, I'm a cool guy? Yeah, I'm a Christian, you know, but I'm just a cool guy. I'm a likable guy. Why aren't they hating me? And that's the question that I pose to you today in the context of having a body in an area composed of people that have come out of the world. The typical American church, I'm not broad-brushing, not everyone, there's gems here and there, but the average church is accepted in the community, embraced, appreciated. Yeah, they do some good work, you know, they feed the poor and they do some social work and da-da-da-da-da. The world doesn't hate them. Like I said, there are exceptions, but for the most part, they're appreciated. But Jesus is saying here, they're going to hate you. Look at John chapter 7, and look at verse 6. Then Jesus said to them, My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me. Why does the world hate you, Jesus? Because I testify of it, that its works are evil. That's why the world hated Jesus. The world didn't hate Jesus because he raised people from the dead and fed thousands of people and healed people. That's not why the world hated Jesus. The world hated Jesus because he said, Hey, that's evil. And it's like, hold on here. Wait a minute. You're judging me. You can't say that. Yeah, that's evil. And that's when the hatred comes. And as long as you are a nice Christian guy who doesn't judge anybody, doesn't say anything, you're being a light, you're able to sit in this culture and gel with it, and you read the Bible like Jesus, nobody's going to hate you. You'll be well accepted. And yeah, you're a little weird on this Bible thing, but that's cool. Whatever works for you. That's the general attitude that you get. But if you want to follow Jesus, if you want to be like Christ, you have to live like he lived. And what did he do? He testified to the world, Hey, that's not God's heart. And those that love sin don't want to hear that. And so they're either going to be mad, glad, or sad when you say that. If they love truth, they're going to be glad. Hey, thanks for sharing that. I didn't realize that was God's heart. Maybe they'll repent, or they're going to be sad, or they're going to get mad. And most times they'll get mad. And then that's when persecution will come. And so, again, in the context of what we're talking about, we're talking about a church made up of people that have come out of the world that are not ashamed of the gospel. So many Christians I know, people that are legitimately born again, are flat out, all it boils down to is they're ashamed of the gospel. It's kind of cheesy to look at someone in the eye and say, hey, do you really know Jesus? I'm concerned about your soul. If you don't know Him and you die, you'd spend eternity in hell forever. Doesn't that bother you? Most Christians I know are ashamed to say that. But most Christians I know wouldn't say they're ashamed to say that, so they've concocted a doctrine that justifies them not confronting people. Oh, I'm just being a light. I'm just going to pray for them and do good things, feed the poor, and things like that. And so they concoct a lifestyle that justifies not confronting people because they don't want to come off judgmental or mean or something. Yeah, I knew a Christian guy once and he used to do stuff like that and everybody thought he was a jerk. So I'm just going to be people's friends. Well, yeah, that makes sense to the logical mind. But I'm just saying that's not how Jesus lived. The world hated Jesus because He testified that its works were evil. I'm not promoting being an idiot and just going up to people, you're evil, and just being ungracious with people. But out of love, love will tell someone what they don't want to hear. If you're driving onto a bridge and the bridge is out, and I know the bridge is out, if I love you, I'm going to be standing in front of that car saying, hey, don't go on that bridge, please don't go. I'm not going to be like, well, you may not want to do that. No. I mean, if I didn't love you, I'd be like, yeah, go ahead. Drive off the bridge for all I care. But that's the way many Christians are. They've lost the reality of eternity. They've lost the reality of heaven and hell. They've lost that burden for lost souls. And they've been injected with this false doctrine of, well, I'm just going to be a light. And so they live within a culture and people in that culture are dying and going to hell, and they don't say anything about it. And therefore, they're well-received within their community. But a real New Testament church is persecuted. It's hated of all men. All men will hate you, he says, if you've come out of the world. And so in the weekend here, as we're looking at this, you guys want to call upon the name of the Lord with people that have made this decision. And you don't want to have mixture in the church where some of the people have and some of the people, they just kind of, well, it's cool that you want to do that, but I'm just going to kind of be a light and I'm not going to confront anybody and my value system is going to still be the same as the world's. Let's look at one more verse in this thought. 2 Thessalonians. 2 Thessalonians 3 and verse 6. But we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourself from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the traditions which he received from us. So it's important that we see here that there is an appropriate time, and we won't get into it a whole lot with this specific verse, but there are appropriate times to withdraw yourself from a brother. Notice it says a brother, someone that's a believer. So we're to come out of the world and we're to withdraw ourselves from half-hearted Christians or Christians that won't yield to the Word of God. You show them something in Scripture and they just say, I don't care that that's what God says. I'm going to do what I want to do. Okay. I can't continue to fellowship with that person, you see. Look at 1 John 1. 1 John 1 and verse 7. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. So if Mark is walking in the light and I'm walking in the light, then, only then, will we have fellowship. True, meaningful fellowship. Not just two guys that hang out, but meaningful fellowship. Now, if I'm walking in the light and Mark isn't walking in the light, we're not going to have fellowship. Something's not going to be clicking there, you know, spiritually. And so if something's not clicking, I have to ask myself, well, one of us isn't walking in the light. Is it me, Lord? Am I the one? You know, have the humility to entertain the thought that maybe it's me. Maybe I'm the problem. You know, because, you know, I think Mark's trying to walk in the light, so maybe I'm the problem. But true, meaningful fellowship comes when people are walking in the light. And that's the church. Now, how can you get, you know, however many people, if it's two or three or 5,000, how can you get people together and have meaningful relationships if they're not walking in the light? It's not going to work. And so that is why people gravitate towards a movie theater type of church, because it's just a lot easier that way. There's no fellowship. You're all going in. You're watching something that's going on up front. When it's over, you go home, and there's no meaningful relationship there. But the true New Testament church is composed of people that are coming out of the world. They're coming out of Babylonian, harlot Christianity. They're withdrawing themselves from half-hearted believers, and they're trying to spend the time that they have outside of the time that they're working and eating and sleeping. They're trying to spend that limited amount of time that they have with meaningful relationships. They're cutting off the meaningless relationships. They're wanting to spend that time with people that are going to help them get to know Christ. You see? For example, look at Hebrews 3. We looked at this a little bit yesterday. We didn't turn to it, but this is a very important verse. Hebrews 3 and verse 12. Beware, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. Okay? So we need to beware, because our heart can become unbelieving, and we can actually fall away from the love of God. Verse 13, but exhort one another. Verse 13 is the solution to verse 12. Exhort one another daily. Some versions say encourage one another daily. In the Greek, it is come alongside of the person. Daily. While it is called today, lest you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. So my heart can grow cold, and I can fall away, and so the solution is I need people to exhort me, to come alongside of me, to encourage me daily. And that's a meaningful relationship. And that is who I want to spend my time with. Outside of the time that I'm sleeping and working and the things that I have to do, I have this very, life is so quick. Okay? And it's a blink of an eye. And I don't want to spend my time in meaningless relationships where I can't ever really have a conversation with this brother because he's just going to get mad and be defensive. I can't really talk to this person about some sin in their life because they're just not going to get mad, or they're just not going to listen, they're just going to explain it away. I want to spend my time with people that are going to receive, and I want to spend my time with people that are going to speak into my life. Not, you know, I'm not talking about some judgmental thing where people are nitpicking, you know, and in your grill, just confronting you about everything. I'm not talking about some cultic, control-free situation. But somebody that really loves you, and prays for you, and cares about you, and at the appropriate time, they'll share a concern. I mean, that's the theme all throughout the book of Proverbs. Look at Proverbs chapter 9. There's so many verses in Proverbs about this. Proverbs chapter 9, verse 7. He says, He who corrects a scoffer gets shame for himself, and he who rebukes a wicked man only harms himself. Do not correct a scoffer lest he hate you. Rebuke a wise man, and he will love you. Give instruction to a wise man, and he will still be wiser. Teach a just man, and he will increase in learning. So, we're not to have relationships with scoffers, and we're just trying to help them, and they just get mad, and they get defensive, they hate you. We want to be spending our time with people that when we say something to them, yeah, you're right, that's the way I am. And they'll be wiser. You teach someone something, and they're willing to increase in learning. They have a teachable spirit. They're not proud, you know, unteachable. Yeah, I know everything. I mean, nobody's going to come right out and say I know everything, but they just don't listen. They don't receive instruction. And after a while of helping someone, helping someone, if it gets to the point where they just, they have this attitude of don't go there, how are you going to have a church with somebody coming like that? It's not going to work. Look at chapter 13 there in Proverbs. Verse 1, A wise son heeds his father's instruction, but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke. So even in the church, there are spiritual fathers, men that have grown and matured in the Lord, and then there are younger believers, and it's composed of people that listen to instruction. Proverbs says reproofs of instruction are the ways of life. If you're going to live in this world, you need to get used to being reproved. And those that are unwilling to listen to reproof suffer the rest of their life. And so in a church, there has to be a willingness, a kindness, a humility, an openness, like being transparent, being willing to speak into my life. Please, I want you to speak into my life. And if there's people there that don't want that, then they're going to hinder that from being a family. A church is supposed to be a family. So we need to see this. I don't want to be kicking a dead dog here, but it's really important, especially in the culture that you guys are in here, in the city, it's really important that you see the necessity of having a pure body. Especially when a little group gets started, and then other people start to come, and they bring their friends, they bring their relatives, and then it kind of perverts the thing. It's no longer pure. It's no longer holy. It's a mixture. Look here at just a couple of verses about this in Luke chapter 14. We talked about this the last time I was up here a couple of months ago as far as one of the missing ingredients of the Gospel. We'll just look at it real quick today. Luke chapter 14 and verse 33. Jesus says here, So likewise, whosoever of you that does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple. This is such a pivotal verse. Whosoever does not forsake all that he has, he cannot be my disciple. And the church is made up of disciples. And what is the definition of a disciple? It's somebody that has forsaken everything. In their heart, they may not have physically been called to, but in their heart, they've forsaken father, mother, wife, child, their own life. They've turned from the love of money. They've turned from the sins of the world. They've forsaken everything for Jesus. And if somebody wants to forsake 99%, they cannot be his disciple. You know, the rich man wanted to follow Jesus. And Jesus, you know, is having this conversation with him. And the guy says, Look, I kept all these commandments and da-da-da-da-da, and I want to follow you. And Jesus says, One thing you lack. If the guy had 99%, if that guy were to go to most churches, they would be thrilled. Now they have a rich man there. He's going to be tithing. He's got all these things, these really good qualities. Yeah, we know there's just one thing, but we'll work on that. Just give him some time. That's not the way Jesus was. We've got to get away from this intellectual way that we think in our natural, carnal mind. Jesus, right off the bat, isn't even talking to a guy for more than a minute, and says, Hey, one thing you lack. Go sell everything you have, give it to the poor, and then we'll talk about you following me. And the guy went away sorrowful, because he had great riches. You see the message of Christ and how fundamentally different it is than what we're used to seeing in churches and the way the Gospels presented. With Jesus, it was all or nothing. And it's really not some... I'm not saying that Jesus was some jerk, some dogmatic jerk. When you get married, it's all or nothing, right? You're standing at the altar, and there's the preacher. Do you take this woman to love and to cherish until death do you part? I do. And the woman, I do. That's what we require for marriage, in a loving relationship for marriage. Who would marry a woman if she said, yes, I do, but one week out of the year, I want to stay with my old boyfriend, just sleep with him some, just one week out of the year, but all the other 51 weeks, I'm going to love you and cherish you and everything, but just this one week. Who would go for that? Nobody. But Jesus is the same way. He's saying, look, one thing you lack, you want to follow me, that's great. But you have this problem. You love money, and you cannot serve God in money. You can't do it. So repent of your love for money. In his case, he needed to sell what he had. That was the fruit of his repentance, okay? And Jesus saw that and said, boom, you need to sell what you have, and then follow me, and he wouldn't do it. And so that guy, his umbilical cord was his money. You know, the umbilical cord to a baby, that's where that baby gets life and gets its sustenance, and for nine months, that baby's being fed by that umbilical cord, and then the baby's born, and then they cut the cord. But imagine if a mom walked around with a baby for years and years and years, this four-year-old baby's walking around the living room, and the umbilical cord's still attached. You know, that would be really weird. It would be sick. But that's the way many of us are. We grow up, and we have this umbilical cord, and we're getting our life and our sustenance from our friends, our family, money, comfort, and that's our umbilical cord. We're not getting life from God. We're independent of God. We're getting our meaningful life and our joy and our peace and everything from other things. And so when we come to Christ, Christ is saying, you need to cut that. He's saying, following me isn't just a ticket to heaven. It's not just so you can have a happy life down here on earth. He's saying, following me is, I'm going to be your life now. I'm going to be your sustenance. I'm going to be your joy. I'm going to meet all your needs. But before I'll give you that life, you have to repent. You have to cut that cord from this world. That's why he says, if a man is going to follow me, he must hate father, mother, wife, children in his own life, or he cannot be my disciple. And all these verses, there's so many of them. The guy comes to Jesus and says, I want to follow you. But my dad died. I want to go bury my dad. And Jesus says, let the dead go bury the dead. And ironically, he says, but go and preach the gospel. Go and preach the kingdom of God. So a guy wanting to go to his dad's funeral, that's pretty realistic. That's not an unrealistic request, Jesus. I want to follow you. But just give me a couple hours here. I've got to go to my dad's funeral. And then the next guy, you can read about this in Luke chapter 9, the next guy says, okay, Jesus, I want to follow you. Just let me go say goodbye to my parents before I leave to follow you. And Jesus says, no man, having put his hand to the plow and looked back, is fit for the kingdom. You see, we have these umbilical cords attached to our family, our friends, our parents. We still care what they think. Their opinion still matters to us. The opinions of our friends still matter to us. The opinions of other people still matter. And Jesus is saying, if you're going to follow me, you need to cut that. You need to cut that umbilical cord. And so when you have a group of people that have done that, they've come out of the world, they've cut that umbilical cord, they now get no life from, and no sustenance from the world, from their friends, from their family. They've withdrawn from half-hearted believers. When you get a group of people like that to come together, that is where Jesus is going to be in the midst. That is when it's going to be real, buddy. That is where we're getting nailed all week long. We come together, and you know, the scripture talks about, greet one another with a holy kiss. I mean, like, hey brother, I'm glad to see you, man. Because I've got nothing else but you. I don't have anything else. This isn't something where I get offended because you looked at me wrong, and now I'm going to leave and go to the next church. I don't have anywhere else to go. Everybody thinks I'm nuts, everybody thinks I'm crazy. Now we're coming together, and we're a family. And a family doesn't just divorce itself. There's a commitment there. There's a desire to work through things. And so, that's the church. It's a family in the scriptures. Another picture of a church in the scriptures is the body. Look at 1 Corinthians 12. 1 Corinthians 12, verse 12. Starting at verse 12. He says, For as the body is one, and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. For in fact the body is not one member, but many. If the foot should say, Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body, is therefore the foot not of the body? And if the ear should say, Because I am not an eye, am I not of the body? Is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole body were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now God hath set some members, each one of them, in the body, just as he pleased. And if, verse 19, And if they were all one member, where would the body be? But now indeed there are many members, yet one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you. Nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. No much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker, are necessary. And those members of the body which think to be less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor. And our unpresentable parts have greater modesty, but our presentable parts have no need. But God composed the body, having given greater honor to that part which lacks it, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. Or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually. And God has appointed these in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, after that miracles, gifts of healing, helps, administrations, varieties of tongues, are all apostles, are all prophets, are all teachers, are all workers of miracles, do all have gifts of healing, do all speak in tongues, do all interpret, but earnestly desire the best gifts, and yet I will show you a more excellent way. So we see here, the church is pictured as a body, and there's a member, maybe this brother's a finger, and this sister's an eye, and this other brother's a foot, and when they come together, they're one, a one mind, a one heart, and they're coming together for the purpose of showing Christ to their community. They're part of the body of Christ universal, but God is about bringing together local bodies. And think about this as a really interesting thought. 2,000 years ago, God wanted to show the world what he was like, what his love was like, what his mercy was like, his compassion. He wanted the world to know him, and he saw all these religious people misrepresenting him, so he clothed himself in flesh, in a body, and he lived in a little area, geographically, 20 miles wide by 120 miles long, and he spent most of his 33 years in a little area, Galilee, Nazareth, showing that area what the Father was like. His body, he said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. It's kind of like if, suppose this was a mirror, okay? And suppose you guys were unable to see that fan because of that little overhang there, and I wanted to show you what that fan was like. So when you would look at me, you'd see the mirror, and I would point the mirror in such a way where you could see a reflection of the mirror. Look, that's what the mirror's like. That's what Jesus did for 33 years. He walked around Israel and said, hey guys, look at me. This is what the Father's like. When you see me, you see what the Father's like. And the religious in his day said, no, that's not what he's like. You're a liar, and that's why they had to kill him. Okay? And so he died. He rose from the dead. Now, how is he going to efficiently show the next 20 mile by 120 mile area what the Father's like, and eventually get all over the world? Think about how many years it would take if you took 33 years at a 20 mile wide, 120 mile high area all over the world. So instead of doing it every 33 years, he says, here's what I'll do. I'll go into heaven, and I'll send my spirit down to fill believers, and then those believers will come together in a collective way, in a body, and they'll show that area, that geographical area that they're in, what my Father's like. And so that's the simple understanding of what the church is. Okay? And so here's the thing. You cannot adequately show the people in this area what God is like by yourself. You can't do it. You'll just be like a hand. Hey, you know. And that's all they see. You might be a really nice hand, but that's not the body of Christ. It's the whole body of Christ in a local area that can show what God is like. So a lot of times now, as people come out of Babylon, they're just by themselves. And, you know, we're being a light. Well, maybe, but not fully, because you need to be in a body, and you need to have all the different gifts coming together to show what God's like. And so this is what God is into. If there's one thing this whole weekend that you get, please understand this. God is about church. That's what God is about right now in this time period that we're in. And when you say, you may say, you know, what do you mean God is about church? Well, think about this. Think about in Noah's day when God comes to Noah and says, I want you to build an ark. And so about 120 years there, Noah's building an ark. That was God's program for that time period. Anybody that was doing anything on the entire earth during that 120 years, no matter how good it was and how virtuous it was, anybody that was doing anything that was separate from building that ark, they were not involved in what God was involved in. Now Noah and his wife and his sons and his sons' wives, they were involved in building the ark. So what they did during that 120-year period lasted. Now all the people that were building houses, like Jesus says they were marrying and giving to marriage and building and planting and all these things, all the people that were doing all kinds of things during Noah's time period, everything they did, well, I guess it didn't go up in smoke. It got flooded. Everything that they did was underwater. What Noah spent his time doing lasted through the flood. You see? And so think about Noah. Here he is. It's never rained before. The water would mist up from the ground. And here's Noah building a boat. There's no water around. People think he's nuts. They come to him, why are you building a boat? Well, God told me the water's going to come out of the sky. Well, water's never come out of the sky before, Noah. Well, that's what God told me. Okay, Noah. This guy Noah is pretty weird. He's talking about water coming out of the sky. He's spending his own money building this big ark. And the Bible says that Noah was a preacher of righteousness. So I can picture Noah all week long with his sons building this ark and then going down into town and preaching, hey, you need to get on the ark. Once I build the ark, you need to get on it because water's going to come down from the sky. People mocking him. This guy's nuts. But that's what Noah did for 120 years. And then the rain comes. It starts getting a little bit higher and higher and all of a sudden people are like, wow, maybe Noah's right. I can picture thousands of people running up, hey, let us in there, Noah. And the Bible says God closed the door. So it wasn't like Noah could just let him in. The door was closed and the realization of all those people, it hit them, Noah was right. And as that water began to rise up over a few hour period, it just hit them, Noah was right. And can you imagine what Noah's sons and his wife must have been thinking when that was happening? Yeah, my husband wasn't crazy after all. My dad wasn't nuts. I'm sure glad I listened to my dad. And so it's the same thing today. We need to be like Noah's. The thing that God is doing right now on the earth is building churches, bodies of people that represent him, that represent his character in local areas. That's what God is into. That's where our time, money, energy, prayers, efforts, that's what we need to be about. We build the ark and then we go and preach righteousness to try to get other people to come into the ark. So evangelism and making disciples, bringing people to Christ, discipling them so they come into this body. You know, I take and I eat an apple and my hand grabs that apple and my mouth chews it and I digest it and all of my body members work together and eventually somehow that apple is now part of my body. And that's our calling right now. If you want to know what God's will for your life is, in the age group that you guys are in, should I get married, should I have a job, all these questions that people are asking at this time period in their life, I can tell you for sure one thing is God's will for you is to be about what he's about and that's building churches. Helping people come to Christ, discipling them, and having them come into a body of Christ, a local body of Christ. So a couple things here and then we'll close. Just a clarification of last night in light of just some comments that were made. If you do a study in the scriptures, you'll see a string all throughout the Old and New Testament of Jerusalem and Babylon. And Jerusalem is always a picture of God's heart and God's people and God's church. And Babylon is always a picture of false religion, counterfeit religion, and in Revelation it's called the harlot. Let's look at that real quick just so people understand why I spoke about the harlot church last night. Revelation chapter 17. Revelation 17 verse 1. And there came one of seven angels which had seven vials and talked with me saying unto me come hither and I will show you the judgment of the great whore that sits upon many waters with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication and the inhabitants of the earth have made drunk with the wine of her fornication. So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast full of names of blasphemies having seven heads and ten horns and the woman was dressed in purple and scarlet color and decked with gold and precious stones and pearl having a golden cup in her hand full of the abominations and filthiness of her fornication and upon her forehead was written mystery Babylon the great mother of harlots and the abominations of the earth. So there's this spirit of Babylon and we won't get into Jerusalem and Babylon today for the sake of time but there's a spirit of Babylon and it gets into governments and it gets into churches and it gets into business it's this Babylonian harlot spirit and it's a church and it says the mother notice it says in verse 5 she's the mother of all harlots so she's got daughters and so there are churches that are harlots and so I'm not being mean by saying that that's what the Bible says I'm not being a jerk the Bible says it's a whore verse 1, verse 5 she's a mother of other whores and so when I say that and I'm not saying that to a specific church like any church that has a building I'm not saying anything like that a lot of people say if you have a pulpit or if you have a pews or if you meet in a building or if you meet I'm not saying anything like that there are people that love Jesus in every type of church including the Catholic church by the way like Mother Teresa and some of these old Francis of Assisi's and some of these old saints their part was a head problem not a heart problem they didn't necessarily understand Scripture properly but their heart they love Christ so it's not I'm not saying ok well they're the harlot and we're not my prayer constantly is Lord show me if I'm the harlot I don't want to be self-deceived so there's no delusion as far as ok well we meet in the living room and sit in a circle and sing kumbaya so we're different somehow we're not the harlot I'm not saying that at all but notice a couple things here and look at Revelation 18 about this it's describing this harlot church and notice in verse 10 standing at a distance for fear of retorment saying alas alas that great city Babylon that mighty city for in one hour your judgment has come Babylon is described as it's described for its greatness it's described it's powerful it's political it has money it has influence it's famous and this is what you see with direct TV and all these cable channels and stuff now there's 20 stations of religious Christian religious channels and you see all kinds of the Joel Olstings and the Rick Warrens and these people are very powerful and a few years ago it was Ted Haggard who got to talk to President Bush once a week on the phone because he ran the Christian Evangelical Association 30 million voters and all these Christians that were very influential because they brought to the table 30 million voters that's enough to tip an election and McCain didn't have the Christian vote this last election and he lost so Babylon is this religious, political, business, money thing that is a whore it misrepresents Jesus and look at verse 4 there in Revelation 18 he says and I heard another voice from heaven saying come out of her my people that you be not partakers of her sins and that you receive not of her plagues so a lot of people will be like so you're saying you're the only ones that are right and everyone else is wrong there's no other saved people in any of these churches no they're obviously saved people in the churches because what does he say to them come out they're in there good godly saved people are in churches that have been influenced and have fallen into the spirit of Babylon but the message to them isn't stay in there and be a light yeah it's a Babylonian church but you can change it you just need to be a light that's not what he says he says come out of it because if you don't it's like this building is going to get bombed okay and anybody that's in the building when it gets bombed is going to die so come out of the building it's real simple he's saying my judgment is going to come on this Babylonian system so hard because it's misrepresenting me people are looking at this church and the church has the mirror and it's actually pointing down at the devil and they're saying this is what god's like and god is mad his judgment is coming against this system and he's saying please my children come out leave this system because if you don't you're going to be judged with it and that's you know you know a lot of churches sing songs and hallelujah hallelujah you know hallelujah you know a lot of times they don't know the context of the first time that that's actually used the first time it's used in the new testament is when god judges Babylon and look at chapter 19 revelation 19 verse 1 and these things i heard a great voice of much people in heaven saying hallelujah salvation and glory and honor and power under the lord our god for true and righteous are his judgments for he has judged the great whore which did corrupt the earth with her fornication and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand and again they said hallelujah and her smoke rose up forever and ever so they're seeing this judgment and they're like yes finally all of these people that were misrepresenting jesus all these people that because of them people's good was being evil spoken of finally they're judged hallelujah you know it's a little bit different use of the word you know than what we're used to and look at verse 4 and the four and twenty elders and the four beasts fell down and worshiped god that sat on the throne saying amen hallelujah and the voice came out of the throne saying praise our god all you servants and you that fear him both small and great and i heard as it were a voice of a great multitude and as a voice of many waters and a voice of mighty thundering saying hallelujah for the lord omnipotent reigneth let us be glad and rejoice and give honor to him for the marriage of the lamb has come and his wife hath made herself ready and look at this verse 8 and to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen clean and white for the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints so again the church is those that have come out of the world and they've washed their robes and made them white and they've come out of this babylonian system so to summarize you know what we said the last couple days here we've come out of the world we've forsaken all we've separated ourselves from apathetic christianity and we're choosing to spend our time in meaningful relationships with those people that want to call the lord out of a pure heart because if we don't have that then we slowly get get pulled back into you know the spirit of this age we slowly begin to fall asleep we slowly begin to become apathetic we're purposely surrounding ourselves by people that are sober minded you know let me just a couple last verses here about this sober mindedness look at Titus Titus chapter 2 you know in light of everything we've just seen God's going to judge Babylon we read last night about the coming and the end of the world the judgment of the world by fire in light of all that you look at Titus chapter 2 he says here in verse 1 but as for you speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine that the older men be sober reverent temperate sound in faith and love and patience the older women likewise that they be reverent in behavior not slanderers not given to much wine teachers of good things that they admonish the younger women to love their husbands to love their children to be discreet chaste homemakers good obedient to their own husbands that the word of God may not be blasphemed likewise exhort young men to be sober minded why does it say that? what is the tendency of young men? to not be sober minded you know I mean this is our tendency to just joke around and just screw off and he's saying look likewise exhort the younger men to be sober minded in light of seeing this stuff beforehand of this judgment that's going to come on the earth of the reality of heaven of the reality of hell we need when we come together we need to be exhorted to be sober minded obviously it's okay to laugh I'm not saying we should just walk around you know like depressed all the time but sober minded means there's a reality of something that is far deeper than what we see on a daily basis you know imagine if you and I were on the Titanic okay and we've got an hour until the ship goes down would we just be joking around all the time you know no there'd be a soberness there like okay we're going to be dead in one hour well we may not be dead in one hour but you know most of us here aren't going to live more than 70 more years I mean that's sobering and some of us you know will be dead a lot quicker than that somebody in this room could be dead tonight that's pretty sobering you could walk outside and pull out of here and get hit by a car and an hour from now one of us could be standing before the god of this universe that's sobering and so we need to walk in that reality you know I'm not talking about being melancholy and depressed but having a sobriety when you get together you know the bible says God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints having a proper you know seriousness about life not just fickle and you know just joking about everything but a proper seriousness about life look at Thessalonians along the same along the same thought process here 1st Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 6 therefore let us not sleep as others do but let us watch and be sober for those who sleep sleep at night and those who get drunk are drunk at night but let us who are of the day be sober putting on the breastplate of faith and love and as a helmet the hope of salvation so there's a proper need for soberness you know it has to do with walking you know in this reality look at 1st Peter real quick 1st Peter says the same thing 1st Peter chapter 1 verse 13 therefore gird up the loins of your mind be sober and rest hopefully upon the grace that is to be brought to you by the revelation of Jesus Christ as obedient children not conforming yourself to the former lusts as in your ignorance but as he who is called you is holy so be holy in all manner of conduct look at chapter 5 there 1st Peter chapter 5 it's just all over the New Testament verse 8 be sober be vigilant because your adversary the devil walks around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour so this is the this is just an example of why we need church is to be exhorted like he was saying there in Titus exhort the older men to do this exhort the older women to do this exhort the younger men to do this exhort the younger women to do this you know and he talks real practical about being sober about how to function in the family about how to work practical instruction we constantly need reminded of this stuff and that's what the church is for so the message tonight is going to be along those lines I really have a burden to share a practical message in the day and age that we live even in the last 10 years just I've seen in the last 10 years the spirit of this age and the spirit of lust and fornication and adultery I mean it is just multiplied many times over just in the last 10 years with the invention of the internet and just the ability to click and see anything like that any wicked unimaginable image that people would normally have not been even able to see 10 years ago or it's now at your fingertips and so so many people that I know that love Jesus that want to do right that want to be holy constantly battle with pornography masturbation you know sex before marriage fornication constantly battle with everywhere they go you know struggling to not look at the opposite sex many many women struggle with having a spirit of a harlot not even realizing that it's coming forth from them men struggle with eyes full of adultery it's just it's a major major problem in the church and and the bible has a lot to say about it and I thought it would be appropriate if you know if we had a study a bible study on it in light of what we're talking about the need for the church you know this is the type of stuff that churches should be teaching on you know not you know having charts about when Jesus is coming back and you know all the irrelevant just things that have no relevance to anything that people preach on you know and so many rabbit trail things that you know pastors teach you know next three weeks I'm going to be teaching on blah blah you know and the guy sitting there struggling with lust you know and he's teaching on which you know the ten toes of Daniel you know and this is a picture of this and this is a picture of that and you know I don't care about Daniel's toe I'm like trying to deal with my eyes here you know I'm struggling um so we'll look at that you know at seven o'clock tonight um but uh yeah