Distorted Images

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Distorted Images
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Passion

• Whats my passion?
• Family
• Faith
• Attitudes and Motivations

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The Church

• Psalm 619 (TNIV)
• Zeal for Your house consumes me, and the insults
  of those who insult You fall on me
• Forgiven
• Redeemed
• Restored
• Empowered

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Stereo-typical Views

• Inept
• Bigoted
• Out-moded
• Fanatical
• Liberal
• Right wing

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Four Images

• The local church is the hope of the world
  Bill Hybels
• Jesus is the hope of the world the local church
  is means by which Jesus is expressed to the world
  enabling people to find hope

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Four Images

• Building
• Body
• Bride
• Army

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Building

• You also, like living stones, are being built
  into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood,
  offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God
  through Jesus Christ 1Peter 25 (TNIV)

• Growing
• Linked together
• Foundations
• Comfort, warmth, protection
• Investment
• How is the building growing?

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Body

• For just as each of us has one body with many
  members, and these members do not all have the
  same function, so in Christ we, though many, form
  one body, and each member belongs to all the
  others.
• Romans 124-5 (TNIV)

• Everyone needed
• Disabled?
• Inferior feel we dont belong
• Superior put people off
• Value diversity

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Body

• Submit to one another out of reverence for
  Christ
• Ephesians 521 (TNIV)
• No one hates his own body but feeds and cares
  for it, just as Christ cares for the church. And
  we are members of his body
• Ephesians 5 29-30 (NLT)

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Bride

• John Newton
• Jesus my Shepherd, Brother, Friend, My Prophet,
  Priest and King
• Jesus my Shepherd, Husband, Friend

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Bride

• Your Maker is your husband the Lord Almighty
  is his name - Isaiah 545 (TNIV)
• I will make you my wife forever, showing you
  righteousness and justice, unfailing love and
  compassion. I will be faithful to you and make
  you mine, and you will finally know me as the
  Lord - Hosea 219-20 (NLT)
• John the Baptist Jesus
• For I am jealous for you with the jealousy of
  God Himself. I promised you as a pure bride to
  one husband Christ - 2Corinthians 112 (NLT)

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Bride

• You are all sons of God through faith in Christ
  Jesus, for all of you who were baptised into
  Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There
  is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male
  nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus
• Galatians 326-28 (TNIV)

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Bride

• Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved
  the church and gave Himself up for her to make
  her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water
  through the word, and to present her to himself
  as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or
  any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
• This is a profound mystery but I am talking
  about Christ and the church
• Ephesians 525-27 32 (TNIV)

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Army

• For our struggle is not against flesh and blood,
  but against the rulers, against the authorities,
  against the powers of this dark world and against
  the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly
  realms
• - Ephesians 612 (NIVUK)
• Dont let anyone capture you with empty
  philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come
  from human thinking and from the spiritual powers
  of this world, rather than from Christ
• - Colossians 28 (NLT)

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Army

• For though we live in the world, we do not wage
  war as the world does. The weapons we fight with
  are not the weapons of the world. On the
  contrary, they have divine power to demolish
  strongholds. We demolish arguments and every
  pretension that sets itself up against the
  knowledge of God, and we take captive every
  thought to make it obedient to Christ
• - 2Corinthians 103-5 (TNIV)

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Points to Ponder

• Everyone has sinned and fallen short of God's
  glorious standard, and all need to be made right
  with God by his grace, which is a free gift. They
  need to be made free from sin through Jesus
  Christ. God sent him to die in our place to take
  away our sins. We receive forgiveness through
  faith in the blood of Jesus' death
• - Romans 323-25 (NCV)

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Points to Ponder

• But I have this complaint against you. You dont
  love me or each other as you did at first! Look
  how far you have fallen! Turn back to me and do
  the works you did at first
• - Revelation 24-5 (NLT)

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