Reflecting Jesus In A Noisy Culture | 1 Corinthians 11 | Jamey, Caleb, & Hayes |

Culture is loud, identity is fragile, and the church can drift without noticing. We sit down and get honest about what’s been forming us lately, from family seasons and ministry travel to what we’re seeing in students who genuinely want “the things of old” back, especially manners and respect. That real-life thread sets up a deeper spiritual question: if we say we follow Jesus, what does our life actually reflect?

We walk through 1 Corinthians 11 with the kind of pastoral clarity that doesn’t aim to impress, but to restore. Paul’s warning to Corinth still lands today: when the church absorbs the idols and categories of the world, we stop reflecting Christ and start mirroring whatever we used to serve. We talk Christian identity, image-bearing, and why labeling ourselves by politics, success, status, or any identity above Jesus quietly breeds pride, comparison, and division.

Then we move to the communion table, where Corinth’s rich believers humiliated the poor and turned the Lord’s Supper into something harmful. Communion is meant to pull us back to the cross, back to unity, and back to a serious moment of self-examination. We close with prayer, repentance, and a clear invitation to surrender what we’ve been carrying so we can live with clarity and peace in Christ. If this challenged you, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find it.

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Transcript

Welcome And Weekend Setup

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Hello, this is Jamie Bridges, and thank you so much for joining us for this week's podcast. All of our services are inspired and built straight from the Bible. Let's get into this week's message recorded at Life Community Church.

SPEAKER_03 0:16

Well, you should be a little nervous. I've asked Caleb and uh and Hayes to be with me uh this weekend as we've uh as we've jumped into the book of Corinthians, as we've walked through this uh this whole summer. I feel like our team has done an amazing job at just keeping us on the same page. And as we jump into chapters 11 through 14, I thought it would be beneficial uh for us to come together uh first and foremost, because uh Caleb and Mateo are killing it uh from a youth standpoint. And uh love what I love their heart, I love what they're doing. Um, the last six years or so, me and Hayes have just done life together. I love what God is doing in his heart, and so they bring something so crucial uh to this weekend, and uh I'm so grateful that uh they're here with me on the stage today.

Summer Highlights And Ministry Stories

SPEAKER_03 1:08

Uh where am I like you're a summer person, like you love summer. Where are the you people at? Yeah, oh, even a clap. Where are my fall people at? Like you love fall. Yeah, you my people. That's amazing. We have a person standing up. Yeah, yeah, I love standing up there. Yes, Hank. That's a retired teacher right there. He's like, Yeah, I love fall. Fall's incredible. I bet you didn't say that two years ago. But uh so much happens in the summer. I mean, I mean, geez, we haven't seen each other for like six weeks, huh? Uh anyway, so uh so there's there's just a lot that happens, and there's a lot of highlights uh that happen for me personally. Like uh obviously family's a big big deal for me. Um, and being able to have my older kids with us at the World Cup was a was a big big deal, uh, something we look forward to for so long. And so it was it was a pretty big highlight. Uh, I turned 50. Um, and then like next Monday, Libby goes to college. My grandson is born on Tuesday, Lila goes to college. Like in one week, bro. In one week, I'm like this emotion of girls out of the house, finally getting a boy. Thank you, Jesus. It took you years to hear my cry, but thank you, Lord. Um do they know the name yet? Or yeah, Jamie Jr.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 2:37

I guess it wouldn't be a junior. Jamie the third, which is weird because I don't have your second. Okay, stop it. Stop it.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Caleb, what about you? Oh man, uh a highlight for me, uh this whole summer I got to uh travel and do just different types of ministry at camp, just different camps across the U.S. Uh, but the very beginning of the summer, my oldest brother, Brennan. Uh I have four siblings, one of them's his name's Brennan, and uh he actually got married at the end of May. Uh, and I had the honor of officiating their wedding, uh, which was really cool. That was definitely a highlight for me. Actually, a couple a couple weeks ago, I was at a camp and I was introducing my family, and I was a little bit nervous. Uh, the lot of kids there. And I was looking up at the screen and I was introducing each one of them, and I said, you know, the girl in the white dress, um, I actually, that's my sister-in-law. I actually had the honor of marrying my sister-in-law. And then I yeah, I just paused for a second and I was like, hold on, like that did not sound right. So I officiated their wedding. I did not marry my sister-in-law.

SPEAKER_03 3:42

So wow. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

Yeah, for me, uh, a lot of you guys know, as Miss Jody alluded to last week, about we were able to take a team to uh Michigan and do some like missions work there. And it was special for me because uh the church we serve, the community serves, is a community where my mom and dad actually have a have a church there. Um and so we had the great opportunity to bring 25 teenagers. I know crazy, right? Uh who would who in the right mind would say 25 teenagers 10 hours, but apparently I would. Um but yeah, it was and it was a it's a great blessing. And the the highlight in it for me is that it's a it's a redemption for me. I feel like it's a redemption in the sense that God's redeeming back old things in my life that I felt were wasted. Time spent, uh things in my high school years that I felt like I wasted, bringing them, watching them minister to the community to the church is like a redempting, redeeming back um of those lost times. So that was a huge highlight for me.

Youth Missions And Bringing Respect Back

SPEAKER_01 4:40

But then in that, something that this summer I've really been challenged with and really learning is challenged with the generation as well, leading these young people. And um I was I was posed kind of this uh opening question that one of the one of the teenage girls had said to me, and she said something like this. She said, Caleb, we're we're wanting to have like a revival back of the things of old. And I'm like, I I don't know what you mean. The things of old, you know, what what does that mean? The old things. And she said this. She says, We're wanting to bring, we realize our generation is missing something, and what we're missing is manners and respect. All the people come on, old people. You can get on your feet and cheer, you can jump. Come on, you can clap for that. And it challenged me. I was blown away by that. That the that the generation is longing to bring that back. They realize it's missing, it's not there. And so, my challenge to me was this this is something that I just inherently grew up with. Like, you just it was ingrained in you to have manners of respect. So I am challenged in the fact that I'm having to say, like, hey, put your phone away. Hey, this is how you say thank you. Not that you parents are doing that. Hear this, but there is the reality that whenever we have overnights and we have camp and momentum, things go out the window, right? And so it's a it's a challenge to me to be able to disciple and help pastor and lead and kind of help them redeem the things of old. Come on, the things of old.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

That's good. That's good. That's good. Something God's really been challenging me this summer, uh, as I'm as I've been traveling, uh, is after like a ministry event, uh just walking up to the leader and having the ability to say, uh, what's your feedback for me? Like, what can I do better? That's been challenging for me because sometimes when you ask someone that question, like they can just they can just rip you to pieces. You know what I mean? Uh and just just God's been challenging me just to humble myself and say, like, okay, like you, you had me share this, what's your feedback? And they say, Okay, well, you need to share this here, share this here. Uh, just it's been so great to have great leaders in my life. So that's something that God's been challenging

Humility That Asks For Feedback

SPEAKER_00 6:50

me on to just ask those type of questions.

SPEAKER_03 6:52

Yeah, the last the last six months, you know, when we when we decide like what book we want to spend the summer, we've done that every summer for 15 years. When we decide that, like, I really dive into that specific book. And one thing that I've discovered is like in the book of Corinthians, um, and someone said this to me, this 30 years that I've been in full-time ministry this this year, and um someone said this to me in the very beginning. They said there will be a lot of people that will like you as a preacher, but not like you as a pastor. And I've thought on that, and as I've I've looked at the Corinthians, they loved Apollos because he was strong, he said good things. But man, when Paul started pastoring them, saying hard things to them, all of a sudden they're like, We don't follow Paul. Because what I've realized, and this is going back to old things, like I was raised in the church when you brought a pastor in and said, Hey, preach to us, and afterwards we're gonna vote on whether you're gonna be the pastor or not. Well, we what did you just say? What you say to us in 30 minutes on a Sunday is how we're gonna hire you. That's crazy. With a with a sermon that they've mastered, they've gotten really good at public speaking, they're preaching. They're not pastoring. Paul is pastoring the church at Corinth.

When Culture Shapes Church Identity

SPEAKER_03 8:20

And listen, when you read the Bible or you listen to someone who's sharing scripture with you, and it doesn't offend you, you've probably made that more about you than you have him. Because what Paul is addressing to the church at Corinth, what he's saying to the church at Corinth is you've now embraced some things that you shouldn't embrace. And because you're embracing them, look how you look to culture. I know we don't understand some of the pagan gods that they are serving, but when you look deep into the church at Corinth and what they came out of, if you would have told me 30 years ago I had to stand in front of you and I had to read Genesis 1 to you and say to you, there are two genders, male and female, and that would be controversial. I would have told you you're crazy. But what Paul is addressing in chapter 11 is he's saying, you guys are looking like you're worshiping the pagan gods that you used to. Now, when the church sees you, that's what they see. They're serving gods like gods of sex. There's a specific God that they're worshiping, and this God that they're worshiping, it was to blurral sexual lines, meaning men were dressing like women and women were dressing like men in worship to this God. Don't tell me we're far off. And so Paul is going, let's go back and let's talk about something major here. As the church, he's talking to the church, he's saying, as the church, you have to understand you are to reflect the identity of the one that you follow. That's why when you look at Genesis chapter 1, he said, Let us make man in our image, which means as the church, my only responsibility is to reflect Jesus. That's it. So when someone says to me, like, you're so full of grace, or you're so loving, or you're so forgiving, it's not me going, like, yes, I am. It's me going, no, no, no, you don't understand. On my own, I'm a jerk. On my own, I'm impatient. I'm only loving because he's loving and I'm reflecting him. I'm only forgiving because he's the greatest forgiver. I'm only extending grace because he extended grace to me. This is not about what I can do. This is about who he is. And this is what Paul is addressing to the church of Corinth. He's saying, guys, your identity as sons and daughters is what we're talking about. You've made it about this. When you look at Proverbs, Proverbs says, When we return to the things that we used to do, it's like a dog returning to its vomit. We get that picture, right? It's gross. We're like, oof, that's why I don't have a dog, right? It sounds gross. The writer of Proverbs is saying, like, this is what we're doing when we are returning. He's saying, church, we they don't even recognize you because you've brought culture into the church instead of church changing the culture. This is what he's talking about. Can we go back to the things that were working that we've missed out on? It's a beautiful invitation. It's a beautiful invitation.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

We reflect who we follow. Us as Christians, we follow Jesus, and as Christians, we should reflect Jesus.

Team Jesus And What We Refuse

SPEAKER_00 12:02

When I was growing up, um, my parents uh we we grew up in a sports family. I had four siblings, and I would go from sporting event to sporting event, from basketball practice to soccer practice to L softball game to Keelers softball game, just a variety of different sporting events. So my parents created this language called Team Van Bruzigen, and because my name was too long, they said Team Van B. So they created this language called Team Van Bruzigen, and you were either off Team Van Bruzigen by the things that you did, or you were on. Like some of the incentives was like Donut Friday. Like if you behaved all week, you got Donut Friday. I skipped out on Donut Friday a lot because I was the youngest. I had I had, yeah, I was the youngest. But there were some things, and maybe your parents can resonate with this, there were some things that we weren't supposed to do uh as being part of Team MB. Uh, number one was like we weren't allowed to have phones at the dinner table. Like we were allowed to pull out our phones, it was like deemed as disrespectful. Another one was uh we weren't allowed to go to our friend's house if our the parents weren't like if they weren't there, we weren't allowed to go there if the parents weren't there. Another one that I always argued and I always debated, and Elle and Keeler over there can testify to this, uh, is that we would always call our friends' parents Mr. and Mrs. And I would always go back to my mom and dad and say, like, well, my my friends don't don't do that. Like they call you Jenny and Thane, like they call them blah blah blah blah. Like they they were always like, No, you call them Mr. and Mrs. And when I would always say that to them, the response would always be like, No, that's not who we are. Uh we're Team Van Bruce and that's not that's not who we're we're supposed to be. And the reason that I share this uh this morning is because I was part of Team Van B, there were some things that I wasn't supposed to do because my parents didn't want me to reflect that. Okay. In the same way, because we're part of Team Jesus, there are some things that we cannot do, there's some things that we have to say no to in order to reflect Jesus. In order, and because we claim I identify with Jesus now, I'm a follower of Christ, there's some things in our life that we have to say no to. There's some sinful decisions, there's some family decisions, there's some school decisions, some work decisions, some work friends that we say, no, I'm not gonna do that anymore because I now followed Christ. And many of you might be in the room, you might have made a decision to follow Christ. And I got a question for everyone in the room is this if you're not reflecting Christ, if we're not reflecting Christ as Christians, are we truly following him? Are we truly following Jesus? If we're not actually reflecting him, because we reflect who we follow. In verse 1 of chapter 11, Paul says, Imitate me as I imitate Christ. Imitate me as I imitate Christ. This wasn't a prideful thing that Paul was saying, I need you guys to imitate me, was because Paul was following Jesus. He says, Follow me as I'm following Jesus. And I got a question, can we say that? Can we say that to our non-believing coworkers, our non-believing friends? Can we say that to our kids? Hey, because I'm living like Christ, you can look at my life, you can look at every aspect of my life, almost every aspect, and say, Because I'm following Christ, imitate me as I'm imitating Christ. And I'm not saying that we're supposed that we're the most perfect people in the world. That's not what I'm saying. But what I'm saying is this is if we went to every part of your life, would we see Jesus knit in it? Would we see Jesus in the midst of every single part of our lives? Because we always reflect. We always reflect who we follow.

Identity Produces Honor Not Rivalry

SPEAKER_03 15:45

Not only that, identity produces honor, not competition. Verses three to sixteen becomes extremely a difficult passage because of what Paul is saying. And true three truths emerge. These three truths. We are we all bear God's image. Like that is important for us to understand. We all bear God's image. Both men and women possess equal value. This would have been a shock to the Corinthian church. Paul's saying, like, listen, guys, you're not better than women. Is what he's saying in these verses. You've pedestled, you put yourself on a pedestal. He's saying, No, listen, both men and women, you possess equal value. And then he says, Genesis account, Genesis 1 that I read earlier, is saying one image isn't greater than the other. So he's he's bringing these truths out, saying, like, you think identity is about competing with somebody. I'm telling you, identity brings honor. So when you read passages of the scripture, it says, above all else, love one another, forgive one another, serve one another, give your lives for one another. What is important about all that? You're thinking less about you and more about others. What Paul is saying to the church at Corinth is you've made it about your rights and your feelings. I'm telling you, I've come to pastor you through those and say, you don't have any rights. This is the only right you have. This is it. To what? To not put yourself above. And we'll see. This is what they're trying to do. They're trying to identify these things. Paul isn't arguing value, he's arguing order and purpose. It says, I don't have to compete because I already know my worth. This is where it gets confused. When I start saying I'm a blank Christian, I'm a Republican Christian, I'm a Democratic Christian, I'm a gay Christian, when we start identifying those ways, instead of saying, I'm a son of the king, I'm a daughter of the king, I am one who's been forgiven, when I start identifying as something different, we miss out. And that identity brings confusion.

Sin, Confusion, And A Way Back

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Yeah, and the reality is this the sin of that brings the confusion. The sin creates uh confusion. And the harsh truth about sin is that it separates us from God straight up. That's what it does. It separates from God. And whenever I live in sin, I partake in sin and I make that my lifestyle, what it does is it creates like almost like a cloud we walk in. And that cloud we walk in, it disrupts and it brings this clarity to us making proper and uh correct decisions. Every time I say yes to sin, I'm really saying no to God. I'm stiff-arming God, and I'm choosing the sin rather than God. And when I when I when I get confused in that, I do what's contrary to what my true identity is. As believers, our identity is in Christ. And so the decisions I make are rooted uh in Christ. And the reality is the enemy wants to come at us so heavy and so strong, he wants to get us to a place that we are pulled here and pulled here, doing this, doing that, so much so that we lose sight of who we are. The enemy wants to create in us an identity crisis. And the and the and the challenging thing is that that can cause depression, it can cause anxiety, it can cause things that we were never supposed to walk in in the sense of identity. We're we should know who we are. And the enemy, his goal is to do that. One of the beautiful things about teen camp is that we as cabin leaders uh and things like that, we're able to spend a lot of time with the teenagers. You're talking about five days, 24 hours a day, us the teenagers, correct? And so there is great opportunity for us to have vulnerable, honest conversations at some point in time. The Spirit of God makes opportunities for us to have an open door to just talk with the student, maybe somebody who's came for the first time who we don't know. And the beautiful thing is that is there's always some sense of vulnerability. And I myself this year had a great opportunity to have a vulnerable moment with one of my cabin guys. And as we're talking, I just felt like he was kind of like pulling me towards conversation, so we start conversating, and he begins to talk specifically about how sin in his life has caused the this confusion in his life. The things he's gone through as a young man, this and that, walking in it, he's confused, he's broken, his emotions are a ray, and he's and he's hurting, and he's trying to find some clarity in all the confusion. And he realized this whenever I get done with camp, I have a decision to make. Do I choose godliness or do I keep going back to the sin? The good news is it talks about and tied this how we can how God's grace helps us to choose godliness, it helps us to say yes to God, and so he's realizing I have a decision to make. Do I say yes to God? And I just straight up told him he had a trip he's going to go on, where he's gonna go be with friends and do things he's not supposed to be doing. And I straight up say, say no. Say no to the friends, say no to the trip. How much money do you have in this? I'll I'll pay, I'll pay money to cover the trip. Won't you say no to the ungodliness and won't you say yes and come with us to Michigan on the trip? And God deals with this hard at camp. He says no to the trip, says yes to us, and on the trip, God works miracles for his life, heals things he didn't even know was broken, redeems things in his life, restores things, and now he gets to go to this school year in full clarity of mind, knowing his identity Christ, and not in the things of the world. That's good. That's good, it's good.

Communion Abused And The Church Divides

SPEAKER_03 21:41

Verse 17 says, But the following instructions I cannot praise you for. For it sounds as if more harm than good is done when you meet together. I mean, picture this. He's like, every time you guys come to church, man, you're doing more harm than you are good. First, I hear that there are divisions of Among you when you meet as a church, and to some extent I believe it, but of course, there must be divisions among you so that you will have those of you who have God's approval will be recognized. Verse 20. When you meet together, you're not really interested in the Lord's Supper. Some of you hurry to eat your own meal without searching with others. As a result, some go hungry while others get drunk. What? I love that. Apologist stops and is like, what is happening? Don't you have your own home for eating and drinking? Do you really want to disgrace God's church and shame the poor? What am I supposed to say? Do you want me to praise you? Well, I certainly will not praise you for this. Here's the shift in chapter 11. Notice this the issue changes. The problem doesn't. Rich Christians were humiliating poor Christians. You see what was happening? They're identifying as we're the rich ones here. We're the ones who have that God loves more. We make more money. We do all these things. So they're rushing in, they're eating all the food. The other people come and they're like, There's nothing for us to eat. And Paul's going, You're dividing the church. You're dividing it right now in front of everybody. You're making this about you. Why? Because you've lost your identity. Your identity is no longer it's bringing division. And he's ultimately saying this is the shift that's happening. Identity lost leads to division. Identity remembered leads to unity. That is something we have everyone at the table has been saved by grace. How could anyone believe that they're better than someone else? This makes no sense to Paul. It makes no sense to us. He's saying, listen, you guys need to stop this. You're creating division while you meet, and it needs to stop.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

Times when I feel like I'm like maybe comparing to somebody or I'm seeing myself as higher, or whatever the situation it may be, I'm I am forgetting where God saved me from. I I forget that that He redeemed my life. I forget that He showed me long suffering and mercy and grace. And so whenever I begin to compare and to look and to point, I begin to forget what God has done for me. And when I compare, I have forgotten that I am called to love. As the body of believers, we are called, we don't owe anyone anything except love. We owe people a debt of love. So my mind, my my mindset and my mind frame has to turn back to how can I show these people love, maybe even though they aren't deserving to love. But I can tell you that whenever love comes into the house, when there's a great love, there's great unity. And when there's great unity, there's great power. The presence of God makes his dwelling place in unity. And it says how how beautiful and lovely is when brother work together in unity. It says God commands a blessing on a house whenever unity is there. And one of the great things that I love about our teenagers is that they have an audaciousness to go and just pray for one another. Like when I whenever whenever I sense that there's unity in the house in our services and the presence of God is there, all of a sudden you begin to see teenagers move about because they are compelled and driven by a burden of love for one another. They love each other. And they have no shame in going up and praying for somebody that they don't know from Adam. They don't know them, but they are compelled and they are absolutely burdened to go. And whenever they are loving one another, praying for one another, man, there's a sweet aroma of unity that's in the house.

SPEAKER_02 25:39

That's so good. That's true.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

Jesus says in his priestly prayer, right before he's about to go to the cross, he says, I pray that all of you guys are one. I pray that all of you guys are united. And I think us as Christians, it can be so easy to say amen to the identity and gender comment, uh, to the identity and sexuality comment. Uh, but it's a little bit harder to say amen. It's a little bit harder uh to follow. What about having your identity and your your success? What about having your identity in politics? What about having your identity in your job? Because what that does is when you have your identity in your job or success or promotions, you look at people in the church and say, Well, I got a promotion, I'm better than that person. I'm not going to associate with them. And it brings in this thing called pride. And what pride does is it divides the church. It divides the church. What does the enemy get kicked out of heaven for? Pride. Pride. You see, pride divides the church. And when we start identifying as Christians, when we start identifying with something other than Jesus, it brings pride into our life, and all of a sudden, all division begins to happen. And unity is important. Here's why. Because all throughout scripture, we see God bless unity, we see God show up in unity. In chronicles in the Old Testament, we see 120 priests all in union, all in all in one unison, worshiping God, singing to God, praising God. And what does God do? It says God showed up and the glory of the Lord filled the temple, and they were unable to do their priestly duties. In the New Testament, we see in the book of Acts, right after Jesus ascends to heaven, we see 120 people united as one, united with one mission that Jesus gave them to wait on the Holy Spirit. And what do we see God do? We see God bless them and we see God show up and baptize them in the Holy Spirit. Why? Because God blesses unity. And I don't know about you, but I don't want to be the person that has the wrong identity and that causes division where God isn't flowing through me. Because when we forget our identity in Christ, it all it starts to limit the way God works within us because now we're causing division. And now instead of we're saying we're saying, I know it all, I know what's best, and we're not humbling ourselves and saying, Well, God knows what's best. I'm gonna live at peace with every single believer because forgotten identity leads to division.

SPEAKER_03 28:08

I think the uh the crossroads that we're at, going back to his Acts chapter 2, is that this is the crossroads. 500 people were invited, 120 people showed up. That means 380 people said, I know what God asked me to do, I'm not gonna do it. And 120 showed up. Now, God in that moment didn't go, you know what, only 120 uh showed up. That is not a high enough percentage for me, so deals off the table. This is the best part of who Jesus is. Jesus constantly invites us to the table no matter what we've done. So what we see in verse 23 is Paul shifts gears and says, Listen, in the beginning says, I'm imitating Christ. 23,

The Cross Restores Unity At The Table

SPEAKER_03 28:55

he says, Let's come back. This is what it's about. This is what communion does. It brings us back to the cross. You've made communion about rich and poor. I'm telling you, communion always brings us back to the cross. For I pass on to you what I received from the Lord Himself on the night when he was betrayed. The Lord took the Lord Jesus took some bread, he gave thanks to it, broke it in pieces, and said, This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. He says, Listen, all of this I'm bringing you might be so far gone, I'm inviting you back. Listen, you don't have friends. There's so many friends who don't even do that. They don't invite you back, they're mad at you. You've broken trust, you've broken a relationship, and they're distancing themselves from you. Jesus says, No matter what, I'm bringing you back. If anyone wants to follow me, what must they do? Lower your pride, take up your cross, follow Jesus daily. It's an invitation, He's constantly inviting us back. This is what communion does. It also again calls us back to unity because they were a divided people. Jesus was so consumed about division happening. That's what pastors do, you guys. Pastors go, listen, there's there's issues going on over here. We're gonna address it. I know, I know it's gonna hurt some feelings. I know there's real pride going on, but we need to humble ourselves. This is what communion does, and not only that, we find

Examine Yourself And Surrender Fully

SPEAKER_03 30:30

that communion calls us to examine ourselves. Verse 28 says, So anyone who eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord unworthily is guilty of sinning against the body and the blood of Christ. And this is why you should examine yourself before eating the bread and drinking the cup. He says, Listen, in this moment, this is not about you looking across the room and going, hmm, I don't got it all together, but I got it more together than that guy. He didn't say examine the person across the room, he said examine yourself. This is where it gets difficult to say, Lord, I'm surrendering this part of my life. Because know this, what you don't surrender, that's really what you serve. What you don't surrender, you can say you follow all God all day long. What you don't surrender, that's what you follow. What Paul is inviting us to, the invitation, Paul is saying, I'm I'm asking you to come back, I'm inviting you back. And here's how you do this you examine yourself. Listen, I'm not saying all sicknesses is the result of. But I am saying, when you carry worry as your identity, when you carry anxiety as your worry, when you carry bitterness as your identity, I'm telling you it affects your body. And what Paul is saying is some of you you've gotten sick. Some of you, Paul even says, Church of Corinth, you've died from this. I know I'm not a guy who does autopsies, but I'm gonna tell you right now, there's people who have lived with regret, lived with worry. You can say they died from this or that. I'm telling you, what killed them was what they carried. And Jesus invites us to surrender, He invites us to let it go. You cannot surrender anything you're unwilling to examine. You can't. The invitation is let's look deep. It's the reason David said, God, search me. Search my heart, know me, test me. Man, if there's anything that's in the way, take it away. You want to know why that relationship's gone? Because you ask God to examine your life. You want to know why God said no here? It's because you asked him to examine his life. It's a dangerous prayer, it's a dangerous thing to examine yourself. Because when you ask, here's the promise: God answers. And he doesn't always answer the way we want him to, but he answers.

SPEAKER_00 33:32

He answers. Communion is serious because Jesus is holy, because Jesus is holy, and I don't want this to be another moment where we just take communion and we don't focus on Christ. I don't want us to open communion yet, but I don't want this to be a moment where we just rush through and rush out the door. But I want us to actually think about Christ. I want us to actually think about the cross, think about what Jesus went to, think about what Jesus went through. So if you guys could just stand with me.

Prayer, Repentance, And Taking Communion

SPEAKER_00 34:20

With everyone's eyes closed, I just want us to pray what David prayered. God, cross-examine my heart. God search me. I want this to be a moment where we just examine ourselves and say, is there any part of me that is not reflecting you? Is there any part of me that's not identifying with you? I want us to ask Jesus, Jesus, what sin is what sin is in my life that you need to reveal to me? What decisions are in my life that you need to reveal to me? And when Jesus begins to do that, I just want us to repent. I just want us to turn away and say, Jesus, I'm sorry. Jesus, I repent of having a false identity, of having identity with culture or the world. Jesus, I'm now choosing to have identity with you. I repent of my sins, my failures. I repent of every aspect that I'm not following you. And if you're in the room today, and you've never made a decision to follow Jesus, and you're not following Jesus, and you're saying, Hey, I'm not following Jesus, I've never made this decision, and today I want to follow Jesus. I just want you to lift up your hand. Just lift up your hand. You're saying, I just want to follow Jesus, Jesus. We thank you for your body, we thank you that you whipped through every bit of whipping, every bit of beating for us. God, that we deserve death for our sin. We deserved it. But Jesus, we thank you that you bore it for us. God, that all the pain you endured, all the suffering you endured, God, we thank you that it was for us. And it was us for us, done in love. In Jesus' name. Amen. You may take the bread, and then we're gonna thank God for the juice. Jesus, we thank you for your blood. We thank you that your blood is more than enough. God, I thank you that there once was a point in my life where I tried to get rid of sin on my own, in my own strength, my own striving. But God, I couldn't do it, and I thank you that I had a revelation that it's only by your blood that I can be made clean. It's only by your blood. So, Jesus, I thank you that when we go through trials and temptations, that we can overcome because of your blood, because of the blood of the Lamb. Jesus, we thank you for your blood, that your blood has washed us clean and has not given us an old identity, but has given us a new creation, a new identity in you. In Jesus' name.