Where is Your Heart At — Westlake Bible Fellowship

0:00 Opening and sermon outline

Okay. So this is... Let me see here. I think... We'll go with it with that.

Yeah, so you know it's always a little bit disconcerning when you're ready to speak and you get a text from your wife that says, call me. All right? Now Nancy knows that we're speaking on Ephesians five twenty-thirty three. Those of you that know, those are the verses that talk about marriage and a marriage relationship. She's conspicuously missing and won't be here today.

And she won't be here because most of you know that Helga lives with us and Helga's having a real difficult time and she doesn't want to be alone. She's at that point. She doesn't want to be alone. So Nancy and I felt, because we did talk, that it would probably be best for her to be with Helga. I mean, you're going to show the love of Christ, the best the best way to show the love of Christ is to show the love of Christ and I think right now, the the the most important thing is that that Helga sees Christ in in her.

So, so that that's where we're at. Now, let me give you a quick outline of what I'm doing because this is going to be a little bit different. I think I'm going to attack these verses a little bit differently than most people would attack them. They're going to be out of order, but they're out of order for a reason. And my outline basically is this.

So I've got two statements and two questions, so four points. The first statement is love and humility are the key that unlocks Christianity and the Church. Love and humility are the key that unlocks Christianity and the Church. Point number two, each of us are unique. Each of us are unique.

Point number three, what is the church? And point number four, where is my heart? Alright. So I've learned a lot from a lot of people in this in this in this church. And one thing that I learned from Andy, Andy, Morris time and time again is, where's the heart?

Where's the heart? Where's the heart? You know, he says that to me all the time. Whenever he, disciples me or calls my comments into question, where's the heart? Right?

Where's our heart? So that's going to be here as well. So these verses basically are relationship oriented verses. So that's what I want want us to remember. And it starts off before I do this, let's pray real quick.

Heavenly father, we do come before you. We thank you that you love us. We thank you for this opportunity to get together today to to to learn from your word. Just pray that you lord, I pray that you help me to choose the words that the spirit would like me to use and I and I pray for those that are here and on Zoom that they will pick up the points that you would have them here as well. We pray this in Jesus name.

Amen. So, you know, the first of all, I'm I'm really excited about being here today and and and have the opportunity to to present this and what I want to do is I want to start with these two verses, Alright. So Don Don Henderson last week kind of came right up to these verses and stopped just short of them. But I I felt that we needed to we needed to have these verses up here. And and the reason why is because I I truly believe that these are the verses that are the key to Christianity and the key to the church.

3:42 Giving thanks always for everything

Paul was in prison and you know, you you think what's going through his mind, you know, I I was on the on the road to Damascus, right? Okay. On the road. For some reason, I'm thinking Ephesians. So, yeah, on the road to Damascus, he gets stopped.

Christ says, Paul, Paul why have thou... Come on help me out here. Did he say? Why are you persecuting me? Thank you very much.

Why are you persecuting me? And we know that Paul felt called by God for a specific duty yet he's sitting in prison next to somebody. But what does he say? This guy is next to me for twelve hours or eight hours and he has nothing else to do but hear the gospel that I'm delivering. Right?

So, give thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of Christ. Or Bob Markovich's rendition, in reverence to Christ. Submitting ourselves to one another in reverence to Christ. Alright? Remember, these are verses that are sent to the church.

So these are believers. We have to understand that these are verses that were sent to believers. Alright? What I want is... Trevor, come on up here for second.

Alright. So I've got Trevor as my example here. Now, if you take a look, you can identify that Trevor and I have some differences, right? He's got a nice head of hair. I'm bald.

I've got a nice beard, he's trying to grow a beard. Right? What year were you born? 2003. He was born in 2003.

What year was I born? I don't know, like maybe 1964 or something. Very good. So Mr. Boss was born in 1964.

I was born in 1963. So I'm older and wiser. Right. One year off. So, the point is, the point is this.

Alright. Generational differences here. Generational gap here. A young man, and I am, I understand the fact that you are born again. Right?

You're a believer of Jesus Christ. He is part of the church. Notice what this says here. Submitting to one another. Submitting to one another.

Just because I am older and can grow a better beard, doesn't mean that Trevor needs to submit his self to me only for those reasons. We are to submit to one another. He is as important of this group of believers. He's as important of the total church universal as the rest of the believers are. So just because of his age and his inability to grow a beard...

How many times am I going bring that one up? We still need to understand that we are to submit to one another in reverence to Christ. Because this is what we're called to do. Alright? And it's not something that's easy to do, but like Don mentioned last week, this is what we're asked to do.

Tell me. Raise your hand if you give thanks always for everything. Raise your hand if you do. I don't see any hands up. I see one trying to pull one up, it went down.

Alright. Alright. Raise your hand if you submit to one another. If you submit to one another. Alright?

So we're asked to do this and we're given the ability to do it through the power of the Holy Spirit. Okay? But it's still our choice to go out and do it. Alright? I can be that old man, right?

Get off my grass, get of my yard, and tell Trevor what to do. But that's not what I'm called to do. That's not what I'm called to do. Alright. Thank you very much.

8:00 Love one another

We need to love one another. Okay? This is probably the third or fourth time I've quoted George Orwell up here. And I think I'm the only one that has. In the book, The Animal Farm, what did George Orwell say?

Anybody remember? Everybody is equal, but some of us are more equal. Everybody is equal, but some of us are more equal. That is, that is a essence of superiority. Alright?

The only superiority that we have here is the superiority of Christ. Let's understand that. Alright. That's very important to understand. The superiority of Christ.

The rest of us are His body. Okay? So we need to be humble. We need to show love. We need to show encouragement.

Right? One of the reasons that I brought Trevor up here is, is I want to encourage Trevor and I want to encourage the rest of that generation that you have ideas. You have thoughts. You have feelings. You have information that could help us grow as a body.

It's not just about the, as Chris puts it, the gray hairs. Right? Everybody is part of the body. We need to appreciate each other. I love this quote from C.

S. Lewis, Mere Christianity. Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It is thinking of yourself less. So when we want to be humble, and we want to be able to serve, we have to have this attitude in us.

Alright? We're not thinking less of ourselves, we're just thinking of ourselves less. Which means, by inference, means putting others ahead, others' desires, others' needs ahead of ourselves. Alright? So, first Corinthians chapter 13.

If I do not love. Alright? So as we carry on this thought process, we carry on this thought of love and being submissive to one another. First Corinthians 13 verse one, If I do not have love, what am I? A what?

Right. A clanging gong. A clanging gong. A symbol. Right?

So I've been in that situation before where I've been a clanging gong. Right? I could deal with that. If I don't have love, I can be loud. I can be obnoxious, I guess, to some extent.

But what does verse two say, if I do not have love? What is verse two? First Corinthians 13 verse two. If I do not have love. What?

What? I'm nothing. Nothing. If I do not have love, I am nothing. Nothing.

I'd rather be a clanging gong than nothing. But if I do not have love, I am nothing. Do understand the severity of that comment? If you do not have love, you are nothing. We are called to love.

We are called to submit to one another. That's how a body of believers work together. That's how the church works together. So we need humility and love. We need humility and love.

In order to grow as a body, in order to be the church, right, the essence of this entire half of the chapter of Ephesians talks about that, love. Alright. Now, we're going to shift a little bit here. Everybody knows what this is, right? What is that?

12:17 Every snowflake is different

We hear that. Has anybody ever researched that to see if that's true? Right, you have and, okay Trevor, what did you come up with? None of them are the same so far. Alright, So I'm going to support that comment, I hope.

There it goes. The scientific consensus states that the likelihood of two large snow crystals being identical is zero. Alright? No snowflake is the same. Every snowflake is different.

Alright. I think I got like 70, maybe $90 in my pocket. If anybody can tell me the number of snowflakes that fall to the earth in a given year, you could have every single, every single piece of green that's in my wallet right here. Who can tell me? Does anybody know?

Within how many billion? Within 1,000,000,000. That's a good question, but that doesn't help you. All right. Yes.

Million. 3,000,000. Close. Not really. A 100,000,000,000,000?

Alright. So now we have to bring Devin into this conversation because I'm not so sure how to do the math on this one. But look at this. About a million billion snowflakes fall each second if you average out for the whole, the whole year. A million billion.

Okay. It's way, way more than a 100,000,000,000. Alright. And that's a second. That's a second.

Alright. There's enough snow that falls on the earth where everybody, and how many people how many people are in the world today? 8,000,000,000. Everybody can build their own snowman every ten minutes. Yet, none of these snowflakes are exactly the same.

Alright? None of them are exactly the same. Well, you know what? There's how many? A billion, trillion?

What did you say? Okay. Okay. Alright. If God can make every single snowflake different, do you think He can make every single one of us here different?

You know, go through your mind. Do you think we're all different? Alright. What about the 8,000,000,000 people on the earth? Is everybody different?

Exactly. Everybody is different. Alright. So there's 8,000,000,000 people on the earth. So the next point or the next topic that I want to jump into is each of us are unique.

Every single one of us is unique. Each of us are unique. Alright? So, what makes us unique? We're going go through a couple of things here.

I sat down on my computer for five minutes and I came up with all of these things that make us unique. First of all, male and female. Right? God created them, male and female. Alright.

That's easy. That was the easy one. Tick that one off. How about this one right here? Spiritual gifting.

Right? There are so many spiritual gifts. Everybody that's a believer has at least one of those spiritual gifts. In reality, I think that every believer has many of those spiritual gifts. Alright?

We are given the gifts, but we are the ones that have to use them. We have to actually engage and use them. And what I say is that you have to practice using your spiritual gift. Alright? So, that's one way we're different.

Our spiritual gifts. We have to practice using them. The only way that we're going to get better and better using that spiritual gift is we have to use it. We don't want to, as they say, don't hide your candle under a bushel. Right?

Don't hide your spiritual gift. Use your spiritual gift. Work it. Work it. Alright?

Practice it. So spiritual gifting is different. Our ancestry. Our ancestry. 23andMe.

Has anybody ever done 23andMe? You want to figure out how different you are, do 23andMe. Alright? It's a quick saliva test. It takes a look at your DNA and it shows you your ancestry.

My daughter and her husband, Mark, are in Europe. They visited Germany. Where's her ancestry? Germany. Now they're in Italy.

Where's her ancestry? In Italy. Alright? From different areas. Okay?

So our ancestry is different. That makes us unique. Our skills. Alright? Our skills are different.

Our personalities are unique. Our personalities are different. There's somewhere in the neighborhood of a 100 different personality assessments that you can do that identifies what your personality is or gives you an idea of what your personality is. Alright? Personalities are different.

Alright? The language that we speak is different. Alright? We've got Shelly. She can speak fluent Spanish.

Right? That's about my extent. Alright? Or I do quenes mas macho. Quenes mas macho.

Roberto, Devin. Alright? For those of you that don't know Spanish, who's more macho? Right? It's like a beard thing.

Right? Trev? Alright. So language. Our language makes us different.

Alright. The environment that we are in or the environment that we grew up in makes us different. Alright. Who here was born and raised at 901 Dilliwood Avenue, Sheffield Lake, Ohio? Just me.

Alright? Just me. Alright? So our environment makes us different. Alright?

Our education makes us different. Our experiences make us different. Right? So, experiences. Raise your hand if you have ever white water rafted.

Okay. Take a look around. Keep your hands up. Take a look at... Alright.

Keep your hand up if your experience was on the Yakigani River. Alright. Bob, your hand's supposed to be up because it was the Yokogane River. Alright. Keep your hand up if you happen to be in a raft where Bob Buttress was in with you and rather than saying lean into the rock, he said lean away from the rock.

Alright? And where did we end up, Zach? That was Dimple Rock. Yeah. But we were halfway down the river because we flipped out of it.

Right? It's experiences make us different. Now, all right, on the more somber side. Most of us in here have experienced things in our life that we, that were so painful when we went through them that we never want to go through them again. Or they hurt so much that it changed our lives for a long time.

All right? Those experiences that are unique to us individually also give us the ability to help other people when they go through similar experiences. So those experiences are what makes us unique or different. Generation. This is something that over the last six months has hit my inbox.

Generations. I'm starting to do a bunch of research on generational diversity. And it is so broad and we're going to talk about that a little bit today as well. Alright. Are you process driven or are you creative?

Alright. IQ. EQ. Right? Everybody knows what IQ is, right?

Intelligent quotient. What's EQ? Emotional intelligence. Right. Okay.

Are we task oriented or are we people oriented? And then finally, what about your DNA strand? So we're all different. Would you agree? We're all different.

We're all unique. I like the word unique better. Unique is a better word, more appropriate than different. We're all unique people as a result of all these things. Can you come up with something else that would add to that list of what I have of uniqueness?

Your testimony. Yeah. Everybody's testimony is unique. Absolutely. Pardon me?

Birth That's right. Birth order. Glasses or no glasses or sometimes glasses or glasses on the head, right? Alright. So all of these things, all of these different items make us different.

21:35 Generational diversity

First of all, anybody born between 1900 and 1928. Alright. That is what we refer to as the greatest generation. Alright. Then the next one is, who here are in the builder generation?

1929 to 1945. Alright. So I see three hands and then, alright, Krista's not here. She left. She was going to be an example.

She also, builder generation. Alright, how about boomer generation? Alright, so take a look around. There's quite a few people here that are part of the boomer generation. Alright, Gen X.

Who's Gen X? Three. Three Gen Xers. How about Gen Y? Alright, here we go.

Now we got some hands coming up. Gen Y. Alright, Gen Z. Alright, so I think, yeah there we go. So I think it's important to look around and take a look.

Do this for me. Boomers raise your hand. Alright. Gen Z raise your hand. It's about the same, isn't it?

It's about the same number. Gen Z. Alright. And then the Alpha generation. Isaiah, Alpha generation.

Violet, Alpha generation. The research suggests that this alpha generation are going to become that next greatest generation, by the way. Just because of when they were born, what was going on, Violet spent half her life with a mask on. Alright. It's kind of interesting.

So, now, stand or raise your hand. We'll go raise your hand if you're the builder generation. Okay. Keep those hands up. Alright.

Our female. We're down to one. Remember, we're looking at the uniqueness. And this is had or half siblings. Alright.

Hands still up. I don't know why I'm not... There we go. Born in Europe. So this is where the whole thing fails because Christa decided what?

Yeah, only left. I was gonna use this as an example. Right? Speaks fluent German. Right?

And the reason why I use this one is because if you take a look at Christa, it's amazing how she's built relationships with multiple generations. Okay? And again, not sure why she has that ability or that uniqueness or that skill or that gift, but she's able to build multi general generation, multi generation relationships. Now let's do this one. Alright.

Gen Z. Raise your hand if you're Gen Z. Okay. Have siblings. Alright.

Hands are staying up. Are not a twin. So two go down. Alright. Curly hair.

Curly hair. Tim, your hand's supposed to be up still. Alright. Male. Well, but you have to have all the other ones.

Alright? Born in Ohio. Alright. So we have two. We have two.

I thought maybe it was only gonna be Tim, but it looks like Joey's part of that as well. Alright? Again. And then this one's just for fun. Gen z.

Speaks English. Half siblings. Lives in Ohio. Is a twin. Which one is it?

25:49 What is the church

Each of us are unique. Now we're gonna take a look at what is the church. Because Ephesians five thirty two says, this mystery is profound, but I am talking about Christ and the church. So what I'm doing is I'm jumping ahead of or behind of, what is that? I'm jumping past the other verses here and I'm going right to this one, Ephesians five thirty two.

Because I think it's important because of the fact that it is the mystery, the church is the mystery, and we're seeing it here that the mystery is profound, but I'm talking about Christ and the church. Right, so the first time that my research suggested that the church was mentioned was in Matthew sixteen eighteen. Alright, Matthew sixteen eighteen is the first time that the church is mentioned. So, these verses that we're going to undertake when we're done with this piece, the whole idea is to say that this relationship that we're going to see between a husband and a wife is also that relationship that is between Christ and the church. It's also that relationship that the members of the church should have with each other, or part of the body.

So first of all, and what is the church? Alright. So first Peter two nine through 10. But you are a chosen race. Look at look at what the church is.

A chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession. So that you may proclaim the praise of the one who has called you out of the darkness into the marvelous light. Right? We talked, Don talked about last week about darkness and light. Right?

Darkness is the absence of light. Okay? Andy Hilton several weeks ago talked about bring it into the light. Bring it into the light. Wants us to be in the light.

Alright? Who is from Michigan? Nathan, right? When you go, go in the light. Right?

Remember he pulled that. Be in the light. You're taking a journey, be in the light. Remember he had the airplane up there. You have to have a special type of a license in order to go in the dark, be in the light, fly in the light.

Okay? Travel in the light. Be in the light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. You had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

So this is what the church is. Now, who are you in Christ? So in Christ, we had all the evidence from first Peter two:nine through 10. Now it's, we are children of God. So, first John three:one says that we're children of God.

Second Corinthians five seventeen, we are a new creation. Old things pass away. We are a brand new creation in Christ. Okay? So, that brings us to this point right here.

We are uniquely different as individuals and forever existing as one body. Now, how do we build relationships with people that are unique or different from ourselves? How does one go out and set a path toward creating a strong relationship? Well, way that you do that is you have to spend time together. You have to practice building the relationship.

You have to have conversations. You have to understand where other people were. Alright? So the unique experience that that me and Zach had with Bob Buttress really firms up that relationship. Alright.

The trip that George and some of my family, some of his family, when we went down to North Carolina to visit Andy Hilton back when he was down there. It built and strengthened the relationship. Okay? So what we have to do is we actually have to find, we have to find things that are in common. We're so vastly different, but how do we find things in common?

And how do we then begin to create that relationship? And that relationship is basically the essence of how the church is going to grow. So here's the way that I look at it. So I'm going to step away from my notes for a little bit, but keep this in the background. Here's the way that I look at it.

Okay, we've got a lot of Gen Zers here. If we make major changes here at Westlake Bible Fellowship, the chances of me leaving are slim. Alright? I've been here ever since I got saved. So back in 1985, this is the only church in reality that I ever went to.

Okay? I'm not leaving. But how do we keep the Gen Zers here? Alright. How do we encourage the Gen Zers to bring in other Gen Zers?

You see if this body is going to last, it's not as a result of the baby boomers, you know, using their thumb or the baby boomers taking charge of everything. It's about how do we empower? How do we encourage? Those are relationship building words. Empower.

Encourage those other generations. How do we do that? How do we help them set the path? Okay. You know, we've got two elders.

One's a boomer at the end of the boomer generation. The other one's a Gen X. Alright? How do we make sure that they have conversations, and I know that they do, right? With the Gen Zers.

To make sure that we can work together and grow the body in the way that the body is supposed supposed to grow. And so that, you know, guys all know that young people are leaving the church. Right? I mean, I'm looking out and I'm like, maybe I'm confusing people. Do we understand that?

Young people are leaving the church in droves. Why is that? Why is that? I'm sure just as long as each of us are uniquely created, we all have our own answer. But they are.

How do we encourage them and empower them to not leave the church? How do we show them how important they are, that they're as important as every other member of the body? How do we do that? Right? I mean, unless you want to sit back and let the young people leave the church.

But I don't think anybody here wants that to happen. We do... You do that through relationships. Alright? And yeah, I'm gonna be that guy that says it.

The reason why young kids are leaving the church is because they don't have relationships. Alright? At one of my toughest times in life, the reason why I didn't leave the church was because I had relationships and people didn't let go of me. They came to my aid. Now, when I say that, I had to share with them what was going on in my life and I had to understand that they weren't going to be judgmental and that they were going to help me.

Right? But unless I had those relationships with people that I could trust, I would never do that. So we need to work together to encourage the younger generation and to empower generation, and to disciple the younger generation. And you know what? The younger generation can disciple us, and they can encourage us, and they can empower us.

But we have to have an open dialogue so that that happens. Otherwise, they are going to leave the church. And that alpha generation, they would be at the biggest risk. Okay? So that last point that I wanted to make is, or the fourth point is where is your heart?

34:54 Where is your heart

And I want to do that I want to do that with you thinking about this. Number one, where is your heart? How can you encourage, empower, submit to, and love? Encourage, empower, submit to, and love. So we go to Ephesians chapter five and we're going to start with 21.

Okay? I'm going to group these together. 20, 22. Start with 22. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the lord because the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church.

He is the savior of the body. Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives are to submit to their husbands in everything. So me being who I am, I typically stop at 22. Wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord. All right?

And I venture to say that if we're honest, most of us men do. Okay? But if we take a look at all three of those verses together, wives submit to your husband as to the Lord because the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. If we understand that relationship between Christ and the church, if we understand that relationship between Christ and the individual, then it is it is should be a little bit easier for us to submit because Christ is the head of the church. He is the savior of the body.

Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wiser submit to their husbands in everything. In everything. Submit in everything. That's a hard thing to ask. Again, like like Donald pointed out, we wouldn't be asked to do this if the power wasn't in us to do it.

So the power of the Holy Spirit is in every believer so that you can perform this function to submit to your husband. Alright, to submit to the body. Submit to Christ. So the question is, if if you have enough capacity as as a wife to submit to Christ, you have enough capacity to submit to your husband. If you have enough capacity as an individual to submit to Christ, you have enough capacity to submit to the body.

Right? Do you see that? Is that making sense with you? Does that make sense? Okay?

And that power is only in us as a result of the Holy Spirit in us. Okay, now we jump to verse 25. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of the water by the word. He did, he did this to present the church to himself in splendor without spot or or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless. In the same way, husbands love their wives as their own bodies.

He who loves his wife loves himself. Okay? So forget that I want one verse ahead. I didn't want to read that second verse or that last verse there. But point is, the point that I'm trying to make here is that how difficult husbands is it to love your wife like Christ loved the church?

We're all still here so we didn't give ourselves up for our spouse. Right? Christ did. Christ gave himself up for the church. But if I look at it this way, this is easier for me to do than than the than the women submitting.

This is easier for me to do right here. If I want to love my wife the way that Christ loved the church is is is I've got to continue encouraging her. All right? I need to empower her. I need to submit to her.

All right? This is the way the body is supposed to act with one another. This is the way that husbands are supposed to act and react with their wives. Okay? But again, it's only through the power of the Holy Spirit that's in me that that I can do this.

That's not an excuse. That's not an excuse at all. What it is, is a is a clear understanding of where my mindset has to be in order for me to perform the functions of a husband, which is to love my wife the way that life that Christ loved the church. And the only way that I could do this is make sure that I love Christ as much as Christ loves me or strive to love Christ as much as Christ loves me. Alright?

And then And then put my wife into that same situation. You know, it's a lot easier to come here on Sundays and on the one off prayer meeting that I attend or the different functions of the body, it's a lot easier for me to put up with you and you to put up with me because I don't know you as well as I know my wife. We're gonna be separate in an hour so I can keep a smile on or be happy. But how about in those real difficult times with our wives, where we are struggling because we know we're living there, we know we have to go to bed, We know we have to wake up. Yet, we know them so well, yet do we really treat them the way they deserve to be treated?

That's a question that you have to answer on your own. And then, now I'm going to go back verse 28. In the same way, husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own flesh, but provides and cares for it just as Christ does for the church.

Alright, when I when I listen to that, it really exposes sin in my life. It exposes sin in my life. See, it's a lot easier for me to give myself grace and mercy than it is to give other people grace and mercy. I can overlook a lot that I do. I can overlook the mistakes that I make.

I could overlook some of the things that I say that probably I probably shouldn't have. Some of the things that I've I've said wrong that that I that I shouldn't have. It's a lot easier for me to give myself grace than it is to give the other person grace. But what we're supposed to do here is we're supposed to give them grace, more grace. Give them more grace than you give yourself.

Right? Think about that. How many times have you done something and you've you you really don't do a a thorough assessment on what it did and how it affected other people. Yet when somebody else cuts you off, what's the first thing that you do or say? What's the reaction that you do?

But when you cut somebody off, I'm in a hurry, right? I got to get somewhere. If they knew where I was going or what I was doing, they wouldn't be honking their horn at me, right? Because we give ourselves that. We need to make sure that we give others that.

So the fourth point here, again is, where's your heart? And again, I'll say this, are practicing a loving heart? Are you practicing forgiveness? Are you actively practicing it? Nancy and I had a conversation last week and somehow we got to be on the subject of Nancy admitted, she goes, I need to be more Christ like.

And she didn't say that I needed to, although I do, right? But her comment was, I need to be more Christ like. And I said, well, Nance, how do you become more Christ like? And she goes, well, I got to get into God's word. And I said, you gotta get into god's word or do you have to practice being more Christ like?

Do you have to act, do you have to actually go out and engage in being more Christ like? Practice doing it. That way you grow. Just like our spiritual gifts. We when we practice our spiritual gifts, our spiritual, we're going to grow in the ability to use those spiritual gifts.

If we practice a loving relationship, that loving relationship is going to grow. We're going to learn. We're going to learn what to do, what to say. If we engage with bringing on other generations to help us do what God has called us to do here in Westlake, we are building those relationships, right? We are practicing what god is telling us to do, to grow together.

So, as we as we as we bring this to a conclusion here, Where's your heart? Where's your heart with respect to your spouse? Where is your heart with respect to your siblings? Where's your heart with respect to the body at Westlake Bible Fellowship? Where is your heart with respect to the body, the church universal outside of here?

Where is your heart? We really need to address that and assess that as often as we possibly can. Otherwise, we will not have the desire to change. We will not have the desire to change and we will not have the ability to grow. Let's close in prayer.

Lord, thank you for the for the love that you've given us, Lord. Thank you for these verses from Ephesians. Thank you for the study in Ephesians. Thank you, Lord, for helping us to bring these thoughts out as to church life and what the book of Ephesians talks about as far as church life. Help us to grow individually.

Help us to grow together and help us to grow as a body. But most of all, help us to grow in our love toward you and our desire to do what you call us to do. Lord, as we take a look at these verses here with very specific, a very specific tasks that we need to do, that we can only do through the power of the Holy Spirit. So, we call on the Holy Spirit to help us, to guide us, to make us individuals that we were created to be so that we can help the body grow so that we can be that part of the body that is is needed to help the church function in order to give you all the glory and the honor that you deserve. We pray this in Jesus name.

Amen.

Where is Your Heart At — Ephesians 5

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Where is Your Heart At — Ephesians 5

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