SOLD OUT!

“SOLD OUT!”—1

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• James Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds
  • An experiment with college students
  • Not surprisingly “70 percent of the subjects changed their real opinion at least once, and a third of the subjects went along with the group at least half the time.” (38)
  • But when one of the control group joined the subject in selecting the correct answer, “that was enough to make a huge difference. Having even one other person in the group who felt as they did made the subjects happy to announce their thoughts, and the rate of conformity plummeted.” (39)
  • Let’s call it “the power of .”
    • All it takes is one other person to agree with you—and you will find courage to take the stand you believed was right all along.
    • Or, all it takes is for one student, one person, to step out of the crowd and take a stand for what he or she believes is the right answer—and someone else, who would otherwise have probably gone along with the group, finds courage to also take the very same stand.
• Matthew 18:15-20
  • v 15—“Just between the of you.” Like the old proverb says, “The best way to dispose of your enemies it to make with them.”
  • v 16—“Take one or others along.”
    • Deuteronomy 19:15
    • Desire of Ages: “While we seek to correct the errors of a brother [or sister], the Spirit of Christ will lead us to shield [them], as far as possible, from the criticism of even [their own spiritual family], and how much more from the censure of the unbelieving world. We are erring, and need Christ’s pity and forgiveness, and just as we wish Him to deal with us, He bids us deal with one another.” (441)
  •  v 17—Who are the “pagans” and “tax collectors”? They are those who are the very of the church.
    vv 12-14—the parable of the lost sheep
    What are we doing to reconnect with the “lost sheep” of our own ?
  •  v 18—Jesus is describing an astounding between the church down here and Heaven up there.
    Whichever one acts first, the other .
  • Thus the point is inescapable: The church is a very big deal to .
    • God is on the church!
    • David Watson: “The existence of the Christian community of the church in its ideal form is the revelation of God that the world can at present see.” (I Believe in the Church 84)
    • Ellen White: “Enfeebled and defective as it may appear, the church is the one object upon which God bestows in a special sense His regard” (Acts of the Apostles 12).
  • No wonder the New Testament—building on Christ’s foundational teaching of the church here in Matthew—offers these stirring metaphors of the church:
    • The B of Christ—with Christ as the Husband. (2 Cor 11:2; Eph 5:25-27; Rev 21:2)
    • The B of Christ—with Christ as the Head. (1 Cor 12:27; Eph 1:22-23)

• The B of Christ)—with Christ as the Cornerstone. (1 Cor 3:11, 16; Eph 2:19-22)
• The B of Christ—with Christ as the Captain. (Eph 6:13-17; Heb 2:10 NKJV)
• You can’t be close to the Head without being close to the .
• Zechariah 2:8—“This is what the LORD Almighty says: Whoever touches you [Zion] touches the of His eye.”
• You cannot be to Christ and from His church.

• vv 19-20—The Greek reads: “For where two or three are ‘’ in My name, there am I with them.”
  • By his intentional use of the verb form of “synagogue,” Matthew is describing the formal, organized, institutional church of the New Testament that meets every with appointed and recognized to  God, study His and carry out His on earth all week long.
  • “The power of two”—the power of Christ and His church.
• That’s why like Jesus I too am . . .

  “SOLD OUT on the Church”