so Good morning. Welcome to Greenville Associate Reform Presbyterian Church. It's great to have you joining us for our morning worship service. And we especially want to welcome those of you who are first time visitors with us and also welcome those who are joining us via our live stream or in the fellowship hall next door. It's good to have you. Before we begin our service, I want to highlight a couple of announcements. So turn to pages five and six. in the bulletin. Before I do that, I want to make known to you that we have a printout, a little pamphlet, of our ministry theme this year. You remember we had a short sermon series on this. The theme is Growing Together, and that's on the front cover of the pamphlet. These are in the back of the sanctuary, in the commons, and throughout the church. You'll find these on some small tables. What this does is it walks you through our 1 plus 1 plus 1 model. What we're encouraging you to do is what you're doing today. Be faithful in worship attendance, because this is where God speaks to us, where the means of grace are communicated to us. So we want to challenge you to be in the corporate worship service as much as you can. The second plus one is to connect with one of our fellowship groups, get involved in the church life, be more, the church needs to be more about just Sunday morning worship. You need fellowship, you need community with fellow Christians so that you can be encouraged and challenged. And then the last plus one which is described in the pamphlet is volunteering. You've probably heard it said that 20% of people do 80% of the work of the church. That's awful. We should not be happy with that. 100% of the people should be involved in 100% of the work. Everybody has a role to play. And we want to challenge you. If you're not playing a role right now, look in this pamphlet. There's some recommendations of how you can get plugged in. And if you're unable to serve, you can always be in prayer for the church. So keep your eye out for the growing together pamphlets. Page five and six, reminder that VBS registration for members of the church, that we give priority to our church members, that opens this Wednesday at 10 a.m. Look for a churchwide email that will be sent out. If you have any questions about sign up, then please see Rebecca. Then the bottom two announcements on page five and the top one on page six are about Easter week. A reminder that we will not be having our Wednesday night program this coming week. We will be having a Monday Thursday service and that is a communion service that starts at 7 p.m. And then for our children, there's an annual Easter egg hunt that will be held Saturday from 10 to 11. And this is also a great way for our youth to get involved. If you want to hide Easter eggs, then please let Rebecca know. And then two announcements down from there, the flowering cross. This is something new. Reminder, bring some flowers from your yard if you want to pick some up from the store, and we're going to place those in the flowering cross on Easter Sunday morning. It's a good opportunity if you want to take pictures in your Easter dress, you're welcome to do so. And then lastly, child protection policy training will be offered Wednesday, April 30th, May 7th, and then Sunday, May 18th. If you're working with children and youth, you have to complete the child protection policy. And those are the dates for you to either renew or to get certified. Those are all the announcements I have. Let us turn our attention now to the worship of God. ♪ Hosanna in the highest ♪ ♪ Hosanna, oh how the voices ring ♪ ♪ We see him, we see him, he is our king of kings ♪ ♪ Wake up all, sing a song ♪ ♪ We have waited for so long ♪ ♪ Hosanna, hosanna, blessed be your name ♪ ♪ Hosanna, hosanna ♪ ♪ Oh, how the voices ring ♪ ♪ We see him, we see him ♪ ♪ He is our king of kings ♪ ♪ Wake up, come sing a song ♪ ♪ We have waited for so long ♪ ♪ Hosanna, hosanna ♪ Thank you to our chair choir for preparing us for Palm Sunday. Congregation, if you'll please stand for our call to worship. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the Eagles. Join with me in prayer. Our Father, majestic is your name in all the earth. From the rising of the sun to its setting, your name is praised this day in churches gathered throughout the world. You are a God of power and holiness, mercy and grace. Meet with your children, we pray, and pour out your blessings through Christ upon us. We come to you with boldness and confidence because we come to you in the name of Jesus, your only son and our savior. In his grace, he has covered us with his precious blood. He's purified and washed us from our sin. In his power, he's transformed us into a new creation. And in his love, he protects us from all our enemies. We thank you for sending your Holy Spirit to lead and guide us in all truth. May your spirit be present today to guard our hearts and minds from all distractions. May he teach our hearts to long for you so that we can give you the worship that you ultimately deserve. To you, O gracious Father, enthroned above, and to the Son incarnate seated at your right hand, and to the Holy Spirit dwelling within our hearts, be all glory forever and ever. We pray now as Jesus taught us with these familiar words. Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Let us lift our hearts and voices to our God in singing hymn number 323, all glory, laud, and honor. You. The Lord, the King of Israel, the David's royal Son, who gives the Lord's name for all his people. Who do we come to worship today? We come to worship a holy God, a God who is pure in righteousness. And even though we've been cleansed by the precious blood of Jesus, we still have remnants of sin that remain in our flesh. And it's good and appropriate for us as we continue to worship God to humble ourselves and confess our sins. So I'll give you a time in private to confess your personal sins. And then we'll join together with our public confession, which is printed on the middle of page three in the bulletin. Take some time now to privately confess your sins. Join with me in our corporate confession. Lord, you are the great and awesome God. You keep covenant and mercy with all those who love you and obey your holy law. in your hearts and judgments, in your heart. When we confess our sins and look to Jesus as our Savior, we have this assurance of pardon from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. He writes, seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon. As we continue to worship God, we need to worship resting on these gospel promises that God looks at us as a purified people in Christ through faith in the gospel. He looks at us as a people who have received the righteousness of God and therefore we stand before him clothed in the white garments of Christ's pure righteousness. He delights in his children. May that encourage you and bring joy to your heart as you worship this day. We'll continue our worship with our collection of tithes and offerings. Can it be? Is it he? Riding on the donkey? Can it be? ♪ It's Jesus of Bethlehem ♪ ♪ Shout Hosanna, shout Hosanna, shout and sing ♪ ♪ It's Jesus of Bethlehem, shout and sing ♪ ♪ Is Jesus of Galilee ♪ ♪ King of kings, Lord of lords ♪ ♪ Shout and sing Hosanna, Hosanna ♪ Can it be? Isn't he entering the city? Can it be? Isn't he Jesus again in thee? ♪ Jesus of Galilee, King of Kings, Lord of Lords ♪ ♪ Shout and sing, hosanna, shout and sing ♪ ♪ It's Jesus of Galilee, shout and sing, hosanna, hosanna ♪ Thank you to our joy singers. Congregation, if you'll please stand, we'll affirm our faith together using the Apostles' Creed printed on the top of page four in your bulletin. Brothers and sisters, what is it that you believe? I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified dead and buried, and he descended into hell. The third day, he rose again from the dead, He ascended into heaven and stood upon the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From hence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. Let us seek the face of our Heavenly Father in prayer. Our Father in heaven, you tell us to be anxious of nothing, yet we come today, this morning, full of anxiety. You tell us to fear not, yet we are fearful. You call us to be holy, but we feel the guilt and the shame of the weight of our sin and shortfalling in this past week. We come to you in prayer full of weakness, frailty, sickness, and sin. We plead with you, be merciful to us. For we are your children and you are our God. You know us better than we know ourselves. You know what we need before we even ask. We come to you and lay our requests before you in the name of Jesus. Jesus teaches us to pray for your kingdom to come, and therefore we pray for your church throughout the world. We ask that you would continue to use the church through the faithful reading and preaching of your word, through consistent and God-honoring worship, and through spiritual fellowship to spiritually nourish and strengthen the souls of your saints throughout the world. We ask and plead with you to protect your church from persecution, from false teaching, and from disunity. We know, Lord, that the devil seeks to disrupt our faith and our fellowship constantly. We are an embattled people, a people constantly in spiritual warfare. We ask that you would provide your people with gifted leaders. spiritual leaders to serve as elders and deacons. We pray that you would provide your church with the financial resources it needs to support the work of missions and for the ministries of the local church. We ask Lord that your church would continue to be growing in spiritual maturity day by day. We're also called in your word to pray for our civil leaders, and we happily do so today. We pray for our president, for the Congress, our representative leaders at the national level and at the state level. We pray for our governor, pray for our mayor here in Greenville. And we ask, Lord, that your spirit would be at work and moving within them. We pray also that you would rise up from the midst of the Christian church, civil leaders, leaders like Joseph and David in times past, who can bring wisdom and guidance in our processes of making laws and executing them. We pray also for spiritual growth, Renew our minds by the powerful working of your Holy Spirit. Ground our identity in Christ. Help us to know that we are no longer bound to Adam. We died with Christ, we were buried with him, and we've been raised to new life in him. We are a new creation. We have been liberated from death and the devil and sin. Enable us to progress in sanctification. If there's any in the congregation today who are struggling and embattled with a war with their flesh and with temptation, we pray that you would give them relief, that you would give them spiritual power to continue the fight, that you would equip them with the whole armor of God in that work. We pray, Lord, that you would help us to love your law more and more. We pray, Lord, that you would make us students of your word so that we can learn the precious will of God for our lives. We ask that you would establish our hope, not in this world, but in the new heavens and the new earth. We pray for our ministries here at Greenville ARP Church, and we pray today especially for our day school, We thank you for the opportunity we have to educate little children in the things of the Lord from an early age and to expand that education outside of our own borders to the community around us. Be with Erica Wingate as she provides leadership and oversight to the school. Be with the teachers and the staff as they invest into the lives of these little ones. And watch over the children, we pray, Lord, you would cause them to come to faith in Christ at a very early age and be receptive to the teaching that they're receiving. There are many needs in the life of our church, many specific needs that we bring to you now. We pray for Maurice and Martha Beckham, for Billy Brady, Cynthia Cook, Deb Colbertson, Ken Gamble, Hannah Gell, Hogan Hairston, Anne Huckabee, Teresa Lewis, Paul Presley, and Tonya Schaffner. We ask, Lord, that you would provide healing to their bodies, and if it's not your will to bring healing, that you would give them patience and long-suffering and faith and hope in the world that lies ahead and to the eternal life that awaits them in the kingdom of God. We lift all of these prayers up to you in the name, the sweet and precious name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Children, if you'll please come to the front for our children's message. As the children are coming up, a reminder, we will sing hymn 333, Hosanna, loud Hosanna, and that will be unannounced. That comes right at the end of the children's message. And children can go out with Miss Kay and Miss Julie to extended learning time during the first stanza of that hymn. Well, this is a little bit of a different Sunday for us, isn't it? What was different? You did sing a song, that's different. Poems? Yeah, I saw y'all walk in from the back of the church. That happens what, once a year maybe? And y'all were carrying these funny things in your hand? What'd y'all have in your hands? Palms. And look at this. This is our, usually a flower arrangement, but there's no flowers. What is that? Palms. So what are we celebrating today? Anybody know what that means? Is that the Palmetto State Sunday or something? It's when Jesus came, well, give me more. What's going on on Palm Sunday? Okay, getting close, getting warmer. What's the other city that he spent a lot of time in? Starts with a J. Jesus? No, not the city of Jesus. Not the city of Judas. Jerusalem, yes. Good. So what were they doing with the palm branches when Jesus walked into the city of Jesus? And what were they saying? Y'all saying some. Yep, hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. And y'all saying this, I heard y'all singing this. What did they call him? He's not just a normal man, he was what? A king. A king. A king, so they were honoring the king. And they were showing him respect. What do kings do? What? Oh, gotta keep that from, can't rip that. It's stuck together, but it's probably meant to be. That's how God created it. What do kings do? A king hat, which is called a what? Yeah. He had a crown. What was his crown that he had to wear? Thorns. That would not be a fun crown to wear, would it? So kings do three things. This is taught in our catechism, the Westminster Shorter Catechism. They rule over us. So what does that say about Jesus when we honor Him as a King? Can He tell us what to do? Now some kings are not good kings, they're bad kings and they tell us to do things just for their gain, but Jesus is a good king and everything he tells us to do is gonna be ultimately very good for us when we follow in his ways. You know what's another cool thing about him? What if a king, think about an old ancient king lived in a castle, do you think that the ancient king ever cleaned his bathrooms? Who did that? His servants. But you know what Jesus does? We're gonna talk about this on Thursday. He cleans his disciples' dirty, nasty feet. Yeah, so he's setting an example. He's saying, I'm a different kind of king. I'm a servant king. I do what I ask my people to do. He kept the whole law for us. Everything that we're commanded by God to do, Jesus did it, and he did it perfectly. So he rules over us. Next thing he does is he defends us. How do you think he defends us? What do kings like King Arthur, what did he have to defend himself? Carried it on his side, he could pull it out. A sword, a sword. Jesus defends his children. He defends us from ourselves, because sometimes we hurt ourselves by doing things that we shouldn't do and living according to the flesh. He defends us from who else? The devil, Satan. And he defends us from death. And then he's, the third thing a king does, he rules, he defends, and he conquers. So what is, Jesus is about to go into a war, a battle, and he's about to conquer our biggest enemies, Palm Sunday, what's next Sunday? All right, what happens on Friday before Easter? Good Friday, he died on the cross, and then he rose again from the dead on Easter Sunday. And that is all him conquering sin, the devil, and death. It no longer has sway or power over those who believe in Jesus. So that's the king that we're honoring on Palm Sunday. He's a special spiritual ruler. He's also a physical ruler. He's gonna rule over the whole heavens and the earth. And guess what? Every knee is going to bow before him. when he comes again and confess that he is the true Lord. So I'm gonna pray for you that you will know King Jesus, that you will learn to follow his rules, take comfort that he's a defender of you, and rejoice that he has conquered all of his and our enemies. Let's pray. Our Father and our God, we thank you for this Sunday, a reminder in our year that our, that Jesus, yes, he's God, and yes, he's man, but he's also a prophet, he's a priest, and he is a king. I pray, Lord, that these young children, both boys and girls, would come to know him as their Lord and their king at an early age. We pray this in Christ's name, amen. All right, if you're gonna go with Miss Julie, follow her out the door. To Jesus, who had blood on His back, was folded to His breast. The children sing Him praises, the simplest admonitions. The moment that came to our world should I die. Turn to 1 Thessalonians chapter five. We're gonna read from verse 12 to the end of the chapter. And our sermon will focus on verses 25 to 28, the closing few verses of the letter. Hear the word of our God. We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. See that no one repays anyone evil for evil. but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the spirit, do not despise prophecies, but test everything. Hold fast what is good, abstain from every form of evil. Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful. He will surely do it. Brothers, pray for us. Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss. I put you under oath before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen. Let us pray. Our Father and our God, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the opportunity we've had over the last several months to study Paul's letter to the Thessalonians. We pray, Lord, with these closing few verses that maybe seem so trivial to us when we're reading through the scripture, that you would unpack the spiritual truths that you would have us to learn today. Open our hearts and minds to receive your word. May your Holy Spirit be active, illuminating us to understand the spiritual teachings that you have in store for us. We pray in Christ's name, amen. We're coming to the end of our series on First Thessalonians, a series that we started back in early September of 2024. And we're at the last few verses. It's very similar to the opening few verses. I'll read those to you. Paul, Silvanus, Timothy to the church. of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace. Pretty standard words of introduction and there's a lot of similarity in the closing words to other epistles, other letters written in the New Testament. And sometimes that creates a stumbling block for us. Our familiarity with these words may lead us to underestimate how saturated they are with theology and spiritual instruction. So let's dive in and unpack these. The first point of the sermon is based on verse 25. Brothers, pray for us. Pray for us. simple words, but what lies underneath them? What are the deep theological assumptions that Paul and Silvanus and Timothy are making? You ever thought about that? Prayer is so basic. It's described as theologians like the breathing of a newborn child. When we become born again, one of the first things we start to do is we start to cry out to God in prayer. And things that are so elementary, we often don't dig deep and study the assumptions that lie behind them. But let's think for a minute and reflect on these. To pray, is to believe that God is sovereign over everything. If we really think about it, that's what we're saying, that God can hear us and he can do something about it. He can answer our requests. He controls all that goes on in the universe. He orchestrates everything for his glory and for the good of his kingdom. All of that is assumed in prayer. He is all powerful and he is wise. I wanna read to you a declaration made by a pagan king A king that you'll be familiar with, Nebuchadnezzar in the book of Daniel. You remember he got a little arrogant and proud and started looking around his kingdom and boasting about how great he was. Now surely God cares for Israel, his own kingdom, but what role does God have in a pagan kingdom like Babylon? If you ever worry about the direction your government is going in, go read Daniel and you will be reminded very quickly that no matter how bad it gets, God is still in control. Daniel chapter four, Nebuchadnezzar lifted his eyes to heaven and he had been out in the field acting like a wild cow eating grass. Remember God humbled him? And this is what this great pagan king, he was leading the world's superpower at the time. He blessed the most high and praised and honored him who lives forever. And this is what This great king says, he says, for his dominion is everlasting, is an everlasting dominion. His kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the inhabitants, not some, but all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing. And he does according to his will among the hosts of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. And none can stay his hand or say to him, what have you done? That's a theology of prayer. Why do we pray to God? Because this is who we're praying to. The one who controls absolutely everything. Even sin. You remember Joseph's declaration to his brothers? They sinned against him. They treated him poorly. He was treated poorly all throughout his life, and he says, you meant it for evil, but God took your sin and used it for good for the development of his kingdom. The cross that we're gonna talk about on Friday, or that we remember on Good Friday, that's sin, isn't it? That's an unjust act of a civil government, and the Jews corroborating that, they're, Complicit in that as well, that's murder. And yet what does God use that sinful act for? The redemption of all of his people. That's pretty neat to think about. Even the sin, the rebellion, God uses it to accomplish his purposes and his ends. That's mind blowing. Another aspect of the theology of prayer is that God listens and cares. That's assumed. You don't pray to a God who's shutting you down. You pray to a God who cares, who is open and receptive to your requests. He is a personal being, not a impersonal force. There's family language all through this. Brothers, pray for us. How does Jesus teach us to pray? Our father, our father, someone who loves us and is concerned with us. God is keenly aware of all of our needs, our pains, our sorrows, our challenges in life. It's all assumed when we pray. Then there's this us part of this. Pray for us. Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy. Paul was a great man, wasn't he? When you read the New Testament, aren't you impressed by him? Especially after his conversion, man, he was sold out for Jesus. He was bold and courageous. He possessed spiritual gifts. He had a personal encounter with God where he says he was lifted up into the third heaven, whatever that means. It sounds impressive though. I wish I could be lifted up into the third heaven. I don't know if I've made it to the first one. Still on ground zero. But Paul was a man and he felt that keenly. He was, as he self-describes, the chief of sinners. He was persecuted. He was subject to spiritual warfare. Remember the thorn in his side that's mentioned. Constantly attacked by the devil. His request for prayer is the ultimate sign of spiritual self-awareness. God is the creator, I am the creature. God is infinite, I am finite. God possesses and rules over all things. I need him even to breathe and for my heart to beat. We can pray for everything. The more we are spiritually self-aware of our standing as creatures, the more in tune we will be to prayer. But these simple words also rest on deep gospel assumptions. There's theological assumptions that we've mentioned, but there's gospel assumptions. The thread of prayer runs throughout the letter of 1 Thessalonians. In chapter one, verse two, Paul prays for the Christians in Thessalonica. Chapter three, he prays that they may reunite with each other, that God would open a way to bring him back to the city so he can Encourage them and they can encourage him. In chapter 517, he tells us to pray without ceasing. Much of this prayer has been Paul for them. And I wonder if that's how we look at our spiritual leaders. Pray for us. Pray for this request and that request. But Paul turns it on its head and says, now you pray for me. You pray for us. He turns his focus. And this is really interesting. That this great Paul, this great spiritual man, would ask the members of that church to pray for him. Who were the Thessalonians? Man, they were a rough crowd. They used to worship idols, we hear about in chapter one. Look at you now. Now Paul is asking you to pray to the one true God who rules over all to rid yourself of your idols. What's going on in their lives? Is there not gospel fruit in that statement? You pray for us. We believe that you are worthy to pray for us. We believe that you have access to God. He will hear you because of the gospel. Pray for us. This group of people in Thessalonica, they had areas of sin that they were still working on. They hadn't achieved a great level of sanctification. Early in chapter four, he prays for their sanctification, asks that they would abstain from sexual immorality, that each one of them would learn how to control his own body in holiness and honor. They were still practicing things from their sinful past. They were struggling. They were weak. They were persecuted. They had misunderstanding. They weren't sure if Christ had returned yet or not, as described at the end of chapter four. But they had access to God through Jesus. Isn't that comforting to know? If you're a member of the church, if you have repented of your sin, if you've turned to Jesus, he is your savior, you have access to God. The theology of the gospel. Do you pray? I think we all struggle with it, don't we, if we're honest. We may have good seasons. We particularly are locked in when life is not going our way. But you know what's hard is to pray when everything is going good. You start to grow spiritually proud. And when we don't pray, what is the theology we're confessing? Yeah, we confess the Apostles' Creed, But when we don't pray, our actions express practical atheism. We got this on our own. Pray for us. Second thing Paul mentions here in verse 26, greet all the brothers with a holy kiss. What in the world is he talking about here? This is one that will make us uncomfortable. What is this holy kiss? Well, let's think about it for a minute, take a step back, breathe a sigh of relief, control ourselves. To greet a person with a kiss was very common in Roman culture in the days that Paul wrote. It's exhorted at the end of Romans, in Romans chapter 16, at the end of first Corinthians and at the end of second Corinthians. He tells them to greet one another with a holy kiss. We're Americans, but if we expand our horizons a little bit and think about the rest of the world, this is still a pretty common practice. A hug followed by a kiss on either one or both cheeks is pretty common in Latin America, France, Italy, Spain, parts of the Middle East. Some of you, probably most of you know this. It's an expression of love, respect, peace, unity, and friendship. And for Paul, this was an appropriate way of demonstrating that spiritual unity, peace, and love that we possess within the Christian community. That's why he calls it a holy kiss. It's the mark of Christ's people and their outward symbol of what should be an inward reality in how they treat one another. There is evidence of this in early Christian literature that it was part of the Christian worship service. They would have a time. Now, I would say this, in their day, they had men on one side of the church and women on the other. It was usually divided based on genders. And they would greet each other in the congregation with a holy kiss. Think about that. That's not the sign that we're concerned about, but what it expresses, the unity and love for one another. What is this teaching us today? Well, look at it, greet some of the brothers, the ones that you feel like you're connected with. Does it say that? Unfortunately not, it says greet all of the brothers. And that's pretty radical in the context that Paul's writing. There were Greeks and Jews, and they didn't particularly like each other, but Paul says, greet each other with a holy kiss, all, whether you're Greek or whether you're Jew. Whether you're a slave or whether you're a master. Ooh, that was a big one. That would have been very unpopular for the master to greet a slave with a holy kiss. The rich and the poor. Treat everyone with that mutual respect and love. You see, the gospel is the great equalizer. It eliminates social categories and social status. Easier said than done, isn't it? I'm sure back in the days that this was written, when it was read to all, the masters were looking at the slaves going, Paul encourages them to do so regardless. Are you seeking to live at peace and love others in your church? Pray that the Holy Spirit might enlighten us a little bit here. Have you gossiped about a fellow Christian, maybe a member of this church, maybe just a Christian who's a member of another church? I certainly have, to be honest. That's not greeting, that's not following the principle that Paul's talking about here. Are you bitter towards someone in this fellowship, holding on to a past offense? One thing I'm trying to do is eat and take care of myself and exercise a little better. And one thing I try to do, they say to drink water and that's fine, but you need electrolytes. You heard of electrolytes? Electrolytes are important. So I take a lemon and I squeeze it in water. And it's not much if you think about the volume of lemon compared to the amount of water I'm drinking. But what does it do to that water? If you just drink lemon with water, it makes it bitter. And when we hold on to offenses, when we haven't learned to apply gospel principles in our relations to others, and it's a work in progress, none of us are doing this well, I would argue, some of you may be, but let's assume that we're not. When we harbor those resentments, when we allow those thoughts of how Mad we are at that person and how stupid that thing that they did to us was and how disrespectful that thing, that's like squeezing that lemon into the water of our heart. And it's just a little bit, but it makes the whole thing bitter. We gotta get rid of that if we wanna greet one another with a holy kiss. What is God calling you to do with someone with whom you have had a falling out? Is it time to reconcile from old hurts? I think you'd be shocked if you took the step forward on something like that. And look, I don't have any secret knowledge of what's going on in relationships in the church. It's a clear slate. But if you take the initiative, you watch it how powerful that can be to change a relationship. The last thing that Paul exhorts us here in his closing words is to study the word. I put you under oath before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Let that one sink in. I put you under oath. Pretty strong language he's using. This is a direct word from a beloved apostle. In verse 25, he said, I pray for us or pray for us. He was using that first person plural. Now he uses first person singular. And many scholars believe that this little sentence was written in Paul's own hand. Wasn't a copyist or a secretary writing it. Paul writes it. I, the apostle, That brings a new weight and authority to this word as it's communicated to the congregation. I put you under oath. And Paul was like a parent to them. You remember back in chapter one, verse seven, he says, we were gentle among you like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. And then in verse 11, He says, for you know how like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God. When you know someone loves you, like a parent loves you, and they say something like this, I put you under oath. First of all, parents don't speak that way. I hope not, I mean, that would be a little odd. But if you said, son or daughter, This is really important to me. I want you to think about this. I want you to consider this. They know that it comes from a place of love. He asked them to read the letter before the congregation. And he highlights the importance of studying the word. A solemn oath he asked them to make to take the word seriously. Why don't we take it seriously? You know, we are probably the most privileged people in all of Christendom in terms of access to the word. And yet, we struggle to read it consistently. And we do that, one, because we're spiritually weak in our flesh. Remember the disciples praying with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, and he's shedding tears and sweating blood, and they're doing what? They're falling asleep and he's like, come on guys, this is a critical moment. The flesh, the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak. But we're also under attack. The devil doesn't want us to read the word. He wants to distract us and to unmotivate us. Why should we read the word? Because the letter that Paul wrote and all of scripture is inspired. Back in chapter one, we're told that they received the ministry from Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy as they received their word, their preaching, as the word of God itself. Second Timothy 3.16 says, all scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped, for every good work. How eager should we be to receive a word from our God? And it's right here. It's right here on your Bible app, so accessible. It's here where the people are meeting and gathering. The word of God is necessary for spiritual growth. It's described in the scripture as meat and drink for the soul, It's portrayed in Psalm 19 as more valuable than gold and sweeter than honey. The word is necessary for us to know Jesus, to understand his will for us, to learn how to walk worthy of him, to understand the privileges of ours in Christ, to create a new understanding of our identity. We've died to sin, we've been buried and raised to new life in Christ. It is everything to enable us to grow to maturity in Christ. Do you read your word? Do you study the word? Is it a priority for you? Is it important? Paul says it should be. Let's pray. Our Father and our God, we thank you for these closing remarks and they seem so trivial in a sense at the end of a letter who really reads those last few things. It's the body of the letter that's so important to us and yet we find as we unpack these things that there is a lot of spiritual truth, a lot of theology that is assumed in much of what he has written. I pray that you would teach us to be a Christian community that prays for one another, a Christian community that loves and is united and at peace with one another, a Christian community that highly, highly values and studies the word of God. We pray all of this in Christ's name, amen. Please stand and we'll sing together 338 when I survey the wondrous cross. All the great things that joy beholds, I sacrifice them to his love. See from his head, feel his hands, hear his feet, you depart now with the blessing of the triune God. Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in every way. The Lord be with you all. Amen. was in the beginning, is now. Amen. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.