All right, well, it does seem kind of early, but we're actually starting right on time. We do have a lot to get through today. It's a very small chapter, only two paragraphs, but there's a lot within these paragraphs. So I do want to get started pretty quickly. That way we leave plenty of time for any questions or comments, because this is really a practical application in this chapter, a lot of practical applications. So I want to get to it. So let's go ahead and start with a word of prayer. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we praise you. We thank you for this wonderful opportunity to be able to come together on this day, this Lord's Day, the day in which our Savior was resurrected from the grave and completed that work. Father, in that, we do worship on this day. Father, we praise you for that. We pray that this time and this service would be glorifying to you, that it would look to your Word, that it would be consistent with your Word, that I would be clear, concise, and that we would be able to encourage one another in this very encouraging chapter. Father, help us to glorify you and praise you in this service. We pray this in Jesus Christ's name. Amen. All right, so we're continuing on our study through the confession and we have come to chapter 27 of the communion of saints, of the communion of saints. Now, I would highly encourage you all to not look up a picture of the communion of saints because you're going to find a lot of Roman Catholics and stuff that I would say second commandment violations. It was difficult to find something that actually kind of went along with the theme. And I think that this does go along with the theme, this idea of coming together as one, especially in prayer, which we see here, but what does it all revolve around? It revolves around the word of God, the word of God. And so with that, we'll go ahead and go right into it. So just to reorient ourselves and where we are in our study, so we have the outline of the Second Lenten Confession of Faith, First Principles, Covenant, Christian Living, and that's where we're at right now, so Christian Living. And we just finished of the church, well, we actually didn't finish. And I know it seems a little strange that we're going on to chapter 27 without actually finishing 26. That is very intentional. It is because we want to leave those two paragraphs of Chapter 26 out. That's a joke. We don't want to do that. It's just the schedule, how everything worked. Pastor Jason wasn't able to complete Chapter 26, but we'll actually go back to the last two paragraphs of 26 whenever we finish this week. So next week, we'll be going back to finish Chapter 26 of the Church, but we're taking a little break from a lot of things that we've been doing. It's a very different chapter, one that's often overlooked, but chapters 27, and we are in Christian living. And then we have here, we're in the church, the section on the church, chapters 26 through 30. So just a little bit of an introduction into chapter 27. So the introduction to the communion of saints, ecclesiology. So we are studying the doctrine of the church. Now this I put up here, and like so many different doctrines we could put with a lot of other things within a specific chapter, I would say that a lot of this has to do with biblical anthropology as well. So man, so study of man, anthropology, anthropos, the study of man, but in relation to specifically the Bible, the Word of God, God. So man, the study of man in relation to God, that's biblical anthropology. And so we're going to have a lot of that today, specifically on man, the growth of man, the growth in the faith. So that's kind of why I wanted to put those two together, because we will be looking at that. But this is a study of the Church, the study of ecclesiology. This chapter is often overlooked as one of the non-essential chapters of the Confession. People are usually trying to get either to chapters 26 of the Church, which is the biggest chapter in the Confession, or chapter 29, a baptism, which is oftentimes for a particular Baptist, we're trying to get to that, what distinguishes us from the Paedo-Baptists, and so people are usually going right over Chapter 27. It's short, it's easy to miss, and then Chapter 28 is actually of the Lord's Supper and Baptism, which is even shorter. It's the shortest chapter. But Chapter 27, so it's mostly taken from the Savoy and the Westminster Confession of Faith. Very similar in a lot of the words. It's actually almost identical, except for one phrase, to the Savoy. which is the Congregationalist, like we would know, the famous John Owen, right? So Savoy, very, very close to the Savoy. One phrase was added, compared to the Savoy, likely to distinguish ourselves from the other Baptists. So there were other Baptists in this time, as well as other Baptists in the past, particularly a certain group of Baptists. We'll talk about them a little bit more later. We won't go too much into the history, but very, very interesting in why there's that separation. So an outline that I've broken up for chapter 27, it's very close to Dr. Renahan's outline. He didn't have a very clear, I guess, outline for chapter 27, but these were the general principles, and I decided to make it a little easier, we could break it up in this way. So for paragraph one, we're gonna break it up with the indicative of being in Christ, and then the imperative of obeying Christ. Now, Pastor Jason, a lot of us, we talk a lot about indicatives and imperatives, and just to remind us all of the indicatives, we're just talking about the truths, the statements, the facts, right? We're stating the facts. Where the imperative of obeying Christ, the command, right? This is the positive. So we're commanding. This is a commanding of obeying Christ. So we have the indicative, the truths of being in Christ, and then the command to obey Christ. So that's gonna be the first paragraph. And then the second paragraph, communion of the saints in practical direction. And then I just broke it up simply into the duties of communion and then the recipients of communion. Now there is gonna be a little bit of a sub point when we come to the recipients of communion. That's not as clear in the confession. But we will talk about that a little bit. But this is gonna be the general outline for today for chapter 27. So let's go ahead and read. the first paragraph. So, paragraph 1 of chapter 27, All saints that are united to Jesus Christ, their head, by his spirit and faith, although they are not made thereby one person with him, have fellowship in his graces, sufferings, death, resurrection, and glory, and being united to one another in love, they have communion in each other's gifts and graces, and are obliged to the performance of such duties, public and private, in an orderly way, as do conduce to their mutual good, both in the inward and the outward man. And we'll go into most of these scripture passages. I don't want to skip over any of them just so that you know it's not just my opinions. My opinions, the opinions of just the framers of the confession, they really were trying to point to scripture and scripture alone. And that's when we're talking about confessionalism, it is extremely important. We hold very, very dear these truths from the Confession. But why? Because they do point to the Word of God. And so that's why we hold them very dear. Not because the Confession itself is higher than the Word of God, but rather it points to the highest thing that we have, which is the Word of God. And so that's what we mean by confessionalism, and that's what we'll try to do today. I'll try to get into most of the scripture passages, Lord willing, depending on how much time we have. But I do want to have a lot of interaction, thoughts, ideas, questions, because this is an important chapter, especially in the practical application of a Christian life. And you'll see here, so this is just taken from the true confessions. This is from a course that Dr. Renahan did. But you see here the 1677, that is the 1689 confession. Then you have the Savoy and the Westminster Confession of Faith. Now you'll notice that this difference right here and the Savoy and the 1689, we don't have that section in the Westminster. They didn't completely omit that. It's not that they didn't have that. It's just that it's later in their chapter. But although they are not made there by one person with him. So that's gonna be important. We'll talk a little bit more about that and why that was put in there. But first, so we have the communion of saints in theological terms. So this is how, Dr. Rinnehan had broken it up in his exposition, but the communion of saints in theological terms. First, we have the indicative of being in Christ. Again, this is the truths of the fact that we are in Christ, those who trust in him. So the indicative of being in Christ, and we have a conditional statement. So this is a conditional statement. We start off the chapter with a conditional statement. All the saints that are united to Jesus Christ, their head, by his spirit and faith. So what does that mean, right? What do we mean by this conditional statement? Why is this important? Yes, we've been made regenerate. This is the truth, right? So everything that comes after this in this chapter, this is the basis. This is only for those who are in the faith, those who trust in Jesus Christ, those who are united to Jesus Christ, Christians. So, A lot of people may think, oh, well, this chapter can apply to anyone, just anyone, whether they're Christians or unbelievers. Well, that's not the case. So this presupposes everything that we've gone through the confession so far. And in order to have communion of the saints, We must be Christians. That is the conditional statement. Now, some people you'll find in certain expositions, they're going to put a lot of focus on this part. I don't believe that that's necessarily correct, especially in how the Framers of Confession wrote this, because we're not in Chapter 8 of the Mediator, right? We're in Chapter 27 of Communion of Saints, but this is the conditional statement. This must be the first thing. We must be in Christ in order to have that communion. Then we go to a correctional statement, although they are not made thereby one person with him. Does anyone know of why they would have thrown that in there? Well, it's actually because there was some serious heresies that was going on at that time with the familius as well as the Manicheans, resurging movements of Manicheans, but Anabaptists, they had this idea, a kind of, basically that in Christ, the union in Christ deifies saints, right? It makes them a type of God, which if you hear that language, your little Mormon sense might start to tingle. It's this idea that man is God in a way because of the union in Christ. That's why they specifically put this in there. Them, the Savoy, and the Westminster, they actually, they all put this in there to say, no, we are not saying that. As Benjamin Keech says, this is a mystical union. It is not one where we actually become God, but it is a union that we have in Christ by his works. That doesn't make us God, a God-man like Christ. So it's a very important distinction. We are not thereby made one person with him. Okay, so we are not actually the same person. We don't become gods. We are man, and we will be a glorified man, a perfected man at one point if we are in Christ, but not like Christ in that same sense, not the god nature. So it's an important distinction. It has to do a lot with the Anabaptists. Now, the Manichaean movement and the kind of Gnosticism, it really stems back from the early church heresies, but then it kind of resurged in a different way. They can't really tie them together as far as did they get these same heresies from the Manichaeans, but it is very similar. So that's a lot of what they were dealing with at this time. And next. Then we have the continuation of truth statement. Continuation of truth statement. So we're just continuing on these indicatives. Have fellowship in his graces, sufferings, death, and resurrection, and glory. So all the saints that are united to Jesus Christ are head by his spirit and faith. So we are saints united why and how? It is through Christ, by the power of Christ in his works. They are not made there by one person with him, but we have fellowship in his graces, sufferings, death, resurrection, and glory. This is the gospel, right? This is the gospel. This is the basis for this chapter. We must believe in the gospel. We must be Christians before we can have communion of saints. You can't take those things out of order. Communion of saints can only happen in and through Christ. Any questions on that? All right, let's move right along. Let's go ahead and just reinforce this a little bit, this idea, with some of these scripture passages. I'll go ahead and take 1 John 1, 3. If I could get a couple volunteers to take John 1, 16, Philippians 3, 10, and Romans 6. So get a volunteer for John 1, 16. Yes, thank you, Walter. Philippians 3, 10. Thank you, Alec. And Romans 6, 5 and 6. You can volunteer for that. Yes, one of you. All right, so we'll start with 1 John 1, verse 3. So 1 John 1, verse 3. What we have seen and heard, we proclaim to you also, so that you may have fellowship with us. And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus Christ. John 1, 16. For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. Philippians 3, 10. Romans 6 5 & 6 And to that we can gladly and easily say amen. That is the gospel. This is the basis for this whole chapter. And so we have the gospel here. We must believe in the gospel. We must believe in who the gospel is from. The good news is from Christ. It is of Christ. Now, let's get a little bit more into the imperatives, right? So we have the indicatives, we have the truths that have been laid out for us, but what about the imperatives? What about these commands of obeying Christ? And we would say that they are commands, especially in the wording that they use, as well as the scriptures that they use to support it. And being united to one another in love, they have communion in each other's gifts and graces. We see Ephesians 4, 15 through 16, and 1 Corinthians 12, 7, and 3, 21 through 23. Now, 3, 21 through 23, we're gonna get a lot more into later, but this is just asserting literally the same exact language. So this is what we have. Now, this is something that Dr. Renahan had put in his exposition. I really wanted to add it in here just because it's a great quote, especially in understanding this little section of the paragraph. So the communion in gifts is the blessing of sitting under the ministry of appointed men. The communion in graces is the blessing of Christian friendship, of love expressed among the members of the church. So here we have just a basic understanding of, okay, what is this communion in each other's gifts and graces? And the most basic way to understand this is exactly that. We have the ministry under appointed men. Pastor Jason would be our appointed man for our church, which is why, though, I really, really, really wanted Pastor Jason to be the one to go over this chapter. I do think that it is helpful as well as important for us to go over it without him being here so that he doesn't have embarrassment. It's kind of hard to talk about how you are to act to a specific person when you're that specific person. Whereas when we get to the idea of in graces, community in graces, the fellowship among believers, we're all talking about each other. So we can all feel bad about how we either lack in doing it or how we are doing it in a certain way. So I do think that it is helpful for us to talk about these things, especially since Pastor Jason isn't here, we're not talking about him behind his back, hopefully not in a bad way anyways. and are obliged to performance of such duties both public and private." Obliged to such duties both public and private. Now what does it mean by obliged? Exactly. Obligated. So obligated, they're very, they're used synonymously here. So we are obligated. Obligation. This is not something that, hey, you know, do it if you can here and there. No, we, we are obligated to do these things. Now, how exactly we carry out those things, there is going to be a sense of Christian liberty. It's going to look different from circumstance to circumstance, person to person. But the Christian liberty aspect doesn't come in into whether we do them, but rather how we do them. And so that's important to know. Yep, out. Yeah, generally, yes, but no, the primary gifts there is referring to specifically the ministry of the word. That's something specifically, like I said, that's not something that I necessarily came up with. I can't take credit for that. But Dr. Renahan does point out, and the reason for that is because when we get to the public and private, what exactly does that public and private mean? And that's where we're going to directly relate this to the gifts and graces. And we're going to correlate these two things. So public is the gifts, and the graces is the private. And so that's what we're going to talk about a little bit there. But yeah, there is a general sense where, yes, we've all been given gifts. Through the Holy Spirit, we've been given gifts. We should use those gifts. But how does that affect for the communion of the saints, specifically in the church, Well, publicly, that's really only gonna come from the ministry. So from Pastor Jason, from even Pastor Horace, those men who have been appointed, but specifically Pastor Jason and how he uses those gifts in a public setting. And so that's just really what it's talking about as far as the public. What you're talking about is true, but we're gonna get more into that in the private. So we're gonna talk about that more in the private. Yes, Walter. Specific to the gifts themselves, earlier in Ephesians 4.11, when Paul says, and he gave some as, and he gives the list, the giving is a reference to these offices and men are the gift. I think maybe that's what Alec is referring to. So the gifts that we have received as the church are competent men. Shepherding and serving elders and deacons, which we kind of just went over. Yeah. Yeah. Amen. Yeah, exactly We just went over in the of the church and now we have a direct application of it And yeah, I would absolutely agree. That is we we have been gifted those things, those competent men. We've been very blessed in our church to have someone like Pastor Jason to shepherd our souls. And we'll get into a little bit about that. I wanna make sure that I don't skip anything here. And I do wanna go into these scripture passages, because this is directly gonna relate to this, what we just talked about. So 1 Thessalonians 5.11. 1 Thessalonians 5.11. We'll go ahead and turn there together. Thessalonians comes right before Timothy. First Thessalonians 5, 11, therefore comfort one another and build up one another just as you are also doing. And then verse 14. And we urge you, brothers, admonish the unruly, encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone. And so here, this really does have to do with things that we have to do. Now, like I said, how exactly you're going to do that and your specific circumstance in your life, that's something that as a Christian, that's what makes it so difficult. I don't know about you all, but I'm one of those that definitely likes to be told exactly what to do and how to do it. It makes it very simple. And yet that is absolutely not how the Christian life is. And so we do need to understand these things are obligations, we have to do them. And we have to wrestle with, we have to pray about, we have to make sure that we're doing it to the best of our ability and growing in the faith, growing in these things and doing them and performing them. And so as far as, I don't want to skip over that. Yeah, we'll talk about it a little more if we have time. But all right, so obliged to the performance of such duties public and private. So we had the gifts first, so oftentimes the focus is drawn to the beginning of paragraph one without regard to focus of the chapter. Now I put, think of the other commentaries in the confession. If you've read the other commentaries, I believe Sam Waldron put out one and then there was one with a bunch of different theologians. Rob Ventura, yes. Yeah, so I can't remember the actual name of the specific pastor that did chapter 27, but both of them, their focus is primarily on the beginning of paragraph one. And that pretty much takes up the bulk of their focus, which I don't think is bad. I mean, you can always, you can never go wrong with putting a focus on Christ. However, not really complete. is what I'd say, and that's why I really do enjoy Dr. Renahan's, so Dr. Renahan, I believe rightfully so, focuses more on the nature of what communion is. So if public refers to the blessing of sitting under the ministry of appointed men, then it follows that there is an obligation of participation in that public communion. And then I would just submit a question. What does this public communion look like when taken in conjunction with the gifts? What does participation, what does performance of these duties of this specific section of communion look like? What does it look like in the life of the church, of the life of believers for us day to day? Yes, Walter. Well, public would be the corporate means of grace when we gather together to worship specifically on the Lord's Day. there might, you know, the church might say, Saturday, we're gonna do evangelism or something, you know, or the church might say, we're gonna have a special meal or something, and my friends, I mean, other appointed times, but mainly for the practice of the whole body cooperating together. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, it really is one of those things that's, For me, it kind of, I know that it hit hard for me when Pastor Jason, when he was preaching just, I think it was, might've been a couple months ago now, but he had encouraged us all, encouraged us in the nicest possible way while in a sermon to be a part of these things, be a part of the Sunday schools. And that's something that we can all do better, whether we are physically here, but maybe we're not always focused. Maybe we're not paying attention to those things. That's something that, as a Christian and in the faith, we can always grow in. We can always ask that the Lord would give us more focus, not to have divided attention, not to be thinking of even earthly, worldly things, but rather really on what we're talking about, on things pertaining to the Word of God, pertaining to God, Christ. And so those are things that we can always grow in, and in a matter of How we do it, we're going to have to figure out in our individual lives. How do we grow in our obligations? And they are obligations that we have. Now, does that mean that you're at every single church event and you make sure you cancel work and you take off work, all those things? No, that's not what I'm saying. We can't bind that in that way, but we should be growing and trying to be a part of those things as much as possible, as much as we are able within our lives. Can we look at our lives and say, no, I've scheduled everything out, I've been a good steward of all my time to where I can do these things, or I can't do these things, even with that scheduling. So something that we can look inwardly and say, how can we do these things better? Can we say exactly how the Christian to our left and right can do them? No, but we can say we do have to do them and we do have to grow in the faith in these matters. One of the things that I think of specifically that really has been such a blessing to me from all of you and really in getting to know all of you a lot better is corporate prayer. Corporate prayer is such an important thing. We get together on Wednesday nights, and we have been blessed with this ability to be able to, even in our busy schedules, still zoom in, right? We're able to still be a part of that prayer meeting. And in that, though I may not be able to spend the individual time with Matt or Debbie or Tony that I would like, I am still able to understand what's going on in their lives so that I can obey these things, so that I can do better in these things, so I know what's going on in my fellow believers' lives, so that we can rejoice with those who are rejoicing and weep with those who are weeping. Whether there's a new life in the church, blessed with a new child, we always talk about, well, we're the first ones to hear about it in the prayer meeting. is a wonderful blessing to be able to rejoice with those in that moment, or weeping with those who just lost a child. And so those things, those difficult things in our lives, knowing those things, encouraging one another, praying for one another, rejoicing with those who rejoice and weeping with those who weep, I would say that one of the greatest ways that we can do that is through praying and through the corporate prayer. I may be a little too shy or may not know Armour enough to be able to talk to her about the specifics of what's going on in her life, but You know what she's not shy about? Well, the local body. She may not know me, but she knows the local body. And so she's going to talk to the local body about those things. And so it is really a wonderful thing, something that's helped me grow in the faith tremendously, and something I would encourage everyone to try to do these things better, try to do these public performances, these public obligations, because we can always do it better. We've never hit the perfection point until glorification. So with that very somber note, let's continue on. Obliged to the performance of such duties, public and private. So now we've talked a little bit about the public. How do we do these things? What is this talking about when it's talking about the public performances? What about our obligations in private? And this is when we're gonna talk about the graces, the graces. So, it can never be if we have Christian friendship with a brother or sister in Christ. It must always be what does our Christian friendship look like. So we talk about Christian liberty all the time. It is extremely important, especially for my life. I know that I came from a cult, right? So a lot of you know personally, I came from a cult, and they bound consciences of things that were outside of scripture all the time. And so we have to be very careful that we are not binding things that are not specifically and explicitly in scripture. But there are things, where it's not a matter of Christian liberty, it's a matter of command. We must have Christian friendship. Does that mean that we're gonna be as close to each individual believer as much as our spouses? Well, no. But one of the most impactful things that I heard from Pastor Jason, and it was within the first few times that I attended our church, now five or six years ago, and it hit me hard. It hit me really hard, and what he had said was, There may be a Christian that you don't vibe with, right? There may be that brother or sister who's attending that you don't click with, your personalities kind of clash, right? Maybe you don't want to be friends with them. And then he said very clearly and boldly, that's too bad. You don't have a choice. They are the believers. They are the body. And each individual member makes up the body. None without the other. And so we must come together. That's really what communion is. It's not just simply fellowship. Fellowship had a much different meaning for Christians at this time, but communion really is coming together as one body. And so we must grow in those things. How do we grow in those things? That's something that we all must wrestle with in our individual lives. We must pray about, how can I do these things better? So I would encourage you all to do that. It's something that we all need to do. So it's easy to say that you love the body, but how do we love the individual members of the body in deed and truth, not just in word and talk, word and tongue, as it talks about in 1 John 3, 18, right? I can say all day long, well, of course I love Alec. Of course I do. He's a part of the church. But how do I do it in deed? Am I praying for him? Am I talking to him? Am I encouraging him in the faith? You know, those things are important. We do need to think on. So which of the members should be those in which we are close to? That's a trick question. It should be everyone. It was one of the things that if you all have Listen to considering the confession. It's a podcast But dr. Renahan just goes there like five minute little videos or not videos, but audios their podcasts on the confession He recently actually just finished. I believe he finished Confessed or it was chapter 27. So communion of saints and he talks about one of the the beautiful things about the church is It's not just, well, since I'm younger, I'm closer to the younger members. It's, well, everyone together. I need to give to the older members. I need to give to the younger members. We all give to one another in these same ways. We all are coming together as a church, corporately. Together, not simply the cliques. Him and I believe it was Pastor Pew on there, they talk about that. There can oftentimes be these cliques in churches. It's something that I know that I have to make sure that I remind myself all the time. Well, these specific believers should not be more important to me just because they're closer to my age or because maybe we have something more in common, but rather we as a body must come together. So it's very important. We all have something to give. And that's one of the reasons why I love that picture at the beginning. You see young and old hands in there, all joined together in prayer around the Word of God. So that's what we need to remember. How can we practically apply this in the overly busy culture of Southern California? And that's something that we do have to take into account. The culture that we live in is a very busy culture. California is a fast-paced place. Things are busy. Whether we have traffic that's going to take three hours out of our time each day, or simply just the schedules in our day-to-day lives, it's a busy culture. It's a difficult thing. I come from a very, very, very slow-paced culture, in the middle of nowhere, out in the boonies. And we don't have to worry about this as much. It takes me five minutes to go 15 miles. Maybe it shouldn't because you shouldn't be driving that fast. But it does, there's a lot of things that there's not as much to do. You get together, everything's a lot slower. Here, it's not that way. We have to work a lot harder. And that's something that in our individual lives, how do we do that? How do we obey these things? And we do have to obey these things. But how do we obey these things in our culture? That's something that we have to wrestle with. Again, we have to pray about, how am I doing this? Just as much as how am I mortifying my sin? How am I growing in the faith, growing to love Christ more? How am I fulfilling the second table of law, loving your neighbor as yourself? And of course, the household of faith, the believers. How am I doing that? How am I growing in that? There should be a growth, just as anything in the Christian faith. This gets to a very... very specific point in an orderly way as conduced to their mutual good, both the inward and outward man. Now this was put in there because of the Anabaptists, again, so because of the Anabaptists, a lot of disorder. But also, it wasn't just solely that. It wasn't just to refute their lives and their communal lives and their disorderness, but it was also in a sense of to understand So we have why the statement particular Baptist, we're not Anabaptists. But we should remember that we must fulfill our duties to one another in a way that is not disorderly or a burden on the one that you owe the performance of such duties. Otherwise, it is not for mutual good, but for selfish good. Right? So you can't in the name of trying to obey these things, try to impose and really make it a struggle for the other believers' lives in order to obey these things. It has to be for mutual good and not for selfish good. And that's a really difficult thing, especially as sinners, as people who have very different schedules, lives, ideas. It could be difficult to make sure that it's for mutual good, but it's something we do have to strive for. We have to understand each other's circumstances. And in that, we have to know each other's circumstances to be able to understand them. Yes, Alec? Yeah, I really like that part because I was convicted a while ago of hearing, like, a lot of times we just think what's good to give, but we should be thinking, like, what is a blessing to receive? Yes. What is a blessing for us to give? Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. That's something that we do have to remember. Though we are all Christians, we are all believers, I do not work for a construction company. I do not work as a chemical engineer at a different company. I do not have the same schedule. I am not that same person. And so we have to understand what's going on in their lives. Did they just have a new child? Maybe it's not the best time to say, hey, we need to get together tomorrow so that you can obey your obligations to me. It may not be the best timing. we can do other things, and we do do other things as a church, and I think that we do them very well in our church. It's something we have to continue to do. We'll get to that a little bit more in paragraph two, but we still should try to do it for the mutual good for each believer as best as we can. So inward and outward, the spiritual life and the physical life. So which is more important? Now, it does say both inward and outward man. So it's saying you do have the obligation to both. However, one of the distinctions that Dr. Renahan had mentioned, I think is a really good one. He talks about, I think it was actually Fred Pugh that he had mentioned this. Say we don't have any time. Say we're working 80, 90, 100 hours a week and we're barely able to fit in the very small things we do. When we're able to talk to one another, when we're able to talk to believers, what is more important? Well, the physical life, that's going to pass away, right? That's going to change. Those circumstances are going to change. Everything like that, that's very temporal. But the spiritual life, that's the real meat. And so that's really where we should be spending a lot of our attention. So I may not have time to talk to Alec about all of his physical things. And to be honest, that's what I'm very guilty of. I very often, I'll talk to any believer and I'll say, well, how's your work going? That's good. I should know what's going on in that believer's life so I know how to pray for them. But what's the most important thing? I need to know how they're doing spiritually. You know, hey, how can I encourage you in the faith? What are you reading in scripture right now? You know, how can I be praying for you? Those types of things, not in just a very just saying them to say them, but honestly, caring for their spiritual welfare. That's something very important. It's something that is convicting to me, because I know I'm very guilty of doing that all the time, is that I tend to think a lot more physically than now what is happening to our physical lives or vocations, which are important. But I think most importantly, we should be thinking about our spiritual life, our spiritual life's health, which we're gonna get into that a little bit more, that specific idea of, well, we need to be trying to actively do that for the spiritual welfare. So we must remember that these are imperatives. Again, they are imperatives, they're not suggestions. We have to do them. Now, how we do them is going to be a matter of Christian liberty, but we must do them. And that's something that you'll see in scripture. We'll go into a little bit more of the scripture references. You'll see how Paul lays these out, how even Christ lays these out, mentions these things. He even talks about, I think we were in our reading plan, Luke, and Christ even talked about, well, even for unbelievers, who doesn't love who loves them? Who doesn't love that person who already loves them, right? Even unbelievers can do that. And so we have these principles. We have to do these things. But how do we do them? That's not something I can tell you all. It's not something that anyone specifically can tell you. It's something that you do have to learn to grow in, to pray about, to grow individually. But getting on to the second paragraph. So second paragraph, saints by profession are bound to maintain a holy fellowship and communion in the worship of God and in performing such other spiritual services as tend to their mutual edification. as also in relieving each other in outward things according to their several abilities and necessities, which communion according to the rule of the gospel, though especially to be exercised by them in relation wherein they stand, whether in families or churches, yet as God offers opportunity is to be extended to all the household of faith. even all those who in every place call upon the name of the Lord Jesus. Nevertheless, their communion, one with another as saints, does not take away or infringe the title of propriety which each man has in his goods and possessions. There is a lot there. We are not going to be able to get into some of the history of a lot of these things. Maybe we'll touch briefly on them. But I do want to focus a lot more on the beginning of this paragraph, and then Lord willing, we'll get to more at the end. So the duties of communion, as I put in the outline earlier, the duties of communion. So saints by profession are bound to maintain a holy fellowship and communion in the worship of God and in performing such other spiritual services as tend to their mutual edification. So Hebrews 10, 24, 25, we all know that passage, right? So are we obeying those things? How are we stimulating one another to love and good deeds? not forsaking the assembly, as is the practice of some, right? We must attend the assembly. One of the things that I know for me personally, I believe it was right about when COVID started, I watched a video that Alec had suggested, it was by Paul Washer, and it was on the life of a believer, the health of a believer's life or spiritual life, And it's specifically in relation to the church. And he said, there's no more dangerous a position for a believer to be in than a believer that is not a part of the local body. And I think that's very important. It's not to take away from certain providential hindrances. We're not talking about that specifically, even the passage of not forsaking the assembly. What we're talking about is people who say, well, you know, they wake up and they're like, I just don't feel like going to church today. Not that they're sick, but I just don't feel like it. You know, I don't need to go to church today. You know, it's not that big of a deal. It's not important. No, that's a very dangerous place to be in, a place where you're very likely to fall from the faith. So we have to do those things very diligently. We have to be careful with those things. And so that's very important. We must be stimulating one another to love and good deeds. How do we do that? Talk to each other. Talk to each other, find out what's going on in their lives, pray for one another, worship together. All of those things, those are important for the Christian friendship, for loving one another. And so I love how Pastor Jason, when he said that he wanted me to do chapter 27, I thought, wow, that's not very nice. There's a lot in there. There is a lot of stuff in there, very important things. And though it's a chapter that's very overlooked, it is almost all the practical application in the life of a believer. That's a difficult thing to go over. It's not easy, especially when it's a convicting thing. We all can do it better. If we ever tell ourselves we've done it perfectly, you for sure have not done it perfectly. Yes, Alec. Yeah, well, that's where it's, it wouldn't say you have to talk to one another, but how do you stimulate one another in love and good deeds? How do you exhort someone, which we are commanded to exhort each other in the faith, we are commanded to do these things, If, and it is specific, like it is personal, private, right? It is each individual believer to another. And then we'll talk about a little bit more. We'll talk about, I believe it's Hebrews 3, 12 and 13, but also Romans, I believe actually first Corinthians three. And it talks about exhorting one another every day. Now, does that mean every single day I have to set up a call with each individual believer? No, it's talking about every possible circumstances, and that's personal. And so it's, whereas it wouldn't say you have to talk to believers. It doesn't use that word, right? But we are commanded to do these things. And how do you do those things? Well, you talk to believers. You talk to one another. You can't exhort one another without talking to each other. I don't know of a way anyways, but that is something that we do have to do. Yes. I would say in that case, say we do have an instance where there's been some discord, there's been some unity that's been broken, a bond between two believers, whether it was by sin, whether it wasn't by sin, whether it was by disagreement, maybe they just don't agree on the same things. I would say that even more so, we must talk with one another. We have to restore that unity. There can't be a communion without all of the members being in communion with one another. Without some of the members, you don't make up the body. All of the members, collectively, that's what Scripture teaches us, not separated from one another. We must have that unity, and we can't have that unity if we're holding something on another brother. Or maybe they have sinned against us, and we haven't gone to them, talked to them about those things. This gets into a lot of the Matthew 18 process. Very important to restore, but also to maintain unity within the body. Those things must happen. Otherwise, it may seem like everything's good and dandy, and then the next thing you know, a church absolutely is in disarray because of a couple believers that have disunity with one another. So it's important for the life and the health of the local body to be in communion with one another, to come together as one. Yeah, yeah, you know. And that's probably why the phrase, in an orderly way, is very important in the previous paragraph, because it refers back to 1 Thessalonians 5.14, to admonish, to encourage, to help, and to be patient. Yep. and we shouldn't be shocked when we have to. Yeah, yeah, it's, for me, it's always difficult. How do I, you know, and this is not something that I would do for most believers, just because personally, in my circumstances, I'm younger, right, so I'm not gonna go and sharply rebuke Walter. You know, I'll plead with him as a father. You know, there's just the principles of scripture, even with Lihu. Now, there may come a time where I may have to speak up, but I'm very patient in that process. But how do I encourage? How do I exhort? How do I admonish if I'm not even speaking to him? You know, those are things that must happen. We can't just expect Pastor Jason to do it all for us. Pastor Jason is the one that shepherds our souls, but we all have to do that. And that's what this chapter really gets at. It's not just public. It's not just on the onus, on the responsibility of Pastor Jason, but the responsibility of each individual believer for the health and life of the church, for the local body. It can't be ignored. We have to come together. And I'll just read real quick Hebrews 3, 12 and 13, Hebrews 3, 12 and 13. And this is something that I've mentioned already earlier, but we'll talk about that in a bit. So, see to it, brothers, that there not be in any of you any one of you, an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God, but encourage one another day after day," or some translations, every day, as long as it is still called today, so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. And we talked about that a little bit already. Every time, everywhere where this term is used, every day, means every possible circumstance. Any opportunity that we have, we should take it. I may not have the opportunity to set up a call with all 40 members every single day, but every opportunity that I am able to talk to them, I should strive to do that. And so that I can obey this scripture right here, but encourage one another every day. day after day, as long as it is still called today. So as our Constitution emphasizes, going back a little bit, unless providentially hindered, we must attend the assembling together in the corporate worship of God, primarily. That is the primary importance. We must be a part of the local body, unless providentially hindered. There's gonna be providential hindrances, but like I was talking about earlier, just not feeling like going to church is not a providential hindrance. So it's important to remember. Yes? So providential versus plan. Providential versus planned. Yes, that's a great way of putting it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, definitely more of a temptation around here. Where I grew up, it was football Sunday, right? Everything is football Sunday. Well, I'll try to go to church, but you know, it's Super Bowl. It's a Super Bowl Sunday. Well, no. No, that's planning to not go to church. And yeah, that's definitely not providential hindrance. The patriots destroying the, I don't know, the Dallas Cowboys, that's not providential hindrance. Yeah. Providentially happened, but not providential hindrance for attending the assembly. Yes, Abraham. Now, this is where it's hard to get into certain particular circumstances, because there's going to be a wide range of things. Now, if you say, all right, well, we're planning to have a family vacation. We're just not going to attend church. I would say that you definitely want to think about the motives. Whether that specifically is sin, well, just find out by what is your motive in it? Are you trying to not attend church? And then at that, well, what if you go on a family vacation? You can attend a local body in another place. I would say that that's absolutely within the realm of Christian liberty. We can, yes, we can go and attend another local body. Where do we primarily attend? Where are we primarily located? Well, that is our current local body, where we're members of. We can visit other local bodies, and that's a good thing. Even Pastor Horace today, right? He is attending another local body. But completely disregarding and trying not to go to church in any way, it becomes a very slippery slope. Something we really have to, like anything we do, we have to question, what are our motives in that? Yes. And actually being on vacation and finding another sister church is like, because you get to meet more people. Yeah, it's a wonderful thing. And we talked about that a little bit. It's not just, but it's to the household of faith, but to everyone who professes Christ's name. Yeah, that's really good. So yeah, it's important. And then I wanted to I don't know if we'll have enough time, but this is obviously not a popular view in modern evangelical church, yet once again, it's an imperative, it's a command. We must do these things. People don't wanna be told, oh, I have to go to church. Well, you do have to go to church. You do have to attend the local body. Now, there is gonna be circumstances in which you cannot, you are providentially hindered. but you must try with all of your ability because that is where the life of a Christian, the primary means of grace, the primary means in which we are blessed through grace and growth and righteousness and holiness, the primary means of grace is here. So we must strive to do those things. But encourage one another every day as long as it's called the day so that none of you will be hardened by deceitfulness of sin. This is something, I will just blast through it real quick. I really wanted to share this with you all. It's just a short quote. It's from John Gill's commentary on Hebrews 3.13. For those of you, John Gill, he's a pastor. He has a commentary. He actually pastored the church, the same church that Charles Spurgeon was, but I think it was 100 years earlier or so. So that's basically where he's coming from, but a godly man in the faith and has great stuff in his commentary that a lot of Reformed Baptists use. So he says, but exhort one another daily in order to prevent unbelief and apostasy. The phrase is sometimes rendered comfort one another or yourselves together as in First Thessalonians 5.11. which the saints may do by discoursing together about divine things, by praying together, by instructing one another in the doctrines of the gospel, by putting one another in the mind of the covenant of grace and its promises, and by observing the near approach of everlasting happiness with Christ. And though the business of exhortation greatly belongs to the ministers of the word, yet it ought not to be neglected by private believers who ought, when it becomes necessary, to exhort one another to prayer, to an attendance on the word and ordinances, to a regard to their conversations, to a close adherence to their profession of faith, and to a believing view and the consideration of Christ, the apostle and high priest of it, and to a due concern for his truth and interests. And this should be done in love and good and in consolatory words and in things in which the saints are connected and do themselves regard. And it is an affair which requires prudence and faithfulness. and supposes that God's own people may be dull, heavy, and sluggish, and so that it is to be done daily, every day, or as often as there is an occasion, an opportunity for it, and while it is called today. While the gospel dispensation continues, or while the time of life lasts, this shows that the phrase today, which comes from Psalm 95 7, did not respect David's time only, The version renders it, until the day which is called today, until the everlasting day appears, when there will be no need of such exhortations, nor any dangers of what follows. Which is, what follows is falling from the faith. And so we do need to remember those things. Let's try to breeze through this next bit in two minutes. So we have the duties of communion as also in relieving each other and outward things according to their several abilities and necessities. This is something that not talked about a lot in ecclesiology or the life of the church. I think it's very important. It's something that I really love about our church that we do very faithfully. It is extremely important though. So So this is more in reference to supporting one another in physical needs. So 1 John 3, 17, this is just talking about the local church, but also, like Walter was saying, the universal church. So all of those who profess the name of Christ. This can be a brother or sister who is in dire need or in circumstances that make certain things particularly difficult. Say their house just burned down, right? They may need physical needs. They may need physical support, whether that be monetary, whether that be providing meals for them, which is exactly what let's talk about here. So whether they're sick, well, it's something that we always do in our church. When someone is sick or they just had a child, we start a meal list. Why do we do that? Well, just because? Well, no, we do it in the spirit of trying to love one another and trying to have communion with one another. So that's, I believe that that's extremely important. Now the recipients of communion, we're gonna blast through this. Which communion according to the rule of the gospel, though especially to be exercised by them in the relation wherein they stand, whether in families or churches, yet as God offers opportunity is to be extended to all the household of faith, even all those who in every place call upon the name of the Lord Jesus. So families. Immediate and extended. This comes from 1st Timothy 5, 8, right? Someone who does not provide for their own family is worse than an unbeliever. That's this passage. And then the church, local and universal. 1st Corinthians 12, 14 through 27. We really don't have time to read that, but I highly suggest if there's one passage that you're going to go back and read and reference the communion of the saints, read 1st Corinthians 12, 14 through 27. Wonderful passage on exactly this, the communion of saints, the duties of believers to one another. The recipients of communion, nevertheless their communion one with another as saints does not take away or infringe the title of propriety which each man has in his goods and possessions. So we have the extent of this communion, right, this outward physical communion. We are not communists. We are not communists, Anabaptists, other communal congregationalists of this time that believe that once you become a part of the household of faith, a part of the local body, you then lose all rights to your personal possessions, right? So when we think of what do we, what we have is our own, Acts 5.4. So that's, I believe that's Ananias and Sapphira, right? So they said, was it not your own when it was in your possession? All right, so they're talking about that. Something this as far as yes, we do have our own personal possessions though What we are what we have is ours yet ought to share What we have as we are able a keyword as we are able does that mean you share everything all once? You know, I there's a believer that's in need and I'm going to give everything to him Well, no, you don't have to do that. But you are you ought to share as you are able Ephesians 428 and we can finish with that Ephesians 428 and Ephesians 428. He who steals must steal no longer, but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need. That is the essence, especially when it comes to the physical needs of Christian communion, sharing with one another, whether that be time, whether that be in encouraging, exhorting one another, those things are all things that we have to grow in in the faith, and they do, they are part of the faith. How do we love our fellow believers? If we don't love our fellow believers, then are we believers? That's what we are defined by. What does our love for our fellow believers look like? So I would encourage you all to dwell on these things, to think about them. How can you do better in them? I wish that we had a little more time so we could think, you know, how, personally, in our certain circumstances, how can I do this? How can I be praying for one another more? How can I find out circumstances, talk to a brother? How can I encourage him, exhort him, admonish? How can I do those things? That's something that we need to pray about, and we need to strive to do so that we can have communion, true communion, coming together as one body, because we are one body. All individual members that come together to make up the one body, and we must have unity in that. So let's remember that. Strive for it. Communion of the saints. Let's pray. Our gracious heavenly Father, we praise you, Father, for this wonderful communion that we have as saints through Christ. Father, we do have this communion, and we are commanded to have this communion. We're commanded to strive to do it better, to be doing these things, to grow closer to one another. Because if we aren't closer to one another, if we don't love one another as we ought to, do we truly love you as the body of Christ is exactly that, the body of Christ? Can we love Christ without the body? So Father, we pray that you would help us to do these things, help us to strive in this, give us great understanding, give us great patience, love with one another. to be able to do these things, to be able to love you first and foremost, and love our neighbor as ourself. Father, we pray that you would grant us this grace. Be patient with us as we stumble and fall every single time. We pray that you would sustain us, that you would give us the strength to be able to continue on, to be able to obey you in all these things, so that we can finish this race, so that we can fight the good fight, so that we can continue on in the faith until the end. that we would not outlive our love for you. We pray this in Jesus Christ's name, amen.