Turn your Bibles to Romans 12. I've been wrestling back and forth all afternoon. I've been sitting there reading my Bible before church. I've got two thoughts tonight. One, something we touched on this morning and then the other here in Romans 12, where we've been at. And I've been trying to determine where the Lord wanted me to preach out of. Tie up some loose ends we touched on this morning or just stick with where we're up to. And Look, I couldn't get any clear leading. I was like, Lord, I can't figure this out. Like, I don't know whether to touch on this or not. And so I figured, well, there's an old saying that your last orders are your standing orders. And so the Lord sort of put us to Romans 12 to work through some things and well, I figure, since how I can't figure out to do something different, we'll just do the same. So we're going to Romans 12. So pray for me, pray for us, that the Lord had blessed this. I trust I've landed where the Lord wants us to look at. A wise man once told me, a balding, older wise man on the second row once told me that you can't preach the wrong part of the Bible. And that's probably pretty true, right? You can't pick a part of the Bible and go, well, that shouldn't be preached. Maybe you can preach the Bible wrong, but you can't preach the wrong part. So Romans 12, and we've been working through Proving what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Some instruction to practically implement some things in our lives where we might prove in our day-to-day walk what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God in our life. Most of it's been around boundaries and looking at certain standards and certain convictions, things we do and things we don't do. And the Bible speaks much here about being not being conformed to this world, but being transformed by the renewing of your mind. And allowing the Lord to transform our mind, renew our mind and transform us into what He would have us be, rather than us being conformed to what the world would have us be. And so as we work through this, I say this often each time we come to it, that There is both, if you like, the positive that needs to be put into your life, as well as the negative that needs to be kept out of your life. When it comes to establishing things, or proving what is that good and perfect and acceptable will of God, it comprises of both that which you shouldn't be doing, as well as that which you should be doing. And so the last few Sunday nights we've been spending some time looking at verse, I think it's from about verse 4 through to verse 8. We're the gifts that are differing according to the grace that is given to us and we're to minister according to the gifts that God has given. And one of the important things as the Lord saves us and calls us out of the world to be a peculiar people, we need to step into the body of Christ and find our part to play. What is it that the Lord would have me do? Where is it that the Lord would have me labour? And we immediately think of the things that are in front of us, but a lot of the giftings are things that are not necessarily seen instantly. One of them is mercy, And the body of Christ, a local church needs some people that are just gifted with mercy. You know why? Because you need some mercy every now and then. We all need a bit of mercy every now and then. The body of Christ needs some governing, some people with some gift of governance, because you don't want the thing to just run rampant down the hill. You want it to be done decently and in order and just have some control. So you know what you need? You need some people that are gonna sit in church and with a loving attitude, look at the church and go, gonna have to have a word to them. You're faithful of the wounds of a friend. We all need someone that loves us enough to come up beside us and say, you got a bit of spinach right there. And so much more, someone that loves us enough to come up and say to us, hey, what you're doing, that's not pleasing to God. If you want to live the way that's pleasing to God, you've got something wrong there that's not pleasing to God. And the Lord adds to the church people with different giftings and different ministries that we might minister one another according to the gifting that God has given us. And so understanding God's purpose and God's place for us in the body of Christ It's not just about not being conformed to the world and looking different to the world, but it's about being transformed into what God would have you to be. Because the truth is, He's working on each and every one of us, that He would conform us, not into the world, but into the image of Christ. You're supposed to be looking a little bit more and more like Jesus every day. Reflecting more and more of Christ every day. Becoming closer and closer to Christ and being more like Him tomorrow than what you were yesterday, and progressively growing. And so we're looking at this passage with that mindset of, Lord, what is it that you would have us to do? And so we've seen the humility that we're supposed to walk in and consider the great need to be humble. We've seen the need for our place in the body of Christ. And we come here to verse nine, which is our passage for this evening. and flowing right off these gifts. Let me read verse eight just to bring us back there. He that exhorteth on exhortation, he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity. He that ruleth with diligence, he that showeth mercy with cheerfulness, let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good. And so we have here that contrast once again. Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor this. There's a negative to be avoided. And cleave to that. There's a positive that is to be embraced. There's that of the world and of the devil that is to be rejected, and there is that which is of God that is to be sought after and pursued. And so we see this contrast as we step in here. Let me just reason through a few things here. Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil. And to abhor something is to find it something that is absolutely off-putting, disgusting, reject it outright, that it's just despised, it is just something that you have no time for. Paul said in Romans, that which I hate, that I do. That which I hate, that I do. You know, as a Christian, you ought to have a little room for hate in your life. There's some things that Christians ought to hate. There's not people that Christians ought to hate, but there are things that people ought to hate. That abhorring that which is evil. And there's a list of evil. I suspect as we go forward, I haven't studied out all of this to know exactly how many sermons there are in this little verse here. But my anticipation is that after this evening, we'll spend some time looking at the things, the examples throughout the scriptures that the Bible says, this is evil and you should abhor it. It should be an abhorrence to you. You should look at it and turn your nose up at it and go, I view that with disgust. That's wrong. I have no time for that. We should have that attitude towards things and we can get that list from the Scriptures. But just as there is that which we should abhor, that which is evil, it says to cleave to that which is good. To cleave to that which is good. You know, in Genesis, the Bible says that the Lord sent the judgment in Noah's day because the thoughts and intents of their heart was only evil continually. They had an evil intent of their heart. That even in Genesis, there was a mindset, a focus on that which was evil, and they pursued after it rather than abhorring it. In Proverbs, the Bible says that a man that findeth a wife, findeth a good thing. that a wife is a good thing. And the Bible says that a husband is to leave his father and mother and to cleave unto his wife. And it uses these same phrases. Of marriage being a thing that should be cleaved to, laid hold of. These things that God says, this is evil and should be abhorred, and this is good and should be cleaved to. And we'll look through and Lord willing, we'll get ourselves a list. that you'd be able to take the Bible and go, it doesn't matter what I think, it doesn't matter what convictions I have, it doesn't matter how I feel about it, the Bible says that's wrong and so I'm gonna abhor that. I'm gonna train myself to reject that. Do you know, these are my figures, 90%, I'm gonna go 90%, highly studied out, 90% of young fellas in Australia do not like their first taste of beer. They drink it and they go, that's not lemonade. And they train themselves to like it because of the culture that they're a part of. And it becomes something they love. Yeah, we get in this mindset of, well, we can't teach ourselves these things. You can train yourself to abhor things. You can get on God's side and go to the Lord. You can go to the Lord and say, Lord, my flesh desires it, but you abhor it. Lord, help me mortify my flesh and become more like You, that I would abhor that which You abhor. That Lord, I would despise the things You despise. I don't do it naturally, but Lord, give me that mind of Christ, that that which is not pleasing to You would not be pleasing to me. And we can get on God's page. Instead of going, well, you know, I just don't have a conviction about that type of music, about that movie content, about that language, about whatever it is. We can instead go to the Bible and go, we'll say, the Lord abhors these things. And so whether I have conviction about it or not, I know where to stand. I know what's wrong. And I'm gonna learn to abhor it and despise what God despises. Likewise, we can cleave to that which is good. And we can go, you know what? I kind of find reading the Bible not quite as exciting as my, who are your authors these days? Is Tom Clancy still an author? I don't know. There's my novel books. I'd much rather read Pride and Prejudice than Proverbs. Whatever you're reading, But you know, you can spend time in God's Word and you can say, Lord, my flesh doesn't like it. It's not exciting to me. But Lord, help me to learn to love your word more than my necessary means. I'm going to cleave to it until I become so familiar with it. I love it. We want to get on God's page on this. Let love be without dissimulation. And that's the introduction sentence to this. Abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good. And so, minister according to the gifts that God has given you. Let love be without dissimulation. Well, what does that mean? How do I love in the body of Christ, because that's the context of where we're at, and still abhor that which is evil, and cleave to that which is good, and love without dissimulation? I was talking to a wise little friend of mine earlier today, and I gave it away a little, but a wise friend of mine, it's probably where I should have left it, And we were talking about love, and they said, you know, I think about it like this, that God loves, I picture it like on a scale, that God loves me, and on the scale of how God loves me, he loves me and he loves someone else, and the scale is balanced. There is no difference in the amount he loves me to how he loves anyone else. That if I put Tom on this side and Micah on that side, then maybe Dan loves one of them more than the other, but God doesn't. No, he doesn't really. Maybe Charlotte loves one of them more than the other, right? Depending on the day, right boys? Sisters are a little like that. But God, he loves us evenly. And that scale's balanced. It doesn't tip in favor one way or the other. He loves without dissimulation. That's pretty wise, isn't it? Don't you think that's a little wise? There's a little 10-year-old friend of mine just threw that one at me. 10 years old, catch that. Out of the mouth of sucklings and babes, thou has perfected praise. That's about the best description of loving without dissimulation as I can think of. Look, I get it. There's people you like spending time with more than someone else. We have our people we click with and people we get on with and we just mesh with and we have similarities with, I get that. I kind of expect Shane to spend a bit more time with Dan than he does with Rhoda, apart from the fact that that would be weird, Rhoda doesn't go pig hunting, you know, she's not out there, or maybe you're on the fishing, you might find her on the riverbank fishing. But we have these, so I'm not saying that there should not, you've gotta make sure that everything, just every second amongst the body of Christ should just be perfectly united in time, but this love without dissimulation, the Lord ties that, that's His introduction to abhorring that which is evil and cleaving to that which is good. Because if you're gonna abhor that which is evil, One day, you're gonna be found in a situation where someone you need to love without dissimulation is doing something that you abhor as evil. And you've gotta love them and abhor what they're doing. And then you know what you're gonna find? Then you're gonna find someone else who you love without dissimulation. The Bible says love them without dissimulation. It should be all balanced. But they're not your favorite person. But you find that there is a goodness there that you need to cleave to. And it becomes a thing of not what your preference is or what you like or what you want, but it's about, Lord, What is my response to be in these things? And so this abhorring that which is evil and cleaving to that which is good, and the Lord ties it into our relationships. And go to Galatians chapter two with me if you would, and we'll spend a bit of time for the rest of the evening just trying to understand this dissimulation. It's not a word we use every day of the week. And we're going to pick up in Galatians chapter two, verse one, and we'll get the account that Paul is working through here. And as we get down through it, we will come to his description of it as being a thing of dissimulation. And in the midst of it all, you know what it's all about? It's all about the relationships in the local church. The passage we're going to read about and the instruction here is about how the church is to relate to one another and how we're to operate as the body of Christ. Then 14 years after, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas and took Titus with me also. And I went up by revelation and communicated unto them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to them which were of reputation, lest by any means I should run or had run in vain. But neither Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. And that because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage, to whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you." And so what Paul is writing about is, he went in to preach, and he brought Titus with him, who was a Greek, and not a Jew, and he hadn't been circumcised. And that's a sort of fairly intense sort of examination process of church attendance. But they said to him, you know, to be right with God, you've got to be circumcised. And Titus, you can't be right with God because you haven't been. And Paul said, here, he gets very straight. He said, false brethren, unawares, brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage, to whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour. He said, we did not submit to their teaching or their error, not even for an hour. It was wrong, and I called it wrong. It was bondage, and it was against the liberty that we have in Christ. Because what they were doing, they were trying to say, for you to be right with God, Titus, God's grace isn't enough. That your faith, accessing God's grace, that by grace you're saved through faith, that's not sufficient. but rather by grace are you saved through faith with circumcision, with keeping the law. That if you add the keeping of the law of God to your faith, then you'll be saved. And Paul said, I won't have a bar of it. He didn't word it as this, but he acknowledged it as evil and he abhorred it and said, you're not attaching works to the grace of God. My savior is sufficient. Because it's not an attack on the faithfulness of the Christian saying you've got to add works to salvation is not an attack on the faithfulness of the Christian. It's an attack on the sufficiency of Christ. It's not saying you're not a good enough Christian. It's saying he's not a good enough savior. That his grace is not enough. You've got to add obedience to it. You've got to add good works to it. And works that had been put aside under the old covenant. And so here, that because of false brethren, and Paul even called them that. He said, this is what they believe. then they're not even true Christians. They're not even truly saved. They say that they're a Christian, but they're false brethren. Here we have people in the early church. I mean, it's just started. We're just years into this thing, and we have people traveling around from church to church, and they're going from this church to that church, and they're preaching the Old Testament, tied in with the New Testament, preaching Christ. They're getting it wrong. They're missing some doctrines. They're naming the name of Christ. They're preaching salvation by grace through faith. Plus works. And Paul says, if you're adding to it, then you're a false brethren. Your salvation isn't even there. That it's got to be Christ and Christ alone. And he said, we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour. Why? What was his reasoning for standing so strong? Because he was a Baptist? He didn't want to bring the Baptist name into disrepute? That's not what he said. Because he had a reputation of himself personally, and didn't want his reputation brought into disrepute? That's not what he said. What he was concerned about was this. We gave place not for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you. He said the reason we didn't give him an inch was because the truth must prevail. We weren't going to let the truth of the gospel come under attack. And so we abhorred it. We called it an abhorrence. We rejected it. We didn't give it an inch. We didn't submit to it even for an hour that the truth of the gospel might continue. Because if we gave that even entertainment of a possibility, then it could disrupt the continuation of the gospel in that congregation. that the gospel could be brought to nothing through this false doctrine coming in. Verse 6, But of these who seemed to be somewhat, whosoever they were, it maketh no matter to me, God accepteth no man's person. For they who seemed to be somewhat in conference added nothing to me. But contrarywise, when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed under me, as the gospel of the circumcision was under Peter, as they saw that Paul's ministry was to carry the gospel of salvation by grace through faith to the uncircumcised, to the rest of the world outside of Israel. And to them, these other crowd, The gospel of the circumcision was under Peter. Peter had the ministry of carrying the gospel of salvation by grace through faith alone to the Jews, to Israel. And so he's just identifying that Paul's mission field was going to all the world and preach the gospel. Peter's mission field was "'Let judgment begin first at the house of Israel, "'and the gospel preached at Israel. "'For he that wrought effectively in Peter "'to the apostleship of the circumcision, "'the same was mighty in me towards the Gentiles.'" And what Paul's saying is, here came in these false teachers, and what they were saying was that, no, no, no, you've got to carry the law out to the Gentiles, And Paul was saying, well, the same God that's been working effectively in Peter's ministry amongst the Jews, who have kept the law all their life, that same God is working effectively through me to the Gentiles who have never known the law. Bunch of Australians, bunch of people from Asia minor, Syria and Turkey and up through the lower end of Eastern Europe, where Paul was carrying the Gospel to. And so he's contrasting the two. And when James and Cephas, Simon Peter, when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, seemed to be people of stature amongst the local church that he's speaking of, when they who seemed to be pillars perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship, that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision. only that we would remember the poor, the same which I was forward to do." And so he's talking about the fact that he went down to Jerusalem and had this council with the early church down there and these other apostles that he named, and all the apostles went, no, the gospel of Jesus Christ is not for Israel only. But the gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel that Peter preached, the gospel that Paul preached, the gospel that all the apostles preached, is the gospel for the whole world, and so go into all the world and preach the gospel. And nothing but the gospel. And if you're going to require anything of them, then require of them to remember the poor, required them to not eat of things of the blood of things, whether it's the life thereof, that they would recognize the blood of Christ and the life is in the blood, but not for the keeping of the law, but for a testimony of the importance of things to God and for a display of God's love to the poor. And Paul said this law thing was dealt with. And so he's working through this argument. And then we get to the point that helps us. And it's in verse 11. But when Peter was come to Antioch, little church at Antioch, Peter turned up there, Paul was there, Peter turned up there. And when Peter turned up there, Paul says, I withstood him to the face because he was to be blamed. Peter, the apostle Peter was the one that was to be blamed for the trouble blowing up out of proportion and bigger than what it should, and this is why. When Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face in verse 11, because he was to be blamed for before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles. He's going back and he's saying, you know them guys that I was talking about that came in saying that Titus had to be circumcised. Well, they came from James and before they turned up, Peter was quite happy to have fellowship without dissimulation amongst the body of Christ at Antioch. It didn't matter if you were Jew or Gentile. He'd happily eat your food. Peter was just fellowshipping and interacting and conducting himself amongst the whole church at Antioch. So before these certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles. And he was quite happy. It didn't have to be a Jew. It didn't matter if you were circumcised or uncircumcised. It didn't matter if you were Jew or Gentile. It didn't matter if you kept the law or if you'd never abided by the law. If you were a part of the body of Christ, if you were a part of that church at Antioch, Peter was united with you. And there was no division there. But halfway through verse 12, When they were come, when these false believers, when they were come, he withdrew, and catch this word, and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. And the other Jews, here's the word, dissembled likewise with him. Peter separated. He said, no, you're not keeping the law like you ought to. And so I'm no longer going to eat with you in the body of Christ. You're part of my local church. He was there fellowshiping with them. Then false doctrine came in and out of fear of the Jews, fear of tradition, he separated. And the Bible says that that separation, it wasn't Peter only. But he withdrew and separated himself, and the other Jews dissembled likewise with him." What happened? The assembly of God's people that were united by the blood of Christ, that were of one accord because of Jesus, were now disassembling. We're now separating. We're now pulling apart from each other. You know why? Because some of them lived in Mount Larkin and some of them lived in Gladstone. And some of them, some of them lived in Boyntanum. Because some of them got to every service and others didn't. Because some of them dressed better than others and in a more godly fashion. Because some kept the law like I keep the law. And so us Jews separated from them Gentiles and it dissembled. You know why? What got creeping in? False doctrine. False teaching. And they loved with dissimulation. With preferences. That this one's a bit better of a Christian than I am. He's the same sort of Christian as I am and so we'll run with them. And those ones, they don't quite measure up as much, so we won't. We'll just split a little. We'll separate a little. Look, you might be right. Maybe Mount Larkin's a wicked place to live, I don't know. We looked this morning about forgiveness, about grace. Paul is abhorring here. He's saying their doctrine is wrong. But what he says to Peter? He doesn't get up Peter because of the wrong doctrine. He gets up Peter because of the separation. He rebukes Peter to the face. because the disagreement caused discord, caused disunity, caused disassembly. And when Peter feared the Jews and feared man and disassembled, then the rest of Peter's crowd followed him. You just think back, if you've been in church any length of time, you've probably been through the heartache of some sort of church split. We've had people leave our church and move away. I don't know if we've had anything that would really clearly mark as a church split over one issue where the church sort of went two separate ways on one issue, but we've certainly had some hard stages where we've gone through and different things. And we've had people pack up and leave. And it's very rare that I've seen one person leave on their own. Because one person who leaves on their own, someone else, when one person disassembles, when one person withdraws, when one person says, you know what? I'm not here anymore. I'm pulling back. I'm separating. And Peter didn't even leave the church. He just separated within the church. It's like he'd sit with you at church, but when you invited him over for dinner, he's like, no, I ain't eating your food anymore. He's like, well, you came over for roast lamb last week. Well, not this week. And here's this division, this dissimulation. When I saw that they walked not uprightly, verse 14, "...now the other Jews disassembled likewise with him, insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation." And so now you've got... They're at Antioch. Paul, and Barnabas, and Simeon, and Niger, and these men that were teachers of the church at Antioch, and Barnabas was there with them, and Peter was there. He turns up and he spends some time there, and whilst Peter's there, his fellowship and with everybody, they're all getting along, and then along comes some Jews with some false doctrine, and they teach some false doctrine, and Peter separates. And a good portion of the church separates. And Barnabas separates. And not only do you have division in the body, but you've got division amongst the teachers of the church. That someone will come up here and stand behind the pulpit one Sunday and teach, Titus, you need to be circumcised and you Jews shouldn't eat with one another. I'm sorry, you Jews shouldn't eat with anyone but Jews. And then Paul would preach the next time and he'd preach something different. And then it'd be Barnabas' turn and he'd be different. And then it would be Niger's turn and he'd be different. And there's just division even there. The unity was just gone. Verse 14, but when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, And what he did, he rebuked an elder before two or three witnesses. He didn't do it secretly. He didn't do it. He rebuked him to the face and said, no, you're wrong. And he called him out on it. He said, if thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles and not as do the Jews, why compelst thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law. For by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid! For if I build again the things which I destroy, I make myself a transgressor. For I, through the law, am dead to the law, that I might live under God. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God. For if righteousness came by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you? Well, he went to town, and he just started preaching the truth, and he started to deal with it, and he taught it right, and he dealt with the division to bring the church at Antioch back to unity. And then he applied it at the church at Galatia and said, you're going the same way, you foolish Galatians. That's why we've got it here in all of this context of the letter to the church at Galatia. Because Paul's trying to get them to see, not in Galatians, it's not really the dissimulation that he's focusing on, but the false teaching, but he does it in a way that he says there needs to be one accord in the body of Christ. We see it in the early church. It's the example we follow, Acts chapter two. And we're done here, and we'll go back to Ephesians and we'll close out. But in Acts chapter two, verse 41, then they that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day were added unto them about 3,000 souls, and they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine. And what's the next word? Fellowship. They continue steadfastly in the apostle's doctrine and fellowship. That unity, that one accord that is spoken about there. The early church, that was the model we have to follow. That's how it started, that there was this unity, there was this oneness in the body of Christ. I said Ephesians, we'll close that in Romans 12, my apologies. I'm still flitting between the two messages I had in my head. Romans 12, verse nine. Paul's instruction to the church at Rome is this, let love be without dissimulation. As we step into this, abhorring that which is evil and cleaving to that which is good. Oh, you know what you're gonna find? You're gonna find some things, we're supposed to abhor that and you're gonna go, well, I saw Mr. Barton the other day I saw Sam the other day, well, this, and cleave to that which is good, and you're gonna go, well, Mr. Kerry, you're gonna run with him, because he's ticking the boxes. And you're gonna, you apply it wrong, and you're gonna cause dissimulation. you're gonna cause schism in the church because, oh, I'm gonna run with this one and I'm gonna run with that. That's not what this list is about. It's supposed to be one body. If you've got a fungal toe, if you've never had a fungal toe, wait for it, it's a bunch of fun, you'll get a fungal toe one day. You'll get old enough and it'll get festy and it'll be like, oh, that's lovely. And you know what you don't do? You don't go back out to the shed and get the ax and go, well, Goodbye, pinky. No, you go, that needs fixing. It's disgusting, it's wrong, I don't like it, I'm gonna fix it. I'm gonna look to repair the body, I'm gonna see that which I abhor and charity is gonna drive you or ought to drive you to heal the body, to rectify the body. not to separate and sever. Let love be without dissimulation. And so you just got to love them from Mount Larkin, that's all you can do. The calliope ones are a bit tougher but just love on the calliope ones too. It's okay. And And work as a church where that love, you know what's important with love? One something really important with love is to be able to go to that person you love and say, you know, what you're doing is an abhorrence to God. And it's really important that you stop. And it's just as important to recognize the good and the strength in our church and in our church family and go, you know what? That's something really good and we need to cleave to that. To see the things that are failing in our church family and instead of cutting and running and going, well, I'm separating, going, hey, we've got a failure here that we need to rectify. and work as a body, and love without dissimulation. And so as we step into this list, as much as I'm able, we need to keep starting at that point. We need to come back to that point. It's there together. Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil and cleave to that which is good, but let love be without dissimulation. That we would have one accord, the unity of the brethren, of the body of Christ. Amen. Let's close with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, I do thank you and pray that you'd help us. My Lord, it is a blessing to consider your word and spend some time studying it. I thank you for it, Lord, that you have given it to us that it is a lamp under our feet and a light under our path. And my Lord, as we go forward in the weeks ahead, I pray you'd help us that we might abhor and cleave. But in it all, Lord, we would love one another, even as Christ has loved us. We thank you and praise you in Jesus' name, amen.