Well, hello, brethren. It's a precious sight out here. I woke up unusually early maybe a month ago and couldn't get back to sleep and got up. And I wouldn't say I just felt at the time it was the Lord. I just couldn't get back to sleep. So I thought, well, I'll just read in my Bible reading where I'm reading. And I just happened to be starting 1 John. And then I read it and it just meant something really to me personally. And as I thought about it and meditated on it, I got excited and started just looking at some other verses. And then I got one of those feelings. I thought, oh my goodness, I think I need to share this. We have a once a month, Friday night study, Bible study, devotion fellowship. have food, and have a short devotion and discussion. So I thought, well, I need to share that with this group. And so I started preparing for that, just writing some notes. And then maybe a week after that, Kenny brought a devotion. And I think it was the morning devotion, like this first half. And it was out of Galatians 5.15. And it's that we need to take heed that we don't bite, devour, and consume one another. You remember that, Kenny? That's great admonition and something to be in guard of. And I thought, oh, my goodness. So my thoughts are rather than bite, devour, and consume one another, what we should do. And so I thought, I need to share this with Mitch, that I might have a thought. And I'll just run it by Mitch. And he might say, OK, well, we'll put that in the queue and get to you sometime. And he said, can you do that next week? So this was last Sunday. I mentioned that to him. I was like, I think so. I'll have practice, because I presented this Friday night to our Friday night group. So Anita and Rex and others. You're getting a repeat. And actually, from your input, I've added to this a little bit. So Rex, I'll share some of the thoughts you brought. So Richard loves titles to devotions because he puts them on sermon audio. So we've got a title for you. And Richard, we have the theme verse. So we're doing that for you ahead of time. So this is the importance of fellowship and love among the brethren. And it's kind of make a bold statement here. If you pay close attention and then apply this to your life, this can change your life. This will change your life. And it'll change the life of those around you if you put these things into practice. You can actually change the course of your life and other people's life by doing what we're about to discuss. So I'll start with a word of prayer. Father, we just thank you for your word. Lord, we thank you for the brethren. Lord, the fellowship and the co-laboring of love for the work of the gospel. and then this church that you've made us a part of and made this fellowship and relationships so special. So we pray that you'd bless your word and the reading of it this morning and the thoughts that come from it. In Jesus' name, amen. So the theme verse is 1 John chapter one, verse three. I'll go ahead and read down to, let me get my notes here. I'll go ahead and read 1 John chapter one, three through seven. That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you that you may, that you also may have fellowship with us and truly our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you that your joy may be full. This then is the message which we have heard of him and declare unto you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another. And the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sins. So I'm going to emphasize the fellowship among the brethren, the love of the brethren. But make no mistake, I don't want to leave out that we're to love him, have a relationship with him. That's a primary function. And we're also to share the gospel and evangelize. So the relationship with him is mentioned in John 14, 21. abide in him, John 15, the importance of walking with him and having him, his presence with us by obeying his commandments. However, for the most part, Christians are not called to go live off in a remote log cabin and just spend all day just communing with God, just one-on-one, like a monastery or something. and spend 12 hours a day in prayer and never talk to anybody. There may be times for that in our lives. And Jesus had those times where he needed to go refresh. But Jesus was very busy among people. And we're called to do that. We're called to be very busy among people and to disciple believers. So we have a very busy life. But I'm not wanting to take anything away from those precious times of cultivating your time with God, those quiet times, the times like I was having that morning, and then the need of evangelism. But the fellowship among the brethren is very important, very emphasized in the Bible. These relationships that we have right here are very important. They're to be cultivated. and there to be appreciated. So this 1 John 3, 7, look at verse 3. It says, truly our fellowship, that you might have fellowship with us. So there is a fellowship among the brethren because of our fellowship with God. And then in verse 7, we'll read that again. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another. And that fellowship is to be a unique kind of fellowship. Rex brought this out in our study, that fellowship, it's a fellowship of the labor of love. It's a fellowship of working together for a common cause and working together for a common savior. Jesus Christ, we work for him, we're doing his work, but we're laboring together in love And that creates this special bond that we have in this church. And we need to appreciate it, and we need to cultivate it. Think of John 13, 35. By this shall all men know that you're my disciples, if you have love one to another. Now, notice it doesn't say, by this shall all men know you're my disciples, through your righteousness. Now that is important to be living a godly lifestyle. We can't be staggering around just staggering drunk, right, and telling people about Jesus. We can't be living in sin and telling about Jesus. So we need righteousness so God can bless, so God can use us. But what's righteousness without love? What does the world see when it's righteousness without love? They usually see that as self-righteousness. But when you have righteousness with love, by love people know we're our disciples. And it says, notice it says, by this shall all men know that you're my disciples, that ye love one another. So people should feel that love for them, but then they should look in the assembly and see that loved one for another. So we have a special fellowship that's a fellowship of love, a fellowship of a common work. So what kind of love is this, that we're supposed to have one to another? It's not just a kumbaya love. I come from a generation where we had a sense of all the world needs now is love. Who remembers that song? Love one another. Well, I was a part of a culture that had this superficial sense of love. And guess what? That love was very shallow. When the money ran low, when the food ran low, the love ran low. So there is that superficial love, but that's not the love that we're to have one for another. So if you just read on, we're gonna read on a couple more verses in 1 John. Look at 1 John chapter two, verse nine and 10. He that saith he is in light and hateth his brother is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother is in the darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whether he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes. So this is the love of Christ toward each other. Then look in chapter three, just go right on through 1 John here. I just have a little note here that in, In chapter 4 of the book of 1 John, the word love is mentioned over 20 times. So there's a lot of love in 1 John, but it's a special kind of love. Look in 3, chapter 3, 14 through 18. We know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. So that's part of, a lot of 1 John, I'll just Bible study, a lot of 1 John is knowing that we know And one of the indicators is the love of the brethren. It's also we keep his commandments, we love the brethren by his spirit, several indicators. There's a theme in 1 John of how we know that we know him. But one of them is that we love the brethren, and it says that right here. Verse 15, whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer, and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. Verse 16, hereby perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our life, lives for the brethren. That's not a kumbaya sort of love. That's lay down your life for your brethren. Then verse 17, but whoso Hath this world's good, and see his brother have need, and shut up his bowels of compassion unto him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? So if we have the brethren in need and don't give, if we have to give and don't do that, that's not love. So this is self-sacrificial love. This is love that sometimes is not, somebody calls you a brother that's out on the highway, and it's in the middle of January, and it's 15 degrees, and their battery's dead, and they're calling you. That's this kind of love. Then, well, verse 18. My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth. So just not say we love, the action of love, in deed and in truth. So this is the love that we should see and cultivate among the brethren. It's the love that Jesus had, and we can't do that as perfectly as him, but we have him in us. We have the mind of Christ, we have the nature of Christ in us, and that's what we allow out to have the love of the brethren. Then chapter 4, we're not going to do this, but just 7 through 21 in chapter 4 mentions love over 20 times. So I'm just going to read verse 21. And this commandment hath we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also. So this is the kind of love we should have, this self-sacrificial, being willing to lay down our lives, give of our goods, go out and help a brother in need. So what does this look like? What does this look like in our lives? Back when we were presenting the concepts, Kenny had a slide This was a great time of co-laboring with Kenny and just the fellowship. So this is love and fellowship. So Kenny and I were fellowshipping over coffee, putting the concepts together, and had a great time. I kind of like to keep that going, Kenny. We said, well, now we need to debrief the concepts, maybe just so we can meet at the coffee shop again. We each had our favorite little drink. But Kenny had, in the last concept of the church, he had a slide put together, some information that I just stole intact and put into a PowerPoint. But it was the one another commands. We won't go through every verse, but here's what this looks like. There's about eight of them here. There's probably more. I know there's more. But this is from the New Testament. We're to love one another, prefer one another, be like-minded toward one another, greet one another, serve one another, bear one another's burdens, forbear one another, put up with each other at times, Forgive one another, right? We need that. Submit yourselves one to another. Consider one another. Assemble together to see one another. So there's a lot of one another's. Now we presented that in the context of the church. Where do you do all this? Where do you do all these one another's? Can you be part of a universal church and do this? So these one another's, this is happening now. This will happen at break when you greet one another, when you appreciate one another, when you fellowship with one another. So these, think of Paul's letters too. Think of just Paul's letters. This could be a whole long study, but just where Paul is so intimate, he's so personal with all the churches, either that he's He's helped form or just visited. He knows those people. He greets them. He says personal things to them. Paul had that relationship and we should cultivate that relationship with our brethren down in the Latin American countries. We should strive to know them better, to know their personal situations, to have that heart of Paul that he had towards the brethren. Our relationships in the church are so important. They help us to share and experience God's love for us through one another. So a little short personal testimony. Lynn and I, my wife Lynn, we've been members of Mission Boulevard for 47 years. This really, this was like pretty profound when I realized this. I was 25 when I joined this church. I was 25. I'm 72 now. How'd you know that? That's amazing. So I'm 72 now. So I love this church that I'm looking out and seeing that when I see the 20s, 30s, 40s, and even 50s, you're the young people. And I'm so excited to see that demographic of our church grow, because that's exciting. Lynn and I have been here for 47 years, and it's just added, it's our life. It's our fulfillment. this church, the brethren, the work of the church, the fellowship has meant so much. It's given up meaning to our life. When we go off for two weeks or something, we usually go to Colorado. That's our standard vacation. We love it. We'd love to be in Colorado for a couple of weeks, but we're ready to come back and we've already missed the brethren and we're glad to come back and You know, people say, oh, how was Colorado? We're glad you're back. And that's just, it's so warming, heartwarming to have this relationship. So the other night, Wednesday night, as I was thinking about this devotion, we were here after church. And I know some people have to, they've got kids and need to leave right off. And some people can't make it on Wednesday nights because they live way out. But it was after church, and we were visiting with Aaron Reed and Christina. They'd just moved over to Lisa Lane. And all of a sudden, it was 8.30. We didn't know them that well. We were getting to know them after church. And then it was 8.30, and I looked around, and there were about five little clusters of people still here. I think Mitch was still here with a little group. Pat was someplace over here. Russ was talking to somebody. I thought, we like each other. It's 8.30, church dismissed 30 minutes ago and we're still just hanging around. Sometimes somebody just has to say, hey guys, I'm gonna turn out the lights and get out of here. So that's a blessing. That's a real blessing. So in application, what does this look like? That's what it looks like, enjoying one another. And then just to wrap up in Acts 2.42, In the early church, I'll read at 41, and they that gladly received the word were baptized, and the same day were added unto them 3,000 souls, and they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and prayers. So Brother Rex was at our devotion, and I was thinking about more the fellowship and the breaking of bread, and that's what we were doing Friday night. lasagna that my wife made, and it's kind of a potluck, people bring desserts. So I was emphasizing fellowship, and Rex brought out, look at the order of that. He's quite a studied Bible scholar. First was steadfastly in the Apostles' Doctrine, then fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayers. So that study, and this church is a great example of emphasizing studies, but study and fellowship. So I just have some things. How can this change your life? You can be involved in it. You can start. Number one, assemble and encourage others to. We're doing that right now. Home studies, home fellowships, prayer groups. Some women that I know just started a prayer group. They met the first time this last week. That didn't just magically happen. Somebody thought of that. Let's do this. And it took, it was quite extraordinary to coordinate the schedules of five ladies in this church. There was a lot of work and texts going back and forth of when they could even do it. But they had a great time. Mitch meets with guys for coffee. That's special. That's this. That's this fellowship and love. Meet for coffee, lunch, prayer. We have some organized bike rides, going for walks, going to lunch with people. Appreciate one another. When Pat Brownie says after services, look around to see who you can fellowship with, do that. Look around and go greet someone. If there's a visitor here, go greet them. If it's a brother or sister that you haven't talked to a while, go visit them. So this is proactive. this fellowship to create it, to make something happen, be a part of something, join a study, be a part of a study, start a prayer group. So I just want to encourage the brethren in the importance of this fellowship because it adds meaning to our life. And it's not to take away from evangelism and our personal walk with God, but it's really emphasized in the New Testament to appreciate this and cultivate it. So I'll end with that. Thank you.