All right, let's look at verse 9, Romans chapter 12 and verse 9, and we'll read down to verse 18. When I was reading this paragraph that we're dealing with tonight, we'll be in the fourth paragraph, I'll say that again in a little bit. I was looking at what it said and I was thinking of some verses that would really almost go hand in hand with those statements, and I've come up with Romans chapter 12, I would say the Lord led me to, in verse 9. Notice we read, let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good. Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love, in honor preferring one another, not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer, distributing to the necessity of saints, given to hospitality. Bless them which persecute you, bless and curse not. Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep. Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits. Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Amen. We'll stop there and let's pray together. Our Father, we thank you again for your love to us. Thank you for the Word of God. And Lord, as I preach the message, I do believe you've led me to preach tonight. I ask for a fresh filling of thy spirit. Lord, I ask that your word would go forth with clarity, power tonight, that by your spirit, you would illuminate the scriptures to us this evening, and then convict our hearts, perhaps in some areas that we need to work in the things we deal with tonight. So bless the message again. I ask for liberty and guidance in the pulpit. And again, we'll thank you in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You know, one of the intangible dynamics of a church is the spirit of a church. I'm going to say that again. I know coming right out the gate with that statement, you probably didn't even get your paper off your mind. But one of the intangible dynamics of a church is the spirit of a church. Now, we understand that every person has a spirit. We all do. God created us, of course, a trichotomy with body, soul, and spirit. 1 Thessalonians 5.23, "...and the very God of peace sanctify you wholly, and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." That's not talking about the Holy Spirit, God's Spirit. It's talking about your spirit and my spirit. Now when we talk about the spirit of a person, It's hard to define. It really is. But we all understand what that means. When I say, for example, that we'll say things like, that person has such a sweet spirit. We understand what that means. We'll say that a person has a kind spirit. We'll say maybe they have a good spirit. Or a gentle spirit. Or a giving spirit. Or a loving spirit. We say those things and I think we all know what we mean by that. But conversely, someone can have a negative spirit. They can have a complaining spirit. A sour spirit. Bitter spirit. An unkind spirit? Or an angry spirit? They could have a hateful spirit. Now we read verses in the Bible about this. For example, Daniel chapter 6 and verse 3, Then this Daniel was preferred above the presidents and princes, because an excellent spirit was in him. So Daniel is described as having an excellent spirit. Now that's good. I'd like to have an excellent spirit, wouldn't you? But then again on the flip side, we read Ecclesiastes 7 and verse 9, Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry, for anger resteth in the bosom of fools. So that speaks of an angry spirit. I have quite a little bit of distance here on my introduction, but don't worry, we'll get to the meat of this and get through it rather quickly. But that speaks of a bad spirit. We can have a good spirit and we can have a bad spirit. The Bible speaks also of having a spirit of jealousy. Numbers 5.14. Spirit of wisdom, Deuteronomy 34, 9, a wounded spirit, Proverbs 18, 14, and many, many, many more types of spirit that we can have. Now, we get that, I think. Someone walking around, we can sense there's a spirit there. There's something there. Now, our spirit can be defined, or maybe the better word is described, described as, or compared to our demeanor. or our disposition. We could say our mental state at a certain time or that air that we carry around with us. I think we understand that. And while we all have a spirit, the type of spirit that we display is the direct result of our spiritual condition. Did you get that? The spirit you and I convey is the product of where we are spiritually. Okay? So a spirit that is under the control of the Holy Spirit will convey a spirit that displays the fruit of the Spirit. Right? Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, faith, and so forth. Now a spirit that's not under the control of the Holy Spirit will convey a spirit that displays the works of the flesh. in Galatians chapter 5. It talks about them, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envying, murders, all of those things. Now, just like an individual has a certain kind of spirit depending on their spiritual condition, so does a church. so does the church. You ask any of these men and folks that travel around and go into churches, and you can walk into a church and you can immediately sense the spirit of that church. It's not tangible, but it's there. And the spirit of a church is produced by the prevailing spirit of its members. Right? That's what it is. In other words, if most of the members of the church are friendly, then that church will have a friendly spirit. If most of the people in the church are unfriendly, then that church will have an unfriendly spirit. We could say the same about so many things. If the members of the church are joyful people, then that church will convey a joyful spirit. If the members of the church are grumpy and unhappy, then the church will have an unhappy spirit, and on and on we can go. And again, and the prevailing demeanor of the members is directly related to the state of our relationships with one another. Did you get that? I'm trying to go down a little path here. The prevailing demeanor of the members is directly related to the state of our relationship with one another. Okay? In other words, if a church is filled with people that don't get along, that refuse to work to settle problems, that harbor things like resentment and unforgiveness, that have a chip on their shoulder. If our church or any church is filled with that, those types of people, then our church is going to have a bad spirit. And people, especially visitors, forgive the phrase, but I'm gonna say it this way, will feel it. We'll feel it. You ever walk in a church, you say, something's wrong here. I don't know what it is, but it is thick. I mean, somebody's mad or angry or something's going on here. Now again, if our church or any church is filled with people who truly love one another, who work at exercising forgiveness, that accept and work through our differences in personalities and opinions and our minor disagreements, then our church or that church will have an excellent spirit. And people, especially visitors, will feel that as well. You see how important this is? And that spirit will impact our effectiveness for Jesus Christ in this world. Do you think the word of God will go forth with power when the spirit of the church is bad? When there's an angry spirit there? It will not. So our spirit is going to affect, again, the power of God upon us, God's blessings upon us, and the fruit that God uses us to produce in this world can all go back, to a degree, to the spirit of the church. That's interesting, I think. So, let me just show you something. Go over to 1 Corinthians 15. 1 Corinthians 15. You know the church at Corinth. far from a model church. As a matter of fact, if you go to chapter 15, but if you were to look at chapter 1 in verse 11, you'd find that Paul said, for it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. In the church, contentions. Look at chapter 3 and verse 3, you might as well look there since I'm reading a few things. He says, For ye are yet carnal, for whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions, are ye not carnal and walk as men? So there was a bad spirit in that church. There was division, there was contention in that church. I would imagine if you walked in that church, you'd feel that. Now go over to 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 34. Here's the result. Awake to righteousness and sin not, for some have not the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame. Is it affecting that bad spirit, those contentions and strife and divisions? Is affecting your fruitfulness in this world? And it will do the same to any church. What is our spirit like? So again, all that to ask this question. How do we promote a good spirit in the church and prevent a bad spirit in our church? How do we do that? Well the answer is found, go back to our text in Romans chapter 12, and the answer is found in verse 10. Again we read, excuse me, be kindly affection one to another with brotherly love in honor preferring one another. And so tonight I want to preach on this subject which is going to come directly from our covenant. Be kindly affectioned one to another. Now again we've been looking at for some time this idea of what is a church member. And for the past few weeks, we've been looking specifically at this church covenant. It is a document that we have that kind of sums up what we believe are our agreed responsibilities of church members. These are things as we join the church that we agree to do. And again, remember, when a person desires to join Capitol Baptist Church or any church, any New Testament church for that matter, They must first of all, if it's going to be a scriptural church, must be saved, they must be scripturally baptized, they must be in doctrinal agreement from Acts chapter 2 and verse 42, and then they must agree to certain responsibilities as a church member. And those responsibilities are outlined for us in this church covenant. Now we've dealt with much of this, three paragraphs already, and paragraph one is basically our agreement to enter into this covenant. Paragraph two deals with what I've called our participation in the church, in its services and ministries, our promoting of the church, and our preserving of the church. We dealt with that. Paragraph three deals with our behavior at home. and our behavior in the world. Not just here, not just in these four walls, but we are to behave like a Christian everywhere we go. We believe the Christian life is 24-7, 365 days a year. And so paragraph three deals with that. Now tonight we'll look at paragraph four, which deals with this, our responsibilities to and our interactions with fellow church members. All of them, every church member. Not just some, okay? And how we must be, we must be, as this verse says, kindly affection one to another, and implement the things we're gonna look at tonight, why? So that we would have an excellent spirit. Now I think we have a good spirit in this church, I do. So hopefully this is preventive, that's the idea. But there's no doubt that these little things have to be dealt with all the time. So let's look at some things, we're looking at three things tonight, that paragraph three, I'm sorry, paragraph four deals with. Notice number one, if you would. It first deals with our actions towards one another. Our actions towards one another. Now notice the first sentence there. We further engage to watch over one another in brotherly love, to remember each other in prayer, to aid each other and sickness and distress. So notice there's a commitment here. There's agreement here as to having certain actions towards other church members, towards one another. Things that we say, yeah, as Christians, we should be doing these things. We should be. As church members, we should be doing these things. This way it will promote that good spirit that we want to have. So notice the first thing, letter A, we should watch over one another. Now that's interesting. Let me clarify some things here. Because on the one hand, we know that the scriptures teach us not to be busybodies. We're not to stick our nose into everybody's business. We're not to try to figure out what they're doing by hiding behind bushes and watching where they're going. No, that's not what we're supposed to do. We're not to get involved with things that do not concern us as believers. But at the same time, we are told to watch over one another with brotherly love. Or should I say genuine affection. So what does it mean to watch over one another in brotherly love? Well, we'll talk about that here in a moment. But we read in Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 18, we read, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication, notice, for all saints. So we are to watch over one another and to do it in brotherly love. Now this is very important. But what does it mean? What exactly does that mean? Well it means things like this. It means to take notice of where other church members are spiritually. That's what it means. In other words, to look out for those that may be struggling. You know, people, we all go through ups and downs in the Christian life. People go through traumatic things, unexpected things in their lives. And sometimes they don't share those things with other people, but there's certain behavior that marks that something is wrong. And we are to take notice to that. We are to pay attention to that. We should pay attention when someone who's usually here Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, and Sunday school, all of a sudden stopped coming. or all of a sudden they're not here Sunday night. I get it, we get sick and all that, but when it becomes a trend... We should watch them and say, hey, have you seen so-and-so? They haven't been here. Because that's an indication that something is wrong. Something's wrong. If they seem to be dropping out of places of service. Maybe they used to go soul winning all the time and now they stop. Maybe they were in the bus ministry and all of a sudden they said, I just don't want to do that anymore with no valid reason. Maybe you look at them and they seem discouraged. or maybe add a joint about something, and we are to, as church members, make it a point to watch over them and try to help them. Listen, we are our brother's keeper. That's part of what the church is about, to do something to help them. First and foremost, you should let the pastor know. I can't watch everybody. In fact, we have a deacon caring list and staff caring list. And a part of that is for them to be my eyes and ears. And I always tell them, when you see someone on your list that their habits have changed noticeably, please let me know. If they're here all the time, and all of a sudden, for three or four weeks, they're not away, nobody knows where they are, and they're not here, I need to know about that. And I want to know about that because that should be a concern. Again, let the pastor know because there may be a private issue that the pastor is dealing with them about. And so you don't necessarily have to run to them right away, but at least let the pastor know and say something is something up here. And then second, with the pastor's okay, try to be an encouragement and to help them. That's what we're supposed to do. That's what being a church, part of being a church member is about. One author wrote this, as church members we are agreeing to be watchers over the other members of the church and to do so with brotherly love. While at the same time agreeing to be watched over by the other members. I don't want anybody watching over me. You should. Because we care about you. I want you to watch over me. All of a sudden I just stop showing up. You should be concerned about that. I mean, that's a problem. Back to the quote. Believing their concern to be an expression of brotherly love and not judgmentalism or a desire to hear the latest gossip. That's not why we're looking out for them. So we're to watch over one another. It's very important to do that. That's some of the actions we agree to as church members. And the letter B, we are also to pray for one another. Pray for one another. James 5.16, confess your faults one to another and pray one for another that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. I hope you make it a habit to pray for fellow church members. I hope you do. You should. I mean on a regular basis and especially in a time of need. We have families always at one time or another and even at this present time going through some very deep waters. We can't fix their problems. Only God can. We can't help them. We can't give the comfort that only God can. We can't as a human being. But God's a comforter, and so we pray for them. We should pray for them. And by the way, the prayer list isn't just for Wednesday night. You should have that with you. We should be praying for our missionaries regularly. Yes, we highlight one. I said this in Sunday school. Take the missionaries on the back of the sheet here and divide it up. Do a section Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, however you do it. Just make it a point to pray for them. But more importantly, pray for fellow church members, people that are struggling. And by the way, the prayer chain isn't just for information. It's for prayer. We're supposed to pray. Ephesians 115, Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers. You see, prayer is the tool that God has given to us to invoke God's power upon any and every earthly situation. We're calling upon God, that resource, His power, to help somebody in their time of need. That's what prayer is. And as church members, we pray for one another. That'll help the spirit of a church, praying for people. And then thirdly, letter C, aid one another. Aid one another. Now, help those that we can help. Now I understand every single person can't help every church member. An individual, I mean it's just impossible, but you can help some. You can help somebody. You can help those that God puts on your heart and those that God enables us to help. And especially, and that's what it says here, to aid each other in sickness and distress, especially those that are sick and that are going through distressful times. We need God, amen, and they need help. And again, we all go through things sooner or later. You may be healthy right now. You may not be healthy right now. But more than likely, you're not gonna be healthy forever. You're gonna have something, you're gonna have a surgery, you're gonna have something to deal with. And so again, when someone's sick, when they're in distress, when they're going through deep waters with things, as church members, we should aid them. do something to help them. James 2.15 says this, If a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be warmed and filled, notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body, what do they profit? Praying for you, sister and brother, praying for you, praying for you. Well, praying for me doesn't fill the icebox, amen, the refrigerator. That's an old word, isn't it? The refrigerator. That doesn't help the things that are tangible. James 4, 17, therefore to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin. Think about others. That's what the Christian life is about. It's about others. But some people, their sole concern is themselves. They never think about helping anyone. Oh, they go out and they get their new cars, and their new phones, and their new purses, their new guns, and their daily lattes? But to help someone, I can't do that. Why not? Why not? Give to a special need. There's plenty of needs. 1 John 3, 17 says this, If you have the ability to help someone, it's right there at your fingertips, and you know of the need, and you don't do it. He says here, you don't have the love of God dwelling in you. Because our God is a giver. Do you know there are people that join a church to take. That's why they join. They get stuff. They join a church to try to play off of people's compassion, sometimes to get attention, sometimes to get free handouts, sometimes to have people do for them what they can and ought to be doing for themselves, because they're takers. Christians must never be characterized as takers. We should be characterized as givers. And as church members, we agree to help, to aid. Again, the phrase is to aid each other, especially in sickness and distress. Help as we can. You see, having these actions will produce such an excellent spirit in the church when we are people that give. So we see number one, our actions one toward another. Then number two, we see the second thing to produce this excellent spirit. We can do it through our attitude towards one another. Our attitude. Let's look at our church covenant. Notice in the third line there to the left, to cultivate Christian sympathy and feeling and courtesy of speech. Do you know when people are together for any length of time, especially if there is a cause, a common cause, whether it be work or ministry, there'll always be friction. Listen, it's easy to go and visit a church and be Mr. Happy and be all that. and then leave and that's it. But I tell you, stay there a while, join that church, start serving in that church, start working with and around people. Guess what's going to happen? Friction. There's always friction with people. The more interaction you have with people, the more friction you're going to have with people. You're going to have misunderstandings. You're going to make mistakes. You're going to have miscommunications. There will be that in a church. And whenever a church tries to move forward for God, making a difference in this world with the gospel of Jesus Christ, there will always be conflict with people. You know, it's interesting, my devotions, I'm in the book of Numbers, and I noticed that when the children of Israel were encamped at Mount Sinai, now they arrived at Mount Sinai in Exodus chapter 19, and they spent one year, two months, and 20 days there getting the law and all that. Now, from the Red Sea to Mount Sinai, as they were moving, there was a lot of complaining and murmuring. But you know, when they were standing still at Mount Sinai, they had some incidents, but there wasn't any murmuring or complaining. But the moment they packed it up and God said, it's time to move forward, in Numbers chapter 10, guess what started again? The complaining. Because whenever you're moving forward for the Lord, as they were moving forward in God's will, towards the promised land, understand that's when the conflict begins. Same with the church. We want to do something for God? There's going to be conflict. And while we will never eliminate conflict, we can control how we deal with conflict. One that's gonna go find a church has no conflict. God bless you. You'll never find it. You may stop in for a moment there and think there's no conflict, but the moment you hang out for any amount of time, you're gonna find there's conflict. And no matter what conflict arises, we must deal with it in a Christ-like manner. like the Lord Jesus Christ. We must never have an attitude towards people. We must never ignore people, have a chip on our shoulder with people, but we must always treat one another with kindness and courtesy and respect, no matter what the past is with that person or what the present situation is. We deal with it like the Lord Jesus Christ. I've known some churches at business meetings with just an all out, just about an all out brawl, verbal brawl. I mean we came there to duke it out. I'm going to speak my mind. I'm going to speak it the way I want to speak it. It seemed like all of a sudden we can all be carnal and that's okay in a business meeting. Stop already. We can never excuse bad behavior. There's never a time to not be like the Lord Jesus Christ. And when there's a conflict, it's so easy for us to just erupt over people and over things. But we cannot do that. If we do that, you know what the spirit of a church is going to be like? It's going to be horrible. Tense. Thick. As people walk in. Ephesians 4, 29, Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption, that all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. There it is. We should be that way at all times. You want to kill the spirit of a church? Then allow yourself to have a bad attitude, to get a chip on your shoulder about some situation, about another church member, about someone on staff, or God forbid, about the pastor. You have a chip on your shoulder. Guess what? That's going to kill the spirit of a church. We have to guard these things. We must guard these things. We must guard our actions towards one another. We must guard our attitudes towards one another. And then lastly, in number three, we need to guard our reactions towards one another. Now let's look at this paragraph again. We read, we further engage to watch over one another in brotherly love. to remember each other in prayer, to aid each other in sickness and distress, to cultivate Christian sympathy and feeling and courtesy of speech. Here it is. To be slow to take offense, but always ready for reconciliation and mindful of the rules of our Savior and to secure reconciliation without delay. So notice it talks about two things in that last section. First of all, letter A is this, we are to be slow to take offense. You know, our culture today is the exact opposite. People are so quick to take offense. It's almost like they're waiting to erupt on people. I mean, just forget to put your turn signal on or do something simple. And man, you got the hands waving and the gestures that I would never make with my hands tonight or ever forgotten for that matter. But people get so mad. They get so upset. They're ready to explode. But Christians ought not to be that way. Well, they did it to me, so I'm doing it back to them. That's not the way it ought to be. Even in a church, in Psalm 119 and verse 165, Nothing. You see, when someone takes offense, they allow something that is either said or something that someone did to cause them to feel hurt, to get upset, or to get angry, and it causes them to react in an un-Christlike way. This idea of taking offense. There are people out there that seem to let everything, everything bothers them. I mean, they have such a short fuse and they get upset over every little thing that someone says or someone does. It's like they're waiting for an opportunity. Just give me a reason, boy. I'm just a seething kettle here. Just give me a reason to spout off and I will. That's not a good spirit to have. By the way, if that's you, you're not going to make it as a church member. You're not. You're going to destroy a church. If you're flying off to handle everything... By the way, that's why some people never join a church, because they don't want to deal with people issues. They know. They say, I'm not joining a church. Why? They got to deal with people. So they just, you know, go here, go there, go here, go there, and so forth. That's not God's will. And by the way, these types of things challenge us to be more like the Lord Jesus Christ, and the conflicts reveal things in our lives that we need work on that we would otherwise not know. Just like the parent just says, I thought I was a good Christian until I had kids. I thought I was patient until I had kids. Then I realized what I am. Same thing with people. People will reveal what you and I really are. Don't blame them. Great peace of they which love thy law. Nothing shall offend them. And so if you're getting offended, the problem's not them, the problem's you. So we have to be slow to take offense. Remember what Jesus Christ told his disciples. He said in Luke 17 1, Then said he unto his disciples, It is impossible, but that offenses will come. But woe unto him through whom they come. You're not going to get through this world without somebody offending you. But don't get offended by it. Whatever they do is what they do. But I'm not going to allow that to offend me. And so we are slow to take offense. And then lastly, notice letter B, we are also ready for reconciliation. That's what we read. It says, but always ready for reconciliation and mindful of the rules of our Savior and to secure reconciliation without delay. You see, being a church member is like being in a family. By the way, we are in the family of God, and it's the blood of Jesus Christ that connects us. But same as with an earthly family, the way it should be, I'm not saying it is all the time, but the way it should be is when conflict arises, the right thing to do is not leave the family, The right thing to do is to work it out. We say that often. We're family. We gotta work this out. We can't ignore each other. We can't act like we don't like each other and never talk to one another. We have to work it out. It ought to be the same in a church. We should work things out. And by the way, that involves reconciliation. You know, our God is a reconciling God, is He not? He reconciled us to Himself through the Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 5.18, And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us a ministry of reconciliation. And we are to do the same with other people. When there's a problem, we should make reconciliation. We should. Matthew 5.23, Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there remember that thy brother hath ought against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way. First be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. You know, some people are really good at holding grudges. They're pretty masterful at it, as a matter of fact. They know real well how to give someone the silent treatment. They know real well how to be what the world calls passive-aggressive. I'm gonna dig in a way that I know what I'm doing and he knows or she knows what I'm doing, but nobody else is gonna know what I'm doing. That's passive-aggressive. They're real good at ignoring people, avoiding people, and pretending everything's okay, and taking out the hymn book, and singing how much we love Jesus. Many people are good at that. But that doesn't help anything. It doesn't help anything. Romans 12, 18. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. God's desire for you and me is to reconcile. By the way, I like what it says here. It says, and mindful of the rules of our Savior. Where are the rules of our Savior in the Word of God? And so the idea here is that every problem that you and I face, whether it be with someone else or with one another, whatever, every situation, the answer to that problem is found in God's Word. If both parties that are at odds with one another will simply submit to the Word of God, then that problem would be solved. It's that simple. That's why we need to be mindful of the rules of our Savior. And by the way, only by pride cometh contention. Somebody will say, no, I refuse to forgive. You don't know what they did. You know what they said. You know how this affected me. I'm not going to forgive them. That's not the way to do it. It's going to bring a bad spirit in the church. It's going to make you bitter. A bitter person. So two things about reconciliation we've done. Number one is this, we are to reconcile sincerely. Romans 12.9 says this, it says, let love be without dissimulation. That word dissimulation means hypocrisy, fake. In other words, don't fake it. Don't act like you love someone when you know that there's a problem there, but you're just smiling as if everything's okay. In other words, reconcile sincerely. Truly forgive that person. Whatever it is, truly let it go. Don't bring it up again. Act as if that offense never occurred. Treat that person as if that offense never occurred. And then move on. And rejoice in serving the Lord. You know, a good passage to read if you're struggling with this is Matthew chapter 18, where Peter talked about, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Until seven times? The Lord said, no, it's 70 times seven. In other words, again and again and again and again. And if you are going to live a victorious Christian life, and we are going to prevent the devil from messing up the spirit of the church, then we have to constantly and repeatedly exercise forgiveness with people. Well, I forgive if they ask. That's not how it works. You forgive anyway, so that you can move on, be a forgiving person. And so reconcile sincerely. And then number two, reconcile swiftly. Would you do it today? Don't ignore an issue if it's there. Don't let things go on for years. Don't be two-faced where in front of that person you act like you like them and then all behind their back you're saying things about them and criticizing them and that sort of thing. Get right with God. Do it right away. Make amends with that person today. Immediately. Because that's the way the Lord would have it. You see all of these things that we're talking about here tonight contribute to the spirit of the church. If we allow these things to, our reactions and our actions and our attitude, to not be the way God wants it to be, guess what? The spirit of this church will be horrible. It'll be bad. People come in and sense something is wrong. And how we interact with one another is really the key to the fruitfulness of this church and the future of this church. And so would you tonight make it a point to say, I am going, if there's something here that was spoken about tonight, that you'd say, you know what, I need to work on that. Would you work on it today? Would you work on maybe your actions towards others, watching over them, caring for people. Do what you can when you can. Praying for people. Make it a habit to pray for church members. Aiding one another when you can. Have the right attitude. Be kind and sincere when you speak to them, caring for them. And then be slow to take offense and be ready to reconcile if there is a problem. I truly believe that even one person could hinder the progress of a church if that person had a bad spirit. If they had a real bad spirit, and I've seen it before, someone with a real bad spirit in a church is like the plague. It's like this cough we have, it's getting to everybody. But it can happen. I mean, think of Achan, and God halted the progress of Israel because he said there's sin in the camp. You gotta deal with it before we move forward. And I wonder if some of these things are in some people that's hindering us from moving forward and taking more ground for the Lord. Let's be mindful of these things and realize we must be kindly affectioned one to another. We're brothers and sisters in Christ. We're in this thing together. Our enemy's not each other, our enemy's the world. And we must do everything in our power to encourage one another in the Lord.