to give a public reading of the word of God. Hebrews chapter 10 verses 23-25. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near. Father, what a privilege it is for me to stand before such a people. and herald this glorious gospel. Lord, I'm unworthy, qualified. I'm a sinner saved by your grace, brought into your kingdom by your doing. Lord God, I pray God that you will guard my tongue, that you will give me unction and anointing as I preach this message. I pray that it will be a glory to you and of encouragement and strength to the people that you have here today and the people that are watching by means of the internet and the people who will watch this at some later time. I pray God that all things will be done in order and that it will make sense to the people, that it will be orderly and truthful, that it will be a good representation of what you teach in your word. And I pray all these things in the name of Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God. Amen. You may be seated. To the glory of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Amen. Now my habit is at the beginning of a new year, there's two ways to preach. There's topical preaching, which is dominating the modern church. They take a subject and they get three verses of scripture that has that word in it or something like it and they preach that. That's dominating the modern church. Then there's expositional preaching where you take a verse and go back to the original language and the context that the writer was in when he wrote it and explain what it means. Expositional preaching is particularly glorifying to God and particularly encouraging and helpful to us. It takes time. It takes a lot more time to do an expositional sermon than a topical sermon. But at the beginning of every year, I combine the two and I preach a topical sermon expositionally. So I take a subject, this subject is going to be the communion of the saints, and then I preach what God's word says about it in context to how they wrote it, going back to the original languages and explain it. I have never felt more love from people than I feel from all of you in this church. I feel loved, I feel wanted. When I go and eat with other pastors and I hear their horror stories of how the people rebel against what they're preaching, it makes me praise God for all of you. Because I sense a great freedom to preach God's word without fear and without fail in this place. And that is a rare thing. And God has done a unique work here that we have the truth and we also have a great amount of love. and we should be ever humbled and grateful for that because it's got nothing to do with anything we've done. It's got to do with the Spirit of God visiting us and causing that to happen in our hearts. He didn't have to do it. And he did do it, and he doesn't do it often that I can tell, and he doesn't do it all over the place as far as I can tell. So it should humble us that God has visited us here, and we should walk carefully before the Lord that he will not be offended. A lot of talk these days about people being offended. I'm more concerned about Jesus being offended. And I don't want to offend Jesus. And I don't want to go about my business while Jesus is sitting over the corner and nobody's paying any attention to him. That's not a good thing. But this sermon series is designed to encourage us all to love and devote ourselves to one another as well as to the Lord. So there's two connections that we have. We're connected to Jesus, but we're also connected to each other. And so it's a vertical and a horizontal connection. And so that's what I want to talk about. So Brother Verne just read this passage. And in that passage, there's one word I want to zero in on, the word us. And then there's a phrase, one another, that I want to zero in on. Now, obviously, the unknown writer of Hebrews had a very specific group of mind as God the Holy Spirit moved on him to write this inspired book because he uses the word us 32 different times in 26 verses in just Hebrews alone. After going verse by verse through this magnificent book several years ago, we found that the us as well as the one another to which the writer addresses these statements are in context the saved people, that small little church that was in what is now called the nation of Turkey. It was mine back then. And it was located there around 68 AD. The temple in Jerusalem was still standing when the book of Hebrews was written. And that's the correct context of the writings of the verses and the chapter paragraphs of the book of Hebrews. But the application of the book of Hebrews and these statements that Brother Verne read apply to all saved people in every church throughout all time. So this is a universal truth to all believers everywhere and forever. And what the Unknown Writer was doing by using these two words is to establish and develop what is called community, or communion among the individual living stones of redeemed human beings that make up the Christian church. And this goes back to what the Apostle Paul was led to write, for example, in Romans chapter 12. Verses four and five that says this, for just as we have many members in one body, and all the members do not have the same function, so we who are many are one body, the members of one another. Now, if you go back into American history, you'll find out that the founding fathers did not create political parties. They didn't envision conditions where the Republicans meet and the Democrats meet and they pick their candidate. That's not what they envisioned for the country. That is operating extra constitutionally in our country. And I love to see the day when it's all abolished and we go back to George Washington. George Washington did not run as a member of a particular political party. And we shouldn't be doing that now, it's wrong. and what's wrong in the sense it's not constant. And this is a creation that came about over the years in the mind of men who thought they had a better idea than the founding fathers, basically what that's all about. Likewise, we who were born in the 20th century and now are in the 21st century, we look out on the horizon and we see Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, Evangelical, Catholic, and we think that's normal. It is not normal. It is sin. That's sin. That's division. It is evil. It is unbiblical. It is wrong. Paul never envisioned it. Jesus never talked about it. It is creation of men, extra biblical. And the cause of these divisions is this book right here. And the statement goes, doctrine divides. Amen to that. It divides between people who desire to be obedient to this book and those who do not. And you find the people who do in a lot of places that you might not think you could find them. And you find a lot of people who do not want to obey the Bible in a lot of places you might not think of. So the goal is to be biblical, not be a Baptist, not be a Roman Catholic, not be a Presbyterian, not be evangelical, not be Presbyterian. All those divisions are creations of men. The denominations are creations of the mind of man that are fallen and corrupt and sinful, and that's why nothing ever works out the way it's supposed to work out. One of the largest Protestant groups in the history of mankind, is the Southern Baptist Convention. They've done enormous good for decades. And you watch them now, they're falling apart. Why? Because it's created on the basis of man and not God. Southern Baptists were created in slavery times. Because they didn't want black people to come and worship God with them. It's created out of sin. And so it's got nothing to do with the Bible or the Holy Spirit or God or anything else. God has used Southern Baptists in spite of themselves, not because of what they've done. And there's a lot of godly, saved, wonderful Baptist people throughout history and even now. But you look at the organization, and it's become worldly. It's become man-centered. It's become corrupt. That's because it's not on the solid rock. This never changes. And so every church on the face of the earth with whatever name is over the door has to work very hard every single day to stay in alignment with this and not go into this direction or that direction, as good as it may sound temporarily. This is the pattern, and it is the only pattern for the church. And so you have some churches that believe 62% of this. You have other churches that believe 87% of this. You have other churches that believe in 22% of this. All of those are wrong. Those are not the goal. The goal is 100%. Why would we not believe at all if we're going to believe any of it? If you don't believe at all, why would you believe any of it? So it's just, that's the one body. That's the one body. Now, I'm spitting in the wind by talking like this, because I'm a little podunk preacher on John Clark Road in Gulfport in 2025. So who in the world is going to listen to me? Well, I'm going to keep talking. And I'm on the radio talking about this stuff. And I will not be quiet until I die or they kill me. I'm not going to stop. So that's how I stop. Is death or what's the other one? I don't guess there is another one. I'm serious. I'm serious. And so I got this much time left. And I am more determined than ever to be biblical than I've ever been. I'm not looking to slow down. I'm looking to speed up. I need to ratchet this thing up about 10 more notches than what we've had it. Because the day is long upon us. We need to make hay while the sun shines. We need to work while there's yet day, for the night is coming when no one's going to work. So we need to be faithful, fruitful, and busy. All right. And in 1 Corinthians 12, 12 and 13, the same apostle said, for even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one spirit, we were baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, we were all made to drink of one spirit. In 1 Corinthians 12 and 20, he said, but now there are many members, but one body. And in Ephesians 4, 4 through 6, he said, there is one body and one spirit, just as you also called, and one hope of your calling, one law, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all. It was over all and through all and in all. If you didn't know any better, you'd think there's one body. And these verses repeatedly use a common phrase, one body, which has to do with developing what the early church called the communion of saints. Now the apostles' creed is one of the earliest Christian summary statements of essential truth that exists. And even though the apostles themselves did not write this creed, it served the church well for many centuries until a more precise creed was developed that dealt with more issues of essential truth. Now I'm going over the creeds in our Sunday morning Lord's Day service because I'm trying to educate everybody in this church of where we came from. This is our history. But none of those creeds are good enough. None of them are good enough. Because a Roman Catholic could say any one of those creeds and be fine with it. And yet they categorically reject justification by faith alone, which is the very heart and core and center of the biblical gospel, which I would think is a pretty big deal. So they never go far enough. And that's the problem. And that's one of the reasons why they quit having them. Because the best thing you can do is over decades of faithful ministry, you teach and preach one verse at a time to the local congregation. And over those decades, they become more educated about the entire Bible and not just a section of it. But that takes time, doesn't it? and we in the microwave generation and the computer generation, we wanna push a button and have this done in 15 minutes. You just can't get there from here. They got a thing in Branson, Missouri, and I'm not just throwing rocks at it, I'm trying to show you how silly people are. They call it a worldview weekend. And you go up there and you pay a good price for it too, by the way. And you got Friday night, all day Saturday, and then Sunday morning, and now you leave and now you got a biblical worldview. Well, no, you don't. He's left out thousands of issues that he never even talked about because you can't do that in four services. So you have a more biblical worldview than you used to have, which is great. But you can't stop with that and think, now I've got a biblical worldview. No, you don't. And I'm begging all of you to understand. Vote Republican all you want to. The Republican Party is not of Jesus Christ. Understand that. And I voted for him, too. And I hope God's gonna use him. But I'm calling him to repentance. I'm being consistent. Like I wrote Jimmy Carter a letter calling him to repentance, I've written Donald Trump a letter calling him to repentance. Because they have the same position on abortion and homosexuality. Yes, they do. I don't think that's okay. Again, I'm spitting in the wind. But at the end of the Apostles' Creed, we read these words. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the world to come. So what did the early church fathers mean when they discussed the communion of saints? In what sense or in what way are the many hundreds of millions of genuine believers who were raised in different cultures, who speak different languages, who have developed different customs, and who live in many nations of the world one body? It is obviously not true to say that every believer worships God by being physically connected with all other believers. We don't. Time and distance simply won't permit that. But as we discuss this problem, we need to first acknowledge that the reason that the Christian church contains believers from all over the planet is because the gospel was heralded and has triumphed over unbelief among those many believers who live in the many nations of the world. So this is really not a problem after all, but a great success story that should be celebrated. And this is part of my own personal, I have developed. The gospel wins. The gospel wins. It ultimately triumphs. Okay, so while some genuine believers live in Gulfport, Mississippi, others who believe in Jesus just as genuinely live in Europe, and in Africa, and Korea, and China, and India, and Syria, and England, and some genuine believers actually live in a third world country called California. So in the sense of literal physicality, Christians are spread all over the world, which as I said is a good thing, but Since that's true, in what sense then do we believe in and in what sense do we actually have the communion of saints? This is an example, my friends, of what I mean when I tell you that we must guard our hearts against saying that we believe in something that we really don't know anything about. Sadly, as I was preparing this sermon series over the last several months, I have talked to dozens of people, all of whom say they're saved, many of whom recite the Apostles' Creed every Lord's Day, and yet none of them knew what the phrase the communion of saints means. None of them have ever asked their leaders what it means, and none of them have ever heard anybody preach or teach on that issue or read any information about it the entire time they have been in church. And that is unconscionable. We are not parrots who simply repeat what other believers have written. And we are not bobble-headed statues who nod our heads in agreement with things we don't understand. And so to keep the people of the Covenant of Peace Church from being guilty of this crime, I am developing a white paper teaching that will go over every phrase of every creed and explain what the men who wrote it meant. But if the communion of saints doesn't mean that all believers worship God in the same physical location, then what does it mean? Well, first of all, it means that all genuine believers belong to the very same church that Jesus established, that he is ongoingly building, and over which he alone is head. And that is why the Nicene Creed says something like, I believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church. Well, the one refers to that one body that we saw in the scriptures. So Jesus only set up one single church, and that one single church belongs to him. He alone paid for it with his blood, and all genuine believers belong to that one body, that one church. You say, people say, well, Brother Blair, there's a lot of churches that they're compromising and they're promoting wickedness now. Okay, how do you account for that? Well, number one, they're not part of the one, holy, Catholic, apostolic church. They're religious organizations of which some of them might even be saved, but they are not a church. Rome no longer has a church. It's a religious system. because they have isolated themselves from the authority of scripture and they did it on purpose. So that doesn't mean that every person that goes to a Roman church or Roman or building is is lost. Some of them are saved I pray but they have to be real bad Catholics. Because if you understand what Rome teaches and you believe what Rome teaches, you can't be saved. Because you will deny the basic essential truths of the Christian faith. And you can't do that. Huh? But what is it exactly that causes all of those genuine believers to actually belong to that one single church that Jesus created? Because they say so? Because they want it to be true? Because that's what the sign over the front door says? No, what causes all of those genuine believers to belong to that one single church that Jesus created, that he is continuing to build, and over which he alone is head is four things. Number one, they are in spiritual or mystical union with Jesus by having personally experienced the miracle of the new birth, by having been justified by faith alone, and by having been adopted. Those three things. Number two, this inward spiritual or mystical union has been outwardly signified through water baptism. Number three, they have been, they are now, and they will continue to be taught the truth of Scripture. And number four, they have personally believed the truth of Scripture. They believe that truth now, and they will continue to believe what Scripture teaches. Those four things must be true. Now, if all that is true about an individual, then we must move on to the next step and also say, since the believer is in union with Christ, he is also in union with all of those who are also in union with Christ. So the genuinely born-again individual is in union with Christ and in union with all of Christ's church. The Apostle Paul taught that the believer, that the genuine believer is in Christ around 160 times in the New Testament. So, you know, stupid me, publicly educated, somebody say something 160 times, must be pretty important, right? So that phrase is used repeatedly every few verses in all of Paul's writings. For example, 1 Corinthians 12 and 13 says, for by one spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, we were all made to drink of one spirit. Now, of course, we cannot physically or literally dwell inside of the man Jesus Christ. We also cannot literally or physically drink of the Holy Spirit. So this is a spiritual union or a mystical union. And this is why the Holy Bible teaches that the outward sign that an individual has already experienced the miracle of the new birth has he has already been justified. He has already been adopted and he is now living in the spiritual, mystical union with Jesus Christ and his church in the sacrament of baptism. It's what baptism was supposed to signify. So the communion of saints then is that by God's grace and to God's glory, we have been personally placed in union with Jesus Christ. We are in right standing with his church, and we are joined to that one body with all of the other genuine believers. And all of that is the result of us having already believed, believing right now, and then continuing to believe. and that desire and ability to believe was given to us by the grace of God and it was personally appropriated to us as individuals through the gift of saving faith. Now, that's how we enter into this union. with Jesus Christ, but it is also how we are joined to the one single church, that one body that Jesus created that he is ongoingly building and over which he alone is head. It is also how we now live and move and have our being in the communion of saints. Another way of saying this is that we have now been united with our Lord Christ. We have also been united with all of those who have also been united with him. So it is not simply that we are now in the church and that's it. We are now also in communion with all of the other genuine believers throughout the entire world who are also in the church of Jesus. So even as it is true that we are connected forever with Christ and with his church, what they actually mean is that we are forever connected to all of the other people who have also been connected with Christ, because Christ is, the church is the people. So there's no, it's not the building, it's the people, right? Wonder why God set it up that way. Why is it not the building? Because we didn't have buildings in the early church. There wasn't no such thing as a church house. Wasn't no such thing as steeples. There weren't no church bells. They couldn't really announce their meetings too far in advance because soldiers would greet them there and kill them all. But that means that even as it is true that genuine believers cannot be separated from Christ, it is equally true that we also cannot be separated from the people that God has sovereignly placed in his church through salvation. And that has to do with the one body concept that we see in the Bible and what the early fathers of the church meant about the communion of saints. So as genuine believers who have been graciously and sovereignly and miraculously and eternally positioned in the Church of the Firstborn, we have also been graciously, sovereignly, miraculously, and eternally positioned with each other. So we do not walk alone. We do not grow in grace alone. We do not live out our faith alone. We do not bear godly fruit alone. And we do not overcome temptation and continue to hope in God alone. We have communion, we are one body, and we need each other. There is both a vertical communion or union, as well as a horizontal communion or union. By God's grace and to God's glory, all human believers now have union with Christ, that's the vertical union, and union with one another, that's the horizontal union. But as great as this is, we cannot and we must not stop there, because we are not, now buckle your seatbelts, Because we are not only united with all of the saints who worship God in our own local body, we are not only united with all of the saints who live in many of the nations of the world, but we are also united with all of the saints who have ever lived, who are now physically dead, and whose redeemed souls now surround the throne of God awaiting the redemption of their bodies. There's only one church. They're still a part of that church. We're part of that church, so we're part of them. Now, we don't communicate with the dead, and we certainly don't pray to dead saints asking for their help or their guidance or their protection. Because 1 Timothy 2 and 5 says, for there is one God and one mediator also between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. So we have Jesus, that's enough. The scriptures are crystal clear about this, dear friends. Jesus and Jesus alone is the one single mediator between all believers and the one true and living God. Which means then that he is the one single mediator for all of those who are already in heaven. And that he's not only interceding for us, he's interceding for them as well. Wow. Now, I've been in church a while, been in lots of prayer meetings, lots of services, lots of meetings. I ain't never heard nobody say this, that I can remember an 80-something year old Episcopalian priest, when I was 14 years old, told me this. I hadn't heard anybody since then. I've never read a single statement from Billy Graham. or John Piper, or John MacArthur, or any of these people that's ever said this. This is historic Christianity, beloved. This is the way it's always been. And the fact that we don't know about this, the fact that what I just said now could be in any way conceived to be controversial, shows you how poorly we've been taught through the years. So for anyone to pray to a dead saint asking for their help, guidance, and protection is to pervert the truth about the communion of saints beyond all reasonable recognition. And yet we are connected to them in the very same union with Christ and his church because there is only one church. And so you say, well, they're way up there. I don't know, but some saints are way over in China too. Well, how do you know who that is? You don't know who the saints in China are either. You don't know the saints that lived in 1722 and 1325 and 1811 or 750 or 295. You don't know that about them either. And they're part of the same church. They're part of our body. We are connected to them eternally because there's only one church, right? because there is only one church, and so we worship the same God as they did, we believe the same truths they did, we engage in the same sacraments as they did, and we are part of the same church as they are right now. And when we die and join them in heaven, everybody believes this part, we're going to die, we're going to go to heaven, what are we going to do up there? We're going to worship God, right? With who? We're going to die, we're going to go to heaven, what are we going to do? Everybody else, right? Why is that? Because we're connected. There's only one church. And when we die and join them in heaven, we will be physically and literally united with them in our glorified bodies. Now, only God could do this, of course. This is so fantastic that it's just fascinating. And for those people who have already experienced the miracle of the new birth, in Hebrews 10, 23 through 25, the unknown writer gave three commands. He said, actually it's two commands. Hold fast and then consider. Hold fast and consider. And it was one thing that the writer wanted those saved people to hold fast to. You hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. I'm gonna go way out on a limb this morning and say this. I don't think there's 30 people on this coast that has spent 10 minutes or longer with the phrase confession of our hope. They don't even know what it means. They read those verses, they go right past it. Oh, we need to love Jesus. We just need to love. And you do need to love Jesus. But this here says, hold fast the confession of our hope, not to get saved. And then he said to hold that confession without wavering. So I would suggest that the confession of our hope is pretty important. Huh? Now, since hardly anybody even bothers with this anymore, it's going to be awkward if we start doing it. We're going to be clumsy at it because we're not used to it. So first off, we've got to define what the confession of our hope is, and then we've got to hold fast to it without wavering. Meaning, anybody can praise God in church on Sunday morning. That really doesn't take the Holy Spirit. It's when you get diagnosed with cancer. It's when your child comes and tells you he's homosexual. It's when your baby dies. It's when your wife walks off. That's when you need to have a confession of hope and you need to hold it fast without wavering in those times. Because if it doesn't work in those times, it's no good in church on Sunday morning. I don't want anything to do with it in church on Sunday morning if it doesn't work for the, because that's reality. That's where people live. This is the exception. That's what's normal out there where we get dirty, and we get hurt, and we feel betrayed, and we get mad, and we get our feelings hurt, and we want to enact vengeance, and we want to seek retribution, and we don't forgive. And then we cop out and say, well, I'm just not spiritual enough to forgive. Jesus never said that that was an excuse. He said, if you don't forgive your enemies, you're not saved. You're not born again. You will not go to heaven if the Holy Spirit does not dwell inside of you. And if the Holy Spirit dwells inside of you, he gives you the power to forgive your enemies. Any drunk guy can hold grudges. Doesn't take the Holy Spirit. Doesn't take any work either to hold a grudge. It's real easy. Everybody does it. had a man who used to come to this church. He said, brother, I can forgive anybody until they do me wrong. I said, well, no joke, Sherlock. That's when you need to forgive. The word forgive means they've wronged you. Doesn't mean it's OK. And it doesn't mean they don't need to repent. It means you're not in charge of their repentance. And vengeance belongs to God. And you believe that God is sovereign. So you're going to let them go. Well, then they're going to get away with it. You don't believe God's sovereign. See, it's Christianity. Y'all sure y'all want to be Christians? I mean, Buddhism is a lot simpler. Trust me. Nobody understands the Bhagavad Gita anyway. So nobody's obeying the Bhagavad Gita. And Lord Krishna doesn't care whether you worship him or not. He's busy contemplating his navel. So he couldn't care less about you in the first place. So Buddhism, their easy religion, piece of cake. And then there were two things that the writer wanted those already born-again people to consider. Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. And then let us, the implied, you know, eighth grade English, it's implied, it's not specifically mentioned. Let us consider how to encourage one another. And so he didn't tell you to actually do it as much as he's telling you to consider how to do it. Because everybody's going to be different, right? How should I encourage this one? How do I need to encourage that one? And here's a newsflash for you. You're going to guess wrong sometimes. And you're going to have all, I made a preacher mad at me yesterday. I called him up, found out he's sick. I started preaching the word of God to him. And all I did was make him mad. Now, hopefully he'll listen and calm down. But he wasn't happy with me at all. I mean, the audacity of me giving a preacher the word of God. I mean, good night. That's for church, right? And all three of these things are accomplished. They are made possible based on three other truths being true that the unknown writer of Hebrews wants all believers to know and understand, believe in, and hope in. For he who promised is faithful, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some. And all the more as you see the day drawing near, where the day has to do with the second coming of Jesus to the earth. If you really believe telling everybody that's listening to this, if you really believe Jesus could come back at any minute, you wouldn't be doing half the stuff you're doing. Don't give me that. I don't believe you believe that for all the money in the world. You're lying. If you actually believe Jesus could come back at any second, you wouldn't be looking at the stuff you're looking at on the computer. Because if he finds you unfaithful when he comes, you're doomed. Oh no, I'm saved. If you were saved, you wouldn't be looking at that stuff. Hello. So this refers to the ever-escalating, ever-growing, and ever-victorious effect that the Christian church has on the sinful world. Because without believers being here, the entire lost world is doomed. My friends, it is wholly unbiblical for Christians to systematically withdraw from the lost and unsaved world simply because they are evil and wicked. Because without the loving and powerful and truthful presence of the Church on the earth, nobody would be saved. And that includes those God chose to save from before the foundation of the world. The one single method that God has established to save all that he has chosen is by or through the continual, ongoing, full, and faithful heralding of the gospel. And because it is God's will to save all of his elect, he will guarantee that his church will remain on the earth until all of the elected sinners have heard the gospel, believe the gospel, and are saved. Now there's a side issue that comes off of that statement that we need to explore one day, I just don't have time to explore it now. There will be a point in time when there will be no more elect children born. All of the elect will have been saved and no other elected children will be born. That's when the fulfillment of the prophecies will happen. So the church is gonna be here until that happens. Because that's the goal of God, is to save all that He has chosen. Huh? Beloved, we must always keep in mind that we have not been called to be safe, secure, or comfortable in this life. We have been called to be faithful, fruitful, and busy in the already established and already articulated work and will of the Lord. So we as the Church of Jesus should gather together all the more as we see the second coming drawing closer. And the offshoot from that is that we will pray and study the Bible and fellowship and fast and herald the gospel and call sinners to repentance and pursue holiness and encourage one another and hate our sin and refuse to compromise and hope in God all the more as well. And we will do all of this because we are saved, yes, But we will also do all of this because we are united with the Lord Jesus Christ and because we are united with every genuine member of Christ's church. That's what the purpose of fellowship is all about. It's not about the Cowboys winning or losing the championship. You might talk about 250. about how you overcome temptation and what you're doing to be faithful to Jesus. And the techniques that you've developed, the methods that God has shown you, ways that God has dealt with you about, and you share that with others in fellowship, and that encourages us to follow your example. That's what fellowship is for. And it doesn't have to be a formal Bible study. It could be dinner at your home. It could be sitting around a table eating popcorn. It is informal and formal. But it's got to be done, because we're one body. So we are in communion together with all the genuine believers over the entire world, as well as those who are now rejoicing in heaven. And that is the basis behind all of the many one another passages that we can find in the Bible, primarily in the New Testament. Now there's one more piece of background information that we need to know before we get into the exposition of the passage. And that has to do with Matthew 18, 15 through 17. Here's what the Lord Jesus Christ himself said. If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private. If he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or more or two more with you so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every fact may be confirmed. If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church. If he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. That's the Holy Bible. I didn't write it. Now, I've written an entire study on the issue of church discipline, but suffice it to say that it is precisely because we are in communion with each other, as well as with Jesus, that genuine believers no longer have the inclination now, nor the right to do what is right in their own eyes. So a genuine believer doesn't want to sin against God, and God doesn't want them to live in blatant, ongoing, public, notorious, and unrepentant sin. So when a genuine believer gets caught up in sin, Other individual believers should go to that brother or sister privately and compel them to turn away from that sin and to joyfully submit themselves to the authority of Scripture. And if they do that, all heaven rejoices. I use this example all the time, but this is not the only example. So, Brother Bob and Sister Petunia are married, and Brother Bob runs off with his secretary down to Motel 6, Room 11. So if I care about my covenant brother, if I've been in union with my covenant brother, he's now caught up in sin, have no idea what's been going on in their marriage, obviously there's a problem. But Jesus Christ told me to go to Motel 6, room 11. He opens the door, got the chain on it. What? Bob, go home. You, go home. Bob, go back to your wife and we'll talk tomorrow. Go back, go back home. You don't need to be here. So he immediately falls on his knees and repents. Praise God. He slams the door in my face. I go get brother Vern or brother Marty or brother Chris, brother Paul, brother Jay. We go back to motel six, room 11. What? You've got no reason to be here. You're in sin. You know this is sin. You can't do this. Go home. He falls on his face and repents all is well. He slams the door in your face. You go to the elders. Brother Bob's in adultery. He's abandoned his wife. Not okay, not okay. So next Sunday morning, right before communion, The guy leading communion says, Brother Bob, adultery. Doesn't have to get into all these details. Brother Bob, adultery. So then the whole church goes down to Motel 6, room 11. He's got nowhere to go. He's got nothing, and the pressure put on him to repent is a godly, biblical pressure. The goal is repentance. The goal is restoration. If he responds, fine. If he tells everybody in the church to go fly a kite, you just don't understand. I've already prayed about it. This is God's will, something like that. Then Jesus, not Blair, Jesus said, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Now, the reason God said treat him as a Gentile is because he's acting like an unbeliever. He's acting like he has no connection at all to God's law. He's acting like a rebel. So you treat him like one. At that point, you do not take him out to eat. You do not take him to the game. The only communication between the believers and him is that you can tell him to repent. You call him to repentance. You don't entertain any conversation. Repent, repent, repent. And you treat him as a tax collector because he has betrayed the people of God, the church of Jesus, and he's acting like an infidel. Now, there's a lot more to it than that, all I'm just saying to you. Now, the reality is he's already down in a member of the church by Thursday singing in the park. It's the reality in 2025. But we do our part because that's what Jesus said to do. I didn't write this. Huh? All right. Now, this fourth step is what is called excommunication. I'm on the bottom third of page 10. Because the unrepentant member is being cast forth out from the communion of saints and is now being delivered to Satan for the destruction of his flesh. so that he would repent and his spirit may be saved or rescued in the day of the Lord Jesus, which is the second coming. And this is what Paul was talking about when he wrote 1 Corinthians chapter 5. Here's what it says. This is the word of the living God. It is actually reported that there is immorality among you. Now, anytime you see immorality in the New Testament, it is almost always sexual immorality. An immorality of such a kind that does not exist among Gentiles that someone has his father's wife. You become arrogant and have not mourned instead so that the one who has done this deed would be removed from your midst. For I on my part, though absent in body, but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present. In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you were assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan, for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Your boasting is not good. Do you not know? What boasting? What boasting? What were they boasting about? Oh, we love Jesus too much to do things like that, Paul. Well, we're too humble. We could never impose our will on somebody else. That's not my calling. My calling is just pray for him. That's not what Jesus said. That's not what Jesus said, right? Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed." Now, I'm not talking about if somebody spends too much money going out to eat, oh my God, he's wasted money, we need to put him under church discipline. I'm talking about blatant, public, notorious sins that dishonor the church and dishonor Jesus Christ, that kind of stuff. So yeah, it's subjective, but that's why you need to talk with the leaders of the church before you go run off and kill somebody. But the point is that this exists, and the reason excommunication exists is because there already is communion. See, that's the point. Verse eight, therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote you in my letter to associate with immoral people. I did not at all mean with the immoral people of the world. or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. But actually, I would urge you not to associate any so-called martyrs with an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler, not even to eat with such a one. See how uncomfortable everybody's feeling right now? It's because Christianity's getting too close. Everybody loves Jesus when it's all cupcakes and cream. But now when we have a responsibility to obey the Lord, this is when it gets uncomfortable, right? Oh my God, what if they find out I'm doing this? Best stop doing it. That's one thing you might wanna pray about. I only look at porn on Thursdays. I don't look at porn the rest of the week. Well, good for you, but let's get Thursdays fixed, huh? For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? So here's what this is going to look like. You're going to go to lunch with a wicked lost person who's a notorious adulterer and an idolater, and you're not going to eat with a brother who is doing the same. He's lost. He needs the gospel. He says he's got the gospel. He's infinitely worse than him. Huh? And we're not helping him to repent if we don't call him to repentance and identify his sin. Love motivates this, not hate, not self-righteousness. Now, same song, second verse, of anybody in your family, anybody you love, anybody you work with, If you want Buddhists to be saved, you can't confirm them in their Buddhism. You have to call them out of Buddhism. You want a Jew to be saved, you call him out of Judaism. He'll go to hell if he's a Jew and doesn't repent and come to Jesus. He needs to be saved. And he's got a false security. All religions give people false security. Huh? So we have to, that's why they kill missionaries, beloved. They don't kill missionaries for building hospitals. They kill missionaries because they compel them to turn from their wicked ways and the witchcraft and the witch doctors and the worshiping the totem poles and all that. That's why they kill missionaries, right? Now the reason the sinning member is delivered to Satan for the destruction of his flesh is because by his refusal to repent, that individual is no longer under the protection nor the blessings of the church, the communion of the saints, and has now been forced out, which is what the word ex means, of that holy communion. And because he refuses to act like he has experienced the miracle of the new birth, he is now on his own and is alone in the world and is now a vagrant and a wanderer in the earth, just like Cain, until he repents. Now the truth is, he goes right down the street and he's singing in their choir before the end of the week. That's the reality of 2025. But nevertheless, we call that pastor, we tell that that person that's singing tenor so beautifully in your choir is under church discipline and you don't have the right to accept him into fellowship until he makes it right here first. Now he's gonna tell me to go fly a kite, I understand that. But that's on him, not us, right? I contacted 615 churches. This is a number of years ago. Hattiesburg, South, Mobile to New Orleans. 615 churches. And asked them if they had, number one, do you have a written policy of church discipline? Out of the 615 churches, four of them had a written policy on church discipline. I asked those four, have you ever gone to step four? None of them have ever gone to step, we don't do that. So, you know, we're more spiritual and more loving and more godly than Jesus was. That's what they're saying, since Jesus is the one that said to do this, right? Now, through the years, I've been asked, what right do you have, Brother Blair, to treat people like this? And my answer is always the same. My right and authority to forcefully remove a sinning member of the church who refuses to repent from the involvement and participation of the communion of saints is Matthew 18, 15 through 17, and the red letter words of the Lord Christ himself. But as we ponder this, it might be helpful to remember that I didn't write the Bible. And I had nothing to do with what Jesus himself commanded the leaders of the church that he bought and paid for with his own blood to do. But I believe the Bible to be true. I believe that since Jesus owns the church outright, that as an under-shepherd, I always should obey what my Lord and Savior clearly wants done. Because I believe that Jesus loves people more than anybody else. And I believe that Jesus wants souls saved more than anybody else. And I don't believe that anyone else is as spiritual or as loving or as godly as Jesus is. And Jesus said to do this. And that is my right and my authority. But in reality, the question is the wrong question. The correct question is, what right does anyone who says they're saved have to engage in blatant, ongoing, public, notorious, and unrepentant sin, and then refuse to repent when confronted? Because it is the miracle of the new birth that brings about the radical and total transformation of the human nature. So genuinely saved people love to humble themselves to the authority of scripture. Genuinely saved people love to be in right standing with God. Genuinely saved people cannot stand to be at odds with the owner and creator of the universe. So by their refusal to repent, the sinning member is acting as though he's not really saved at all. Now, the reason I brought this up is because the fact that Jesus commanded that unrepentant sinners can and should be forcefully removed from the communion of saints proves there is a communion of saints that exists, and this communion is glorious and beautiful and important and profitable to be a part of, and it is also terrible and frightening and dangerous to be removed from. So all saved people are to hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering because, or for, he who promised is faithful. And we are to consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds by not forsaking our own assembling together as is the habit of some. And we are to consider that the basis as to why we are to encourage one another is as you see the day drawing near. Now, it is my own personal conviction that if a person is actually striving to obey the Bible, that person can talk about it. Because to obey what the Bible commands requires that we start doing very specific things, and at the same time, we stop doing other specific things. In other words, we make a course correction. And if a person is doing that, he can talk about it. He can share his thoughts about it to others. He can encourage and strengthen his brothers and sisters based on what God has showed him about that issue. So let me give you a statistic, and I'm not trying to be rude or anything this morning. It's church, and so we talk about godly and biblical things in church. Young men think about sex every 17 seconds on average. 17 seconds. When you get 70, those thoughts go down to about every two or three minutes. And you're thinking about sex. And the only men who don't do that are lying, are dead, are robots, are homosexuals. So if you're a normal red-blooded man, you're thinking about procreation all the time. and you want to procreate all the time. Is this false? I mean, is this something y'all ain't never heard before? Now, there's a fire that burns inside of a man that is so powerful it is second only to the will to live. And a man will do about anything to live under extreme circumstances. Pick up the back of a car, shoot a gun, and hit bullseyes every time. Never fired a gun in his life. There's all kind of things. When his adrenaline's running and he's about to die, it's amazing what people can do. But this fire, the Bible calls it a fire that burns within. And it's better to marry than to burn. And I'm not talking about burning in hell. He's talking about burning in lust. Now, God made us that way because we're the ones that sire children. Okay. As far as I know, women can't have children on their own. Okay. I'm just, see if I'm up to date with biology. And men can't have children on their own. Okay. So there's a huge sin out there called fornication, called adultery. You're familiar with it. Okay. Not that you participate in it, but you're familiar with it. That's the other church down the street that's familiar with it. So what goes in a woman's mind when she dresses in a way that entices and she knows she's doing it? Why would a Christian woman do that? Now, I realize that men can lust after a woman if they wore a crook or sack. So I'm not justifying men's lust. I'm just saying that women should take care how they dress. That's loving your neighbor as yourself. That's what that's part of. But at the same token, God gave women the gift of beauty. All women have the gift of beauty. Every woman is beautiful. And that should be accentuated, and that should be celebrated, and that should be, her femininity should be rejoiced over, not hidden. And so Islam is evil because it hides femininity. Now, it's up to a man to get with God and say, how do I look at beauty and not cross the line into lust? How do you do that? Well, there's nothing in the library that's going to help you. The Harrison County Library is not going to help you. But the church is there. And you may have noticed that the church has older men in it. And older men have fought these battles all their life. And so they can help the younger men overcome this sin. If only we would fellowship. What do you know? Because you're not the only one struggling with this. And to think, well, I'm just gonna, I'm okay, I'm gonna do this on my own. You're ignoring 2,000 years of church history and the scriptures. The Bible doesn't say do things on your own. The Bible says join together. Now, it's gonna require humility, because you're gonna have to say, I got a problem. And of course, nobody's ever got a problem in church on Sunday morning. Everybody's fine, right? Right. And nobody's struggling with anything. Nobody loves money, nobody's, everything's great. And that's why we can all get out by 12 and go watch the game. It's a lie, it's a lie, and it's a plastic politician's smile, and it's not real, and we need to be real, beloved. Sometimes you're discouraged, and you need to say that. Well, they won't think well of me. They get discouraged too. Everybody gets discouraged. You're just not supposed to stay there. There's an answer to discouragement, huh? And so there's an answer to every one of these temptations, and every one of these struggles, and every one of these problems. Now, you've got to be willing to do it. It may require you to throw your computer out in the front yard. That's better than going to hell. But it doesn't have to be that. The Bible, we just read it a while ago, one of the signs of the spirit living in us is self-control, right? Right. Now, that's part of what we're going to be teaching in the biblical manhood and woman class, because it's a huge issue. Do you all understand that divorce is rampant in the modern church? Why? You got the same Bible. What happened? So that's why I'm doing what I'm doing, beloved. All right. So if, for example, a person is actually considering how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, and he can talk about the prayers he has prayed, the things he started and stopped, the methods and ways he has developed in pursuit of obeying this command. And the net result of all his considering will be that he will be faithfully stimulating his covenant brothers and sisters in ways they can adopt, so they will be more loving, more involved in more good deeds. But we simply cannot do this from a distance. The Bible says we must be gathered together in order to do what is said here, and that is why we must not forsake our assembling together. In our day, there is a terrible and sinful and unbiblical concept that has taken hold of modern America, and it is the concept of individualism. and it is the natural derivative of the false teaching that seeks to glorify and even deify man. The concept of individualism says I'm better off by myself. I don't need anyone else because I am the captain of my own ship and I am the master of my own destiny. And individualism is seen when a person who sits in his mother's basement and plays with a computer all day can feel good about himself because on Facebook he has 2,500 friends when in reality he has none. For example, a person can attend the church services, hear the messages, and even believe them. And yet, if that person does not become intimately aware and a part of the lives of the people of that church, he is still not obeying the commands of Scripture. Because being one body is not a slogan or a bumper sticker. It must be a reality. The name of the game in the New Covenant is not individualism, but conformity and communion. We are to be ongoingly conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, and we are to live and operate in community with each other. So the goal of salvation is not to be unique, or to be different, or to develop some new spin on old truth. The goal is not to be a spiritual entrepreneur, but to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints. And that is why John Stott said this, quote, holiness is not a mystical condition experienced in relation to God, but in isolation from human beings. You cannot be good in a vacuum, but only in the real world of people. True biblical holiness may begin between God and the individual soul, but it finds full expression in community, attached to other people, other wonderful, glorious, frustrating, and sometimes offensive people, the church, the communion of saints. And that is why time and time again the New Testament describes the authentically holy life using two simple words, one another. We must always remember that Jesus died for his people, his sheep. And that's why over 50 times Jesus and the apostles told us to feel or say or do something to one another. So we are told to care for one another, bear with one another, honor one another, sing to one another, do good to one another, forgive one another. And all of that is then connected to that one single, grand, glorious, majestic, overarching, most important, and most repeated one another, the command that binds everything together in perfect harmony, love. one another, which is the unarguable proof that we actually have experienced the miracle of the new birth, that we actually have been forgiven and made righteous, that we actually have been adopted, that we actually have entered into this union with Christ, that we actually have become part of the union with Christ's Church, and that we are now, right now and forever, in the communion of saints. This is really going to be an amazing journey through all the one another passages of the Bible, and I pray that God will help us all. Amen. Father, please burn these things on our soul and let us realize that we are part of something that is so much larger than ourselves, so much more important than ourselves, and yet we are important to God. And we are both worthy and have worth. And yet we understand our own unworthiness when it comes to sin and righteousness. So God, we ask God that you achieve the goal of loving one another.