Amen. Right, we're on chapter 26, dealing with communion of saints. And again, not to be repetitive, but to be repetitive. This depends. Obviously, there's no communion without union. No communion of saints without union with Christ. There's no communion with Christ without union with Christ. And it's only the union with Christ that gives union with saints, right, with one another. For it's only in Christ that we are saints. So there has to be that union with Christ for any of the other to take place, for any of it to take place. And I talked some, I have mentioned it the last couple of times, that thinking about the fact that this union is, it's an inseparable union. Nothing can separate us from Christ, right? Nothing. And thinking about that and as we go throughout our day and whatever we're doing, that we are with Christ. We have that union. And this past week, it may have been last Lord's Day as I was in my vehicle and listening to the radio. But there was a point made of what we read about in Acts 9 with Saul at the time on the road to Damascus. And you would recall that when the light shone on Saul and basically took him to the ground, The voice that came to him said what? Saul, why what? Why persecutest thou me? Why persecutest thou me? And the preacher, oddly enough, was talking about I say oddly enough, I mean it's just what struck me that here we've been talking about this and I hear this, but his point was the union of Christ with his people. And he said, you know, here, you see Christ talking to Paul, Saul to be Paul, why do you persecute me? And obviously Saul was not, as it were, directly persecuting Christ. but Saul very clearly was persecuting those that were in union with Christ. And that union was so real and is so real to Christ that Christ took that persecution personally. It was the same. to him because he and his people are one. They are inseparably in union. So to do something to the one is to do it to the other. And I thought, we don't think about it sometimes nearly as much as we should. We don't consider this union. But Christ is mindful of it, and I think certainly there's nothing that says it directly, but is mindful of it constantly because we know some of the scripture that talks about this constant presence that Christ, we have with Christ and Christ with us. So Christ being mindful of it. And here with Saul taking great offense as to what Saul was doing to his people. And in turn, what crossed my mind was, so do I take offense when people use the Lord's name in vain? Does that affect me? Or do I, okay, well that's just them, let it go. If somebody was speaking violently about your spouse, I don't know if you would, wait a minute, what are you saying and why? We might take issue very quickly because that relationship that we have. But I'm not sure that we Think about that relationship we have with Christ and Christ with us, that inseparable relationship, nearly as much as perhaps we probably should. So something just, again, wanted to share with you that here we'd been talking about it and hear this minister making the point of the union of Christ with his people. Use that illustration. Saul, why do you persecute me? When Saul was obviously persecuting his people. All right, so I think we're to paragraph two, 26.2, I'm on page 654. But before I do that, I just wanna call your attention again to the last part of paragraph one. And we've talked about it a little bit, but 26.2 is really going to expand upon it. But the last half of 26.1 talks about in being united to one another in love, they have communion in each other's gifts and graces, and we talked about that, and are obliged to the performance of such duties, public and private, as do conduce to their mutual good Both in the inward and outward man, and we generally talked about that a little bit, but now keep that in mind obliged to the performance of such duties, etc. So you come to 26 to on page 654. And we read, saints, by profession, are bound to maintain in holy fellowship and communion in the worship of God, and in performing such other spiritual services as tend to their mutual edification, as also in relieving each other in outward things according to their several abilities and necessities, which communion, as God offereth opportunity, is to be extended unto all those who, in every place, call upon the name of the Lord Jesus. So I want to take a look at what our obligations are. what our obligations are. Before I do, I want to give you one scripture reference that I meant to give you just a minute ago, and it's 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 10, as to our being connected with Christ. And 1 Thessalonians 5, 10 says, who died for us, talking about Christ, Well, verse nine, for God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that, and watch this little next, this phrase, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him. You are inseparably connected to Christ even when you're asleep. I came across that verse and I just wanted to tie that one in. Whether we wake or sleep, because Christ died for us, in union with him, and whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him. And verse 11 goes on, wherefore comfort yourselves together and edify one another even as also ye do. So just another little emphasis on that union and just how constant that union is, how constant. All right, question one on page 655. What are the marks of a properly functioning communion of believers. Now, on page 637, we had a question, how does the visible church accomplish its functions? This was on the chapter on the church. And we went through a lot of things, one of which was communion with fellow believers. And we looked at some passages then. But there's an overlap, obviously, here. There's an overlap. So I'm not going to go back through everything we went through back then. But what I'm looking for, and what we're going to talk about some, are just simply the things that are in our paragraph. So we look at the paragraph. Saints by profession are bound. It's your obligation and mine. to maintain a holy fellowship and communion in the worship of God. So a mark of a properly functioning communion of believers would be an assembling together and the coming together for a proper worshiping of God. The oneness, if I can put it this way, the oneness That unity of the body requires the members of the body to be together, at least on some occasions, right? You're never gonna be in oneness with someone, now spiritually we are, we're all connected in Christ to his body. But as far as this communion and making it function, It's not gonna happen if you never see, talk to, or come together to worship. Again, the preachers mentioned it two or three times of late in their sermons. And the effect, the impact of our being here, of your being here, for the worship service, the impact on him. Right? As he would minister. If nobody's here, does that impact his ministry? Do you think it would? Sure it would. Sure it would. Well, if you're here and everyone else you thought would be here is not here, does that impact your communion? Sure he does, sure he does. And just seeing you, right, you seeing me, seeing others, being here is used by the spirit in the bonding together, right, of our church family. is used by the spirit to minister to the heart of our minister is used by the spirit to minister to your heart and mind in a way that you may not even be aware it may not even be registering and yet your spirits just kind of lifted I mean, you think about two days ago, and you were just kind of by yourself, or you were not in a place among believers, and it was just a bit depressing or oppressing, and you come to church. You know, maybe you're still a little down, but you come to church, And at the end of the day, if you stop and think about it, you realize you've enjoyed the day. You've enjoyed what you did in the day. You've enjoyed being with believers. And you weren't bothered by those things. That's part of the communion of saints functioning. That's part of what it's intended to do. We're part of one body. We are ministering, we are helping. As long as we fulfill the part, do whatever it is, that little part, but if we're not doing our part, now maybe there's a little sore here. Maybe Maybe we can't do some of the heavy lifting that we needed to do. You know, there's somebody missing that could be here praying. So we want to make sure that we guard. We see the passages there on page 654. Hebrews 10, 24, 25, and let us consider one another to provoke, to stir up is the idea, unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together. as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more, as you see the day approaching, the Lord's return, as it would seem to be drawing nearer, is the idea. Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together. In Acts 2, verse 42, and then verse 46, and they continued, and continued there, that word is a group continuing. Right? It's not personal, they're individually participating, but the idea in both verses is a group type thing. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart. And again, that singleness of heart, the aspect of the binding, the communion, what they did was together with a united purpose and a united focus and a united desire for the good. And you gotta remember now, When that's being written, the Jews, if they accepted Christ, if they became a follower of Christ, they were ostracized. I mean, they were about as bad as the Gentiles in the eyes of other Jews. So how much more? And we say, well, sure. They really needed each other then. And they did. But I would suggest to you, no more or no less than we need each other now. And realizing and encouraging one another, notwithstanding what you may be going through day by day. What persecution and what persecution we may all be going through, be it light or be it heavy, some obviously persecution to the taking of their life. But we've got this continuing together, not forsaking the assembly of ourselves. Now, we've got the next thing, we've got the worship. The next thing mentioned in our paragraph, and in performing such other spiritual services as tend to their mutual edification, right? And we kind of see that in one of the verses we just read, the Acts 2, 42. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine, right? So they're getting the word. I almost tell you, here's the outline for a church's functioning or the church liturgy. Apostles doctrine, fellowship, right? So there is a fellowship that's going on. In breaking of bread, the idea there, at least certainly suggested, and I think rightly so considered, is the sacrament. part of the fellowship as well as they would do back then. The breaking of bread and in prayers. So you've got doctrine, you've got fellowship, you've got observing sacraments, and you've got praying. Right? Your mutual edification. Your mutual edification. If you go back to page 650, a passage that we've looked at two or three times, and again, looking at again the Ephesians, let me find it, Ephesians 4, which is on page 650, it's the first proof text under number two. But speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ. from whom the whole body, fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working and the measure of every part, everybody's doing what they should be doing. And Christ is using that to strengthen, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. Right? The edifying of itself in love. So we've got this mutual edification. Now, again, just when we come and how that mutual edification takes place, you know, it could be a variety of ways. Well, tell me what you think. Ways that we mutually edify one another, whether it be at church or otherwise, as a church family. How is it that we mutually edify one another? What can you think of? Things that maybe ought to be happening even more than is happening, but certainly things that the Lord intends, ways that we can make this family better. I mean, you can even think of individual household family situations. What do you do there? What do you see going on? Anybody got any thoughts? Anybody? Praying for each other? And hearing that prayer? Parents praying for children. Children praying for parents. Children praying for each other. I would suggest to you among the family, that one may, you know, if you know you've got people here who come up and say, just want you to know I've been praying for you this week. Don't know what's going on, but the Lord just put you on my heart. Okay? So praying for one another. Others? Beth? For what? Okay. Yeah. I mean, an appreciation. Hopefully, hopefully your family And your Christian family cares for you in a way that the world doesn't. Right? And just, hey, thanks for being there. Sometimes it's just, thanks for letting me tell you what's on my heart. Just let me unload on you. Right? Just to have an ear to listen. Not only do I know you're listening, but you're listening with an eye toward how you can help. All right? And there's part of that. Bob? Okay. And in helping one another, and again, that's part of what we'll see here in meeting needs, but certainly being able to do what we are intended to do. Hopefully, when you take a look at the financial statements from time to time, and they're back on the back cabinet in there, and you look at it in the budget for this year, you can look at that and say, wow, this is wonderful that we can do these things. And that I, with my little part, I can do, help do, help each other do all of these things. And you get that. Jack? There's a verse that goes something like this. Let us abide together in every good word, work, and deed, knowing that in the Lord our labor is not in vain. Take that every good word, work, and deed, supporting one another. And with that, with that word, comes that little warning or maybe that little word of correction. You ever get, been in a household with kids, you've bound to have had this experience where you're in another room or whatever But one of the children is correcting the other child. You shouldn't be doing that. Mom or dad said, that's not what we're supposed to be doing. And you're sitting there thinking, and you were just doing it. You're correcting your sibling on it. You know, why? Why is the one sibling telling the other sibling? Well, maybe just to enjoy being a sibling who wants to say, ha ha, I know you did something wrong. But maybe it's just to say, that's not what we're supposed to do. I don't want you getting in trouble, and I don't want you getting me in trouble. So let's not do that. And hopefully that happens here. It happens, hopefully, from the preach word, when God says and puts his finger on something by the Holy Spirit in your heart, my heart, saying, hey, it's an area you need to look at. You need to address. You need to think about this. And we do that with one another. You don't need to be doing that on the Lord's Day. And again, sometimes that can rub us wrong. What do you get accused of? Oh, you're just one of those holier-than-thou people. You're just wanting to lord it over everybody or make me feel miserable or whatever. And I would hope that would not be the intent. It may be sometimes. But if that's what the Lord uses to point out something that maybe you just need to think about and say maybe the first response is, okay Lord, if that was a word from you, let me listen and let me consider. And if it wasn't a word from you, let me be willing to forgive and not get mad at the other person. that used it in the wrong way. So we've got this mutual edification that takes place. Romans 14 was another passage. It's not one of our memory passages or footnote proof texts. But Romans 14, 19 talks about, let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another. And that's when the passage, and the next verse, for me destroy not the work of God. Well look, have you considered how this is gonna impact your testimony? How it's gonna affect your relationship with somebody? That's what he's dealing with here. It's mutual edification. Next one, mutual, tangible help. And also in relieving each other in outward things, according to their several abilities and necessities, right? So a mutual, tangible help. First John 317 on the next page, 656. But whoso hath this world's good and seeth his brother have need and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? And you've got the verse right above it. The early church and all that believed worked together and had all things common, sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men as every man had need. And then you've got the last passage, Acts 11, 29 and 30 then the disciples every man according to his ability determined to send relief under the brethren which dwelt in Judea which also they did and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul and You've got other passages in scripture. You've got passages where some of the very small Laodicean churches were taking up offerings and sending it back to some of the bigger more well-established churches to help with the ministry. You look at where they were and what was going on and it's quite moving that here they were giving money in today's terms we'd say they were giving money they probably didn't have to give in one sense. They certainly could have used it in their ministry where they were. They said, no, we're going to help out here, and we're going to do what the Lord enables us to do. And they didn't do foolish things. But what the Lord helped them and enabled them to do, they did. It's one thing that we try to do. The Lord's been kind to us. And you'd see at the end of the year, a lot of times We'll do things for some of our other churches that have maybe not had quite as good a year and going through some hard times. And we want to be mindful of those people in those churches. We do things for, you know, the church. And again, the church is broader than us. So if there is a famine, if there is a tsunami, if there is whatever, and there are areas affected. One of the things we try to do is look and say, okay, do we have brethren there? Not just brethren that are free Presbyterians. Do we have brothers and sisters in the Lord? And how can we help minister to them? And how can we maybe help them minister to their community? so as to bear a testimony. So we have that as well. The last thing I have here, and it's kind of an overriding part, it's not mentioned directly, is an evident love. What are the marks of a properly functioning communion of believers? An evident love. And I've got several passages I want to look at, so I'm just gonna hold this until we'll start there next week. And we keep hitting this, the matter of love and how much it is, how critical it is, how much it's a part to both the church carrying out its functions, you and me doing what we ought to be doing, and how this coming together, and we'll see that We're willing next week. We'll pick up here and finish this paragraph and then get the next one. Probably very well may finish up this chapter next week, but not next couple of weeks for sure. But anyway, anybody, any other thoughts or comments? If you have thoughts, it will go along. Feel free to raise your hand, interrupt me. I mean, stop me because I want to. It's part of the communion sharing. Things that may be unique in some ways to you. Things that you can bring a perspective to something we're talking about or considering that is helpful. Maybe helpful at the moment for somebody else. That's again part of the communion. Jordan? a new idea, I guess, a testimony of the effectiveness of mutual help at appropriate times, as a demonstration. The spiritual mutual education is necessary and critical. When we sit and think about it and logically interact with it, we say, yes, obviously, the greatest need anyone has is their spiritual needs. So spiritually ministering for each other's spiritual needs, I mean, that's more than welcome, really. And yet, the flesh being what it is, those things can often simply kind of feel like they're just what we do. When we go to church, we say these things to each other. We pray. The flesh can have the question about whether there's real love here or whether it's just this. And then when someone goes out of their way to take a whole day, they could have taken it for something else, to provide help or something. The thing is that we wouldn't normally I've been in a place where there is an element of depressing weight of life that's bearing down. And, you know, friends, fellow believers came along and cheerfully helped us out. Mm-hmm. I mean, it's, again, we can see those illustrations back to the family with children and just seeing one child helping another child do something. Maybe complete a task, whatever it is. And the silencing and preaching has begun to affect our country greatly, especially the big areas. And we saw that the recruiting of the Puritan monks were reviving so much of the truth of the 10 commandments and providence and spiritual evangelism. We would share that with our friends and with our families to increase them spiritually, because these things were being lost across our land. That means you're sharing something that blessed your heart with somebody else. Hey, I don't know if you've read this, or if you've seen this, or if you've ever considered this, but, you know, here, here's a little book, or whatever, or you share and just read it. It'll do you good, type thing. Sure, exactly. I mean, that's part of it. Part of that mutual communion aspect. Chris? Yeah, yeah. just the opportunities and are watching it work. And that's the visible, my note here, an evident or a visible love, functioning church. All right, well, let's pray. I'm out of time. Lord, we're grateful to you for the blessings you give. We thank you again for that which, because we are united to Christ and as we are united to Christ, or the things that because of who you are and you are love and through Christ, we can then experience again that love and things that we've been talking about, just sharing and helping and doing things, even in coming and sharing this day, sharing with one another in the place of worship. Lord, to join our prayers, our voices together, to join in our praise, to join in our consideration of the word and the giving has been mentioned, Lord, there's just so much that you've done for us and that you do for us, even in the keeping of thy day. So we look to thee, Lord, to continue to be with us, to bless us, to help us by your spirit, to be with your people. Father, we thank you for every single person that makes up the body of Christ, and we pray that you would bless them today. Lord, regardless of where they are, who they are, Lord, the position they hold, be it high or low, Lord, the condition they're in, we thank you for each one. We thank you that you love them as you loved us. We thank you that they worship you as we worship you in and through Christ. So help us, we pray. Make it be a good day for your people, we ask. For we pray it in Christ's name, amen.