I understand that the most important thing is our fellowship with Jesus Christ. So how do we do that? And I talked to you on Wednesday about the meaning of fellowship, and that's two fellows in the same ship going the same direction. That's just a simplistic way of putting it, but that's what it is. That's what the deal is. And I showed you that the Bible teaches us that there are some wrong fellowships. I believe that if you will learn to follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit, you'll be fine. I don't believe you have to have somebody tell you everything to do and not to do. I don't think you ought to be treated like little children. I think that you should have enough sense, once you get the right relationship with the Lord, that you're going somewhere you shouldn't go, and all of a sudden the Lord goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, and you go, oh, okay, I guess I can't go there. I don't think you have to have somebody telling you what to do all the time. The problem is, is that if you get told what to do all the time, those who are not doing the things that they're told not to do begin to think themselves more spiritual than those who are continuing to do the things they shouldn't do. It creates a spirit of competitiveness. That's not right. If you get the right relationship with Jesus Christ, then it doesn't matter what other people do. You know what you can do. You're going to be faced in life with certain things and certain situations that you're going to have to make a call on your own. What's right for you at the time you're going through it? You can't be dogmatic, absolutely, and say, well, you can't work on Sunday, period. Well, hold on a minute now. Suppose your job demands, well, just quit your job then. Well, that's easy for you to say. You've got mouths to feed and house payment to take and to make and car payment to make and so on and so forth. That's always said by somebody who doesn't have to work on the weekend. But sometimes your job demands it. All right, let's let's show how it shifts a little bit. So what do you do if you're in the military and today's Sunday over there and they're bombing Iraq? Oh, it's Sunday, man. I'm taking the day off. I can't I can't work on Sunday. You know, they're shooting at me. Well, I can't shoot back today. Today's the day off. You say, well, that's ludicrous. Yes, it is ludicrous. God doesn't look down here and say, you know, well, you had to kill somebody on Sunday, you know, because you're at war over there. That's a horrible thing. You could have killed him on Saturday. You could kill him on Monday, but you can't kill him on Sunday. You're not under that kind of a law. And what you've got to learn is, is what I'm trying to teach you is, is to be reliant upon the relationship that you have with the Holy Spirit. Now, if the Holy Spirit's grieved or vexed, you can get your communication messed up, because then you'll follow your own conscience. And oftentimes your own conscience is a wreck. Your conscience will have a tendency to follow your flesh more than it will to follow the Spirit. So it's important that you stay in fellowship with the Lord. So the meaning of fellowship is that you're walking with the Lord. He says, how shall two walk together except they be agreed? Now what happens is, is the Lord chooses the path for you. My path is different than TK's and Robin's and Brad's and Paul's and Nancy's and the rest of you in here. Everybody's an individual pathway. You can't force anybody onto a pathway. You've got to get that. You're going to be very frustrated if you're constantly looking at, why aren't they doing this and why aren't they doing that and they should be doing this and I think they ought to be doing that. A fellow told me the other day, we were having a conversation and he told me the other day, he said, Well, I just believe if, you know, you're saved, then what? There's nothing in the Bible that says that now that you're saved, because you don't know if that's a little baby. You don't know if that gets an adult. You don't know if it's a teenager. You don't know where they're at as far as their relationship with the Lord is concerned. You can't immediately say, well, now that you're a Christian, you've got to get on this particular pathway. He has to find the pathway God chose for him. Otherwise, he's walking your pathway. That's called spiritual coattailing. Well, I want to be like that fellow, so I'm going to do what he does and act how he acts and be what he is. It's not bad in the sense of having an example before you, but you know what? You better have your own convictions about things, not somebody else's convictions. You better have your own relationship. That goes for my wife as much as anybody else. Just because I'm the preacher, she shouldn't be living what I'm living. She better be living it for herself, because what we're going to talk about in the Sunday morning service, it'll matter when you hit the judgment seat of Christ. That's the thing that's important for you to keep in mind when we're talking about these things. You can't legislate spirituality. You can't force it. As much as it will bother you and irritate you, especially as your kids begin to get a little older and you'd like to see them do this and do that and so on, you just turn them over to God and let them develop their own relationship. You can't force it. You've got to get your own reputation out of the way. Well, I didn't raise you like that. Well, now I'm out on my own. Now I'll do what I want to do. Same way you did what you wanted to do. So what you've got to get is, is that this thing about having fellowship with the Lord, it involves more than just sit down, read your Bible study and pray, and then do what everybody else does. It's doing what God tells you to do. I hate to tell you this, if your husband's called to preach, you're not called to preach. So he's going to have certain things that's going to be required of him that's not required of you. And if you're called to preach, Brian and T.K. and some of the other fellows in here, you're called to preach, you've got to be very careful not to try to make your wife a preacher. Because God is going to require from you things that He doesn't require from them. He didn't call them. He called you. You've got to get that. All right, now look here in 1 John. 1 John. Let's look. We talked about the meaning of fellowship. I'm going to use M's here. I'm going to talk about the medium of fellowship. How does it happen? 1 John chapter 1. I look at verse number 5. 1 John 1.5. This then is the message which we have heard of Him and declare unto you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with the other. And the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin." Turn me down just a little bit, Brother Richard. Alright, the medium of fellowship is found in verse number 5. It's light. Now, our responsibility, it's our job to have fellowship with Him. Do you understand? He's here. He saved you. This is beyond salvation. This is after you've been saved. He wants to have fellowship with you, but it's completely dependent upon whether or not you want to have fellowship with Him. After salvation, He does not beg and plead with you for you to have fellowship with Him. He leaves the choice up to you. He says, if you love Me, then walk with Me. If you want to do what you want to do, fine. You've got a free will to choose what you want to do. I'm not going to force you. as a son, you can get a whipping, we'll talk about that later on. But what I'm trying to help you to understand is when it comes to this thing about fellowship, if we say we have fellowship with Him and we're not walking in the light, then we're a liar. So the first indicator of the medium of fellowship is light. That means what's causing the fellowship to take place. It's walking in the light. Before you can do the next step of this thing, you've got to make sure you're walking in the light. You say, what kind of light? Well, it's like the wise men that followed the star. You walk according to the light that you have. Everybody doesn't have the same amount of light. For instance, if you have a 2-year-old at home, he doesn't have the same light as a 10-year-old, and a 10-year-old doesn't have the same light as an 18-year-old. Don't you expect a little more out of the 18-year-old than you do out of the 2-year-old? When somebody first gets saved, ladies and gentlemen, you've got to realize a lot of you have been saved 10, 15, 20 years or maybe longer, and you've been in a Bible-believing church a lot longer, and not only been in a Bible-believing church, but listened to Bible-believing material and read the Bible for a long time. I mean, you've got a lot more information, a lot more light. So as far as your walk is concerned, you've got a lot more light to walk in than they do. They don't have it yet. They walk according to the light that they have. And light is not something that you can shine on somebody else. The way that pathway gets brighter is it has to do with the acceptance of the light. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. So when the word comes in, when you receive the light, the light comes from a little tiny pinprick and the more you receive it, it gets bigger and it gets bigger and it gets bigger. But I may be getting it and you might not. Or you might be getting it and I might not. Because if you reject the Word, the Word eventually will become light. Rejected becomes lightning. But what happens is while somebody else sitting next to you is growing and they're seeing things you're not seeing, you're not seeing it because it's the reception of the light. When he says to walk in the light, when the Lord shines the light over here and you have to have faith to walk in that light and do what you're supposed to do according to that light, And you have to step off into that light. Not everybody has to walk in that amount of light. But when you walk over there, you see things over here that other people don't see. You see, so now all of a sudden you've got a little broader perspective. That doesn't make you any better. But he says, now if you want to have fellowship with me, there's going to be certain times, like with Abraham, there's going to be certain times that there's going to be a trial, there's going to be a test, and I'm going to find out if you individually are going to walk in the light according to what I'm showing you. He didn't show that to anybody else. All he showed it to was Abraham. You see, Abraham was justified later when he offered Isaac, not only James chapter 2 and the sight of other men, but his salvation was justified through God by him having to offer a sacrifice. That happened about 15 years after he went up there and looked at the stars and believed God for the righteousness imputed to him. But his justification comes 15 years later when the Lord says, well, I'm going to find out if you've got the right kind of faith. And Abraham says, OK, what do you want? He says, I want your boy. He says, OK, fine, you can have my boy. And the Bible says that he was justified. You say, what are the works there? Justified in the sight of men and justified now because his salvation is not like yours. The minute you get saved, you're justified. I mean, that's a blessing, man. I don't have to prove nothing. My works don't show anything. They don't show nothing. Your works don't show anything. Abraham couldn't stand up there in front of God and boast about anything he did. He believed God. But he didn't believe the death, the burial, and the resurrection. You know what he believed? He believed that God was going to give him a boy and he was going to populate the earth with that boy. That's what he believed. He said, you see the stars? I see the stars. He said, I'm going to give you a nation like that. I'm going to give you a boy and he's going to have him just as you believe that. And Abraham said, I believe that. And he said, OK, good. And he gave him righteousness for that. Not salvation. Righteousness. And then later on down the line, he said, I'm going to find out if you got the right thing and if you justified 15 years later when he offers Isaac. Not me, buddy. He said, you see Calvary? And I said, I do. He said, you realize that Jesus Christ died for your sins according to Scripture, buried in the rose? Yes, sir, I do. He said, you realize you're a sinner? I said, yes, sir, I do. And he said, you want to go to hell? No, sir, I don't. Then take him. I said, I'll take him. You know what? Right then, that second, right then, I saved and justified right that second. I don't have to do anything to prove that justification. But you know what you've got to learn, ladies and gentlemen? What you've got to learn is that when God shines a light for you, it's an individual pathway. And if you'll learn to get that, then you'll understand what I'm talking about when I talk about fellowship. In the Old Testament, it's corporate fellowship. He deals with a nation of Israel, and He calls Israel His Son, but it's a corporate group. In the New Testament, in this age after Calvary, He deals with us as individuals, even after we're married. And even after we have children, we don't believe covenant theology that baptism replaces circumcision. We don't believe that. That's the foolishness some people teach. They teach this, especially up north. They teach that that baptism replaced circumcision. And because baptism is a sign, therefore, Jews require sign. And so therefore, baptism replaces circumcision. And that's how you get in. Baptism never in the Bible is as a sign. 1 Peter 3.21 says it's a like figure. It's never said it's a sign. Not one time has it called a sign. Let me ask you this. I don't mean to be crude, but if baptism replaced circumcision, then what's a woman doing getting baptized? Circumcision is male. Baptism don't replace circumcision. And I'm not saved by circumcision or by baptism. I'm saved by grace through faith. But you mess that Bible up real easy, you see, when He shines the light. If you reject that light, you can run off and get off in a ditch. You get in a mess, and then you think, well, I just always believed, you know. Well, I know. Grandma, you know, she just said, and Grandma always did. And, well, I just believed Mamaw, you know, and all that. Well, but what does the Bible say? Now the problem is, is when you get into this thing called the medium, the fellowship, what's creating the fellowship is the light. When the Lord shows you light on something, if you don't walk in the light, the Bible says you're in darkness and then your fellowship's broken. It's not just sin that'll break your fellowship. Did you realize it's rejection of the truth? You can reject the truth of the Bible, rightly divided, and you know what'll happen? The Lord'll break fellowship just like that. Now, it doesn't mean you won't still know some things about the Bible. It doesn't mean you'll forget everything you've ever been taught. But it does mean He shuts off the spigot and you don't get any more light. Now you're walking around in darkness. You say, why? Because in the Bible it says we lie and do not the truth. So it's connected with hearing the words and doing them. So walking in the light has to do with what the light is. The medium of the light is the Lord Jesus Christ. That's Him. He's the light of the world. But it's not this thing of, well, He's just this person. I'm supposed to just clasp my arm around and walk with Him down the street. The way that we're able to walk with Him, the way He manifests Himself to us, is through the light of the world. The pathway is the Bible. And when he shines that light through the scripture, he says, OK, now you have a choice. You walk in light and you can stay with me and you choose not to walk in the light and do not the things that I tell you to do. Then I'm out of fellowship with you because we made a choice. But sometimes those things that he shows you, they're hard things. They're difficult things. They'll make you choose. Now, look at 1 John, chapter number four. So the first thing is, is that we got to do what he says to do. We got to walk in the light. And if we do, you turn to 1 John 4. Let me read you this verse over here in Proverbs chapter 4. People ask all the time, how do I have fellowship with the Lord? Well, let me make this illustration. Proverbs chapter 4 says this, verse 18, but the path of the just is as a shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. That means if I want to have fellowship with my wife, you know what I have to do? I have to communicate with her. It sounds stupid, but you know what? When it comes to spiritual things, we believe that if we want to have a friendship with somebody, it requires us sitting down and communicating with them, finding out what they like, what they don't like, finding out where they like to go, where they don't like to go. If you're going to have a relationship with your wife or with your husband, you have to have communication. A woman will sit down with you all the time. You don't ever listen to me. You don't ever talk to me. You don't ever spend any time with me. What they're trying to do is they want to have a medium of fellowship. It's communication. But when it comes to spiritual things, what we have a tendency to do is to say, well, that applies in regular life. And the reason we don't have the fellowship we're supposed to have with the Lord is because we don't communicate with Him. Not only do we not listen to the preaching and do what the preaching has to say, but we don't spend time ourselves privately in private devotion reading about Him and studying about Him and also praying to Him. You know, I've had to do some re-evaluation. You know, you get to thinking, you get so wrapped up with all the cares of the things going on in the church and the people and things like that, that every time you come to the Lord, you just come to Him with a laundry list of, Lord, I bless so-and-so, and Lord, take care of so-and-so, and oh God, I forgot about this, and Lord, please, and Lord, this so-and-so is sick, and so-and-so needs this, and God, bless them, help them, and Lord, give them this, and Lord, give them that, and all that kind of... Well, you know what? You never get to know nothing about Him that way. And then you go to the Bible and you're reading and all you're ever doing is maybe just looking for a sermon. You know, I've got to get a sermon. I've got to get a sermon. I've got to get a sermon. Get the pressure off. I've got to have a sermon. God speak to me. God speak to me. And he's like, well, hey, hold on a minute now. Why don't we just spend some time getting to know each other? Why don't you just read the Bible and let me speak to you, and then you tell me what you think about what you're reading. Why don't we just have some communication? You see, fellowship is developed by communication. God communicates to us through the Bible, through the preaching of His Word, through the studying of His Word, through the meditation upon His Word. God chose to reveal Himself through a book, not a CD. And the reason is, is because it takes time to sit down and look at the words on the page, because you have to stop what you're doing. You can't... I passed this guy going up by I-10 yesterday, and he's kind of weaving, he keeps bumping on. I'm thinking, man, it's awfully early for you to be drunk, man. You're already, early in the morning, you're already running off the cotton-picking road. And I'm thinking, Lord, just get me by this guy before I... get hit or whatever. And as I pull up by him, he wasn't drunk at all. He's got the newspaper draped over the steering wheel and he's looking like this and he's reading the newspaper. And then you can watch him just like that. I just he didn't even know I was over here. He's just riding down the road like this. And you watch him. He just drift off the side of the road and he'll yank it back like that. And then, you know, go right back to reading again. And you know why God gave the things to you in the book? He gave things to you in the book because you have to sit down. What's your wife tell you? When you get going, you're working, and you're taking care of the kids, and you're taking care of the yards, and she's cleaning the house, and she's cooking the meals, and she's washing the laundry, and she's out working the fire out of you, and that kind of thing. But anyway, she's getting all this kind of stuff done, and you know what she says to you? You don't ever have time for me anymore. And you're thinking, well, yeah, sure I do. I've been working all day long, and I came home, and I painted the house, and fixed the roof, and I took care of the car, and so on, you know. But when you were dating, you made time for her. You know why? Because you wanted to get to know her. And then once you got to know her, you wanted to hold on to her, you would have never asked her to marry you. Don't kid me. The reason you gave her that ring was because you didn't want anybody else to get her because you knew a good thing when you found it. And you're thinking, I better give you a ring and say you're mine. And you're down there on your knee, unless you were an idiot, you're down there on your knee and saying, please, please, please, will you please marry me? Please marry me. And then after the marriage is over with, it's like, well, honey, you know, I love you. Like the old man said one time, she said, you know, you never tell me you love me. So I told you I loved you 40 years ago. If it changes, I'll let you know. Yeah, well, that ain't the right way to be. A woman gets married, she's just starting. When a man gets married, the hunt's over, buddy, and he's ready to run. Well, that's what happens when it comes to the relationship. with Jesus Christ. We get saved. Woo-hoo! Glory to God. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. And then we stop our communication. We won't sit long enough for God to speak to us. For God to talk to us. And therefore, the number one thing that is missing across the board in worldwide Christianity is this thing called fellowship because nobody has the time to develop it anymore. Nobody takes the time to spend time getting to know. It's the last thing on our list. Because we know we're saved, we're eternally secure, we're sure of that kind of stuff, but ladies and gentlemen, I guarantee you, you're not going to develop fellowship with the Lord sitting down four hours every night watching the television set. It's not going to happen. I mean, it doesn't happen by osmosis. Your salvation is just instantaneous the moment you receive Him as your Savior. Just like that. But your fellowship requires constant communication with Him. Enoch's your type of that in the Bible. Enoch's walking along there, and every day he's walking with the Lord, he's walking with the Lord, he's walking with the Lord, and then all of a sudden the Bible says, and Enoch was not. And I like the illustration of saying he was closer to God's health. I don't know that he was closer to God's health. I think he was just closer to being like Christ than he was when he said, man, you're just so much like me. You'd be more at home with me than you will be down here on this cotton-picking world anymore. That's constant communication. The medium is the light. The light is the Bible. And when He gives you that light, if you'll take that light and develop that light, that light will grow brighter and brighter and broader and broader, and you'll be able to see and understand more things. Now, a fellow came to see me a couple of days ago, and we were sitting there talking, and he asked a number of questions. He asked good questions. But the problem is, is he thinks he's going to get this stuff in 15 minutes, and here's the answer, here's the answer, here's the answer. You don't develop a relationship with God that way. God never makes things that easy. You've got to hunker down. You've got to study. You've got to pray. You've got to sweat over it. And Christians nowadays don't want to do that. Now what I want to do is help you, but I can't help you any more than you help yourself. I can want it for you bad. I can desire it for you worse than anything in the world. But what I'm trying to tell you is you're getting ready to step off into a new year here, and you're going to wonder why you're failing with all your resolutions and so on and so forth, and I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do this, which I'm going to preach to you about this morning. And you wonder why you're a failure. I'll tell you why we're failures, because we don't go back to the most important thing, the foundation, and we don't sit down and spend some time developing a relationship personally with the Lord. We're too busy. Got too much to do. It's going to be terrible when you get to heaven, and that's what you're supposed to be doing. But if you want to know whether or not you can, if you're walking with God, ladies and gentlemen, find out, look back in your life for, say, the past, oh, three weeks. How much time have you set aside to just talk with Him? I mean, I'm talking about not, you know, I'm in a jam, I'm in a mess, I'm running late for work. Clear the pathway, Lord, and help me to get home. And that kind of, not your laundry list of all, you know, my knees hurt, my back aches, my head aches, I can't see. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about sitting down and saying, God, speak to me. Say, well, I'm really done. Then would you at least consider that your fellowship may not be what you think it is? So I'm in fellowship with the Lord. Just because you get under conviction when the Lord speaks to you, doesn't mean you're in fellowship. It means the Lord may be prodding you to get back a little bit closer because you probably wouldn't have done the thing that you're under conviction about if you'd have been in fellowship with Him in the first place. One of the first indicators that you're out of fellowship with the Lord is that you have no joy about the things of the Lord whatsoever. And you know the strange thing about the Lord? He acts as if He doesn't care. I mean, doesn't He just let you go? How many times have you lost the joy, joy, joy down in your heart, man? It's like, man, I just, you know, church is a drag, and the Bible is a drag, and preaching is a drag, and tapes are a drag, and you go back and start flipping the channels and listening to the wrong stuff again, or looking at the wrong stuff again, and you're thinking, well, you know, life's just a drag again. And the Lord just kind of like, don't say nothing to you. That's strange. You know why? Because the Lord wants to see whether or not you want it. He's there. He'll forgive you. Thank God for the blood. But let me ask you something. After you ask the Lord to cleanse you of your sin and forgive you and so on and so forth, do you get up from there and say, now, Lord, you know, I'm going to do some exploration here and find out why this occurred. I'm going to start working on this thing because I want you to warn me before I get in this same mess again. Or do you just let it go and go right back to the same old rut you were in? That's where most of us are in the Christian life. The charismatics cover up for it because they get in and get the flesh all worked up and get everybody all happy, quote, in Jesus, and get everybody hopping and shouting and screaming and yelling and that kind of stuff. But they're having the same miserable life you are. They just cover it up different. They just look like they're not. Then they go out and live for the world all week long, come back in, put on their Sunday morning duds, and then act like they're not. But let me ask you something. If God peered down on your heart this morning, could He say you're in fellowship with Him? Could He say you'd made an effort during the past few days to get closer with Him, to get to know more about Him? I know you're at church today because you want to learn about Him. That's good. That's the right thing to do. I know you're at church today because you want to find out more about what God's got to say for you. But I'm talking about individually, personally, one-on-one. What's God shown you lately? What's God said to you lately? other than stop, quit, don't. You know what? I, with the grandkids when they were little, I liked having them come over and so on and so forth. But you know what? When they were acting like brats, I didn't enjoy that at all. Because the temptation is, you know, you're a grandpa, you just kind of let things go, you know, and that kind of stuff. You know, well, you know, but it just, you have to stop it, quit it. You do that again, I'm going to whip you. Stop it. Come here. You know, I'm going to go in the room and come back out a little bit later on. And it's like a grind. But you know what? I look at that thing and I think, you know, that's kind of about all I knew about the Lord several years ago. Just stop it. Quit it. I must have been a real burr under his saddle because every time I turned around, it's like raising a little spoiled, rotten kid. You stop it. I'm going to have to... I told you quit. Quit. Quit. You know? And then it's, what kind of fellowship is he getting out of that? But that's the relationship that most Christians have with the Lord nowadays. They just run and run and run until the Lord pops them upside the head, or worse yet, just lets them go. That's even worse than getting popped. The worst is, is the Lord just lets you go. You get way out there and the Lord hasn't done anything, hasn't said anything, and then you get thinking, oh man, what's going on here? But that's because we don't spend time with Him. And most people, all they know of the Lord is conviction of the Holy Spirit. Conviction. Well, that's a good thing. Assurance of your salvation. But what do you know about the other parts of it? It doesn't happen by osmosis. You have to develop some time. I'll tell you, 1 John 4. 1 John chapter 4. Look, if you will, please. An indicator that you're in fellowship with the Lord is you're in fellowship with the brethren. Oh, come on, preacher, that's ridiculous. OK, well, let's just see what the Bible says. 1 John 4, 20, If a man say, I love God and hateth his brother, he's a liar. For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? This is a commandment we have from him that he who loveth God love his brother also. Now, I'm just trying to point out indicators to you. Indicator number one, are you walking in the light? Indicator number two, who are you having fellowship with? Who are you spending time with? Who do you have more in common with? I'm not talking about this cliquish sort of thing that has a tendency to rear its ugly head no matter where it goes, look at verse 11 and 12. Beloved, if God so loved us, same passes 1 John 4. If God so loved us, we ought to love one another. No man has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us. Love in the brethren perfects us. You know what he says? He said in the last days, forsake not the assembling of yourselves together, even more so as you see the day approaching. You know why? Because we need each other. The key to fellowship is walking in the light. There's no other way to get there. But ladies and gentlemen, I got to tell you, an indicator is not only walking in the light as he is in the light when he gives you the light walking in it. But one of the hardest things to accept is that if you're this isolated little island, Romans 14, thinking that you're all by yourself, nobody loves you and everybody hates you, you know what that's an indicator of? That's an indicator of is you don't have enough respect for the grace God showed you to have fellowship with you to have fellowship with other people. I'm sick and tired of people saying, I just don't like them. I don't reckon God likes you much either. You know what He called you? He called you a bastard. He called you like after birth and a child in the book of Ezekiel. He said you were pitched out in a field out there and nobody wanted you, didn't want nothing to do with you. You were filthy, you were nasty and you're dirty. And when you looked at the Lord Jesus Christ and you took Him, He picked you up. Nobody else would take you. And then let me ask you a question. So who is it that you have a right to refuse that fellowship with? What's with all the dividing lines? Where does that come in? If they're saved, you know what? They're washed in the same blood you're washed in. You know what Paul says? Paul's real careful to say it. He says there's neither Jew nor Gentile, born nor free, or male nor female in the body of Christ. You know why? Because the passage I'm going to preach to you this morning, there's envy, strife, and division. You say, why? That's the actions of babies. Babies can't get along with anybody except their kind. That's not the action of Paul at all. If somebody's saved, you say, well, they're little babies. Well, then learn to tolerate them like Christ tolerated you. Learn to show a little grace. Otherwise, you know what you're going to do? You're going to constantly be dealing with babies until you learn to grow up and deal with it. You're going to keep on having that same problem because you can't learn to deal with it. Well, they're just not friendly. How friendly are you? Well, but if I say something to them, they don't speak to me. Then speak to somebody else. I told a young man yesterday, we were talking, And I told a young man yesterday, it's funny, sometimes people call, they don't realize they're giving confirmation, the Lord's using them to confirm the direction I'm supposed to go in. But I went up to a fellow one day and here, right here at this place, and we were shaking hands, you know, during the church service and all. And I walked back, I just shake hands with people, you know, I said, hey brother, good to have you. He said, I don't know about all this handshaking stuff, man. I came here for preaching, not getting to know everybody. I said, well, it's real nice to have you. I'm glad you're here anyway. At least I got a chance to get to know you. I appreciate that. We'll get to the preaching in a little while. He said, what did you do? I just quit speaking to everybody, man. I said, oh man, if he feels that way, everybody must feel that way. I better not be speaking to everybody. And I go back to that Bible. I read that Bible, and he says, if you love God, then you're supposed to love the brethren. You know what I do? I say, man, shoot, I love the God and the Lord, and I guess the Lord's probably been that way with me a number of times. Go to the next person. Hey, how you doing? Next person. Hey, how you doing, preacher? Good to see you. How's your wife doing? I'm glad you're here, man. I'd have missed out on the blessing if I'd have let that jerk rain on my parade. You say, what do you do with him? Pray for him, man. Shoot, at least he's here. While he's here, I can still preach at him. While he's here, God can still work on him. But church is some of the most unfriendliest place you'd ever want to be in your life. And I'm not for this, touch somebody and say, you know, I love you, and touch somebody and say, you know, I'm going to get a blessing. No, I'm not talking about invading your space. But when you get in Christ, ladies and gentlemen, you know what? You ought to realize what Christ did for you, and you ought to be willing to get along with each other. That's what the Bible says. Look at it. It's in the passage. You claim to love God. How come you can't love each other? Suppose you get hauled out of the judgment seat of Christ and the Lord judges you on that one right there. I just don't like them. They're not like me. Thank God. Can you imagine what the world would be if everybody was like you? A lady told me one time not too long ago, and she's not here, so I'm not speaking out of turn. She said, I came there for two weeks and nobody even spoke to me. Well, I wanted to say, lady, you're a cotton-picking liar because I know those two times you were there, I know I came back and I spoke to you. But what she was saying is, is nobody that wasn't obligated to speak to me didn't speak to me. Shoot, man, I've been in churches before and never got to shake the hand of the preacher. I had a preacher, nothing that said the preacher's obligated to speak to you. I just like to do it. You say, why? Because that's not my normal nature. Do you realize that even when I was a policeman, that unless I was in the uniform, I'd walk into a store and instead of asking a clerk where something was, I'd walk around that whole cotton picking store without asking anybody anything because I was embarrassed to ask them? Do you realize that I used to? Now, I'm going to tell you, man. I used to, when I'd come to my public speaking class that I had in school and stuff like that, they'd have to threaten to give me an F in the class. That's back before they had, what do you get now, I's or E's or whatever now. But back then, F failed. They had to threaten to give me an F if I didn't get up to speak. I was so timid and so shy. I didn't want to speak to anybody. It's not my nature to want to walk up and, Hi, how are you? Nice to see you. Good to see you. Glad you're here. That's not my nature. But if I'm going to be a Bible-believing Christian, you know what the Lord says? It's not my nature to have fellowship with the likes of you. But you know what? Through the blood of Jesus Christ, I'll have fellowship with you. Now, buddy, you better go show that to other people. You say, why? Because other people can't see it any other way. You claim to love the Lord. How come you can't love the brethren? You ought to at least love the decision they made to trust Christ as their Savior. These are people you're going to spend eternity with. Did you know that? Eternity. Forever. and say, well, I'll be glad to spend time with them when they get older and when I get to see them and after they've been changed. Well, that ain't going to fly with the Bible. Come to 1 John 2. 1 John 2. The key's walking in the light. There's no other way to do it. Who do you spend your time with? Can I ask you this? Why are you more comfortable with the people at work than you are with the people at church? There's something wrong. This ought to be like family reunion around here. It really should. You shouldn't be more comfortable out there in the world. If you're not comfortable here, I could say there's something wrong with you. Put that one on. Say, well, I don't know. Well, if the shoe don't fit, don't wear it. But I'll guarantee you it fits. The church is not made to be conformed to your image. It's made to be conformed to His image. One of the questions I got asked the other day is, you know, what do you think the church is for? I'll tell you what the church is for. The church is for worshipping Jesus Christ. It's not made for worshipping men. It's not made to peddle men's ideas and peddle men's political beliefs or to get out here and have some sort of a program for everybody that's around. It's made for the purpose of worship in Jesus Christ. But ladies and gentlemen, it is pleasing to the Lord Jesus Christ, when after your relationship with Him is right, that that light's not put under a bushel that you show other people what God's done for you. And I hate to tell you, you don't see it when you've got an old sourpuss look on your face and you can't even break out of your little ice cube or your little section in the church house to go across the aisle and speak to somebody. That's a tragedy. It's a tragedy. And I'll guarantee you this, if you... I don't like these things. If you get to a point where you're upset about something, that'll be your reason for leaving. They're not friendly. They didn't speak to me. He was mean to me. You see? All that's about you, you, you, you. You know what that shows? You're not walking in the Spirit. Because if you're walking in the Spirit, it's all about Him. You're not running errands for a corpse. You see yourself laid out in a box. Somebody comes by. You know? You're dead. I've never seen a dead man yet rise up and say anything about it. But you know what's a tragedy? What's a tragedy is they speak kinder of dead people than they do of living people in the body of Christ. And such for some of you. You're nicer to a corpse And you'll sit there and lie about the corpse. But when it comes to living people in the body of Christ that are saved just like you're saved, you can't give them the time of day. It ought not so to be. Not if the Bible's right. You want to know if you're walking in the light? How are you treating your brothers and sisters in Christ? Let's boil it all down. How are you treating your wife and husband? Well, they're your brother and sister in Christ. 1 John chapter 2. 1 John 2, verse 9, "...he that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because darkness hath blinded his eyes." Man, do you see what you just read? That Bible just said to you that if you got a problem with your brother in Christ, that the Lord just turned off the light. Now, I realize you can go to somebody, let's say Brad and I have a problem and I come to Brad and I say, Brad, I'm really sorry. And he says, that's fine. I don't care if you're sorry or not. I'm not going to forgive you. Now, he wouldn't do that. Let's say he did. Well, the deal's off of me, man. I went to him, tried to make it right. He didn't want to make it right. Then, OK, fine. That doesn't mean I got to walk up to him every Sunday and, how are you doing? Good to see you. I hope you forgive me one day. You know, I mean, no, it doesn't have to be that way. But you know what it is? I've done give the thing to the Lord. I let it go. I'm done with it. I'm finished. I don't have to die. That don't mean I got to go sit down and try to have dinner with him. But you know what it does mean? It means I tried to make the thing right. And if he didn't want to get the thing right, Brother Brian, let all them folks in back there, please. If he don't want to get the thing right, then it's on him. But I don't have to let it interrupt my fellowship with the Lord. I don't have to hate him for it. Maybe he's got a problem with that. Maybe there's a reason why he doesn't want to forgive me. Maybe there's a reason why he's got something stuck in his craw. Maybe it's a pretty hurtful thing I did to him. You've got to be real careful, ladies and gentlemen, this thing about forgiveness, you know, it doesn't mean you can just go out here and take your brother's wife and then come in and go, oh, well, I'm really sorry, you know, forgive me. You've got to forgive me. You know, the Bible says forgive me. Well, buddy, I may forgive you, but you better watch it around me. You say, oh, now, hold on. No. We already went over. See, you've got to be here for all the messages. We already went over what the right kind of repentance is and the right kind of forgiveness is. But once you do that, you know what you've got to do? You've got to let the thing go. You can't live in the past. It will interrupt your fellowship from now on. Every time that person grabs in here, and I'll say, well, I can't come in and worship the Lord as long as he's here. You say, that's never happened. Oh, buddy, I've seen churches split over it. I've seen people leave the church. I'm not coming to church there if they're there. What a stupid thing. Is it the right church? Well, yeah. Is it the right preaching? Well, yeah. Is it the right Bible? Well, yeah. Are the doctrines straight? Yeah. Well, why aren't you coming? Because they're there. If they're there, I'm not coming. Okay, so now what you're doing is saying, you get rid of them and I'll stay. And if you don't get rid of them, I ain't getting rid of them. You say why? As long as they're coming, I can help them. Or God can help them. But you see, there's a test that comes on you. Why would you let anybody stand between you and your relationship with God? You got a little stiff there. Is it not clear? It's funny, you know what? That person may have done a horrible thing to you, and that's a terrible thing, but it shouldn't interrupt your fellowship with Jesus Christ. I mean, I've had some people hurt me before. Pretty bad. But every time somebody hurts you, if you just quit, well, you know what? You just will give up right now. See the judge and see the Christ, because you ain't going to ever amount to nothing. Church people. People say to me on a regular basis, they say, preacher, I can't believe so-and-so did such and such, and they call themselves a Christian. And one fellow said to me one time, he says, so-and-so go to your church? And I said, yeah, as a matter of fact, he does. He said, do you know what he did to me? And I said, no, and I don't care. He said, well, he says he's a Christian. He goes to your Bible-believing church, and I've heard how you preach, and I'm just letting you know what he did to me. I said, I don't care. It doesn't matter. Oh, so you're just making light of it. I said, no, that's between you and him. You go get it fixed. I said, but let me just remind you of something. Just because he's a Christian and just because he's saved, don't mean he ain't still human. And just because you come to this church and just because you're saved, doesn't mean that you still don't have cuckoo birds under your saddle and fleas on your back like the dog that you are. That doesn't mean that now that you're saved, everything's OK and wonderful and fine and hunky dory. It don't mean that at all. But it does mean, ladies and gentlemen, that if the Bible's right, if you want to shut off the medium of fellowship, then you just keep this not getting along. I'm not saying you're not getting along, but you just keep this not getting along with one another and not love your brothers and sisters in Christ and have all these little idiosyncrasies about you and always be with that critical spirit looking for somebody to do something and all that kind of stuff. And you know what you're doing? You're cutting off a light. one of them big old 10,000 candle power searchlights on you and you couldn't even see it. You know what the Bible says? You're blind. You're in darkness. You know what you're blinded by? You're blinded by your feelings for your brother. You ever heard them talk about a blind rage? You ever heard about that? Where somebody gets so angry, somebody gets so mad that they fly off into a rage and they're like a mad bull. You can't control them. They're completely out of their mind. I've seen Christians like that. I've seen Christians get that way to the point that it interrupts their fellowship of the Lord. You say why? They're blinded. All they can see is what somebody did to them. I want to see God do something in this place. But I know that if God's going to do something in this place, that we're going to have to allow him to do it the way he does it. And we're always the one getting in the way. I had a long time ago get with the Lord and I'm not using myself as some premier example or anything, some shining star. I'm just giving you a personal illustration. I had a problem and somebody did something and it really hurt me bad, bad, real bad. And I was justified. If I were to tell you the details, I guarantee you'd be on my side. And what I had to do was I had to realize I couldn't get anything going between me and the Lord until I let that thing go. I was blinded. All I could ever see. I hear a message, I think, boy, they really need that. Boy, I really, boy, I wish God... And all I do is just see what they, what they, what they, what they. And then I'd hear in the message, I would justify this and justify that and justify... Yeah, and I know, and that's right, and that's what the Bible says and all that. I never got any further with the Lord, man. He kept on walking, buddy, and I was still right there just spinning around, spinning myself in the ground. Until the Lord dealt with me that thing one day and I got down on an altar and I stayed at that altar until I let the thing go. And honest to God, people, it wasn't one of these, you know, light shining out of darkness and knocked me off my horse and nothing like that. But I'm telling you, just like the sun comes up in the morning, man, it's like all of a sudden a cloud passed from in front of that sunshine and that light came on and I'm like, wow. It was almost like I was seeing things dimly lit. You say, why? Because I was consumed. with what somebody else was doing. I was in darkness. Instead of just doing what the Bible said and let it go. Hard to do, isn't it? But it's right to do. And once you let the thing go, whether they get it or don't get it, you're free, man. You can keep on walking in the light. You only hurt yourself when you don't do that. Alright, now you come back for some more of that tonight. And we need to get this baptism going here.