Welcome back to day three of Fellowship with God. I'll give us a quick review while everybody gets situated and doors close and then we'll be off. A couple weeks ago we discussed the nature of fellowship and we quoted John Owen as saying, Now communion is the mutual communication of such good things as wherein the persons holding that communion are delighted. Grounded upon some union between them. So basically all he says is this communion means that God and we share things together in common. Quite simple. We looked last week and mentioned that that entails not merely interests as in you like the same movies, I like the same movies. All right, we're in fellowship. That's not quite how it works. Though we do share the same interests, but we also share the same people. We are accepted by the Father because of the Son. We have communion with the Son through the Spirit. We share the same characteristics so that we become as God is. You cannot help but pick up on the mannerisms of the people you spend time with. I've spent time with a couple different people in my life and I found myself picking up some of their characteristics as we spend a good deal of time together. And the same thing happens when we are in fellowship with the Father and the Son through the Spirit. And we also then share the same affections one toward another. Owen very helpfully and pointedly calls it mutual communication for that very reason. We share all things with God, God shares all things with us, and that is incredible to think about. So much for week one. Week two. Communion is not primarily or firstly an emotional experience, but is an act of the will. Think of it this way. The command to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength certainly includes the emotions, but primarily it's a command. So it requires a response of volition. And how do you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength? Well, that's what the other 116 commandments of the Torah are all about, and everything we get in the New Testament. So, primarily an act of the will, it's things that we do. And in fact, we could even follow Jesus when he says, where your treasure is, there your heart will be. What you do to gain for yourself, that is where your affections will follow. So we pursue God, and surely our emotions will follow in its wake. So the will drives the affections. But on the other hand, the emotions can support the will in its quest, and occasionally hinder the will in its quest. So emotions and what we do aren't always completely in sync. We hope to bring them into sync. and they can help each other do that. But where does this will for us to do that come from? Where does our will to love God come from? It's a reaction to the commands, the self-revelation of God who initiates our fellowship, and that is why we have emphasized up to this point we are disciples. We learn the commands. Fellowship is first about knowing things. Jesus even says, Today, What common ground do we have as disciples to know that our fellowship with God is genuine? How do we test our fellowship to know that we actually have fellowship? And that's what we'll be looking at today. So I will pray for us and then we will turn to 1 John 1, 1-3. Our Father in heaven, it is true that we can call you our Father. You are not like many of our earthly fathers. You are holy. You are perfect in justice and in love. You are merciful without leniency. We hold you up because you are the model of what godliness looks like. You are God. and you are our father. We have fellowship with you because you have condescended to us in a great deal of love and at a great cost to yourself. We thank you for delivering up your own son that we might come to you as adopted sons and daughters. We pray that you would strengthen our fellowship with you as we learn what your word says about how we commune with you. We pray for your blessing over our time in your own son's name. Amen. 1 John 1, 1 to 3. I like thinking behind closed doors. All right, 1 John 1, 1 to 3. Thought I was on it. That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, or that which we have seen with our own eyes, that which we have beheld and our hands have touched concerning the word of life, and the life was made manifest, and we saw and we testify and we declare to you the eternal life which was with the Father and has been made manifest to us, that which we have seen and we have heard, we declare also to you so that you may have fellowship with us and our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. And we write these things to you, verse 4, so that our joy may be fulfilled. We'll leave verse 4 for another day. So what is the ground of our fellowship that we share in common? First, it is grounded and based in a public and historically based proclamation. We mentioned this briefly last week. That which we have seen, verse 3, and that which we have heard, we declare also to you. Or we proclaim also to you. And not only that, it is we proclaim it, verse 3, so that you may have fellowship with us. Which is to say, no proclamation, no fellowship. With the proclamation, the door opens for fellowship, though it must be received. So the fellowship is grounded then in the public declaration of things that God has done in the world. In fact, we could even put it this way. It is a proclamation of historical fact. And John takes pains to emphasize that as the things that we have seen and the things that we have heard. And even back in verse 1, I mean, think of how many times in these passages does he say, we have seen this, right? Verse 1, we have, that which we have heard, that which we have seen. and that which we have beheld, which is you can think of to gaze at. So it's not just something we've seen. You see a car accident. You think long and hard about perhaps what someone said to you or some other big family event. You think long and hard about those sorts of things. You behold them. then last part of verse 1, "...and our hands have touched." There is an empirical experience, tangible experience, that the disciples had concerning the Word of Life, and that is what they take pains to pass on. The Apostles' experience was inherently physical. But it is not the physical that gives rise to their fellowship. He does not base, we have fellowship in this because we have seen, because we have heard, because we have touched. It's because they received a proclamation. Verse one, and our hands have touched concerning the word of life. Clearly, that is a reference to Jesus. But all of these things are what we have experienced concerning the Word of Life. And jump down again then to verse 3. That which we have seen and that which we have heard, we declare to you. So we pass on to you the very things that we have heard that give rise to our own fellowship. So even the apostles experience of fellowship with the Son is not because they had a physical experience of the Son. Think of Judas. Judas had every bit as real and every bit as tangible an experience of Jesus as the rest of the eleven. But he had no fellowship. He did, for a time, it would certainly appear to be, but he falls out with it. If you want another example, one that certainly didn't have fellowship, Pilate. Pilate had tangible, physical experiences of the Son of God. No fellowship. So, the physical aspect is not what gives rise even to the Apostles' experience of fellowship. Rather, it is the reception of the message that they have heard, the things that has been made manifest. So, that which we have handled concerning the Word of Life and the life was made manifest. And we have seen and we testify and we declare to you the eternal life which was with the Father and has been made manifest to us. We can also look at verse 5. And this is that which we have heard from Him. So even there John emphasizes the very thing, the message that we have heard is grounded in something that they have heard, and that is what gives rise to his own fellowship with the Father and with the Son. So the apostles experience a fellowship grounded in reception of the message every bit as much as our own is. So we are to trust the proclamation of the people who experienced the historical facts that make this manifest. So there's this historical events, the apostles see them, they experience them, they think long and hard about them, they are testified also internally by the Holy Spirit, we'll come to that a little bit later, and then they pass on this message and we simply trust it. And everything that they experienced physically was simply there to prove the spiritual realities that lie behind them. That's what the physical is about. I mean, put it this way. If you have no physical experience of something, how do you know that it's actually real? Arguably, we have physical experiences too. It's not handling the Word of Life. We have different physical experiences, especially in the church. But, the point there is simply this. If Jesus is to prove he is the Son of God, how does he do it? He can say it, but Jesus himself says, if you will not believe what I tell you, at least believe on account of the signs. And so the signs are exactly that. They're signs to point to who he is and what he has come to do. So, what then leads to the apostles' fellowship is reception of the message. What leads us into fellowship is reception of the message. Verse 3, That which we have seen and we have heard we declare also to you so that you may have fellowship with us." That can go two ways. One, it's by mutual reception. They receive it, we receive it, so we have this interest in the message, which is a third party object that is like the I like this movie you like that movie how fantastic um that is what this sort of thing is right you have you enjoy this thing you've received it I've received it we then have fellowship together so this is the Apostles drawing us into fellowship with themselves but more than that you can put it this way we enjoying this thing together and that is what we are enjoying so let's put it this way if you want to have this is a not perfect analogy but I think you'll get the point if I have my little circle of friends and you want to be friends with one of the people in my circle I'm a good connection point because we already have something established together A lot of this in high school, right? Oh, you want to date that person? Well, I know them. So hang out with me a little bit and I can connect you. That's the sort of thing that works. So the fellowship is alongside the apostles that we have because you could ask the question, and I think the question is pressed to us by the text. Well, great, we have fellowship with the apostles, but I want fellowship with God. Well, that's what they're offering. By having fellowship with us, we're bringing you into the circle in which God is, because we have fellowship with Him. And so we are the means by which you connect in fellowship to the Father. So we are bringing you into the circle that God is, right? You want to connect to God? Well, I'm your good connection point, because I'm the one who can put a bug in his ear, and I can talk to him about you, and I can talk to you about him. So John takes pains then to express that we have the same sort of experiences we have, so that you also might have fellowship with us, and our fellowship is with the Father. So you will have fellowship with the Father, same as we have. Clearly we do not experience Christ physically, yet. though that is coming too. In the meantime, we have still the same fellowship or the same communion as John because it arises out of the same message that they received. And as they declare their message or that message that they received to us, we join in with them. And that message is not fictitious or imaginative. It is grounded in historical events, things that they have seen, things that they have heard, things that they have touched and handled. So, that is the basis of our fellowship objectively. Any thoughts, comments, or questions about that? then perhaps I've beaten that horse sufficiently. Subjectively, all Christians then, from all ages, experience basically the same fellowship with God as each other. Which is to say, that's your experience of God, that's my experience of God. We have the same experience of God. That, in conjunction with the objective historical factual element, allows us to test, is our fellowship genuine? Is my experience parallel to the experience of other Christians? And is it grounded in this historically objective thing? Now first, this is utterly unique in our relationship and our communion with God. This doesn't happen with other people, by and large. And there's many reasons for that. One, we do not give the entirety of ourselves to very many people. and very few people give the entirety of themselves to us. So, I'm experiencing an aspect of this person, but I do not experience that person in their entirety. They experience an aspect of me, but don't experience me in my entirety. And then you have a third party who experiences another element of both of us. And so they don't get all of us. And so when I talk to somebody else, what's your experience of this person? They're going to be able to give me things that I'm unaware of. One example, my grandpa passed away this last Friday and there are tons of things I don't know about my grandpa. There are tons of things his own children don't know about him. And they're learning about that as they gather and they share memories back and forth. And there's this conversation they have. They learn things about their own grandpa that they simply didn't know. The picture of who grandpa is fills in a little bit as different people have experienced him in different ways throughout his past. Which gives rise to another difference. We have different relationships. And so, naturally, with different people, we are going to experience different things, and they transform as time goes on. I've told Jen many times, if you would have met me in high school, we wouldn't be married. I can promise you that, because who I was then is different from who I am now. And so if you were to talk to somebody from grade school or high school, their experience of me is going to be quite different than her experience of me now, and even what she will experience of me in 20 years. We grow and we change. We have alterations. We're impacted by the other people we meet and the other things we meet in life. None of those things qualify that way with God. God doesn't change as time goes on. The same yesterday, today, and forever. He's always the same. He's always like himself. We're not. For so many reasons. The people who knew my grandpa in the last two years and only came to know him in the last two years saw a very different side than the side I grew up in, largely because his mind just deteriorated. That's a difference and that's a change. And that's not even the personality changes that we have as we grow up. God isn't different to you than he is to me. He's our Father. He's not a father to me and not a father to you. And he's not your brother and my father. He's not your mother and my father. He's our father. So we experience him in the same relationship as each other as well. And thirdly, if we are to have a mutual communication of such good things, as Owen puts it, God gives the entirety of himself to us as we give the entirety of ourselves to him. So we don't experience different aspects of God one from another. We all can say God has given all of himself to us. And so all of the things that are unique about human relationships in this respect, quite different in respect to God. So that gives us one way that we can say to each other, this is your experience of God, this is my experience of God too. Or that's your experience, that's not mine. Why are they different? And then that opens the door for a lot of conversation as well. Now, having said all of that, the circumstances around our fellowship are as varied as we are individuals. We are certainly different sort of people, and God has fellowship with us personally, not merely generically. So, let's take a step back then. Genuine communion is always predicated upon grace which comes to us with predictable experiences. So we can put it this way. God is the same always, and the way he responds to us has a similar flavor to it, but as our circumstances are different, God will interact with us differently. This is where the variety comes in. One more time, though, with the similarities, because I want to make sure we're all on the same page with the similarities. First, every Christian is going to recognize themselves as sinful and God as holy. That's just a basic experience of God. We, as Christians, can share that in perfect alignment with each other. How we come to know we're sinful and how we come to know God as holy, that's the variety. Christians all will confess Jesus as the only mediator between them and trust him as the only mediator between them and God. Jesus alone is Savior. How we come to recognize that is going to vary a great deal, but we will all come to that conclusion, and all Christians will receive the Holy Spirit and all of the gifts he intends to give us all the same. And what I mean by that is we all are possessed of the Holy Spirit, so some of his working in us is all the same, and that's where we're gonna spend the last half of our time. But the gifts he gives he distributes as he will so there's a great deal of variety in there, but he does distribute to all That's the similarity so God lights the same sort of fire within every Christian and that gives rise to a host of attending emotions and Lloyd-Jones here, from his sermon actually on this topic, he says this, The glorious thing about the Christian experience is that whatever their natural psychology, whatever their natural temperament, all Christians experience essentially the same experience as one another. There are variations even amongst the apostles. Some are impulsive, some are logical, some are morbid. And yet the glory is that they all have the same central experience. The Christian faith can make a morbid man rejoice. It can take a natural pessimist and make him rejoice in tribulation. regardless of individuality and temperament, all can know this same experience. It does not vary from individual to individual, nor does it vary from century to century. So the transforming effects, we could say, that is what we share in common. And the circumstances in which we are transformed, and the degrees in which we are transformed, and the way we receive it, that is all personally differentiated. That's different as you go from person to person. Now the reason for the similarity, again, God is God, and the three things we just talked about. He's always the same, He's our God, and He's perfectly... He gives all of Himself to us. And the proclamation that we receive is grounded in objectively historical fact. So those things are the consistency. As for the difference, God doesn't always set his timer and how long we will cry out how long. Right? So we enter a tribulation, or we feel as though God's presence is far from us, or we're struggling with this temptation. He doesn't set a timer and say, all right, when this timer goes off, I'll pull you out of it. Right? We're not in timeout. So how long you are left struggling with something might be different from how long I'm left struggling with something. But we will all experience the salvation of our God. But that's different even within ourselves, right? Sometimes we, within ourselves, struggle something for a very short period of time, and then it feels like we've overcome it. And then we're back into it, but now we're back into it for a really long time. And it doesn't seem like we're able to come out of it the same way, or in the same timing, through the same means, as we were able to regain what felt like full fellowship with God as we did the first time. And so even our own experience is varied that way. And that again is where he distributes as he will is a great principle to apply here. Some of those things are left in God's timing and he doesn't time us the same way one to another or even within ourselves. So all of this to say, if our fellowship with God feels muddled, or if our fellowship with God doesn't align in a great way with our other Christians, our fellow Christians, it's likely because there's doctrinal issues at play. The Psalms are the theological repository of the Old Testament. If you want great theology, if you want the Romans of the Old Testament, you go to the Psalms. The Psalms are just theology written to personal application, and it is a fantastic place to go. So, our sense of God is only as good as our doctrine, because God is the same, and he doesn't change, and because he gives the entirety of himself in the Scriptures, insofar as we're able to handle. We'll need an eternity to handle all of God, and even then, I'll just leave that discussion there. But he really does give every aspect of himself, is maybe a better way to say it, through the scriptures. And that's the tangibility that then allows us to have fellowship with the apostles and with God, with the variety, but also with a great ability to fact check our fellowship. Is our experience genuine? Is it real? So I will pause there. Any thoughts, questions? So the question is would I say that doctrinal error damages our fellowship with God I Will preface everything here by God's grace leads before us and comes after us and So that is key. I would also say that if I don't know God rightly, I will have a very difficult time relating to him rightly. So I would say doctrinal error impacts something, right? And it depends what that something is I think is going to depend a lot on what the error is, right? So I'll give one quick example here. If there is a deficient trust in the sovereignty of God, there is an inability to fully entrust yourself to God in very difficult circumstances. And that, I wouldn't put the word damage to it, I think you could, but I would be more inclined to say fetters or hinders my relationship a little bit. My communion isn't as robust and certainly will not be as joyful. So I would say there is a correlation between good theology and joy. All doctrine is given for comfort, and so my comfort can only be as good as my theology. And God intends for me to be fully comforted by everything he says. So, great question. I was wondering, You said, it goes on in verse 6, it says, if we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and we do not live according to the truth. So how do you know? I mean, I'm assuming that there might be people that think they have fellowship. So how does that contrast? Right, so she brings up verse six. Yeah, great question. If we say that we have fellowship, she just simply points out clearly there are people who understand themselves to have fellowship but don't. That is actually going to be a discussion that will lead us into the subjective element of the interaction that we actually engage in with the Spirit. So, I mean, just to cut to it, because I actually don't have it as any particular point here necessarily, though it's one of the central ones. So the context that John is dealing with here in 1 John 1, verse 5, is the message that we have declared, that we have heard from him and we declare to you that God is light and darkness is not in him. If we say that we have fellowship with him and in the darkness we walk, we lie and we do not do the truth. Christian fellowship is most observably noticed in our obedience, right? That's the context John is dealing with here, right? So if you say God is this, but you do this, clearly you're not in fellowship. You have not picked up on the characteristics that someone hanging out with God picks up on. Alright, so one of the best self-checks for whether we have genuine fellowship is, do you become more like God and more like God and more like God and more like God as you have fellowship with Him? And John would say, that's the first thing right there, is you know God is holy, and you know yourself as sinful, but you also know yourself as being transformed. So that kind of, it's great. Anything else? Okay? Great. How, then, are we brought into the same experience, and what do those experiences look like? Up to this point, I've been following, by and large, Martin Lloyd-Jones and his sermon, The Thoughts Provoked, and produced in his sermon. Now we are going to follow John Owen's outline for how we engage with the spirit Let's turn to John 14. What does our fellowship look like? John 14, verse 26. But the paraclete, what do you have for the name for the spirit here? I'd just shout out what your translation has. Help or counselor. Heard another one? Advocate. Anyone have comforter? And a hush falls over the crowd. All right. I did not expect that. Okay. Owen goes with comforter here. The word has a frustratingly broad range of meaning. Very frustrating. All of those translations are completely legitimate. They're all different. And in some ways, that's the beauty of having multiple translations in a Bible study. You get to see the different aspects of what the word can possibly mean. Owen here goes with comforter. And I think in the context of John 14, that is the best way to understand it, and we'll come to that in just a minute. So I'm gonna put in Comforter there. But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Now this is not just something that happens for the apostles and not something that happened for the prophets. The significant thing here is that all scripture is going to be accessible for the person who is in fellowship with God. And I want to leave the is accessible very open. Huge discussion we can have there that we're not gonna. But 2 Peter 1.21, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. So we mentioned before that the prophets build their message on what has come before. In fact, if you want a doctrine of resurrection, go to Moses at the bush. I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jesus pulls that out in the New Testament of God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. In fact, Samaritans who still sacrifice on Mount Ebal, I think, every year, an annual sacrifice, even today, not today, but nowadays, they have a doctrine of resurrection and their only scriptures are the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch. That's where they get it from. I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Doctrine of resurrection right there. Doctrine of the Messiah. He will send you a prophet like me, says Moses. Clearly Moses got that information from God himself He will raise up for you a prophet like me listen to him There's your doctrine of the Messiah and what that looks like is unfolded through time but every messianic Prediction every have every Hope of resurrection is ultimately grounded in those two things. The prophets look back and they build upon them as they are carried along by the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit even brings scripture to mind for the prophets and apostles who come after Moses. The apostles' words are taken for Christ's on account of their apostolic commission. And in fact, we can put it this way, when Jesus was present bodily, The words that he spoke did not have the same efficacy they did after he was gone. So the disciples received the words from the mouth of Jesus himself, and they didn't quite penetrate. Why? the Comforter had not yet come. So it is completely legitimate here. Let's jump up real quickly to John 14, 18 to 22. I want us to get some of the context here because it fills in. It's John 14, starting in verse 18. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. And that day you will know that I am in the Father, and you in me, and I in you." Fellowship. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me, and he who loves me will be loved by my father. And I will come to him and manifest myself to him. That is communion. Whole bunch of things there. Verse 22, Judas, not Iscariot, said to him, Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us and not to the world? How can you do this personal individualized thing that is such a real and tangible experience and the rest of the world doesn't even See it or understand it in the same sort of way How do you make yourself known to us and not do it to the rest of the world at the same time? Jesus's answer verse 26 the Comforter the Holy Spirit Whom the father will send in my name That's how I do it. I make myself known to the people I am in communion with by means of the Spirit. And the rest of the world doesn't have the Spirit. Certainly not receptive to his conviction. You are. You are in fellowship through the Spirit. Which, by the way, I go with comforter in verse 26 because of where it starts off in verse 18. I will not leave you as orphans, but I will come to you. And then the one who has my commandments, the teaching referenced, I think, in verse 26 of bringing to remembrance all that I have told you, which is certainly broader than the commandments, but must certainly include them. And so this is the common experience then that Christians have had through the ages in every single place. The Spirit makes the words of Christ effectual for the disciples. They become meaningful and they become deeply cherished. That's the comforter. If we do not have the same comfort as one another, in the same sort of way, Paul would seem to be setting up a pretty false argument in 2 Corinthians 1, 3-7. 1 Corinthians 1, 3-7, this is how Paul understands it works. But brothers, I could not, that's 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 1. There we go. 1 Corinthians 1, 3-7. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the same comfort, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort." These aren't different comforts. And the reason I stress that is because the comforter who comes and actually gives us comfort by bringing the words of Christ to remembrance, he does that for all Christians at all times in all places. And the ways in which he does that, and again, there is certainly some objectivity there with, I feel like I'm not being comforted right now. I have the words, but I'm not being comforted. When will you comfort me, O God? That is left up largely to his timing and his will, and that's the part of being in fellowship with somebody who has a will of their own. It's not mechanical, but the comfort is real nonetheless. So, we all experience this sort of comfort, we all experience this sort of the words being made meaningful and then being cherished. But there are varying degrees of emotional responses to what it means for Christ's words to be meaningful and cherished. Some of us are a lot more open and animated with our joys and our comforts, and some of us are a lot more reserved with our joys and comforts, but that doesn't mean that we don't share in the same comfort itself. So comfort is one of the big ones. John 16, 14, just to flip over a couple chapters, The next way the Spirit glorifies Christ to us by showing us his glory, John 16, 14, he will glorify me for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. This is related to the first point. The Spirit points us back to Christ as the one who purchased our acceptance with us by his blood. And this is our comfort of objective assurance. So now this is in the words of... the words of scripture coming to me simply in my affliction per se, but it is certainly that. It is our comfort that Christ was actually buried, crucified, buried, and resurrected. I'm trusting in this historical thing through the words that they give me by the apostles. Romans 5, 5. Number three, God's love for us is accepted by us in the Spirit's work. Romans 5.5, Who he who has been given to us now Owen actually has a fantastic about three page long Reflection on Romans 5 5 to quickly recap that for you. He simply says this when it says God's love has been poured into our hearts Through the Holy Spirit has been given to us. He's saying love itself can't actually be implanted that sort of way It's not the love itself that is implanted love flows from its own spring. I Which is to say, God doesn't give me His love, He provokes my love out of me. So what Romans 5, 5 must be saying is that when it says, God's love has been poured into our hearts, it is certainly God's love, but it is an apprehension of God's love. So he says this, how can these things be shed abroad in our hearts? How can love be shed abroad in our hearts? Not in themselves, but in a sense of them. and a spiritual apprehension of them. Which is to say, what the Spirit does is when we hear things about God's love, the Spirit makes those words meaningful to us so that we understand God's love for us. So God pouring his love out in our hearts is giving us a sense that God actually loves us in accordance with the words that he's already given us. So I experience or I apprehend God's love for me by understanding his words enlightened to me by the Holy Spirit. A couple passages here, Psalm 119, verses 50 to 52. This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life. The insolent out of deride me, but I did not turn away from your law. When I think of your rules, from of old, I take comfort, O Lord. Our comfort is word-based. Again, becoming disciples. Knowing what the words are at every turn. Ephesians 3. I actually have two different things here from Ephesians. Ephesians 3, verses 14 to 19. Another common experience among Christians. For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family and heaven on earth is named, that according to the riches of His glory, He may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Holy Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. That you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." Now, I don't know how that does not smack of communion. That you may be filled with the fullness of God. That's incredible. But to back up just a little bit, that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being, So that first Christ might dwell in your hearts That you may have strength to comprehend with all the saints the love of God which again Goes back to what what Owen was talking about in Romans 5 5 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge So again, the Spirit comes and fills us with these things. So, all this under the heading, the Spirit gives us an understanding that God's love for us has made us accepted with Him, which is the same thing of Romans 8.16. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. Again, we can often take this to be I have a warm fuzzy feeling that I am a child of God I I think God thinks that way about me because I just feel that he must That's not what he means in Romans 8 or in Ephesians 3 What he means is there are words that we have been given The Spirit speaks to us through those words and makes those words effective within us whereby we we hear them and we say, that's true. I know that. I like that. And we go on in an apprehension of them. So, all of that, and there's certainly more things related to the Spirit that we'll come across in upcoming weeks, but those are kind of some of the basic similarities that we share with other Christians around us. This is your experience, that's my experience too. That's what the Christian ought to be able to say, and how we're able to test, in a sense, if our fellowship is genuine. Is it with the Father? Do these words mean something to you? And do you take comfort by them? if you know the words but take no comfort from them. there's a void of the Spirit's working. And we are left to question, in the long haul, whether or not we are actually in fellowship with God. Again, the Spirit has his own timing, but the comfort always does come. At least, Paul would give that implication from 2 Corinthians 1. How we comfort others with the same comfort with which we are, or have been, comforted. So, sooner or later, that does come. And if we are left waiting in hope of it to come, that is a different sort of comfort of its own, a good comfort in its own right. Any reactions to that? So we could use, as Wayne says, we comfort others, so the scriptures that comes to mind for us for comfort, we can share with someone else, you know, sharing God. Right. Yeah, so the comment, I'm sure many of you in the back couldn't hear. So when we experience something and we are comforted by Scripture, that is perhaps good Scripture to use for others who are experiencing difficulties as well. In fact, I've been around people where their source of comfort is not grounded in Scripture, and I have not been comforted by that. They have found comfort in it, and I'm not sure that that's the comfort that ought to be had. If it's not in Scripture, it's second-rate at best. Always, always go back to Scripture for the source of comfort. Anything else? And they pointed out, in Genesis 2.18, the Lord God said, it's not good that the man should be alone. I will make a helper for him. And then also, when he talks about the warning. So God informed the law, the police, and the ambulance, and that. And then it also goes on to say about ease, that there wasn't found a helper to fit for them. They said that those two words were the same, empirically. And so I just thought it was so cool that Old Testament and New Testament both talk about the intricacy of this helper and the idea that a helper is one sufficient totally I would not have made that connection myself. Periclete is a Greek word, and Genesis is clearly written in Hebrew. I'm looking at the Septuagint right here, and it does not use the word periclete. Yeah, so one of the aspects of the paraclete is a helper or someone who, you could even say the word assist, and that is the word from Genesis 2.20, assist. So if paraclete has a mile-wide range of meaning, helper or assistant is an aspect of that. and that is what is used in Genesis. So it's much more narrow, it's not as broad. So yeah, there are certainly similarities there, but I would not overlap them fully, if that makes sense. Yeah, it's actually a Hebrew idiom. I will make him a helper as his opposite, which is two sides facing each other, right? So the idea is I'm here, you're there, we are before each other, and we match each other. The biblical imagery that actually comes to mind is when Elisha raises the Shunammite woman's son. He gets on him, hand, hand, mouth, mouth, right? Like he's opposite him. That's kind of the image. And what Genesis, the idiom it's using, I will make him an assistant as his opposite. So one who is just his mirror image in some ways, but one that complements him. So that's what I see behind the idiom there. It's a great thing to bring up. Anything else? Okay, thanks for joining. Have a good week.