admonish one another with all wisdom and sing psalms and hymns with gratitude
16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your heart to the Lord.
confess sins to one another and pray for each other so you may be healed
16 Confess your offenses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The insistent prayer of a righteous person is powerfully effective.
if we walk in the light we have fellowship with one another
7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.
1 Dare any of you, having a matter against his neighbor, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints?
2 Don’t you know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters?
3 Don’t you know that we will judge angels? How much more, things that pertain to this life?
4 If then, you have to judge things pertaining to this life, do you set them to judge who are of no account in the assembly?
5 I say this to move you to shame. Isn’t there even one wise man among you who would be able to decide between his brothers?
6 But brother goes to law with brother, and that before unbelievers!
7 Therefore it is already altogether a defect in you, that you have lawsuits one with another. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded?
8 No, but you yourselves do wrong, and defraud, and that against your brothers.
9 Or don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s Kingdom? Don’t be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexuals,
10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor extortionists, will inherit God’s Kingdom.
11 Such were some of you, but you were washed. But you were sanctified. But you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and in the Spirit of our God.
12 “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are expedient. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be brought under the power of anything.
13 “Foods for the belly, and the belly for foods,” but God will bring to nothing both it and them. But the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.
14 Now God raised up the Lord, and will also raise us up by his power.
15 Don’t you know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be!
16 Or don’t you know that he who is joined to a prostitute is one body? For, “The two”, he says, “will become one flesh.”
17 But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.
18 Flee sexual immorality! “Every sin that a man does is outside the body,” but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.
19 Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,
20 for you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
2 Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God.
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
Pastor Gary opened with a Greek word, "alelon," that sits behind every "one another" command in the New Testament, and walked the congregation through what that web of mutual obligation looks like in practice. The sermon then moved into Ephesians 4:17 through 5:2 to show how Paul roots all of those commands in the new self that believers have already put on in Christ.
What was said
The sermon started with a single observation: the thing that will make outsiders recognize followers of Jesus is not doctrine or morality in the abstract, but love for one another. Pastor Gary quoted Jesus directly, "by this all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another," and said plainly that this is not hard to understand. It is, however, hard to do. He borrowed a line from C. S. Lewis to name why: "to love at all is to be vulnerable," and a heart that refuses vulnerability will not break, but it will become "unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."
Before reaching the Ephesians text, Pastor Gary moved through the full list of reciprocal "one another" commands from across the New Testament, treating them like a pre-flight check before landing on the main passage. The list ran from accepting and admonishing, through bearing burdens, building up, caring, comforting, confessing, and on through serving, spurring, and submitting. He framed these as lab work, not classroom work. Knowing the commands well is one thing; the church gathered together is the place where they get tested.
He made a point of saying that hermits, however sincere, cannot keep these commands. Papa Denny, a pastor he mentioned from his family's circle, used to say that love requires an object, and "love one another" requires it going in both directions. Isolation, whether chosen for spiritual reasons or out of exhaustion with people, cuts a person off from the very thing the New Testament assumes: a body of believers close enough to confess to, pray for, and spur each other on.
The Ephesians passage itself, 4:17 through 5:2, gave the theological frame for all of that. Paul's argument, as Pastor Gary traced it, is that believers used to walk in the futility of a darkened mind, but they have learned Christ. That learning means stripping off the old self and putting on a new one, created in righteousness and holiness. The practical outworking then follows: speak truth because you are parts of the same body, be angry without sinning, let no unwholesome word out unless it builds up, remove bitterness and slander, and be kind, compassionate, and forgiving toward one another because God in Christ has forgiven you.
Pastor Gary paused at the command to be angry without sinning to pray briefly out loud, asking God's help for moments when anger at injustice stops short and never moves toward the next right action. He treated the command not as permission to vent but as an acknowledgment that anger is real, and that the danger is in letting it linger or handing it to "the divider."
The final move in the passage, "be imitators of God as dearly beloved children, and walk in love just as Christ loved you," was read as both a summary and a foundation. Pastor Gary noted that you cannot imitate someone you do not spend time with. The imitation flows from the relationship, not the other way around.
He closed with a prayer from the 12-step tradition called the set-aside prayer, which asks God to help a person set aside everything they think they know about God, themselves, other people, and their own recovery, so that they might experience all of those things freshly. He offered it as a way of describing what it looks like to get unstuck when the one-another commands feel impossible. The benediction was drawn from Romans 15: "may the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow after Christ Jesus."
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages
in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
Jeremy mentioned that being in the middle of God's creation made him want to exhale and remember 'it's not about me.' When has something outside of yourself helped you remember that there's a larger story going on?
The sermon listed many 'one another' commands from the New Testament, and the point was made that these are not hard to understand but they are hard to do. Which of those commands do you find hardest to actually live out, and why?
Speaker 1Everybody, I'm used to listening to listening for Carl's voice when he tells us it's time to start, but I've got a mic and he does it today. So would you stand with us? We're gonna sing together. Jeremy and Jennifer, Diebler, Hutch, and Sadie are here with us today. We're gonna praise the Lord together, maybe hear more later, but let's sing them in.
How about that? Let's sing people in from the vestibule up there.
Speaker 3Morning, everybody. Good to be with you this morning. I'm Jeremy. That's Jennifer. She's older than me.
It's our son, Hutch, on piano, and you know our rhythm section well. I really like this because that's sort of that's the wall of shame over there. You can see everyone coming in late. Oh, you sound amazing.
Speaker 2Worship your holy name. One last time, yeah, I will worship your holy name. I see the king of glory coming on the clouds with fire. And the whole earth shakes. The whole earth shakes.
I see his love and Hang on
Speaker 3one second.
Speaker 2Did I start the wrong song? Okay. I think there was I thought that was
Speaker 3supposed to do. Oh, there
Speaker 2was one then talking?
Speaker 3Yeah. You were supposed to talk after the first one, weren't you? Oh, crap. I'm sorry. Because he and I were looking at each other, and I'm thinking somebody did something wrong, and I'm pretty sure it's not the slides guy.
So what we can do is we can just pretend that didn't happen. Yeah. Can we? Well, you know, we'll get it right in the next one. Alright.
You're supposed to
Speaker 1Alright. Y'all can have a seat. Got a few just a few announcements, and I might skip some of those. Awana. Is it happening, Carl?
No. No Awana tomorrow night. No Awana tomorrow night. Congregational meeting is happening next week between services, ten to eleven next week. We'll go and, go through this.
It's a normal time of year to do a congregational meeting. We have, volunteers that will be recognized. And actually, we'll probably do that in church and then, mention it during the meeting. We will discuss and vote on the budget and discuss and vote on Tim Williams coming on to the Board of Trustees and Berkley Johnston coming on to the Elder Board. So that is congregational meeting next week.
We do need volunteers still for the connect hour normally between services and today even. There will be ten to eleven down there. Good place to gather with folks from this service and the next service, so we don't become two different churches. Connect hour down the hall. If you'd like to set up the food for that, get involved with that, you can talk to Addy right there.
690-3892 is her. Sisters Saved by Grace Bible Study is, meeting on Thursday evenings at six in the Fellowship Hall. It's great. They're just starting a study on creation. They'll have dinner at six p.
M. Study to follow. You can call the church if you have any other questions about that. Jackson Hole Women's Community Bible Study will be happening here January 17 through February 21, 10AM to noon right here in this room in the sanctuary. Were gonna do it down the hall, it looks like we're gonna be too many people, so we'll have it in here.
That first be 10AM to noon, the seventeenth through the February 21. We moved the membership class that normally is on the third Sunday of each month because our congregational meeting is that Sunday between services, we moved it. If you would like to know more about membership or just want a chance to talk back instead of just hearing one of us, right, it would be good. Membership class, February 28, Gary Geek will be doing that in my office between services. And I think that's it.
Does anybody else have an announcement I missed, Forgot? Suggestions? Questions? Anything? Good.
Would you stand with us? And we really will. We'll sing Hosanna again. We gave you a little practice run and we're going to start with that. My bad.
No problem. There is grace And mercy.
Speaker 3I see the king. Oh, wait. Now your second verse, aren't you?
Speaker 2You wanna start second?
Speaker 3Let's start second verse. No. No. No. No.
Back up. Back up. No. The one you had was better.
Speaker 2The generation.
Speaker 3The generation one. Let's start on that one.
Speaker 2Hey. I don't need the comments. Just
Speaker 3it's not helping.
Speaker 2I think you need
Speaker 3You need to buy a lotto ticket today. All kinds of stuff's happening that has never happened.
Speaker 2That was so awesome. He's your buddy.
Speaker 3It. He did add to it. Okay. So Jennifer and me have been touring together playing music since we were first married. That is almost twenty eight years ago now.
I'm from Pennsylvania. She's from Saint Louis. We met at a Rich Mullins concert, and she joined the band I was already in called FFH, Far From Home, and we've traveled all over the country. And when we moved to California back in '14. Mid two thousand yeah.
2014. When we moved to California, we had finally kinda stopped and just shut it down for a while. And, you know, we had traveled so much, so often, two hundred days a year on a tour bus. When he was actually six weeks old, we left for a 66 city tour. It was crazy.
Speaker 2So we
Speaker 3moved to Orange County and finally had a chance to kinda exhale. And I told the kids, I said, you know, wish I had one of those little maps, you know, where you could put a pin in every place you've been except I wanna do it with every place I've played music. And they bought me one for Father's Day, and Sadie Claire and me, we got the pushpins out, and I we put a pin in every single place that I had every ever played music in the country. And I realized that day that I was missing two spots, Vermont. And if you ever been to Vermont, you know why, because there's no people there.
But, anyways, last week, we played in Vermont. I could put that pin in my map. And the other place, I had never set foot in Jackson, Wyoming. Yeah. That's true.
I'd never played music in the state. And I can lay down and die because here we go. We did it. We did it. The whole 50.
It doesn't feel any different. No. But it's so good to be here with you. I know that you hear this all the time, but, oh my gosh. It is just stunning here.
Yeah. Woke up to a new coating of snow and, got to drive in it. It was amazing. But there is something different about being so small underneath God's huge creation. For me, it makes me exhale.
I remember again, okay. It's not about me. Right? There's a whole other larger story going on. Take a minute.
Breathe deep the dry air. Let your shoulders relax a little bit. Your body's here. May as well let the rest of you show up too. Right?
Speaker 2Will not fear the storm. My help is on the way. My help is on the way. Oh, God, he will not delay, my refuge and strength always. I will not fear his promise is true.
My God will come through always, always. I will not fear the storm. My help is on the way. My always. Oh, this is the best part.
I lift my eyes. I lift my eyes up. My help comes from the Lord.
Speaker 3Y'all sound great.
Speaker 2You sing it, you got it now. I lift my eyes up. My help comes from the Lord. I lift I lift I lift my
Speaker 1eyes
Speaker 2I'll sound so good I'll change my mind one more time. Running after. It's running after me. Your goodness is running after. It's running after me.
With my life laid down, I surrender
Speaker 1Amen. Y'all can have a seat. I wanna invite the ushers to come forward and I'll just pray. Y'all pray along with me. Lord God almighty, I thank you for for that drive in this morning, for that blanket of snow that Jeremy mentioned.
I thank you for bringing these folks who are far from home to all these other folks who are far from home but have made this place their home. Thank you, Lord, that you are working not just from the West to the rest, but you're working from every soul that has been saved to everyone who has not yet tasted of your goodness or heard of the goodness of God. Lord God Almighty, would you use us? Would you use us, Lord, in a way that is meaningful? Would you help us help out in human suffering, but would you help us beyond that, Lord, to eternity.
Would you give us, Lord, what it takes to show your love, to others? In Jesus' name, I ask your blessing on this offering, Lord, for everything that's placed in the plates that actually is paper checks or whatever it is that goes in there, Lord. I'm talking about everything that metaphorically goes in those plates. Every conversation, the meditations of our heart. When we wake up in the morning and we have breath in our lungs, we remember you gave us that breath, Lord.
I pray that every breath we breathe out would be in your praise, would would do good for the kingdom. Lord, would you do your will among us in your way? Surprise us, Lord. Amen.
Speaker 2One of these days I'm gonna do all the things that I've never done. I'm gonna finish all the races that I've run but I've never won. And I'm gonna see a million faces recognize everyone.
Speaker 3This is old. Anybody heard this before?
Speaker 2Dancy, you must have been, like, eight. One of these days I finally see just what became of me on the day that I believed. When you took myself from me, I believe I will see what it would have been if you hadn't saved me. One of these days I love this party. One of these days I'm everything that I never knew before.
All this and more. Come on Ray. One of these days will finally be in a place where there's no more need, no more pain, and no more grief, no more foolish disbelief. Oh, the joy there will be when at last we finally see. One of these days.
One of these days.
Speaker 1Amen. I told him why I play the bass is because I don't wanna sit on that front row and wait to preach. I get so nervous sitting there. I was alright. I was a decent basketball player, not a great foul throw shooter, decent ball player.
I like to be in the mix like this all the time, and then when you get fouled and they put you on the line, and then everybody's looking at you. And then a technical foul shot where everybody's off of the court except for you. Oh, you know, that's kinda like what preaching is. That's terrible. But I do play the bass so I don't get nervous.
This is the first word of the day's sermon. I think it's the only Greek word I'm gonna use today. That word is pronounced like this, alelon. What does that sound like? All alone.
Alelon. Alelon. It comes up a lot in the New Testament in its various forms, but is what we're gonna be talking through today. I have a text that's from Ephesians four and the first part of chapter five, which I will get to. I think it says that.
The text will be Ephesians four seventeen to five two. If you are the nervous type that thinks we won't get there, you can turn in your Bible and read it. In any English translation, it's a good translation. They're slightly different here and there, but it's just emphasis related. Most of the scripture I'm going be using today is from NIV, but the NASB when we get to the end is my norm.
I have a couple of other little tidbits, but first, I want to go through these a la lon passages to set up the Ephesians four passage. Is that alright? I've got a couple of things. When when you're preaching in front of seminary professors, that nervousness that I was just talking about amplifies greatly, okay? Because they all know everything.
They're the teachers. They're the ones who know. Even when I'm in front of a group that I don't really know, I get nervous. Right? Even though I know I know the word, it still makes me nervous.
Well, in seminary, they give me a chance to preach. I would go places in scripture that are not hard to understand, but they're hard to do. So I will say ahead of time today, this is not hard to understand. It is hard to do. Christian community is not always easy.
So how many of you all had a chemistry class? Did you like chemistry class? Few of you did. Did you like class better or lab better? Lab.
How many of you all had auto shop? I had auto shop. I had auto shop for two hours a day my whole senior year. I loved it. The one thing I didn't love about it is when we came in, if somebody was acting up and trust me, auto shop class, are a lot of people acting up.
If they were acting up and the professor saw that, he'd say, listen, keep that up. We're going be in the books. We don't want to study about ratchets. We don't want to study about sockets. We want to get in there and turn the ratchet.
Turn the socket. Figure out how to make it work. Right? So church, we can be in this book and know it really, really, really well, but this is the lab. Right?
And not just this, but the other churches in town, and to the ends of the earth, and even well, let's just go on. Let's let the text talk. Jesus said this, by this all people will know that you are my disciples. By this now, if you challenge somebody to read the New Testament or if you challenge to read the book of John or the one of the gospels and they read it, I guarantee you they'll come in a way loving Jesus. I guarantee it.
I don't know anybody who has ever read it that didn't think, wow. That's the main character, and he's great, and I agree with him. Right? So if people agree with Christ and they tend to think he's on my side and I love him, but they don't like Christians, Maybe we're not doing this. Maybe.
Jesus said, by this all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. So that's loving one another is not hard to understand. It is, though, hard to do. Right? So all alone.
All alone. We are not all alone. We are dealing with a lot of people. This is a quote from C. S.
Lewis. It speaks a little bit to the difficulty of loving and loving well because to love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you wanna make sure of keeping it intact, you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries.
Can I get a witness? Avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your own selfishness. But in that casket, safe and dark and motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken, but it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable to love is to be vulnerable.
So Clyde Staples Lewis, the four loves. So I already did that. Here we go. So as a precursor to the passage, I these are called the reciprocal commands because when you see all alone, it's each other. It's sort of like the MCS you're drawing where the hands are drawing the hands.
One of the hands is drawing the other hand. You know what I'm talking about. It's a reciprocal command. We've covered all of these together in the past twelve years. I looked to see if there were any more, and I didn't see any more in the New Testament we haven't covered.
Except one another. Pay no attention to that extra little box about admonishing one another. Accept one another, alphabetically as first. Accept one another, then just as Christ accepted you in order to bring praise to God. Brothers and sisters, that's why we call ourselves brothers and sisters.
Accept one another then just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. So Jesus says that all people will know that we're his disciples if we love one another. And this says, if we will be accepting to one another, it'll bring praise to God. Admonish one another. Admonish one another.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another. Not just me teaching y'all, not just me admonishing y'all, but teaching and admonishing one another. That's why we try we try to get small groups growing. And that's why we should have small groups of friends. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, needs to be in there, as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom.
And as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God, Colossians three. Bear one another's burdens. Carry or bear one another's burdens, and in this way, you will fulfill the law of Christ. Wow. Letting all know that you're Christ's disciples, bringing praise to God, and fulfilling the law of Christ at stake in these commands.
Build one another up. Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to the building one another up, mutual edification. It is building up both ways. Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and mutual edification, Romans 14. Care for one another.
Care for one another from first Corinthians 12. Oh, there are so many different parts of this body. We're all members of the body. There's not one part that's more important than the other. We all are so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.
Care for one another. Comfort one another. Therefore, comfort one another with these words. That's in a book that Paul was writing to the Thessalonians. He didn't mention sin in the whole first book of Thessalonians.
He didn't mention sin in the second one. It wasn't because they were sinning, and he was trying to exhort or admonish or challenge them. He was just clearing up a few things that looks like they might have misunderstood. So comfort one another with these words. One of them was, you're not gonna miss the rapture, people.
Okay? You're not gonna miss it. You might have not made a decision against it, but it's gonna be something that everybody knows when it is. Okay? Comfort one another with these words.
Confess to one another. Oh, there's that vulnerability. Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. Devote yourselves to one another.
Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. And this is in that Magnus opus that Paul writes to Rome before he ever went there. He knows that this is the heart of the gospel. This is in the application section 12 through 16 in Romans is how to do it in the lab of community. Be devoted to one another is one of the matters of first importance.
Renew your minds up in the top. That's individually and corporately, but be devoted to one another is reciprocal. Romans twelve ten. This is the ESV. Love one another with brotherly affection.
And do you immediately think of sibling rivalry when you hear brotherly affection? It should be a closeness that's familial among believers. Encourage one another. I've mentioned this before every time I mention it or every time I read it in the Bible. I can be reading Thessalonians through prepping for something, and when I hit this verse, I immediately switch over into Pascal's three year old voice because this was her first memory verse taught by miss Meg, her first little preschool teacher.
She went a couple days a week. And miss Meg, rather than going to John three sixteen or elsewhere, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, the very first memory verse that she had was, therefore, encourage one another and build each other up. Right? It's so sweet. And I love that Paul says, just as in fact you're doing.
He doesn't mention sin to the Thessalonians. He doesn't mention that they're not unified or that they're arguing with each other. He says, encourage one another and build each other up just as you're already doing. That's a pat on the back from old Paul. Right?
He's not as mean as y'all think he is. Fellowship with one another. If we walk in the light, this is John, the beloved disciple. If we are walking in the light just as he is in the light, then we have fellowship with one another. It should be the normal course that we do fellowship with one another.
Table fellowship in particular is really important in the New Testament. Forgive one another. Be kind and compassionate to one another. Forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you. That's in the text.
We'll hit it later on in the sermon. But forgiving one another is really, really important. If you go back to the Lord's Prayer, the Sermon on the Mount, and you hear Jesus teaching his disciples to pray, it is forgive us our trespasses. How? As we forgive those who trespass against us.
Oh. Do we really wanna tie our forgiveness by God to our forgiveness of other people? Lord, may it be so. May I be just as forgiving just as you forgave me in Christ. May it be so.
Greet one another. Oh, greet one another with a holy kiss. That's fun. Yeah. Greet one another warmly.
I started in my head. I said, you know, it's like they do in Europe, like the French. And then I thought, not a French kiss, sorry. I have a little story. There's a tip.
There's a very small denomination called the Apostolic Christian Church, and they are somewhat like Mennonite, maybe somewhat like Amish to your understanding. They have a little head covering that they wear. The ladies wear a barrette that's about this big. They usually wear denim skirts, ladies do. Guys, getting together is an interesting thing when you get together with these apostolic Christians.
It's a Midwestern denomination. There are 94 of these churches worldwide. A lot of those churches sent people when we were missionaries in Mexico. And they travel quite a bit. And Tanya, when she was out at the barge, working the barge, through the the end gate, you know, she'd see them, and she recognized the denim skirt.
She recognized the little things she knew they were AC. She had a couple of, hey, which one of the AC churches are you in? And there are all these little places around Illinois and Indiana. And they invited us up after they had been down to Mexico on several teams. They invited us up to Peoria to come and speak.
Not what we did at the time, but we went anyway. And when we got up there, I had a brother pull me aside, he said, listen. We greet each other with the holy kiss. I was like, okay. He said, you've got a beard, so you probably won't get any of this because you've got a beard.
We don't wear beards, you know that. So alright. So he said, but what I want you to do just to be sure James, can you come up here? Hey. I won't embarrass you.
Come on. I won't yes. Sorry about that. He said, when you meet a when you meet one of our brothers, when you meet one of our guys, he said, do it like this. He said, stand about that far away and stiff arm him.
Instead of doing this, he says, do this and he'll know. He's not AC, I don't have to kiss him. Thank you, James. I appreciate it. Sorry about that.
Be warmly receptive of each other. And if I had to describe first b when we first got here and still now, I still think this is a pretty warm and receptive fellowship. Greet each other. Greet each other. Be honest with one another.
Do not lie to each other. Do not lie to each other. Be honest with one another. I I can say be honest with yourself, but this is reciprocal. Do not lie to each other.
Since you've taken off your old self with all of its practices, Colossians three is so rich and so good about the things that we ought to take off like a dirty garment, and the things that we should put on like a clean one. Do not lie to each other. Be honest with each other. Honor one another above yourselves. Honor one another.
So we saw 10A a few minutes ago from the ESV and saw it from the NIV also, but honor one another above yourselves. I often will say, and this is not a good thing when I say it. I often say, it sounds like they're trying to out Christian one another. When you're in a dispute with another believer, and you've cherry picked the text, and they've cherry picked the text, and then you go at it, you're trying to out Christian one another. This is not what I'm talking about.
Okay? The ESB says outdo one another, how? In showing honor. Considering them as above. Right?
That's an interesting way of looking at things for somebody that you can't spend because of how to act. Outdo one another in showing honor. Hospitality. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. I love that Peter adds that.
Offer hospitality to one another. Give them a place. Give them a place. Treat them well. Considering that first Peter was written to a scattered church, considering that a lot of these people had been displaced from their homes.
Be hospitable to one another without grumbling.
Speaker 2I know
Speaker 1a lot of y'all are housing people right now because of the housing situation we are living in, And I know that you've made offers for other people. I know some of you made offers last night for our for our worship band to come in. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Be kind to one another. This is in the text today too.
Be kind and compassionate to one another. Forgiving each other just as in Christ, God forgave you. Love one another. I could pick about 10 different places where it says this, but Romans 13 popped to mind first. This is it.
Let no debt remain outstanding except the continuing debt to love one another. You're never gonna get over this one. You just need to keep on loving one another. Jesus already mentioned, if you have love for one another, all will know that you're my disciples. Be like minded.
This one I could have taken from Philippians two. Is there any comfort in love? Is there? Is there any consolation in Christ, knowing Christ? Then make my joy complete, Paul says, by being like minded.
May the God who gives endurance this is a blessing in Romans towards the end. May the God who gives endurance and encouragement do you need encouragement? Are some of you walking in deep mud every day, and it feels like you will not make it to the end of this season? Then Paul's blessing, God's blessing for you is may the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity, that's like mindedness, among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus. And Paul has told various groups that, yes, I would like for you to follow me, but only follow me as I follow Christ.
So he always brings it back to that. May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity, like mindedness, among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus. Pray for one another. Oh, the confession verse from James is not just about confessing, not just about being vulnerable, not just about being real and open. It goes beyond it.
It says, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other. There's a study started up this week, little men's study. Bring a brown bag. We're not fixing anything. We're not putting tableclothes on.
We're not doing anything except for showing up at about 11:50 on Thursdays. And the goal of it is to be with one another, vulnerable with one another, and pray for each other. We also are studying the book of James, which makes sense that that would be the it's good, but it should be our life every day all the time. Be particular. Be distinguishing, but you need to have some brothers and sisters around you that you can be confessing your sins to and praying for each other so that you may be made whole, healed.
The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. Serve one another. You, my brothers and sisters, y'all were called to be free in Galatians five. Y'all were called to be free, but don't use that freedom to indulge the sinful nature. Yes, you are free in Christ, but there are still things that are bad for you.
There are still things that are hurtful for you. But how do you deal with it? Be serving one another in love. Be serving one another in love. Spur one another on.
Or alphabetically, almost exactly the same place as stir one another up into love and good works. This translation from Hebrews ten twenty four says, and let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds. Amen. I think that's my maybe not. I think it's my favorite passage in the New Testament.
Hebrews ten nineteen through 25. Let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds and submit to one another. There are places where there are rules for Christian households, and it's wives and husbands, and children, and employees and employers, or slaves and masters. And at the top of that list in Ephesians, this is how it starts off. It says, y'all be submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Then it goes into husbands and wives. But it says this at the top of that, kinda rules the passage. Be submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. I think that's the last one alphabetically. There is one more.
I I tried to frame them all in the in the positive instead of the negative. There are a couple of them that are do nots. One of them is do not sue one another. Like, that's in there, one Corinthians six. Sometimes it comes down to it, but try to stay away from that.
What else do we have to say? Papa Denny. I told Jeremy and Jennifer this morning that I had a cousin that was obsessed with FFH, particularly one song, Big Fish. He was obsessed with it. He was an acapella choir guy.
He met his wife in acapella choir. His parents met in acapella choir. Love, love, love this stuff. Well, his grandfather, Papa Denny, was a pastor, one of the first pastors that I knew. And one of his favorite things to say is, Hermits, hermits, who kept the New Testament, there were good things about the hermits, hermits cannot do the commands that have been given reciprocally.
Right? They can't do it. They're all by themselves. Some of them standing up literally on top of a pedestal. They're all by themselves.
They don't have a body of believers around them. They're sitting and have raised themselves up, in some cases, on a pedestal. Others are just, I'm tired of the world. Lord, I don't want have anything to do with the world, and they isolate themselves. Papa Denny's point was love requires an object, and love one another requires it going both directions.
Right? So I think we're up to the passage. Here we are. So I say this, and affirm in the Lord that y'all are no longer to walk as the Gentiles also walk. You don't do things the way the world does them.
You have a different understanding now. Your eyes have been opened. So I say this, and I affirm this in the Lord, no doubt about it, that you are to no longer walk just like everybody else walks, in the futility of their minds, being darkened in their understanding and excluded from the life of God because of ignorance. It's just ignorance. They just don't know.
Or because of the hardness of their heart. This is the warning, believers. You can still have a hard heart. You could still not do those commands. You could still pull back like a hermit away from it.
He's saying don't act like that. They haven't become calloused. They've given themselves up to indecent behavior for every practice of every kind of impurity and greediness. But you didn't learn about Christ in this way. That wasn't what drew you to God.
You had hit the end of your self. You didn't learn Christ in this way. If indeed you've heard and you've been taught in Christ just as truth is in Jesus, the real deal, that in reference to your former way of life, you're to rid yourselves of that old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lust of deceit. That's the way the world operates, and that's why it seems so hopeless. And that you are to be renewed in the spirit of your minds.
Romans twelve two also says the same thing. You are to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, just like Colossians three says. Put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. The new self, the new creation is able by the spirit of God to walk in righteousness and holiness. Therefore, Paul says, be ridding yourselves, all of you, of falsehood.
Don't lie to one another. Another. Speak truth each of you with his neighbor. That's literally, this is NASB, but it's don't lie to one another. Because we're parts of one another.
We're parts of the same body. We need to be communicating with one another. If your brain is communicating the wrong signals to another part of your body, that's called illness, sickness, right? If you don't feel pain or you feel it referred in a different place, that's not good for you. Be speaking the truth in love.
Be angry. Thank you, Lord. Good gracious. I'll just stop right there. No.
Don't stop right there. Be angry, and yet don't sin. Be angry. Take the critical pause. The deep breath.
Think about it. Consider it. That makes me angry. I know that feeling. But don't sin and do something about it.
Don't let the sun go down on your anger. Don't let it linger. Don't move to Alaska so it stays dark for months at a time, right? Or yeah. And don't give the devil an opportunity.
Can I stop and pray for just a second? Lord, help us. Lord, help us when we hit anger and we stop there. When we see injustice, really, and we stop right there. And we're not willing to go further and do the right thing, the next right thing, but not act out in anger.
Lord, forgive us. Amen. Don't give the devil an opportunity. He's a divider. The one who steals must steal no longer.
That's pretty straightforward. You don't have to know the Greek on that one. Quit it. But rather, he must labor. Work is important.
Producing with his own hands what is good so that he'll have something to share with the one who has need. It's hard to be hospitable when you're hospitable. Hospitable when you're flat broke. But isn't it amazing when you can say yes to help somebody out? It is.
Let no unwholesome word come out of your mouth. Oh, mamas all around the world. Right? I mentioned this a couple weeks ago. If you don't have anything nice to say, you don't say anything at all.
But I said, don't live a silent life of a hermit either. You got to figure out how to hold on to and process through. Jesus had an answer. Let no unwholesome word come out of your mouth. But if there's any good word for building up edification according to the need of the moment, you be saying that so that it'll give grace to those who hear.
It'll give unmerited favor to the people who are listening. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Don't be grieving the spirit. It grieves the spirit when you don't listen to the still, small voice. Don't grieve the spirit.
All bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and slander must be removed from along all malice. I I actually defined most of those last week, but you know what they are. Bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, busy bodiness, and slander must be removed from you along with all malice. And here is that reciprocal command we've hit twice already in our alphabet. Be kind to one another and compassionate.
Feel the same feelings, empathetic, compassionate. Be kind to one another and compassionate, and be forgiving each other just as God in Christ has also forgiven you. We go straight on into the fifth chapter right there, and it says, therefore be imitators of God. I said it in this service two weeks ago. I didn't say it in the second service.
I get it's new for them. But I told you all about how my dad stands like this, and from being around him and my grandfather who stood like this. I stand like this. If I'm just standing, I stand like this. That's weird.
But that's the way I do. If I'm just standing, waiting on something, here we are. Standing at the foul line, waiting to shoot the free throw, here I am. You know? But I got that because I spent a lot of time with him.
If you're going to be an imitator of God, you need to be spending a lot of time with him. You can't do it any other way. You need to rightly judge and then be willing to act on that judgment. Be imitators of God as dearly beloved children. Amen.
Be imitators of God as dearly beloved children. You know why, Christians? Because you are dearly beloved children, and you need to imitate God because of that. And it says, be walking in love. It's progressive action.
Be walking in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us. That's nice. Because if you're reading that in English and you just see you, you think, he did it for me. Well, did it for me, but he also did it for everyone else who have ever put their faith in him. Be walking in love just as Christ also loved y'all and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.
That's the last slide, I think. I have one thing that I hit this week that I that I want to share, but I'm going invite the band back up. I think that when we get stuck, it's hard to get unstuck. Right? And part of getting unstuck, I I had somebody call me a few couple weeks ago now who asked me for help.
Praise God. He's a brother in Christ, and he's struggling. He said, I wanna get sober. That was his deal. And I have a network of people that I know pretty well that I can call upon for resources.
And I was talking to a friend who's on his way home from a meeting, and he said he said, man, I had a prayer tonight that somebody prayed. It's written down. It's part of the 12 step. Dude, rock my world. And it's called the set aside prayer.
And I I want y'all can stand up. We're gonna sing all this. Lord, I need you. The whole point is I started with Christ. He said, if you'll be doing this, loving one another, everybody will know that you're my disciples.
And then I ended with it's gotta be about Christ who was the pleasant aroma before God. But I think when we get stuck, what we need is to get unstuck is to unlearn some of the stuff we've learned. Right? So the set aside prayer I'll share and then we'll sing. Because I think that for God to do this, we need this.
It says, God, today, help me set aside everything I think I know about you. Help me set aside everything I think I know about myself. The righteous one. No. Everything I think I know about myself.
Let me set aside everything I think I know about other people, and let me set aside everything I think I know about my own recovery, wholeness, so that I may have an open mind, and so that I may experience anew all of these things. Please help me see the truth. Amen. Amen. Amen.
From Romans 15, is this a benediction today. May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity, that is like mindedness among yourselves as you follow after Christ Jesus. Lord, help us. Amen.
