Romans 12. We take a book at a time, going through it a verse at a time. It's good to have Jordan with us last week. It's funny. He calls me. He goes, oh, my kids left their coats there. Are you still around? I'm like, well, we decided we'd meet after we both had lunch and came back by and we'd get their coats. He goes, oh, they'd forget their heads if they weren't attached and all that stuff. And then I came in here Tuesday and found his Bible. And I tell you, he's like, man, those kids are just like me. So I'm like, yeah. So it's like an apple doesn't fall far. So it was good to have Jordan, though, just being connected with him. But Romans 12. Before we jump back in, because we had that break with Jordan in here, I want to do a little recap. And it's not just a time filler. I want us to be where it is. And so Paul spends the first part of Romans making sure that we are soundly saved. He goes, are you soundly saved? He takes us through all this to make us examine ourselves and to see where we are, understanding how lost that we were. You know, and how God had reached out to us, how much we were against God. We were His enemies. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. None are righteous. No, not one. You know, lest we think there's something good within us. How guilty we are. You know, He puts the sentence, you know, the verdict against us. He builds the case. You are guilty, you know, that is there. And how we are without excuse, that we are held accountable. God has made it clear we understand these things, Romans 1 says. He talks about the gift of salvation purchased for us by Jesus Christ. A gift purchased for us. Not something that you've earned or deserved. It's something that God freely gives us. Then he talks about the power that is behind us. Now that you've been thoroughly lost, now that you're soundly saved, who are you in Christ? Are you just this weak, mousy person that's alone in the world? No, we have power behind us. If God is for us, who can be against us, he says. That should be the crescendo verse of the Bible, right? If you're repentant of your sins and you have trusted Christ as your Savior, God is with you. Who could be against us in that? Nothing can separate us from the love of God. There's nothing that the enemy could do that would separate us, that would drive us apart, that would make us lose our salvation, that could keep us from him. That's to remove our fear of death. That's to remove that threat from the enemy. He's like, well, I'll just kill you, and you're like, send me home with my Lord and serve him. That's why the point is to be absolute body, to be present with the Lord. I get a bit big together with him. We are rescued. We were enemies and we were destined for hell, but now our home is with heaven. And so that's why it takes that sting of death away, he tells us in Corinthians. He goes on and says, no height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nothing can separate us. And he goes through a whole supernatural list there and says, nothing can take that away from you. It is yours. And that was like building a force field around us, right? It was like letting you know the insurance plan that you have, like you were cared for. It's the helmet of salvation that I have protected the most vital part of my being, my soul. And then he jumps to Romans 12. He has a couple chapters where he worries about Israel, what's he's doing with them. He tells us about that. Then we get to chapter 12 and he starts, I beseech you, or in our language, I beg you. I beg you, brethren, present your body, present yourself, present your life, present you as a living sacrifice. Not a dead sacrifice. Not something that I come to you at the end and now my life is over and I give it to you. But an offer to God of your life. A living sacrifice. Use me. while I can move around, while I still have breath, while I have being, while I can still think, while I can still do something for the cause of Christ. Give yourself over to God as a living sacrifice, an instrument for Him to use, a weapon in His hands. It was like, ah, an arrow in His arsenal, you know, where to be that? The church, God should have such resources in us, right? But Paul finds himself having to beg us to do this. He says it's just a reasonable offer. Christ gave His life for us. Should we not then in turn give our life back to Him? He saved us. It's His. It's reasonable service. So we're offering it back. So then he gives us our kind of a base. All right, so now we're thoroughly lost. We're soundly saved. We know that nothing can separate us from the love of God. He is now telling us it's our reasonable service to serve him. So what's some of the areas in which we can serve? And so that's where he starts kind of going through this base. He tells us how to operate. And he starts with one, be ye transformed. The old you, do away with them. Now it's a transformation process. Is it instant all at once? Sometimes for some people. A lot of us are stubborn, bullheaded, and the old habits died hard. You know, so it takes time as he transforms us. It's a metamorphosis. You know, it's not like the guy changing into Wolfman all at once. You know, it is a slower, sometimes a slower process of us there, but we're being transformed. How do we do that? He says the next thing, renew your mind. You need to start thinking different. I don't know about you, but I have that wrestle. I can remember specifically having that wrestle. I remember specifically running through the woods, jumping on a rock. I had rocks. I'm on this big rock, and I'm pounding on it, looking at it. I'm thinking, how old is this? Millions of years old? And then I have to wrestle and transform my mind and renew my mind. I think, no, it's not a million years old. That's what the world says. What does God say? He created it around 6,000 years ago, we think, from how we can take the genealogies and put it all down. And so I had to wrestle and give God back that portion of my mind after 12 years of this indoctrination that had been programmed into me. I had to fight for that back, and I still have to wrestle and fight for it. Yes, we have to renew our mind how we think about things. And as I learn new things, I have to then apply that. How do I think about that? How do I apply that in the life and the things that are coming along? You are no longer your own. You've been bought with a price, right? So if I have surrendered myself to his service, I need to surrender myself to his service. I love reading stories and watching movies about soldiers, given their all. Took my kids down when they dedicated the Medal of Valor on the canal. These guys, most of them are rewarded that medal after they're dead. because they're the ones that would like dive on the grenade. The grenade comes into the camp, everybody's standing there, this guy running, jump on it. Sacrificing himself to save the rest of them. The guys that we saw that day, it was just kind of neat to try and imagine these 80-year-olds, 70-year-olds, that these are the guys that were storming a pillbox or a machine gun, and they're throwing grenades at them, and they're catching them and throwing them back. You know, that kind of stuff. These guys survived those things, they did heroic efforts, and they were there. And it's like, that's true heroes. They'd surrender their life, though, like, I hope I can catch it and throw it back. But if not, I'm putting myself in harm's way to spare my brethren for my country. And we stand here today and enjoy those freedoms. And so he calls us out to an elite group. We are the called out ones. We are the ecclesia. We are the church. A many-membered group. We have offices all around the state, the country, the world, right? You know, kind of think of it that way. We have varying talents and varying skills that make us a whole unit. He doesn't have much redundancy within the church. That's why each and every one of us is important. That's why it's important for all of us to be here, because we all bring something different and unique to this. The common love of Christ, for sure. The different skills, different talents, different abilities. That's what makes us a whole unit. We have these gifts, and then he goes down through chapter 12, and he starts listing them. You get the prophecy, you know, as far as in telling us what God has said prophetically, and then at some point in time, he gave them actual prophecy where they could tell the future. It talks about ministry, the gift of ministry, people to minister one to another. The gift of teaching, where people have learned information and they take that information and they give it to others to instruct them and inform them and bring them up and along. And that way, exhortation, where we encourage one another in our different gifts, encourage one another in the faith, encourage one another in Christ, and to not give up. Sometimes you just need that. And I think about every one of us in here saw the, is it Facing the Giants, you know, with the guy where he has the other player on his back and he's blindfolded and he's doing the crawl, you know, and the longest he'd ever gone was 20 yards or something like that. And he's like, two more feet, you can do it! You know, remember this scene I'm talking about where he just keeps going? And he gets done, I can't do it anymore, coach, but that, with the encouragement, he looks done, he says, take off your blindfold. He carried the guy the whole length of the football field, right? And he's like, because of encouragement, that's exhortation. Keep going, keep it on, you know, we encourage one another just by being here. It encourages me. And you get here and you look around like, oh, we're all here. We're all back. We made it. We're to do that. The gift of giving. Some of us have that. We're to give not just the ones who give regularly, but some people give over and above. God gives that to them. And he says, you do it. Do it with joy and happiness. The gift of leadership. We're all together, but we have to have leaders in that. So God gives that. The gift of mercy. Just how we're kind, and we're merciful one towards another, and tender hearts. I'm grateful for that. I have some of these talents. I don't have all of them. But you have them. Sometimes I have you that come along beside me. We should do this. Or what about that? Have you considered this? Have you considered that? I need you. You need me? I need you. It's a meiosis in that way. And we go into all that, and you can get the details. It's on Sermon Audio. It's called the Ekklesia. It's from 121-24. If you want to find the details on all those things, we just went through real quick. We're ready for verse nine. Romans 12, verse nine. Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil. Cleave to that which is good. We are called to love. God's order is never, biblical principle I always try to bring and I always try to keep in mind. God puts something on the list. The order in which he lifts it is important. God's order is never out of order. That's why it's repent. And then there's baptism, you know, and all the things that come after that. But you have salvation first, and it comes with a repentance. And then we add on those extra things. You know, it keeps these things in order so we don't get them out of order. God's order is never out of order. So we remember to love. Our priority first is to love God first, right? First commandment. We have God first. We put him first. First day of the week, here we are. Good job. We're doing it. We're putting God first. We're giving Him the first of our seven days that He might give us this week. And so we're honoring Him first. Put Him into the air. Put God first. Put Jesus first. It's a commandment. Then you put your family. Your family, your spouse, your children. relation in that way, we're going to look out and care for them. God has put you in that unit for that goal as well. So you're going to love and care for your family. If we don't, you're like the heathen, it says. So we're supposed to care for ours. He's put you in that unit to do so. It gets extended. Then the church. an extended family group in this sense, and then we make this a priority. Here, we try to allow time for you to have time with family, and I try not to dominate all that time because family is important, especially in this day and age, but church is important, priorities are important, so we have it there. Cults mess up that order all the time. They'll put the leader first, and you shun the family, and you keep them away, and that's how you can always tell. It's like, well, wait a minute. If you can't tell us what's going on, and you can't come and be around us, and we can't just share information, it sounds like you might be in a cult. That's one of the red flags that goes up in that. You know, no. God's like, no. Be with your family. Honor me. You know, and then your church comes along. It's trying to keep things in priority. Then we're to love our neighbors as ourselves, right? Jesus tells us that. We're to love out in that way. And then Christ doesn't just quit there. He says, oh, you're also to love your enemies. Hey, that's Christianity. It's not for wimps, is it? Love my enemies? Yes, we can't do that without the Spirit, right? That's one of the fruits that we have when we're born again. If all of a sudden you can have care and concern for those that hate you and despise you and your enemies, that you pray for their salvation, that shows that there's a work going on in your life, right? The Holy Spirit has taken up, and there's details about this later in the chapter. We won't get to it until next week, but he'll talk about that more then, about how we love our enemies. But before we talk about love some more, which he's gonna get into that detail, because it's a big portion of who we are and what we do, I want you to notice the second part of verse nine. Let love be without dissimulation, then he says, abhor that which is evil. Abhor. Add that to your vocab words of the week, right? You know, sometimes at the gas station, I'll have a vocab word of the week. Some of these, I'm like, hey, you made up that word. I've never heard that word in my life. I would never use that word to contact you. But a pour is one. A pour is to have horror of. That's a weird definition, right? To have horror of. I don't want that. Detest utterly. That I can understand better. To detest utterly. We're to detest utterly evil. I think God telling us this in the midst of love is the safeguard us. I'm going to tell you about love, but first you've got to abhor evil. wants us to be wise to it. It's interesting timing. Because he's about ready to talk about us being affectionate one towards another. He's about ready to tell us about brotherly love. He's going to tell us about giving more, how to give and help others. He's going to tell us how we should live peaceably with all men. He's going to tell us about vengeance. That's his. He's going to tell us about feeding our enemies, you know, and giving them stuff. And that way, in chapter 13, he talks about that there are powers over us, like with presidents and kings and whatever it might be, down to police and governors and that way, and how we're to surrender some control over to them and then pray for them that God has put them there. And there's a lot of interesting things in that chapter. I look forward to getting to it. But before all that, he says, first, I need to remind you, you've got to abhor evil. You've got to abhor evil. Because a lot of those other groups could take advantage of you. They'll use what I've told you to do against you. So he's trying to arm us in advance, right? And that is the best preparedness we can have, is to be armed in advance. Forewarned is to be forearmed. So he's telling us it was evil. And you're to abhor it, you're to hate it, you're to detest it, utterly detest evil. Because God's order's never out of order. So he's like, I want you to be cautious. Christians are not to be Pollyanna. That's basically, everything's good, everything's rosy, everybody means good, everybody's doing good, everything's for good, right? We should just trust everybody utterly, because like, everything's right, and everything's good, and everything's righteous. That is dangerous. That is dangerous, especially on the day in which we are, because Christ told us and warned us about the last days would be a time of deception. He said, you've got to be on guard. Church, you should be ahead of the game. Because I've given you my word. I've told you in advance. I've forewarned you so that you should be forearmed. So we don't want to be Pollyanna. We can't just think, well, I'm good, so they're good. I would do this, they would do that. You can't project who you are on someone else and think that they're going to do that. The world has taken advantage of that long enough. The world's not, everyone's not like us. There are evil people in the world. Evil people in the world. We are not all the same. We need to wake up. We need to be adults here. I need to wake up to this fact. Now, more than ever, before it's too late, we need to wake up. There is evil in this world. We're talking supernatural evil. I think a lot of this evil is empowered by supernatural things that are going on, by evil forces that are out there. Shocking, I believe in conspiracy theories. You know why? Because there is a conspiracy theory where Satan has conspired against God. He's conspired against us and he's using fallen angels to do it and he's using fallen men to do it. That's right out in the open. He mocks it and makes fun of it so we won't talk about it. So then we can then be separated and isolated and taken advantage of. But if we come together as a whole and we talk about these things, now we have safety. Now we have, at least we're forearmed. At least we're aware of it. There is evil. There are evil, evil people. I mean, I couldn't imagine in the 1990s, I'm going to go back to then because I'm trying to think, you know, before the millennium, you know, trying to imagine what life would be like in 2020. I think I'd know there'd be a thing called Pedophile Island. But it would be, I remember hearing of NAMBLA back then. I was thinking, no way. And now they have a voice. They're making. That's the National Man Boy Love Association. There's an active group where they, proponents of pedophilia, they're trying to make it normal. They have lowered the age of consent to a ridiculous level in Indiana. I was shocked by what it is. And it's getting worse. Because there's evil people trying to make sure evil things are going on. Not everyone is like us. We need to be wise as serpents and gentle as doves. He's gonna give the list of things how we are to love, and how to be loving in this, and what is expected of us, and how we're to be. We want to make sure that we are reflecting Christ in the things that we do. We need to be wise, that there is evil. People are actively trying to take advantage of you, to rob you. of everything. They don't care if they take everything that you have. They don't care if they destroy your life, your reputation, your family. They don't care if it literally would cause you to take your life because they make things utterly desperate for you. They don't care. Matter of fact, they probably think they get power from it if they would do that. You've got to watch out through mail, right? You've got to have discernment when you look at your mail. Is this real? How many times do you get there? Well, I think I just won a million dollars. I've got to go down. You didn't win a car. You've got a plastic key in here. There's the salesman wanting to get you down there to try to sell you something. You have to use discernment as you go through your mail. Is this a tax form? Is it not a tax form? Sometimes it's scary opening your mail. Am I going to miss a bill? Is this a bill that I actually got? Should I pay that bill that's not really mine? Is it mine? All these things that come just through physical mail, let alone email scams. You know, you click on it and you go, and you're like, what has happened? Where am I doing? Where am I going to go? We have discernment when we open our email. You have discernment when you answer your phone. Is this real? Is this genuine? You know, would someone really be calling me in a room full of people in a foreign country, in a foreign land? Maybe. I don't know. But, you know, are they who they say they are? You have to have discernment. Are they dating services? Well, hopefully, you know, find somebody. You should date in church and find somebody in church, you know. But they'll take advantage of you there more than any place. And so there are selling scams. Well, it seems like, man, I can get a quad for 100 bucks. What's going on? Yeah, it's too good to be true. It probably is. You know, it's like, so you need to have discernment. If it's the one, well, you know, my husband went overseas. I need to sell his quad. They're going to scam you. It's a scam, so don't buy for it. You're going to pay for the shipping, and I'll reimburse you, and we'll come. No, they're going to take all your money is what they're going to do. You need to be advised of that, and I know what's going on. No Nigerian prince is going to call you. You know, they're going to be like, who's somebody in Indiana I can get my money out of the treasury with? It is a scam, you know, that you need to watch out for. There's inheritance scams. There's unclaimed money scams. There's financial scams. There's political scams. There are all kinds of scams. You need to be on guard. Don't be isolated. If you have a question about that, you have a resource of a room full of people. Ask us. We don't know. We'll ask others, and we'll find out an answer. Is this real? Is this legitimate? We'll seek and we'll find, and we'll knock until we know. And so I don't want any of you to take advantage of, so make sure you talk to us, and we'll put it together. And so let alone there's people that try to do it through deceit in that way. There's outright theft and robbery, too. So we should hate evil. Hate evil. Don't let it in. Don't fund it. Let's not support it. Let's vote against it. Our country is being taken advantage of because most of our country is made up of people like us, decent folk who think other folks are decent. And they railroad right over it to the point where like, well, what can we do? We can talk about it. We can try to do what we can do. America's a melting pot. We've always been that. It's been part of what made us who we are. That we're the great big mutt of the world, right? You know, that we have taken people from all cultures all over the world and given them an opportunity to flourish, an opportunity to thrive, an opportunity to succeed. It doesn't matter on a class system. It's not some kind of caste system. It's none of those things. Anyone with hard work, effort, a good imagination, you know, and drive could work themselves up to be anything, anywhere. I remember my mom crying over him every once in a day. We'd pray for you and you could be president of the world if you wanted. I'm glad that prayer wasn't answered. But, you know, but, good. Good, the opportunity is there. You don't have to have a certain family, a certain thing. No, it's a multipart. We were kind of raised on the idea of what, give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send those, the homeless, the tempest-tossed to me. That's nothing that was really voted on or anything. That is a poem that was written by, it was called The New Colossus, written by Emma Lazarus in 1849, or she lived from 1849 to 1887. But she did that, wrote that poem to help raise money to build the pedestal to set the Statue of Liberty. And so when I said it, you probably all got the imagery of the Statue of Liberty, right? And that is there. And that has been one of the gateways, one of the corridors you come in. This is the legal passage to come in, you know, from the foreign shores to come into America. We have a legal pathway. It is part of our system. It is what has made us who we are and how we are. That whole statement is based on that you would do it legally, that you want to be one of us. You want to assimilate. You want to act like us. You love the American way. You want to embrace this system. You want to stand up and say Pledge of Allegiance and have pride for this country as you've gone through the tests and shown that you know who we are, what we are, what we stand for, that you'll learn our language, and you'll assimilate, and you'll be one of us. And we'll say, shake your hand and say, fellow American, my brother. But that's not what we're promoting now, is it? We had a gate that you came through. We allow, still, it's legal, we allow political asylum. If you're being persecuted and you're a burden on other, you can come here. We are a rescue, we are a safe haven, come to that. But we have migration now that's mainly for economic reasons, you know, because they want money. And we're giving, they're giving them your money. That's not one of our terms that we have open just to, just come on in because we'll give you our wealth. I don't get free insurance. I don't get $1,000 a month given to me. I've paid in the system my whole life. But we give it to somebody who's never had anything. It's generous, sure. It's taking advantage of our kindness of what's going on. But mixed in and out of this migration, we have an invasion that is going on of foreign troops. And we know it. And it's actively going on from multiple different areas. I listened to an interview with Tucker Carlson with Brett Weinstein. I'd recommend it to all of you. And he came up with the term, it's no longer sleeper cells, because we've normally had sleeper cells in the United States. Groups that need to be awakened to be active. He says we have sleepwalkers. They are moving and they are active. Our compassion as Americans are being abused in an act of war. And innocent people are dying. It takes advantage of those that are migrating here. It's evil. Every bit of it is evil. We have a great system set up to come in the right way where we say we'll welcome you. You're huddled masses. You're poor and you're needy. We have a system. We'll do that. It's who we are. It's what we do. The right way. We should abhor evil. It increases drug traffic. It affects every one of us in our community. Overdoses and addictions. It affects us as a sex trade. Who would have thought? The only place I ever knew of in my mind was Amsterdam back in the day. And then we hosted a Super Bowl. And we found out in the United States that there is an unseen underbelly to the Super Bowl as it comes into your area. And then we were warned about there will be a huge increase, uptick in sex trafficking that follows the Super Bowl. And once my eyes were open to it then, they've never been close to it. It goes on. It's down to our foster system and all kinds that is out there. There is sex trafficking that is going on. We should abhor and we oppose it. It is corruption. We should abhor it. We should hate it. We should speak out against it. We should be against it everywhere. We, in our core, are Christians. We have the Holy Spirit within us. And it abhors, hates evil. We are to resist the devil, and he is to flee. We are to call it out. We are to expose it. Evil! And say it is evil, and state it is evil, and say why it is. We should bring it into light. See, this is evil. We are against this. We're to watch out, and we are to guard for it. We're to watch out for one another. That is evil. Don't go down that path. Don't go that way. It leads to nothing but corruption and evil. We're to call it out and to say it. So listen to warnings. Ask questions about topics you don't understand. Versus, ask questions about topics you don't understand. Because they use a lot of terms, and they use a lot of words, and I like to float it by, and they act all pompous, and they understand what's going on, so you're really like, I guess I have to act like it's a good thing, or act like it's a good thing, and we get caught up in something. Question. Test all things. Determine that which is good, the Bible tells us to do. When you hear the term woke, you know what it means? The 1619 Project. Is that good? Is that bad? Should we be a part of it? DEI. Do you understand what diversity, inclusion, and equity, or equity, inclusion is? If not, research it and find out what it is. Deconstruction of Christianity is going on, where people are trying to break it down and make it something that Christianity is not. And it is popular, and it is growing. How about de-platforming? Have you heard of that? Being de-banked. Things go on. They try to make fun of Trump because he said de-banked. They're going down to a de-coffee store, and they're going to be de-banked. A literal thing. It showed their ignorance. They don't know that it happened. People are being denied bank access and denied their funds. Disease X is being touted as, you've got to be ready for that. Agenda 2030 is being enacted upon us and is going on. Do you understand what it is? They told us in advance what they were going to do and we were going to do it. How about Klaus Schwab? Do you know who he is or George Soros? You need to learn because George Soros owns all the Taylor Swift catalog now and this is a Nazi who came around and he is now funding most of our court system and while we're doing crazy things we've never done before because he's trying to do anarchy to America because him and Klaus Schwab wants to overthrow America. Within their forum, you can learn about them as well, that they have said as part of their agenda a few years ago that they want to take United States, one of the top leaders of the world, they want to take that away from us and remove it. And they're doing a good job. They're doing a good job of it. We need to be aware of it. You understand what Davos is? A lot of these things that used to be called conspiracy theories were in the dark, now are out in the open in the light. They're saying it's a good thing. It's like we've tried to warn about it then, we've tried to warn about it now. These are evil people plotting evil things, and we voted for none of them. So because we have a corrupt system that'll take money to do anything for money, there's nothing about patriotism. It needs to be, it needs to start at our level. It needs to start with our school boards, and then with our county, and with all that, then it'll grow up in that way. The revival, that's for sure. So ask about things you don't understand. Be aware of things. Ask. Be informed. Do I understand? No, but I can connect you with people that I know that do. I can recommend things to listen to because we are here for each other. Part of our job is my job is to watch out for the flock. That's what we're supposed to do, that's what we have. If we need to, we'll have a class on the topic, and we'll go over and say what it is, what is the Christian viewpoint, what is our stance, and what are the strong points. Maybe some things are good, and we'll talk about those, and what we should be behind. But we all need to be more awake to what is going on. We all need to be more vocal, more than vocal. We need to be active. The church has been silent long enough, a silent majority. We need to be an active majority from now on to resist evil. My goal is to make it easier for us here at the church. I'm gonna try to put some things into place to where when there are things that we need to take action on that you'll know about it and you'll have ready resources to know how to access and to hold the people that we need to tell and say, no, we don't want that, or yes, we do want this. And so I'll do a better job on my part to help do that. Paul's told us of our strength that we have that God has for us. And he has told us that we need to hate evil. You need to hate evil, because people will try to take advantage of you in these other things, for sure. So we are to be watchmen on the wall, warning others and exposing evil. And church has wrongly been passive. That's never been our calling. Oh, I called you to be a passive sideline sitter in the world. Exist until I call you home. Oh, we're to be salt and light, right? We're to be shining light into dark places. We're to be salt that stings and burns and preserves. We're to be out there, you know, causing a ruckus. And Daniel, he talks about us doing exploits. We're supposed to make things known. We're the non-conformists. We conform to Christ, not to whatever the world's doing. We hate the world. We're enemies of the world. It's never been our calling. This text is not new. Feels fresh, feels new, feels like it was written yesterday, because it's God's word, and God's word is alive and active. This is something we should have been doing, shame on us. So, verse nine ends with, it says, first let us love without dissimulation, abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good. Ah, we should be doing that. That's part of our active part of this. How do we resist evil? We cleave to that which is good. How do we know that? Because God puts us in a group of people. He says, I know you don't know everything. I have different passions for different people. I have different callings for those. I have different people in different places for different things. You're like, well, I don't know all the things that are good that I should cling to. I give some people that hope. He gives us Beth. and we learn about Hope Center, and we learn about Angel Care, and we learn about Four Ground Ranch, we learn about New Song, we learn about Clarity, we learn about Isaiah 117 House, Indian Creek Camp, you know, the Lord's Locker, Reformers Unit, we have all these different things, but she exposes us to more ministries within our area that we can come along and say, you're doing good, we're cleaving alongside of you, we're gonna encourage you, we're gonna exhort you, we're gonna support you, we wanna let you know that you keep on keeping on in your front, that you're called for, that might not be our calling and where we are, but we wanna support you in your endeavor to do those things. That's part of cleaving to that which is good. That's part of why we work together as a group. That's why these things come before us here and now. Ministries that she makes us aware of, we're to cleave to those and support them. Our missionaries, you know, that we support them and encourage them on the fronts in which they are. And they tell us about wars and activities and things that are going on in the areas in which they have been specifically called. Let alone we want to support any kind of Christian effort that is going on. So it's right for us to want to go to Chick-fil-A or Hobby Lobby, right? Christian companies owned by Christians. Should we not support our own? He's going to tell us to. So we should do that. And if you know something that's Christian owned and backed, I'll pay a dollar or two more, right? Versus go to some other company that's trying to destroy and take away everything that I've stood for. You know, that's why we want to support Christian films. House of Grace film. We got behind them. Christian programs. Christian movies. Christian things. Let them know, yes, we want this. Let's put good out there. Give some people some hope and some chance and help them to promote the gospel. Let's cleave to those. Cleave to that which is good. Verse 10. Be kindly affectionate one to another with brotherly love and honor preferring one another. We are to stick together. We're to prefer one another. We're to support. We're to encourage one another. We're to have genuine affection. I don't know if you know this, but everyone hates a fake. So not fake love, not platitudes. Genuine care and concern. Let's be real. Delight in one another. We are diverse. We are different. God did it first. The world's trying to enforce some fake, wrong version on us. God pulls us all together. He's made us a melting pot here and now. Love one another. Delight in one another. Verse 11. Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. Christians should be the hard workers, the dependable ones, the ones who show up. If they're sick, they call in. They don't just be, oh, yeah, I'm sorry. No, we're responsible for who we are, what we're doing. We're responsible because we carry a testimony, and our testimony affects not only this church and your family, but our Savior himself, and so we wanna make sure that we are the exception to the rule. I'm like, Christians, they're all scam artists. They're taking things, except for those. Let's have a good name. Let's have a reputation. We're to have a reputation. It's Christ's reputation. It's upon us. If we claim Him, and we should, we should be vocal about it, then we should then back that up. Hard work. Hard work. Not slothful in business, like, yeah, that lazy guy. Always trying to get out of it. No, we're the one to run to work. Let's do it. Let's get it done. Let's take it on. Be leaders. Always think of the Joseph principle. Joseph. Everywhere he was, he rose to the top. Potiphar's house, put him in charge of everything. Put him in jail, he's in charge of the jail. Put him in front of Pharaoh, he ran Egypt. You know, because he's one of them where it's like God blessed him because he did what was right and he looked out for godly things and he did things in a godly order and a godly decent way that God would then move him up and then they would say, this guy's good, we'll move him on up. We should do that. Are we all striving to the top? That's not all of our business, you know. I don't, striving for business things, but we should do good at what we do. We should be excellent at what we do. Part of that's because we're fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. Fervent in spirit. The word fervent there literally means boiling water. It doesn't mean we should be like that in the sense that a watch pot never boils. No, don't be never boiling. We're to be boiling. We're to be, we're active, we're alive. You know, boiling water is not, you know, you can't tell, is that hot or cold? If it's boiling water, you know it's over there going. You know, it's letting you know it's boiling. You don't gotta stick your finger in that, you step back a little bit. You know, and so it's got zeal, it's active, it's excited, it's bubbling out. He says, you be full of the Spirit so that it's bubbling out. Be excited, be active, be bubbling, boiling over and serving God and doing Him. I'm doing it for the Lord. I'm saying, how can I be active for the Lord? How can I talk about the Lord today? You're trying to do it. You're active about it. You're serving it. It's on your mind. You're trying to put Him first. He says to be that way, be fervent in spirit. Verse 12, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing in instant in prayer. Rejoicing in hope. Who's our hope? Hope is Jesus Christ. Who are we rejoicing in? We're rejoicing in Jesus Christ. I'm glad for him. I'm happy about him. I'm glad what he did for me. I'm glad he died on my behalf. I'm happy for my salvation. I'm glad I'm saved and secured. I'm glad I can go through and say, well, why would God let me in? Well, I was a sinner, and I asked Jesus Christ to save me. He said, the Bible says he will, and he did. And have I been transformed? Is there a fruit in my life I can look over and say, well, yeah, things I used to love I don't love anymore. The things I used to hate, now I love. It's like, boy, he's working in my life. He's continually growing in me. Look, I am saved and secure. Man, I'm glad I'm saved and secure. I need to tell somebody else they can have this. How else can I reach somebody else? What else can I do to try to get the good news of the gospel to them? How can I encourage other Christians to do so? To rejoice in the pope, I think it's a confidence. And to get confidence by reflecting on it often. And here, if you come to church each and every Sunday morning, we will have communion. and we'll reflect on our salvation. But it was purchased. How was our salvation purchased? It was by someone giving up their life, offering their body on our behalf, who shed their blood for us so that we can have salvation. It is a foreign righteousness that clothes me. It's not my righteousness. It is Christ who saves me. It is he who covers me and protects me from God's wrath. I'm refreshing that each and every week as we think over those things. It gives you confidence. And then he says patience, verse 12, patience and tribulation. He doesn't say, you'll be free of all tribulations. You're now a saint. You're gonna have tribulations. You're gonna have trouble. You're gonna have testing. You're gonna have learning experiences. How much do I depend on God? Do I really trust God? Is God really with me? Is God for me in this? Yes, he is. Do we trust him in all this? Some of these things you're gonna be going through tribulation. You're like, why this? Why me, Lord? Maybe not you. Not you at all. Maybe it's others. I need to see a Christian go through tribulation and say, oh, that's how it's done. That's how a Christian behaves. That's how you cling to the Lord when it seems like all is lost and desperation is hanging over you and the world has control. You show Christ radiating through you. Through that, by being an example, people and saints are watching. The lost are watching. Saints are watching. They know your testimony and who you are. They are watching to see how you go, because it rains just on the unjust. I mean, you go through the same experiences. We have the same blessings. We have the same cursing. How do we behave? How do we respond? Are we shaking our fist to God every other week? And we understand, say, Lord, I don't know. Teach me. Instruct me. Give me the strength. Speak out with fellow church members. We'll pray. We'll lift you up. We'll try to encourage you. We'll surround you. We'll do what we can do. That is for sure. Because built into all this is bathed in it all in prayer. Verse 12, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continually instant in prayer. A lot of times we're like, well, what could we do? I mentioned all the other stuff earlier. What can we do? Pray. Pray's not the last resort, it's the first thing we run to, right? We bathe it in prayer. We pray. What can we do? Pray. What should we do? Pray. You know, you're in trouble? Pray. Things are going great? Pray. You know, we're to be praying, we're to be in constant communication with the Lord. We're to stay close, keep close accounts with Him. Stay ever near and around Him. Keep in communication with Him, first and foremost. That's how we do it, by praying, by talking to Him. We read His word. God communicates you through reading His word. We communicate to God by praying to Him. Let's see, I've got time for maybe one more. Verse 13. Distributing to the necessity of the saints, given to hospitality. We've got to take care of our own. If there's someone that has a dire need, a real need, and we know about it, we're to help take care of it. We're to help watch over them. or to be given hospitality. That should be our deflective. I think this is why he warned us earlier about beware of evil, because there's people that are evil. They'll try to take advantage of you giving to them and take advantage of your hospitality. So you need to have a little discernment. Remember, there is evil, and you should abhor evil. So you've got to watch how we do these things. We've got to be cautious. We've got to be careful. We don't want to miss an opportunity to bless. We don't want to be taken advantage of. And I can remember a circumstance at another church. I was on the deacon board. And a guy had come, and he'd asked for some stuff. And we tried to do due diligence. And we tried to inspect and see and see if it was right. And it seemed legit. And it seemed like it was OK. And so we gave him a little bit to help. And I think at one point, he just needed some radiator fluid. So we gave him a little bit of radiator fluid to have dug there. And then the pastor at the time gave him the rest of the container. Here, you can have the rest of it. You've got a little leak. to be able to keep on keeping on. And then later in that week, the pastor had stopped at the next gas station down the road. He was talking with the guy there. And he was like, hey, what's new? Anything going on? See anything? You know, just shooting the breeze. And the guy was like, hey, I saw something weird the other day. He's like, what? So this guy came to the station wagon. They had the whole back end full of radiator fluid. He says he goes around the aspirin a little bit. And he takes it. And then he comes and he chooses a gas station. He tries to sell it to me. You know, I've got all this gas station. He's gotten given to him by good natured people everywhere. but our takeaway was, shame on him. We did what we thought was good, we did what we thought was right within the things that we were doing. We're now aware of a scam, look in the back of the station wagon. See if it's full of radiator fluid. But we did it with the right heart and right attitude. The curse was on him because he lied and deceived. And so we need to be wise in all this, use it as a church. And so my takeaway would be, we're called to be active and not passive. We're called to have our eyes open, to be awake to where we are and when we are in the world and the things that are going on today. We're called to warn others for that. Anyone here today who hasn't taken a leap of faith and come to Christ as salvation need to do that. You lose all the benefit that you have in Christ, let alone we have the Holy Spirit within us, discerning us, telling us whether it troubles us if something's wrong and we shouldn't do it, or if it's okay and we should be doing it, and calling us to something sometimes, calling us to some place sometimes to do some things. Sometimes the Holy Spirit does that, will lead us in the paths of righteousness, the way in which we should go. And sometimes He warned us about ways of destruction and evil that we should not go. It makes us aware of it. It's kind of interesting when you're a group of believers saying, I'm troubled by this. Oh, I'm troubled about this. And so then we begin to take stock in it and learn that the Holy Spirit is speaking through us. But if you're not saved, you don't have that. You don't have that. One, you need salvation. And you can have everything that he's told us about this. How God is behind us and who can be against us. Nothing can separate us from him. We're saved and we're secure for all eternity. Right now, if you have doubts and you have questions and you have uncertainty, that is a horrible place to be. Humble yourself, repent, and trust in him. And he will save you and get the benefits of the church and all these members thrown in with it. It's God's care plan here. We are His hands. We are the body, right? We are His feet. We are Christ alive and active in the world today.