Do You Long for More Meaty Spiritual Conversations on the Sabbath? Here’s How to Have Them!

Today, brethren, I've used the Creatures Outline and Sermon Bible commentary as well as the Life Application commentary for preparing the message today. Brethren, do you long for more meaty spiritual conversations on the Sabbath day? I know some of you do because I have heard it from some of you, a number of you in this room, and a number over in Ann Arbor, and frankly, in every congregation I've ever pastored. People long for more meaty spiritual conversations, especially on the Sabbath day. Do you desire that those conversations might begin prior to church? And then after the Amen after services, it continues on after services. Do you wish that you can find someone in services or after services, before or after, that you can talk to about things that are on your mind spiritually? Do you wish you can find somebody who will talk to you about the sermonette or the sermon that you've heard on any given Sabbath, and that you would have a meaningful exchange of ideas and thoughts? Brethren, let's approach this from another angle. What do you and I talk about on the Sabbath day? How much of our conversation centers on the most important aspects of our life?

How deep is our conversation? How many people in this room can you have that type of conversation with? Now, regretfully, we as God's kids often talk too little about Him and the things that mean the very most to us, especially in church on the Sabbath day. As a church pastor, brethren, I consider one of the great lacks in God's church today. One of the great lacks in God's church today.

It's not so much solid spiritual biblical-oriented preaching as it is solid spiritual Bible-oriented conversation. This ought not to be. This ought not to be. I'm sure that we're all guilty of this in some manner. I'm sure that we all need to approach and to look at our approach to our conversation on the Sabbath and, of course, during the week. Along the lines is, do we speak about those things that mean the most to us? Let's take a look at Malachi chapter 3 for a moment. Malachi chapter 3 and verse 16. Malachi 3 and verse 16. Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another. That's us. We fear the Lord. We speak to one another. But what do we speak about? What is the depth of our conversation? And the Lord listened and heard them. Notice, brethren, God is, you may not see them, or Jesus Christ, but when you and I are having conversations, they're there. They're a part of it. So, a book of remembrance is written before him for those who fear the Lord and who meditate on his name. We'll talk more about this last section about those who fear the Lord and meditate on his name later on in the sermon today.

Now, God certainly always fulfills his part of any deal. Just as last Sabbath we gave the sermon about the Passover covenant. God fulfills his part of the Passover covenant, but where are we? How do we do with our end of the deal? Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 29. Let's take a look over there. Kind of setting up what I want to get into in more depth today. And I've been your pastor for a number of years, but I've never covered this subject to my remembrance. Let's go to Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 29. Ephesians 4, 29.

Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification. Edification. Edifice. It's something we, some speech that we use that helps build up the other person. What is good for necessary building up that it might impart grace to the heroes.

Grace to the heroes. You know, brethren, today, the Sabbath day, we come here because it's a spiritual oasis. And you've got your problems and I've got mine. And sometimes your problems are really severe and sometimes mine are really severe. Sometimes you come to services and you need to be inspired and stirred and encouraged. And sometimes the same is true for me. And so we desperately want to come to services. And not only with the sermonette, not only with the sermon, not only with the song services, but with our conversation. We want to be there to build one another up, to be there for one another, to impart grace to our brothers and sisters. And yet, too many times, brethren, people tell me they walk away from services. Maybe there's a message that really impacts them or the group. And after services, we talk about, hey, how about those lions?

You know? Or how about those red wings? And, you know, we go on and on about things. In the great scheme of things, what does that matter? My point is very simple, and it is this today, brethren. If you want to take notes and write this at the top of your paper, my thesis for today is, Serve the Brethren and Worship God with our Sabbath Conversation.

Serve the Brethren and Worship God with our Sabbath Conversation. Now, my sermon today is going to hinge on two primary scriptures. We're going to go to more scriptures than two. But there are two primary scriptures that deal with this subject. How can you and I have more meaty discussions, more meaty conversations? The Bible gives us a great deal of insight on that. This is not going to be something I just kind of, you know, I'm driving down the road some day and a thought comes to me, and, oh, there it is. There's a sermon. No. We're going to take a look into God's Word to get the answers we want, that we desperately need. Let's take a look at these two key scriptures that deal with this subject of meaty spiritual conversation. The first is found in the book of Philippians, chapter 4 and verse 8. Philippians 4, 8.

Finally, brethren, what's over things are true. What's over things are noble. What's over things are just. What's over things are pure. What's over things are lovely. What's over things of a good report. If there's any virtue, if there's anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things.

Meditate on these things.

Now, just this last Wednesday in our midweek Bible study that I sent out via email, we talked about meditation and how important meditation is in our walk with God.

But meditation is something that takes place in our mind. And I'm talking about conversation. So how do we change the gears here? Well, now we go to the second primary scripture I want to use for the sermon today. It's Matthew chapter 12, verse 34. Let's go over there. Matthew 12, 34.

We're going to combine these elements, these two principles here for the subject matter at hand.

Chapter 12, verse 34 of Matthew. Brute of vipers, how can you be evil speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Now, if you take a look at this last sentence here in verse 34, and you think that, okay, out of the abundance of my heart will be the words that come out.

Now, what words are in there? Well, the words that are in there is because of Philippians chapter 4 and verse 8. Philippians 4 and verse 8 give us all these things we should be thinking about, meditating on, thinking deeply about, and that those things are in our heart then, as it says here in verse 34, those things are going to come out of our mouth.

So, Philippians chapter 4 and verse 8 is a road map to how you and I can have tremendous, spiritual, meaty conversations. Now, we're going to go through that verse in great detail toward the end of the sermon today. But before we go to that portion of the sermon, we want to take a couple of minutes here and have a spiritual heart checkup.

You know, we'll be at the Passover before you know it.

Let's take a look at our heart. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

Brethren, as you and I look at ourselves deeply, personally, we are examining ourselves. What do you find about your heart? What do I find about my heart? Do we find a depth of spiritual maturity in our heart? Or do we find a dearth of spiritual maturity in our heart? Is our conversation spiritually deep? Or is our conversation unbelievably spiritually thin and weak? What does that say about our heart? Your heart? My heart?

Those are things we've got to ask ourselves. What do my conversations reveal about my heart condition?

Do I talk about the current movie that is on? The My Most Loved TV show? Do we talk about sports, fashions, food, or recipes?

Well, maybe we need to adjust our priorities. If we adjust our priorities, that will improve our conversation as well as the lives we're living.

I want you to turn to Proverbs 12 and verse 18.

I'm going to read this from the God's Word translation. Proverbs 12 and verse 18. It's from the God's Word translation.

Proverbs 12 and verse 18 says, Careless words stab like a sword, but the words of wise people bring healing.

The words of wise people bring healing.

So, do we have a spiritually healthy heart? If we've got a spiritually healthy heart, then spiritually healthy words will proceed from our spiritual healthy heart.

Now, we might well have, you or I might well have, a heart that's bitter, a heart that's cold, a heart that's been hurt. And because it's been hurt and we don't allow God to heal us, then we have all sorts of infective and poison that may come out.

Now, that's something you and I, and there's nobody who gets a free pass on this because we all had our share of hurt in our life. And if we can allow that, just to stay there and rot our heart.

But I want you to think about the times you've come to church and you've had a need.

There have been many times I've come to church over the years. Over the years I've been in the church, there have been tremendous trials that the church has gone through. Tremendous trials. And you've been a part of that. You've gone through many of the same trials I have as a member of God's church. And there have been plenty of times when I've come to services and there have been somebody, whether it be a minister, whether it be a member, somebody says just the right words comes from a mature heart, a mature soul. Somebody who's deeply into the word of God, who deeply has a prayer life, who fasts, who meditates on the things of God. And they say just the right word at just the right time. And it's really meant a lot to me. I've had that happen so many times. Not that the person was trying to be profound, not that they were trying to just word their... it was who they were. It's what they are. And you can't fake that. You can't just put that on like a glove. Either you are an I am or we're not. Now that doesn't mean we can't grow to be what we need to be. Psalm 105, Psalm 103. Let's take a look at Psalm 103.

Psalm 103 verse 1.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, all that is within me. Bless us, holy name. Thank you. Right? We're today in a sermonette. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget all of his benefits. Amen. Thank you again. Who forgives all of our iniquities, who heals all of our diseases. Amen and thank you. We have a God who heals us. He heals us physically. He heals us spiritually. He heals us emotionally and mentally. Now we've got to let him in to do his work.

You know, if we don't go see the doctor, we can't find healing. But if we go see the doctor and we say, Doc, what do I need? That Doc will help us out. And of course, our doctor is God. He's the great healer. We've got to let the doctor do his work. Brethren, over the course of time, you and I have come to service as we've listened to the words of life. We've heard in sermonettes. We've heard in Bible studies through our own reading. We've heard these words of life. We've taken them to heart. We've amended our way of living and God has blessed each and every one of us as a result of that. Luke 12 speaks to this. And again, we're taking a look now at our heart. Where is our heart?

Do we have the heart to have a needy spiritual conversation? If we don't, we better start working on that. When you take a look, when I take a look at what's happening on the world scene, brethren, we better be ready. I better be ready. I know that. I know I've got my share of things to do. I'm believing as your pastor you do as well. Luke 12, verse 48. But he who did not know yet committed things deserving of strife shall be beaten with you, for everyone to whom much is given. Brethren, here we sit in the services of a church of God. Here we sit, and could any of us say that we have not been given much? You know, how many of us are there here today? 23, I think I counted before services. Just a few of us. This room seats 350. There's 23 of us in this room. And yet, how much has been given to each and every one of us? We're scattered all over the place, for the Detroit church here. And we assemble here on the Sabbath, and we've been given life itself. Most of us in this room have been baptized. Our name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life, to whom much has been given. People out in the world, they don't know what way is up. And yet, because you know the plan of God, we have so much that's been given to Him. But notice, to whom much is given, from Him, much will be required. God is judging us, brethren, on what we do with our tongue.

We've heard some of that today in the sermonette message, but I also believe very strongly that God's taking a look and a measure of what we do with that tongue of ours, to be there for our brothers and sisters. We can be a sail for our brothers and sisters, or we can be an anchor.

We can help our brothers and sisters through the worst times of their lives, or we can make the worst times of their life even worse. It's up to us. It is up to us.

Let's take a look at some biblical guidelines for spiritual conversation. Luke 24. We touched on this a little bit last week.

I do want to go through this and spend a little more time today. Luke 24, verse 13.

Now, behold, two of them were traveling the same day to a village called Emmaus, which was seven miles from Jerusalem. And they talked together of all these things which happened. So it was while they conversed and reasoned that Jesus himself drew near and went with them. Now, as you recall from last week, I was making mention this is taking place after Jesus Christ has been crucified, resurrected. He's now out of the tomb. He's joining to this group of two fellows who are walking toward this village. But their eyes were restrained so that they did not know Him. Verse 17, He said to them, What kind of conversation is this that you had with one another as you walk in are sad? Now, brethren, these are the kinds of things you and I want to study, because you and I want to have conversation with our brothers and sisters that really impact our brothers and sisters. And we want to see how Jesus did it. You know, the old thing that people used to wear on their wrists, what did Jesus do? What did Jesus do? So He sees that there's some people who are down. We come to services here. I come to services, and most of the week there's somebody in this room who's down. Now, I may not always have the proper words, but you might, to go to that person, and you might say, well, you look like you're kind of blue. What's up? Verse 18, Then the one whose name was Cleopas answered and said to him, Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem have you not known the things which have happened here these days? I mean, this guy is incredulous. What did you just drop in from Mars? You've not heard about this great rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, and all that He did, and all the miracles, and how we thought He was going to be the one who was going to pull us away from the Roman Empire, and then they went out and crucified Him? Don't you know what's going on? Verse 19. Notice, in Christ said, What things? Now, was Jesus Christ not in the know? Did Jesus Christ have a memory lapse and forget that Jesus said, Oh yeah, it was crucified here a couple days ago? No, Jesus Christ didn't forget all those things, but it's like when you're preparing food. If I prepare food in our household, maybe dogs would eat it. I don't know. But when Mary prepares food in our house, she uses seasonings, and she uses this, and she makes it look beautiful. And I'm like one of the Pavlov's dogs. I'm looking at that. I'm salivating. And so that's what Jesus Christ is doing here in verse 19. He's setting them up in a proper way to receive a powerful message.

What things? So they said to Him, The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth was a prophet, mighty indeed, and word before God and all the people. Now, the chief priests. And so He goes, they go through here, and they go through all the things that just took place. Verse 24, And certainly those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the woman had said, but Him they didn't find, didn't see. And we're perplexed, we're bound. We thought that He was the guy. Verse 25, Then Christ said to them, O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that's in the prophets, all the prophets have spoken, ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory. So, brethren, there is a place when you know what you're doing, when somebody in service says something that you can say, well, wait a minute, wait a minute, hold on now. What did the Bible say? And now notice verse 27, And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded them, all the things in the scriptures concerning Himself. Obviously, Jesus Christ had a command of the Bible, a command of the scriptures.

But we see this is the basis for our spiritual conversation. It's not your wisdom or mine. It's not some sermon we heard online. It's not some article we read in the Good News magazine. What's the basis of our conversation, one with another that's going to make our conversation meaty, deep? It's this. Not that. This. Whatever that was. Knowing the Bible, using the Bible, walking through the scriptures. Now, let me give you some pointers here on our spiritual conversation.

Let me give you some points. First, understand the people with whom you're conversing. Discover their strengths, their weaknesses, their needs. Where are they at?

Because you want to meet them at their point of need.

That means we have to get to know one another, right? Now, for the most part, those of us in this room have been coming to this room since 1998. And if we don't know one another by now, for the most part. Now, we've got some newer folks that just joined our fellowship. But for the most part, this group, this crew has been together a long time. And if we don't know one another well enough, well, then jaymon us, right? But that doesn't mean we can't get to know one another. Secondly, we want to fashion our words with such grace and such care that people will find them thoughtful, thought-provoking, and interesting. Now, that, you know, it takes work. If we want to be there to help our brothers and sisters and to do a good job, to be a good craftsman as a Christian, then it takes work. Third, and this is important, third, remember we're having a conversation. Over the course of time, I've known plenty of people in my life, you say hello to them, and they take it away for the next hour. Conversation is a two-way street, right? Let the other guy do some talking. Let the other guy give their opinion or whatever they want to add. It's a two-way... I remember when I was living in another state, we had two different congregations. I wasn't even the pastor in this situation. We had two lovely people. One was a man, one was a lady. Two different churches. It was in North Carolina. I will mention the state. It was years ago. Lovely people, spiritual people, but you said hello, and you might as well take a nap for the next hour and a half. Because they're going to start talking, and they're going to keep on going. The way they would weave their sentences together, you couldn't break in, because if you did, it's almost like you're being rude. If I can get this guy in a room, and that lady in a room, and turn them both on. It was almost like a gladiatorial contest. Who's going to win that deal? I don't know, but it would sure be fun to watch. I would supply the water, and everybody would see what would go on with a group like that. So remember that you're having a two-way conversation. Let the other guy add something. Now, having said all that, all that prepared us to go now to Philippians 4 and verse 8. Let's go there. Philippians 4 and verse 8. Because here we have a scriptural outline that we can follow. What do we talk about? I don't want people to think I'm self-righteous because I bring up the Bible. Well, come on! We're Christians! We're supposed to bring up the Bible! This is supposed to be what we do! Right? Now, I guess there's ways we can do this that are improper ways. I'm sure that we can come into services or after services. Boy, wasn't that an interesting sermon we heard today. I hope you were listening! Because, boy, he was preaching right up to you! I'm sure that we can do this the wrong way. Let's take a look at this, because what we have here, brethren, are a number of steps that we need to be meditating on so they're deeply in our heart so that they come out of our mouth. Philippians 4 and verse 8.

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true. That's one thing. We want to make sure that we're talking about things that are true, not gossip and so forth. Things that are noble, the second thing. A third thing, things that are just. A fourth thing, things that are pure. A fifth thing, things that are lovely. A sixth thing, things that are of good report. A seventh thing, things that are of virtue. And eighth, praise worthy. Now, I know that's not seven things. That's eight things. So that's completion plus one. So we're going, we're giving extra credit here. Brethren, this last week as I sent you out the Bible study about meditation, how did I define meditation? Now, you can define meditation any number of ways, but the way I defined meditation was this. Meditation is the intense, purposeful reflection on a single theme.

Intense, purposeful reflection on a single theme. And so here in verse 8, we've got eight different themes. We're wondering what can we have spiritual, meaty conversations about? Well, here are eight things. And as you take a look at each of these eight things, which we're going to do in just a moment, you find a whole wealth of things that you and I can have spiritual conversations about. Now, we're not quite to the point where I'm going to go through each of those eight things. There's another couple of scriptures I want to rehearse with you. Let's go over to Jeremiah chapter 20. Jeremiah chapter 20 in verse 9. Jeremiah, at this point in his life, in some ways, didn't want to preach what he knew he had to preach. He wanted to be restrained. He wanted restraint. But notice what was filling up. God's Spirit was filled up inside of him. And notice what is being said here. Jeremiah chapter 20 verse 9. Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more of his name. But his word was in my heart. Notice. His word was where? His word was in my heart, like a burning fire. Shut up in my bones. I was weary of holding it back. And I could not. Brother, this is where we want to be. We want to be, we want to have, we want God's word burning inside of us, like those two guys going to Emmaus. And they said, didn't our hearts burn when he was opening up the scriptures to us? We want, we want to be, you know, to the place where we come to services and because of our personal Bible study, because of what's happened in the past week, because of God intervening in our lives, we can't be held back. There's things we want to talk about. I want to get to my brothers and sisters in the church. I want to share what I have to give to them. 1 Timothy 4, verse 15.

1 Timothy 4, verse 15.

Meditate on these things. Again, let's feed our heart. Feed our heart on the right things. Notice, give yourself entirely to these good things.

Meditate on them. Give yourself entirely to these good things. That your progress may be evident to all.

Okay. Now, we're to the place where I want to now go through those various phrases. We're not going to spend a lot of long time with each phrase, because that would be another whole sermon, where I could spend multiple sermons on each one, each phrase, each portion of the phrase.

Whatsoever things are true. Whatsoever things are true. Brethren, what things are true? In your notes, you might want to jot down John 1717. John 1717 says, God's Word is truth. So, one of the things we want, if we're going to have deep, meaty, spiritual conversations, we want to get into the Word. Now, I gave this sermon, I don't know, three weeks or more ago over in Ann Arbor. The way things, you know, the day I think we canceled services, I was supposed to give this sermon here. I haven't been able to give it. But I found it interesting.

The very next week, we were over in Windsor, and somebody called me and said, Mr. D, you never guessed what happened this week in services when you were over in Windsor. I said, what? About a half a dozen people walk around with their Bibles open talking about stuff. I said, hey, that's good. That's what we want. That's what we want. So, we're going to talk about whatever things are true. It refers to things that are upright, things that are trustworthy. God's Word, what God teaches us. You've got a personal Bible study during the week, correct?

What's wrong with coming to service and saying, boy, I was studying this in the Scriptures, and I got this out of it, but you know, I really didn't understand this. And so, let me open a Bible and, well, what do you think? You know, maybe we could drag Mr. D over here and see what he thinks. Ah, let's forget about Mr. D. What do you think? You know? What do you think? You know, you talk about your personal Bible study. You talk about the lessons you've learned, how that impacted your life in the last week, how that opened doors for you to understand things you had not understood before.

And you know, brethren, as you do that, you might spark something in the other person's mind. Iron sharpening iron, right? The next thing it says, whatever things are noble, whatever things are noble, noble subjects are those that are consequential. They're not trivial. They're not petty. Now, things that are noble would certainly include the work. What's happening in the church? The fact, brethren, that we've, we, we reach millions of people every year, individuals, unique individuals, millions of them, I think, was seven or eight million this last year.

By them coming to our website. Now, it used to be we were, we were publishing eight million Plain Truth magazines every month. And we published eight million Plain Truth magazines, I'm saying, a month. We did that for years.

And the thing of it was, after, at the end of every year, we'd do a renewal of membership, and four million people would drop off. And we'd add a fresh new four million. We did that for years. There are many people out there who know the truth of God. They may not be doing anything with it, but they know it. And the Bible talks about the time of the end where this great innumerable multitude comes out of the Great Tribulation.

We have sown the seed, brethren. A lot of the people who are still alive, who are in a former association, I fully believe that when the time comes, they're going to say, what a fool I was! I had the truth of the living God, and I threw it out the door to go back to something that wasn't the truth at all. But then, at that point, they come back to the truth, they'll probably be martyred for it. So we can talk about things that are noble, such as the work. Our crusade! You know, today when we think about what's happening in the world scene, we think about the crusade of the Middle Ages.

Christian against Muslim, Christian against Moor. We tend to think about, yeah, those Muslims. But you know, brethren, when you study the crusades, there was a lot of wrong on both sides. Horrendous things that both sides did. But for us, when we're thinking about a crusade, just this morning as I was refreshing my mind with my notes, I look at the word crusade on dictionary.com. Here's the definition for crusade. Any vigorous, aggressive movement for the defense or advancement of an idea or a cause.

Isn't that what we're doing for the church? A vigorous, aggressive movement for the defense, defense of the truth, or the advancement, the advancement of the truth for an idea or a cause. And our cause is the coming kingdom of God. We've got a crusade. We should be passionate. Those are noble things we can be concerned about. Move on to the next phrase. Whatever things are just. Brethren, God's law is just. We can come and talk forever about God's law. I was thinking about this as I prepared the sermon a month or so ago. You know, I'll be in front with you.

It's been, what, three months since my last sermon going through a chapter in Deuteronomy. It's been three months. I'm not going to be able to get to it again until after the Holy Days. I'm sincerely thinking about just dropping it and moving on to something else. Now, you tell me if you want me to do that. If the Deuteronomy series has meant a lot to you, I'll just pick up, you know, by that time it'll be almost a five-month gap. But we've gone through, I think, chapter 24-25 of Deuteronomy. We only have a few more chapters to go. I'm really seriously considering starting going through and going verse by verse through the book of Daniel. But you tell me what you would like to see, like to hear. But anyhow, as I was thinking about what we've already covered in Deuteronomy, think about these things. We've covered this in principle in our study of Deuteronomy. Immigration policy. Is that a hot topic today? That's Deuteronomy chapter 24. Wages and wage earners. That's Deuteronomy chapter 24. The exercise of justice. That's all throughout the book of Deuteronomy. Matters of decency and privacy and sexual morality. Again, all through the book of Deuteronomy. Environmental stewardship. We see that in Deuteronomy chapter 20. Conduct of war. Deuteronomy chapter 20. Deuteronomy, the book, the law of God is full of things, brethren, that are just. And, you know, there's just any number of things we can discuss. Moving on. Philippians 4.8. It says, what sort of things are pure?

Pure conveys the idea of purity and thought and conduct. So we don't want to come here and gossip. We don't want to come here and slander. We don't want to come here with any kind of sexual innuendo or obscene jokes. And we don't have a problem with that. But those are the kinds of things that we don't ever want. Or in the workplace. We don't want to do that in the workplace. We want to be pure. And whether the other people think we're goody-touches, that's not the point. We're ambassadors for Christ. We are people that others are going to look to. And so we have to have pure conduct. Whatever things are pure. The next phrase, whatever things are lovely.

Those are talking about inspirational things. Have you had inspirational things happen to you in the last little bit? Every time somebody comes up to me and says, you know, Mr. Day, I was healed this last week. Or this happened last week. Or God did this with me last week. I said, well, are you going to share that or not? I try to dress up a little better than that. Share it! Pass it on! If God has blessed you, if God has done, He's healed you. He's opened up your heart. He's opened up your mind. There's been somebody in your life that's been touched. You know, you said the right thing at the right time to somebody. They were moved. Pass that along. Pass that along.

I mean, we want to be inspirational people.

Next, it says, whatever things are of good report.

You know, things that are encouraging. Come to services and talk about things that are encouraging. You know, the updates we get from the home office. Life stories of our faithful brothers and sisters and what they've been able to accomplish. Things that are well spoken of, encouraging things. Next, it says, if there's any virtue.

Virtue is where we look at things of high moral excellence. Things that stir us.

We want to stir one another to good works. We want to stir one another to be stronger Christians. Because, brethren, Satan wants to wear us down. But if we can be here and we can stir one another up, it's tremendous. We need one another. You know, there's a certain value that we have by going to a website and researching things and learning things. There's a lot to be sent for that.

But it's like the story I've told you. I don't know how many times. I lost track of the number of times I've told you the story about the little girl. Big storm. She's only three or four years old. It's a big storm. Lots of thunder and lightning and flashing and rain. She's scared to death. She runs into her parents' room and she jumps between mom and dad. Dad sees his little girl almost shaking. He says in his deep fatherly voice, don't worry. The Lord will protect you.

The little girl peeks up and says, I know dad, but right now I need somebody with skin on. I need somebody with skin on. God's there for us, but we need one another. And you know, the internet doesn't do it. I can touch my computer screen all I want to. Now, if I touch my computer screen, various things happen because I've got one of those touch deals. But that's not the thing that you know I need to be touched by you. And I can't tell you the number of times, brother, I come in here dragging my behind behind me and needed you to help encourage me. Especially many times I get here just before services because of going to Ann Arbor. But there are plenty of times I need help. I need an encouraging word from you so I can do what I've got to do here. So I can carry the ball across the finish line. Don't ever think that the poor old Mr. D, you know, he doesn't need any help. I need lots of help. Then it says, if there's anything praiseworthy, praiseworthy means encouraging, it means commendable, it means noticing a good example in the congregation. Nothing wrong with that. Not to embarrass anybody here, I won't use any of your names. But when I think about the various servants I've worked alongside in years gone by, I think of Ken Cook. Old Ken Cook. I don't know how many years Ken has been in a church, probably as long as I have. And yet, I can have conversations with Ken, and he seems to always hit the point of what's really important. I know the man always wants to over-prepare for his sermonettes. And I've told Ken, come on, just talk. You don't need page after page, you know.

Just the conversations I have with you all the time. I walk away inspired. I walk away encouraged. I walk away edified. And I learn things. But he's always so fearful that he's not going to disappoint you or disappoint God. Well, he doesn't do that. And there's, you know, I can say some of the same things about some of you in this room. Just don't want to make you squirm in your seat. But there's plenty of things that we can do to point out the various ones among us and the conversation. Say, you know, I really appreciate what you've done for me. It's been so helpful. It's because of you I was able to go through that trial last week and coming out the other side. I think I'm going to be okay. Deuteronomy chapter 6. Let's begin to wind the sermon down.

Deuteronomy chapter 6.

Talking about serving the brethren and worshiping God with our spiritual and our Sabbath conversation. I may mention about before and after church, but I also may mention about during the week. Notice what it says here. We want to take a look at this as a principle. Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 6.

Brethren, is this principle only about parents and children, or is this about all of us as brothers and sisters in the faith? That we as brothers and the sisters in the faith should be diligently to be there with one another to talk to others as we're in our homes, as we're walking by the way, as we're lying down. In other words, as you're going through the course of a human life, we should be there for our brothers and sisters. Verse 8. You shall bind them as a sign in your hand. They shall be as frontless between your eyes. In other words, these things are up front. They're visible. They're not hidden. They're not off in a corner someplace. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. You know, there's a sign people in the church used to have. I don't see it so much anymore, but the sign reflects what was said in the Old Testament. You know, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord our God. And you want, just like with Israel and the Old Testament times, we're talking about Passover, it was a statement for them when they put the blood on the doorposts. This house is a house of believers. This house is a house that believes in the great God. This house, I don't care what you think of my next-door neighbor, but I'm putting blood on my door. I don't care if you're going to laugh at me, what you're going to do. I'm a believer. And that's the way we want people to think about us. It says there in verse 9, you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Let everybody know who you are by your speech. Romans 1, verse 11. Romans 1, verse 11.

Romans 1, 11. For I long to see you, that I may impart you some spiritual gift, so you may be established. It might be built up. So Paul here is concerned about his spiritual conversation, not just his teaching, that too, but also his conversation. Verse 12. That is, that I may be encouraged together with you by the mutual faith, both of you and me.

So here Paul is saying, I need help too. I need to hear your spiritual conversation. I need to be encouraged by what you have to say, so that our mutual faith will be built up and encouraged.

So Paul didn't just go place to place thinking, well, I'm the great kahuna here. I'm the, you know, great bo'wana. I'm the one who does all these things. No. Paul says, I need help just like anybody else. One final, a couple of final notes before I conclude, brethren. What do you do with those who you try and they just don't want to have spiritual conversation? What do you do?

Do you, do we walk away from them and stamp the dust off our feet?

Do we treat them as spiritual Philistines? You know, get out the sword and slay them, like David did to Goliath? No, just realize, brethren, that we all are at different places in our growth. Some people find conversation in any way, shape, or form to be not the easiest thing to engage in. There are those who, because of their background, they've been so beaten down because of their background, they're so concerned that if they say the wrong thing, even the people they know that love them, that they'll be thought ill of. Those things are awful hard to just get rid of it. And so give the other guy a little bit of, give the other guy a lot of slack. Realize we don't all come from the same place. Not all of us came from a home where mom and dad were loving and nurturing and so forth. Some of us have done a great deal just to come and sit in these seats, and I can appreciate that. Proverbs 25, verse 11, I'll just read it for you. A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.

If somebody doesn't really respond much to your spiritual conversation, please note that they're listening to your spiritual conversation. Please note they're not walking away.

And last, I said this a number of times, but last and last here, let me give you four different spiritual conversation starters. Here's, as I was putting my concluding thoughts together, well, let's just give them a few things to chew on here. Four spiritual conversation starters. Here's one. You might start a conversation by, well, how has God moved your life this past week? How has God moved in your life this past week?

This is all part of the same thing. How has that affected your view of God?

How has that affected your view of God? By the way, God has moved in your life this last week, specifically what God has done. The second thing you might bring as a spiritual conversation starter. What did you learn from the sermonette or the sermon?

What did you learn from the sermonette or the sermon? Be positive about that one.

Don't say, well, you know what? That man does such a good job. He puts me to sleep so fast, I get such good rest on the Sabbath. You know, we don't want that. What did you learn from that? I learned something from everything I hear. I bet you do as well. What did we learn? What do we want to do with that? How does that impact our relationship with God? That's all part of that one thought. Now, because you know one another so well, because we've been together as a group so long, and you see somebody's down, you see somebody's blue, and because you've got a relationship with this individual, and they know that you're not self-righteous, you might be able to walk up to that individual and say, you know, I was praying about your situation this week. Or I made it a special point. You know, you and I agreed. This last Thursday, we both fasted about your situation.

We both fasted about your situation. How's it going? How's it going?

And finally, a fourth. There's so many more of these, but these are just things that came to mind as us putting down my last thoughts for the sermon. There's many, many others, but a fourth thing here you can bring up is, well, you know, I was reading the latest update, Mr. Dee sent from the home office. And there's plenty of things we send from the home office. And I send you something every week in the announcements about the home office. And a lot of times, maybe we can receive something from the home office. Now, as I said a few sadness ago when I asked the question about how are we, you know, preparing for the end of the age, where our zeal is, if we find that when things come to us from the home office, whether it's a letter or an email, and we rarely look at those or we look at them and say, oh, that's from the home office and we delete it. We don't have time for it. Then what does that say about our heart? Your heart or mine? So, brethren, if we take the steps that we've taken a look at here today, I really believe firmly that the Detroit congregation could be a place where we don't want to miss. We don't want to miss. We want to be here. We want to be here with our brothers and sisters. We want to see what's happening. We want to listen to these conversations. If the sermon doesn't particularly reach us that day or the sermonette, we want our brothers and sisters to be able to reach us with the conversations we're going to have. And I know, brethren, I know that God will help us with that because He loves us and He moves us and we have His Holy Spirit in our hearts and our minds. So, let's serve the brethren and worship God with our Sabbath conversation.