Where Everybody Knows Your Name

At the risk of a cliché, let me ask you a question. It is a cliché. It's no risk. It really is a cliché. But why are we here? Why are we really here? This is a women's enrichment weekend. That's what has brought my wife and I and so many of you here. And you've done a very good job of hosting that here over these recent years. And I've heard a lot about it. Debbie and I are very glad to be able to be a part of it this year. But it's a women's enrichment weekend put on by you ladies here in Springfield, and many of you have come from the surrounding areas. And here we are. But again, why are we really here as members, as disciples? The real reason we are doing not only this enrichment weekend, but we are here on the Sabbath, as we are every week, is because at the heart of it all, we're involved in a spiritual work. It's called the Body of Christ, the Church of God. It's a spiritual building that is being put together by Christ, the living head of the church. And that is why we are here. And that's why we are. Christ has a vision for that church. It's very well laid out in Scripture, in many Scriptures. He also has a vision for His ministry, that He has called to serve the church and to help build that church. And He also has a vision for each of us as disciples, called to be disciples within the church. And as you ladies are here this weekend, and I'll just cut right to it, you are learning to be disciples in what you have outlined for your theme and the purpose of these enrichment weekends. We are all disciples. We are lifelong disciples of Jesus Christ and God the Father. And you are here to be discipled this weekend and to learn to be more effective disciples in the place and position and responsibility that Christ has given as He's placed you within the body. You've chosen for yourself a Proverbs 31 theme, unlocking the Proverbs 31 woman in you. And that is a noble theme. But you are women disciples in that sense, not to say that you're anything more than, you know, it's not a women ministry or anything like that, but we're all disciples. And one of the things that I have noticed through the recent years is that the women in God's church and what you have said for yourself here with the Proverbs 31 woman, and with what I know you will hear from, especially my wife, because she's rehearsed her talk with you, that she'll give to you later today. But one of the things that I've noticed about women because of your nature is nurturing individuals with a different nature than us men. But women want a sane and safe fellowship for all of us in the Church of God. A sane and safe fellowship. A place where we are safe. When I first heard that kind of phrase where people say that they don't feel safe or they're looking for a safe place, when I first heard it, I thought, it sounds a little bit New Age-y or whatever. But I've come to appreciate it. We all want that. The question is, how do we build? How is it built? How is it built according to the specs of Christ's vision for His Church? And how do we as disciples employ our skills and our calling to help Christ in that job and what is being done? So what I want to talk about today is Christ's vision for His disciples, men and women. And ladies, we will take it from your point of view, and we men will take it from our point of view as well. But Christ has a vision for His disciples, and here we are to help be doing a great deal of that. If I can turn to one Scripture that sets a foundation for that, it's John 13.

If there's one Scripture, I think that encapsulates, summarizes Christ's vision for His disciples to become, it's this. You must realize that a vision is what an organization, a church, a person wants to become as a result of what they do. I think as part of your brochure, I saw you have the United Church of God vision statement put in there.

The vision statement of the United Church of God essentially is what we hope to become as a result of what we do. Our mission is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God. That's what we do. As a result of what we do, we envision that we become a church led by God's Spirit. And then the vision statement goes on from there.

And that's a high calling, it's a high bar. We're not quite there, but that's what we hope to become. And Christ has a vision for His church, for His ministry, and for us. In John 13, verse 35, this to me summarizes what He wants His disciples to be. By this, all will know that you are My disciples if you have loved one for another.

That's a high bar as well. Are we there yet? I'll leave you to answer that in your own mind. Are we there yet? This is where Christ wants us to get to, to have love one for another. That's probably the one verse that sums up our duty and what Christ wants us to be.

Now, love has a...you know, you unpack that and you've got books and volumes and whole libraries of discussion and how-tos and points and three points here and five points there. And it is a very large subject. I gave a sermon several months ago that probably more than any sermon I've given, elicited such a variety of responses from people. I entitled the sermon, A Place Where Everybody Knows Your Name. So, we can call this part two today, okay? I'm kind of rolling this out and experimenting with you. This will be the first version of...this will be version two, next time 2.1, as we kind of work it through.

Where everybody knows your name. A place where you're welcomed, accepted, and loved. And as we all know, whether it's a bar where I got the title from the Cheers television show, where the setting was there of the theme song for that long-running television series, was A Place Where Everybody Knows Your Name. That...we're not a bar in the Church of God. But, you know, when you walk through those doors, you want to be known. You want to be accepted. You want to be loved. You want to be received well. And, you know, it's good to ignore each other's names because by that we know a lot more than just...

we remember and we delve deeper into that. Wherever you go, wherever that place is created, whether it's a Moose Lodge, an Elks Lodge, a fraternal organization, a college sorority, or, you know, a neighborhood pub, or the Church of God, there's always rules spoken and unspoken by which people must abide. We know what our rules are. It's God's law, God's commandments that defines and sets the rules there. But it's a profound concept to think about and to be a part of. And we must understand exactly what it is that we are a part of and what we as disciples are to be creating.

In Ezekiel 16, a scripture that I've been focusing on for another purpose of late, but it fits this theme, and Ezekiel 16 is this lovely poignant vignette of God's love for His people. He focuses on Jerusalem, but it applied to the entire nation of Israel. It applies to God's love for the church, for all mankind.

But it also applies to how we should approach one another from the point of view of how God approached Jerusalem and Israel, and His people, because this is speaking really in a very poignant way of God's love for each of us, and in turn showing us the type of love we must develop as disciples within the church. We're not going to go through all of it, but he starts off in verse 3. Thus says the Lord God to Jerusalem, Your birth and nativity are from the land of Canaan, Your father was an Amorite, Your mother a Hittite.

As for your nativity, on the day you were born, your naval cord was not cut, nor were you washed in water to cleanse you. You weren't rubbed with salt or wrapped in clothes, no eye pitied you to do these things. No one had compassion on you. The origins of the nation of Israel and Jerusalem and all were nondescript. God is saying, nobody paid any attention to you. You were thrown into an open field. You were loathed. Just a part of the teeming mass of humanity was what God was basically saying until, as it says in verse 6, I passed by you, and I saw you struggling in your own blood, which is kind of a metaphor for trying to get by in life.

And that's how every one of us were before God called us. We were struggling with life, not really knowing who we were and our purpose. And conversion is a process of easing the struggle with truth, with knowledge, with obedience, with God's grace, to get to a point where we overcome sin, we put things behind us, we come to a relationship with God.

God is saying to us, you were nobody, but I came and I saw you and I called you. And I said to you in your blood here in verse 6, live. Yes, I said to you in your blood, live. And God offered us life. And He said, I made you to thrive like a plant, and you grew, and you matured, and you became beautiful. Your breasts were formed and your hair grew, but you were naked and bare. And when I passed by you again and looked upon you, indeed your time was the time of love.

So I spread my wing over you and covered your nakedness, and I swore an oath to you. And you entered into a covenant with Me, with you, and you became Mine, says the Lord God. Israel entered into a covenant with God. We do as well when we're baptized. We say to God, take this burned-out hunk of junk and do something with it. I will obey you, and God says I will be your God, just as He did to Israel.

And that's the meaning that comes down to us. And God says, I made you thrive. And no matter where we find ourselves in our life, with the calling of God, we begin to thrive. No matter all the other physical aspects of our life, the spiritual knowledge that is what we will ultimately endure and take with us from this life causes us to live. And He says it was a time of love. He said, you became Mine. God expressed His love for Jerusalem, and that love mirrors the love that He has had for the church, for each one of us.

And we're in that very short time. We will be taking the Passover and the daisylun love and bread. And this can help us to kind of reflect upon that and understand what God has called us to, and the respect and the relationship that He has for us. God has that love for us, and we must also have that same love, one for another.

Because His eternal purpose is in the process of calling many sons to glory. Many sons to glory. That's what we've embedded in our own UCG vision statement. Many sons, God's purpose is to bring us ultimately to what Hebrews 2.10 says, many sons sharing in that glory.

And God does that through the life that He is doing and giving us of Christ in us. In John 14 is the passage that shows, again, the very essence and the very heart of what God wanted to do. And Christ said, would begin after His resurrection, His ascension, the giving of the Holy Spirit. He promised them that, in verse 12 of John 14, that, I say to you that He who believes in me, the works that I do, He will do also.

And greater works than these, He will do because I go to my Father. And He told us to ask anything, and it will be provided in His name. He said, I will do it, verse 14. In verse 16, He said, I will pray the Father, and He will give you another helper, that He may abide with you forever, the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive.

Verse 18, He says, I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you. The meaning of this word for helper here comes from the Greek word parakletos, which means not only helper but comforter, but really at the essence of the word, it is speaking of the life of God within us through the Holy Spirit.

And it's a profound thought. It's the very means by which any of us will begin to do anything and accomplish anything spiritually, endure anything, any trial, move through a time of trial, remaining steadfast and faithful, will be done through the work of God's Spirit within us, which is the real, in essence, it is the life of Jesus Christ within us. And this is how that work is done.

He makes a great deal about this in Chapter 14. He picks it up again over in verse 25. These things I've spoken to you that are all being present with you, but the Helper, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.

It is that help that is the aid, the indwelling of God's Spirit that is the means by which we are comforted and will do any appreciable, enduring work, any spiritual nature that will be of God and will help in that building of the church that Christ is involved with. And that is a profound teaching that always needs to be focused on any time of the year.

We will read these verses on the night of the Passover. But it does speak to the matter of what God is doing here. I've coined another term in recent months as well working out and through some of these ideas that I'm talking with you about today. As we look at this, God says, I will send a helper. We know what Paul says that he couldn't do anything except for the faith of Christ in him, Galatians 2.20. And when we look and put all these scriptures together, the vision and the work that God is doing with us as His disciples is a profound work through that covenant that we have made with Him. The Father is doing a profound work with us through the living Christ and through that spirit that is in us.

I coined a phrase, I don't know if it's original, but it's original to me, so I'll claim it. But we are involved in a fellowship of the heart. A fellowship of the heart. That's what we are involved with here. That's what keeps us together when we walk through those doors and we see faces we haven't seen for maybe a year. It's your last ladies' retreat here or several months, or in some cases, you know, decades, whatever it may be. There's a bond.

There's a recognition. There's a feeling of love and concern and care for one another. That is called the fellowship of the heart. It's because God is by His Spirit working within us. When we read in Hebrews 10, verses 16 through 17, one of three places in the Bible, two in Hebrews and one in Jeremiah 31, as to what are the real terms of this covenant relationship that we have here with God, we are told the essence of it is this. Hebrews 10, verse 16, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord.

I will put my laws into their hearts and in their minds and I will write them. Then He adds their sins and their lawless deeds. I will remember no more. The essence of that covenant that we make with God at baptism and that we renew is God writing His laws upon our hearts. That's it by His Holy Spirit. It is a spiritual relationship. We worship God in spirit and in truth. That's the essence of the fellowship that we have with God, with the Son, and with each other. It is a fellowship of the heart because God's writing His law upon us. So the question that I want to bring it down to here for us to consider here today is how do we build that fellowship of the heart?

How do we continue to nurture that place where everybody knows your name? How is it that we help Christ accomplish His vision for each of us as His disciples and that is to love one another? How do we do that? What can we be doing? There's a lot we can say. I want to give you three points here today. I said whole libraries could be written and seven points, 12 points.

I'll just give you three because I don't have that much time today. I'll come back another time and we'll figure out a few more. But let's look at three basic ones today that I think are pertinent to kind of where we are in the Church of God. The first one is this. Learn to look on the heart. How do we build a fellowship of the heart? Learn to look on the heart. 1 Samuel 16 and verse 7. You know the story?

1 Samuel 16 and verse 7. Saul had been rejected as the king. God told Samuel, quit mourning for him. Get up. Go down to the house of Jesse. Down to Bethlehem. I've selected somebody in the family of Jesse. So Samuel goes to the house of Jesse and he starts looking. He lines up Jesse's sons and they're all fine fit men.

How many men were in your family, Mr. Martin? Four. All right. Here's a family of Martins back in the city of Bethlehem. Samuel starts looking at them. And he thought, this guy could be a king. He's big. He's strong. He's got this wavy hair that kind of goes back. He's got this tanning bed look. And he says, this is the one. Nope, that's not the one. And he goes on down the line and in verse 7, the Lord finally said to Samuel, don't look at his appearance.

Get off the GQ look. It's not about clothes or his physical stature. It doesn't matter how many abs he's got. We're in the middle of the Olympics. You see these chiseled athletes that are out there on the ice and on the luge. I mean, they're at peak physical form in what they're doing and they have to be. But they work hard to get that. And I assume without the steroids or anything else, they come by it, we hope honestly.

But that doesn't really matter at the end of it. I was watching some infomercial the other day. The TV happened to be on. And they had a picture of Dorothy Hamill. Do you remember Dorothy Hamill? And they had pictures of her twirling around in her great days, you know, skating and gold medal and whatever. But then they had her...she was hawking some product. And it was a product for getting rid of wrinkles on your skin.

And, you know, she's still an attractive woman, but she says, you know, I got this...what they call crepe skin. I saw her. I started looking down and I thought, I got crepe skin too. I didn't know I had crepe skin until the other day when I saw Dorothy Hamill selling this skin cream.

Well, you know, after the athletes stop training, normal life takes over and things sag and wrinkles come on. And, you know, it's always fun to see somebody that you haven't seen for 30 years on TV or in a sports. And what do they look like today? We're sucker for those little clicks on the internet when those things come up.

God brought Samuel to the point. He said, don't look on the physical stature. I've refused him to. For the Lord does not see as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.

God looks at the heart and He knows your heart. He knows my heart. He's in the heart business. He's creating a fellowship of the heart.

Now, how does that translate down to us? How do we look at one another? Are we learning to look on the heart? You know, very early on in our UCG history, the Council of Elders and its esteemed, exalted wisdom came up with a statement, We have not always treated each other in a godly manner. It probably took them hours to come up with that. Some of our members could have given that to them just like that. How true that is. We have not always treated each other in a godly manner. We're working to make progress on that, but how much progress have we made?

I was a camp director for nine years in the early formative days of the United Church of God experience. Debbie and I directed a camp out in Pennsylvania, Camp Heritage, and I learned a lot about organizing, working with the camp, working with young people, and enforcing rules and regulations and policies when you have a camp program.

One of the camp rules that we had embedded was, no tattoos.

It's still an unspoken or spoken creed. We don't do tattoos in the Church of God.

There's a scripture back in Leviticus 19, verse 28, that talks to that, some think, and some think. Otherwise, I don't get into that argument. I'll tell you why. That scripture says what it says, and it does mention tattoos. I had a young person at camp one year. She got stung by a bee while we were lining up to go into the dining hall one night. She was allergic to bee stings. Really allergic. She dropped and went into anaphylactic shock. We had to call an ambulance, rush her down to the regional hospital, which was too small to really deal with that type of problem. I was just a few minutes afterwards as a camp director. My camp nurse went with her. I came into the emergency room. The girl was kind of laying on a gurney. I saw by the look on my camp nurse's face that we had a problem. I saw the doctor walking around with some type of a manual, flipping pages, trying to figure out how to treat her. I knew we were in trouble. Fortunately, he had enough sense to know it was beyond him. They called in a helicopter, a medevactor, up to Pittsburgh, a large center. Long story short, they saved her life.

A bit of clothes. Next year, she came back to camp.

On the first day of camp, I was kind of walking around every place and went down to the waterfront to see what was going on.

One group of girls were lined up. They had their swimsuits on, their towels there, and they were going in for their swim class. I kind of looked up and down the line, I saw this one girl. Her back was to me, and the straps were suit on, so her shoulders were exposed. Right here, right below the neck, I saw a tattoo.

I thought, what's this girl doing with a tattoo at my camp? Does she know we don't do tattoos in the church of God? We've got policies on this. Then I look closer. Oh, it was the girl that got stung by the bee the year before she was back at camp. You know what the tattoo was? That bee. It's a little bumblebee, but I like that.

So I said, what did I do about this? What would you have done? You know what I did? I said, welcome to camp. I said, welcome to camp. But somebody else deal with that and sort that out later on. I was just glad she was alive, and she was back with us. Now, she had some challenges in her life, and I don't know what's happened to her at this point, where she is, but I just chose to let it ride. Now, I'm not saying we should have tattoos. The line around our dinner table, we raised two boys, Debbie and I, and when we got to the tattoo discussions, and we were talking about that, and I would kind of say, you guys want a tattoo? Fine. Where are you going to live?

That settled it. They don't have tattoos to this day. Now, we had those discussions. You know, I mentioned Leviticus 19.28. When people come to me, young people today in the church come to me and talk about tattoos, you know what I do with them? You know how I approach it? I can't ask them where they're going to live because they don't live with me, so I don't have that leverage over them. I don't turn to Leviticus 19.28. I turn to Hebrews 10, verse 16, what I just read to you. I say, what does God say is the only cutting of the flesh that He's really interested in, us having, in a relationship with Him? It's cutting into the flesh of our heart with His law. I said, that's the only one that I see in the Scriptures where God says, you want to cut your flesh or ink your flesh, do something with it? Let me cut into your heart with my spirit in that covenant and inscribe my law on your heart. That's where I start. Then I go to Leviticus 19.28, and we can talk about that. I try to start with a heart, which is frankly where you're going to get further in talking with a younger audience today in our church, and I've found I've had more success with that. It's taken me a long time to come around to that. So I'm giving you a little bit of, hopefully, experience that we can all. Rules and policies and God's law, they're always important. We must always be based on biblical commands and teachings and principles, but they must always be administered with proper judgment, mercy, based on humble faith.

And so I start with a heart to get to the law. I'm feeling I'm right there, and I've had more success with that. Some of them say, I hadn't thought of that. Well, maybe I don't need that tattoo, because some of our young people are getting tattoos today. Let's just be open and honest about that. So how do you teach it? That's how I teach it. That's how I work upon it. We have to move beyond the outward appearance and sometimes even the expressed attitude and try to understand the heart and our issues with one another. God is looking upon our heart. And when we allow, He works in our heart through His Spirit. And if we can learn to look upon each other's heart and to ponder and to think about each other's life and why we really do the things we do or are the way we are, then we'll be able, at least we'll be trying to peer into where God is working. And if we can discern a little bit about that, then we can at least, depending on our right or wrong, at least in the neighborhood of where God is working, because that's where He's working. And we can engage there. I found that helping people change their behavior, sometimes you've got to include an element of emotion to help people get to that point along with proper teaching and explanation of what God's Word says on any particular topic. But there has to be the effort to reach people at the heart. And I'm not talking about superficial emotions, but I'm talking about inner emotion, very deep, where the Holy Spirit dwells. We have to appeal to the heart, and we have to seek to reach each other's heart as we work through whatever might be a challenge, whatever might be a difficult period or time of misunderstanding in our own lives. We also have said through many meetings that I've sat in on the Council of Elders and church meetings that we have been very good at doctrine, but not so good at relationships in the church. And I teach doctrine, and I teach our fundamentals of belief every year at Ambassador Bible College. I agree 100% with all 20 of them. So I teach them, teach them faithfully, and seek to live by them and pass them on to the next generation. But I know that that statement is true. We've been good at doctrine, but we've not always been good at our relationships for various reasons. We can get off into legalism, and we don't need to get into legalism or other matters where we want to run people's business. Sometimes I do a lot of editing of various policies, letters, articles that come across as part of my media job. And from time to time, I notice certain tones through certain writings where people love to command.

And I love God's law. I sing, O, How Love I Thy Law, with Vigard and Gusto. And I love God's commandments. My experience has been through the years in the church that when men start to command a little bit too much, we get problems. When we start to try to command, and I've excised certain phrases that just...that's a little bit too blunt or too hard, and I will excise that and do some editing with my editing pen to phrase it a different way so that we can start with a heart and then work toward the real heart of the matter, which is God's law too. Here's the second point of building a fellowship of the heart. We need to be building streets, not ditches.

What do I mean by that? Well, let's turn over to Isaiah 58. I'll show you. Isaiah 58. Beautiful passage from the prophet. Isaiah 58 talks about two very important matters in Isaiah 58. Again, we're not going to read all of this, so don't worry.

Fasting and the Sabbath are two prominent topics discussed in Isaiah 58. Obviously, it starts with the well-known cry loud and spare not. Lift up your voice like a trumpet. Tell my people they're transgressions. But down in verse 3, he says, Why have we fasted, they say? You have not seen, and why have we afflicted your souls and take no notice? The day of your fast you find pleasure and exploit your laborers. Several verses here that we turn to help us understand the importance of fasting in the church and as a discipline, as a Christian, to draw close to God, to humble ourselves, for many different reasons. But it's a very eloquent passage here, and he says, Don't fast for strife in verse 4. Don't strike with a fist of wickedness. He's basically saying, if you're going to starve yourself for a period of time and seek to draw close to me, there better be some change in behavior to where we don't strike out. Not a striker. It says about certain qualifications for leadership in the church. Avoid strife.

We should, in so many different ways, pull away from conflict and see less conflict by fasting individually or collectively, as we may do from time to time, within the church. But this is the passage. Now, if you go down to verse 13, you will see another beautiful and eloquent passage about the Sabbath. This is one of the two succinct verses. God, through Isaiah, gives us a means to really understand the true value and purpose that our Sabbath observance should produce, a rich, quality life, because we call the Sabbath the light. And all that it says here. So fasting opens the chapter. Sabbath concludes it. But in the middle, there are a few verses that speak to something that we should note. If you go back to verse 9, and always like one of my good friends always tells me, reminds me that the best part of a sandwich is in the middle. Whatever you put in there, peanut butter and jelly, turkey bologna or pastrami or roast beef or whatever, the best part is right in the middle with the lettuce and tomato and mustard and mayonnaise or special sauce, whatever it is. Here's the middle. He leads into it, then you shall call, verse 9, and the Lord will answer. You will cry and He will say, here I am. Fasting should lead us to a better relationship with God. Keeping the Sabbath should lead us to a closer walk with God. He said, if you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger and the speaking of wickedness. Christ had something to say about putting on a yoke in Matthew 23 when He was castigating the Pharisees because they put heavy yokes upon the people by all of their tradition, all that they had added on to the law. And that's a very valuable passage to understand in the discussion about God's way of life. Don't put yokes upon one another. And by this, He's speaking, I think, really to the heart of relationships where we do or say things within our midst that will put a yoke of a burden upon the heart of each other in our relationships. Where we point the finger. We speak wickedness. How do we do that? Well, we can do that in a lot of ways. We can get into legalism. We can get into judging. We can get into setting unreasonable standards. I could have taken that girl with a put the tattoo on her back and jerked her into my office as a camp director and read her the riot act. If I'd wanted to, I would have put a really big yoke upon that young lady. She already had enough of a yoke. I chose not to. You have to make judgment calls as we deal with one another, while at the same time you uphold a teaching, a standard, and principles. I've learned through the years that one person doesn't always by itself spoil the whole bunch. If there are enough people that are setting the perimeter and the parameters and example and the teaching, things have a way of working their way out. People can say, oh, maybe I do need to dress up a little bit more. Maybe I do need to consider this, even to the point of cutting my hair or whatever. You let those things work, it doesn't always corrupt. We were at a ministers conference this past week in Portland.

Somebody, well, I better not go there. I don't want to... Just not enough time. I know the principle of a little leavens the whole lump, and yet as a collective body, families, and individuals, we exert a very strong influence. And when we do in a right way, those things can be managed and taken care of without influencing the others. But he says in verse 10, if you extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, these are spiritual principles here of helping people who are tormented internally.

They're laying there with their navel uncut. They haven't been swaddled and washed in their life. And God is saying, your fasting and your keeping of the Sabbath should bring you together to where you don't put additional yokes, and you satisfy people's emotional afflictions by sound teaching, by habits, and by encouragement, by sound fellowship. He said, Your light will dawn in the darkness, and your darkness shall be as the noonday. People walk around with a lot of dark in their life. God's truth always sheds light. And we have to be turning that light on and keeping it on. And exposing the works of darkness, yes, but doing it in a way that draws out the best of one another and creates that place where God is working in the heart. The Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your soul in drought and strengthen your bones. And you shall be like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail. Those from among you shall build the old waste places. You shall raise up the foundations of many generations, and you shall be called the repairer of the breach. We are in the job of being restorers, renewers, rehabilitators, taking the old house and giving it a fresh coat of paint, showing up the foundation, the restorer of streets to dwell in. All right. Wherever I go, and I was driving through Missouri yesterday, I had to dodge a few big potholes on Interstate 44 coming down here. We have them over in Ohio too this time of year. And we talk about our crumbling infrastructure in America. Well, we have some problems to deal with. That's true. We want straight paths without potholes. And we also want to avoid the ditches of extremes on either side. This is really what is speaking to the restorer of paths to dwell in. Streets stay out of the ditches, straight, even, well-tended streets without holes that create problems. We should be building streets in our fellowship, in our church, not ditches. And I find it interesting that I consider fasting in this chapter, the Sabbath, and some of the matters that we get into, especially on a Sabbath, and Sabbath-keeping and legalism, and people's preferred method of observing the Sabbath. I always teach the kids when I teach the Sabbath teaching and doctrine at ABC, I tell them, you establish your Sabbath ethic based on Scripture. How you keep the Sabbath, you read the Scriptures. Read this one in Isaiah 58. Read Exodus 20. Read Genesis, where God rested on the Sabbath and created. Read Mark 2.27. Read what Christ said about the Sabbath, what Paul wrote about the Sabbath. Read it all, and you establish your Sabbath ethic, meaning that you determine then how you will keep it based on God's teaching.

And if you decide you don't want to eat out in a restaurant on a Sabbath, that's your business.

But respect everybody else, and don't create a problem that can be divisive within the church. Sometimes this comes up at ABC. Students in their zeal and enthusiasm will...we've had that from time to time over the years at ABC. Some feel they shouldn't eat out in the Sabbath. Well, that's okay, but don't let it then become a point of discussion that creates division by the pointing of the finger.

I've been in the church a long time, and I've never been taught that it was inappropriate to eat out in a restaurant on a Sabbath or employ...you know, we're bringing a catered meal here today, I guess. Somebody had to cook that.

And I think we've had a very balanced understanding of Scripture and application of that through my years in the church and how I've learned it. We wrote a paper about it early on in United to make a statement that reflects our long-held teaching so as to not create division. But if a person chooses a particular way based on where they are, that's fine. We have that liberty within the church to do that. But it should not become something that is a point of division within the church. That's what I teach. We teach the students at ABC. We want to avoid legalism. One of the biggest problems I've seen in recent years is that as a danger to the church is legalism. And that is something that is a natural byproduct of obeying God and keeping the commandments of God. And every fundamentalist type church group has that to deal with. I feel through the years we've had a balanced teaching in so many different ways. Individually, sometimes we will veer right and left. Build streets where everybody can walk together in unity. Don't build ditches. That's my point on that. And if we can do that, then we are going to be in the, I think, the in line of what God is doing. Of creating a fellowship of the heart of people who are having God's law written upon their hearts and know how to understand and approach that. Third point I want to leave with you this morning is building this fellowship. And that is, from a good heart, let's bring forth good fruit. From a good heart, bring forth good fruit. In Luke 8, Luke 8, this parable of the sower and the seed. In Luke's account of this parable of the sower and the seed, which is also found in Matthew 13, he makes a statement that isn't found in Matthew's account. Luke 8, and as he describes the seed that falls on good ground. Seed is the gospel that is spread. Verse 15, he says, the seed that fell on the good ground are those who have heard the word with a noble heart, and good heart keep it and bear fruit with patience. All right? They bear fruit from a noble and a good heart.

We should be from a good heart, bringing forth good fruit.

To create that fellowship of the heart. And if we bear those fruits within our lives, Colossians chapter 3 speaks to exactly what we're talking about here. God's Spirit can produce that within us. Colossians 3, chapter... And beginning in verse 12, Colossians 3 and verse 12, he says, Therefore is the elective God holy and beloved. Put on tender mercies and kindness and humility, makeness and longsuffering. Bear with one another and forgive one another. If anyone has a complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. But above all these things, put on love, which is the bond of perfection, and let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body, and be thankful. Let the peace of God rule in your heart. Put on good fruit. Put off all the things that the previous verses talk about. This is a good passage for us to study leading up to the Passover to help us get to that point of the mind of Christ. These three points can help us develop a fellowship of the heart, to develop good fruit from a good heart, building streets and not ditches, and learning to look upon the heart, not the outward appearance. There are many more that we could say, but there are three for us to think about in this matter, of developing a place where everybody knows your name, and coming to that vision that Christ has for His church, for His disciples, those individual members. The church will be prepared as a bride for her husband, we are told, in Revelation 19, verse 7. As individual disciples, we must be prepared. So, ladies, especially as you enter into your discussions over the remainder of today and tomorrow, certainly pray that you will be able to develop those bonds of enrichment among yourselves that will help you help the church. And as you become better disciples, you will be helping to assist in that way Christ and His vision for each of us that He has for the disciples and for the church. I wish you well in that. Looking forward to spending the remainder of the time with all of you here this weekend.