Who Are My Brothers?

Well, as we all sit here today and as we gather together each Sabbath, we know that there are many things that we have in common. God has called us. God has opened our minds to the truth. We understand things because of His mercy on us, that He has allowed us to see the truth. And He has us all in preparation and training for some pretty important offices in His Kingdom and in His Millennium to come.

We all have that in common, that He is training us to be kings and priests. And kings and priests, in anyone's language, are leaders. And so God has put us through a training program because He has in mind for us what we want to do and the titles that He has for us. And we all have that in common. We're here because He wants us to become what He wants us to become and not who we are today, but year by year, decade by decade, growing into who He wants us to be as we are led by His Holy Spirit and as we let His Holy Spirit lead and guide us.

Now, what we don't have in common, even though we have that in common, is our road to becoming kings and priests is not the same. My road to becoming a king and priest is different than yours, is different than the person sitting next to you, because God knows what we need. He knows our innate strengths and weaknesses, what we need to do, what we need to develop.

And so what happens to me and happens to you could be two different things with the same purpose in mind that God has is that I want them to continue to live a life of repentance, continue to develop, and become who I want them to become, a leader, a king, and a priest in the millennium, and then whatever purpose He has beyond that after His purpose for the physical earth is done. And as we go on that route, and as we live this route for the rest of our lives, as God works with us and prepares us, and as we yield to Him, and as He learns many things about us through the twists and turns of life, we find that we fill many roles, many different roles.

You know, some of us start off as children in the church, become teenagers in the church, or men and more women, and different roads for each of us to the same goal and destination that God has in mind for us. Some of us are husbands, some of us are wives, some of them are not, some of us are not. Some are mothers and some are fathers, some are not. Some are grandfathers and grandmothers, some are not. Some are employees, some are employers. Some have different roles beyond that, depending on what God leads us to in our lives, what He puts in front of us, because we learn from every single thing that God has going on in our lives.

Not just the things we learn in church, but the things that we learn in our daily lives are all for one purpose, and as you back on your life, just as I look back on mine, I say, oh, even in that situation and even in that part of my career, there were things I learned that are clearly not for today, certainly helped build some character along the way, but because God had something in mind down the road, and it's the same for you.

So there's different roles that we might play, some of them are similar, but not every single one of us have exactly the same role in life or the very titles that we might carry along in our life. But as we sit here today, there are two of those roles that we do have in common. Everyone that is here has these two roles in common. And Jesus Christ talked about these two roles of our physical life when He was on earth, and He asked questions and had questions asked, what is it?

What does this mean to do this? And what does this mean to do that? So I want to talk about those two roles today, and I want to begin back in Luke, because, you know, Jesus Christ, when He was explaining things, He often used a parable to talk about it, and the parables would help people crystallize in their mind what He was talking about in the lesson He was trying to teach. And back in Luke 10, as He was talking to the Pharisees and a young lawyer that was there, you know, a question came up, and Jesus Christ, as He often did when He was asked a question, He uses it as a teaching moment, and He usually left people with something to think about.

There's a lawyer who was there in Luke 10, and let's pick it up in verse 25 of Luke 10. It says, a certain lawyer was there. Lawyers don't have any problems getting up and selling what their opinion is or asking questions or whatever. It says, Behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Christ, saying, Teacher, what will I do to inherit eternal life? That should be a universal question. Everyone in life, certainly everyone in church, but everyone all over the world should be asking, what do I do for eternal life?

That's one of the questions, right? One of the big questions of life. What happens to me when I die? Is this all there is? Just the 70, 80, 90, 100 years that I live on this earth? What do I need to do to inherit eternal life?

And Christ answered Him and said, What is written in the law? What is your reading of it? And so the young man answered and said, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. So He answered the question correctly, and He was able to repeat back what Christ had asked Him.

It was similar to the young man who was asked the question back in Matthew 18 or 19, wherever it was, and said, What do I do to inherit eternal life? And he tried to keep the commandments, live the way of life, yield yourself to that, and submit yourself, and then said, But there's more than that.

It's more than just doing that. You've got to be willing to give up everything. Give up your wealth to give to the poor and the young man. I can't do that. And I walked away because God is looking for more from us than just simple obedience, but He's looking for our heart and us to be yielded to Him. So it's the same thing here with this lawyer. As He asked the question, He's able to answer the question back. And Christ said to Him, You've answered correctly. Do this, and you will live. But He, wanting to justify Himself, said to Jesus, a question, Who is my neighbor?

You say, Love God, and I understand that with all your heart, mind, and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself. And the young man said, Who is my neighbor? Because, you know, if you go back to and put ourselves in the time of Judea when the Jews were there and the time of Jesus Christ, they had a very different idea of who their neighbor was than we might have today. They saw fellow Jews as neighbors, but they didn't see the rest of the world as neighbors.

The world, in their mind, was pretty much black and white. You're a Jew or you're a Gentile. If you're a Jew, you're a neighbor, but if you're a Gentile, you're not even worth sitting down with talking about or even acknowledging. You're just kind of there, and we want nothing to do with you. So Jesus Christ, knowing that this is what the people thought during those days, okay? You're a neighbor if you're a Jew.

He was going to use this opportunity to expand the meaning of what neighbor was for that man and all who would listen and all who would read this parable in times down the road. You know, Jesus Christ, when he came to earth, he did a lot of expanding the meaning of things. You know, some people today will say he did away with the law and the law, the Ten Commandments, he didn't do that. He expanded their meaning. No longer was it okay to just keep them physically, but you also had to keep them spiritually. And the same thing. They had one idea of what a neighbor was, but through this parable of the Good Samaritan, Christ was going to expand their view of what a neighbor was. And he did that masterfully as he went through this tale. And you know the tale well, so I'm not going to read through every verse, but you know how there was a man who was injured by the road. And then as a priest came out and looked at him, he didn't want to be bothered with helping him, so he just walked right on by. Then a Levite came out, did the same thing, saw him, walked across the street. But then there's his Samaritan, this person that isn't worth being considered by the Jews as anyone to be worthy of. This man was willing to not only go and see what was wrong, but willing to take his time to help the guy, get him to a hospital we would say today, someone who could care for him, use his own money to pay for him to be there, and to do all these things to make sure he was well taken care of. And so, you know, the young man and the people listening there be like, okay, so Christ finishes the parable and he asks in verse 36 here, So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?

And the young man or the lawyer said, he who showed mercy on him. And Christ said to him, you go and do likewise. You be that Samaritan. You go and if you see a Samaritan laying by the side of the road, now you know he is your neighbor. You need to help him as well. You need to have a heart for him. You need to help him and when you see that need, you don't just walk on by. You just don't ignore it. You just don't have this partial attitude that I don't have to pay attention to him. He's your neighbor. And so, as a young man, I'm sure he went away thinking about that. Who is my neighbor? he asked. And Christ said, in essence, everyone's your neighbor. Anyone who comes across your path, they're your neighbor. You need to love them as you would love yourself.

Even if it's a Samaritan. Even if someone you've never met. Even if it's someone that you don't even want to be there. Because certainly, the Samaritan, if it was reversed, the lawyer would be like, do I even take the time to talk to a Samaritan? The Jews didn't do that. You know, we can look at that parable and it, you know, I think everyone has heard that parable all over the world, whether they consider themselves Christians or not. And we know when we think of maybe put ourselves in that position and say, would I? Would I stop and help that Samaritan? And we would, I hope, say yes. If I saw someone in need, if I saw someone by the side of the road, if I saw someone laying out in the field, if I saw an accident and someone was laying out on the side of the road out of their car, I would stop and help them. I would hope we would all do that.

Well, we could bring this into the 21st century here. And, you know, back in the days of Christ, Jews and Samaritans really didn't like each other. It was not just a matter of you're beneath us. There was kind of a religious conflict between the two of them. I mean, the Jews had Mount Sinai, the Samaritans had Mount Garrison, they had their own version of the Pentateuch, they had, when they went to court with each other, they just didn't like each other. They were enemies. They were enemies. So if we pull it into the 21st century and we say, you know, are there any religious tensions today? Certainly if we look at the Jews in today's society over there in Little Israel, you know, we could say, without saying anything out of the ordinary or casting any aspersions on anyone, Islam and the Jewish religion is pretty much at odds today. Today it would be, if we replace a Samaritan with Muslim in this story, it would be an interesting scenario. If we look at Christianity around the world, Islam has that odds with Christianity. So if we looked at this story, and we were walking by the site or walking along, and we saw someone in full Muslim garb, if we want to use that example, not saying we knew that, you know, he had done anything wrong or that he was a terrorist or respecting, what would we do? Would we have the same attitude as the Levite and the priest in this? And we say, probably better off to just kind of walk on by and let someone else tend to him. Or would we put away those differences or those thoughts that we have and go and help? Not to say when I was putting it into 21st century, I had to pause and think, well, what would I do in that case? Samaritan? Yes, I would not, you know, yes, that would be.

And I would hope I would do that, but I had to stop and think about it. It's like, what biases or what separations might we have that Christ was drawing attention to those people in that time?

Because they had some real significant differences, and they had reasons for those differences. And we might look at the same thing today. Jesus Christ, as he's talking to us today, might say, you replace that and bring it into the 21st century, what would you do? And does that make you think about your neighbor a little differently? Not just fellow Americans, not just fellow church members, not just fellow North Americans, not just fellow North Americans and Europeans, but even Middle East and even with the things that go on over there that we may not support or want anything to do with. Do you expand your worldview? Because today we live in a world where we can, anyone can come across our path, right, from any part of the world. We have no idea when we go out in our cars and go from place to place who we're going to come across and what we're going, what's going to happen or who we're going to encounter or what situation we're going to encounter.

So Christ said, love your neighbor as yourself. And in that statement, what he did for the Jews and for all of us to say, it's anyone. Not just people of your neighborhood, not just people of your faith, not just people of your race, not just people of your family, everyone is your neighbor.

Love your neighbor as yourself. Just like Jesus Christ did, because he didn't die for just the Jews, he didn't die just for the Christians who would become Christians, he died for everyone.

Even those that were there that day as he was being crucified, that were shouting, crucify him, crucify him. He saw them all as his neighbor and he was willing to do it all for them. And he says of us, you love your neighbor as yourself. Let's go back to Matthew, Matthew 5.

And in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Christ uses this term neighbor again, which is a separate Greek word, its number Greek, Greek strong, it's Greek number 80, if I remember right. In Matthew 5 and verse 43, he says something that probably to his disciples when they heard it, you know, they had to pause and think about it as well. He says, you've heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor.

And hate your enemy. Now, as the Jews or his disciples heard that, they probably thought, well, yeah, we have heard that. We love our neighbors, but we really don't like these Samaritans. We really don't like these other people who aren't like us. We really may not even like the Sadducees if we're a Pharisee or vice versa or the Essenes or whatever sect of the Jews they were. You've heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

But Christ said, I say to you, love your enemies. Love your neighbor as yourself. Even though they may be your enemy, they fit the definition. If they come across your path, and they certainly have if they're your enemy, love your enemies. Bless those who curse you. Do good to those who hate you. And pray for those who spitefully use and persecute you. It's a tough order. That's a tall command to swallow and to put into our lives. And just think about what we have to do mentally to come to the point where that... Well, we have someone that's offended us or someone that we just...

Maybe it's someone at work or in the neighborhood that's just always causing a problem, always at odds or some reason or whatever. And God says, you know what? Love them. Don't hate them.

And he says, why? Verse 45, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven, for he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Don't even the tax collector say anything. So he says, you have to go above and beyond, just like Jesus Christ did. What I've called you to, and if you're going to be kings and priests in my kingdom, and if you're going to let me develop you into who I want you to be, you need to develop this. It doesn't happen overnight. It doesn't happen even a year.

It takes some time for us to learn these things and to have that happen.

Many of you know in the name of Mr. Armstrong, I remember him saying that it took him a literal lifetime to come to the point where he understood Matthew 5, 43, and that you could love your enemies. But it's something we have to remember because all those 10 commandments hang on. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself.

And that love that we read about is agape love. Choices that we make. Always remember that agape is a choice, not just an emotion. Because if we go just by emotion, that's how we end up with enemies. That's how we hate our enemies, curse our enemies, and don't pray anything good for them to happen. But God says you make a choice when you're conscious of it. I can't do that. That's not the way Jesus Christ said to do. That's not what he laid down for us to be. I have to overcome those thoughts. And it takes time. It takes time. But love your neighbor as yourself is something that Jesus Christ said we, who all have us all are on the same path toward the same eventual positions that God has in mind for us, need to understand. And it applies as he expanded the meaning to anyone. Anyone. Not just those of our race, ethnicity, or church. Let's go back to Romans. Romans 13. Paul addresses this as well. Now Paul, as he was the apostle to the Gentiles, he's talking to churches that are coming up and they're learning the Christian way of life. And there were a lot of things the Gentiles did in their religion, as part of their pagan religions, that were just okay with them. And so he spent some time kind of telling them some of the things that they need to overcome as they are becoming Christians and learning the way of life that God has called them to. And so he spent some time talking about neighbors because I'm sure the Gentiles had the same feeling about the Jews, that the Jews had about them, and they had to learn, okay, these people, even though they've always disregarded us or or discounted us, they are our neighbors and they are part of what God has called us to do. Chapter 13 verse 9. I should have mentioned that five times in the New Testament it talks about, love your neighbor as yourself, three times in the epistles here. Here's one of them in Romans 13 verse 9. It says, for the commandments, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not covet, and if there's any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love, verse 10, does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. Does no harm. Doesn't get back at him for whatever he did by doing something to him, even if it's kind of clever and whatever, just to kind of mess him up a little bit. Love does no harm to a neighbor. And all of us kind of have that thing where we kind of like to get back at someone once in a while, and you know that's part of our natural nature. But God says over time you need to do no harm to your neighbor. Do no harm if you're going to fulfill the law of love that he has called us to. Let's go over to chapter 15, Romans 15, verse 1. We then, Paul writes, to the Romans, who are strong, ought to bear with the scruples of the weak and not to please ourselves. Now, some of the Roman church was strong. Others were new.

He says weak, not because they're really weak, but you know they're new. They're learning, and they're overcoming just as you have had to overcome things. And early in our walk with God have heard to learn things about ourselves and overcome them. We who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak and not to please ourselves. Watch out what you're doing. Don't offend them. Watch how you're handling them. Don't come down hard on them. Don't compromise what the law of God says or what the word of God says, but watch out for them. Treat them tenderly. Watch out for your neighbor. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, leading to edification.

And sometimes, you know, we see something that's just flat out wrong, and we do have a responsibility to say that, but we don't have to couch it in such a way that would be like to give meaning to the person like, how could you have ever thought that? You should not be doing this. You should know better than that, because sometimes people don't know better. You know, people come in and they, God calls them, and this is a learning experience. Sometimes, it may be years before we read something or hear something, I think, oh, I didn't know that was in the Bible. You know, every, every week in sermons, we don't give a foundational sermon on every single thing in the Bible every week, and so sometimes people hear things six months a year, two years down the road, and sometimes we see things, and we may, we need to bring attention to them. That's how we all help each other and encourage each other and exhort each other to become who God wants us to be, but we can do it in the right way. You know, Paul himself had to learn. He had to learn how to approach people. He had to learn how to bear with the scruples of the week, as, as he would say, and you remember God paired him with Barnabas, a man who was encourager, a man who was a little softer and gentler, who wasn't there, who believed in the Word of God, who lived the Word of God, and wasn't going to mince any words with people, but he had an effect on people, and he was able to bind people, even if he was trying to teach them something that they needed to learn. Paul, on the other hand, he was just going to pound the podium and let you have it and put the hammer down, and he learned that didn't go over well. People were afraid. Many people didn't want to be with him or around him, and he had to learn, but that was part of what he had to learn, part of his training for that, and later on he was able to do those same things, and as he said in 1 Corinthians, to the weak I became as weak, to the strong as strong, to the Jew as a Jew, to the Gentiles a Gentile, because he had to approach people in that way. That was part of loving his neighbor because he wanted to see them either come into the, when God called them into the church, or at least that they would have a good experience in coming in contact with him. Because our neighbors, whether they believe the same thing that we do or not, whether they even know what we believe, they should have at least a neutral, if not positive, encounter with us, if we are learning, so that nowhere down the road do they maybe hear, oh, something about the church, and then they find out, oh, he was in the church. I remember how he treated me. That might be, I don't want any part of that, right? None of us want anyone to say that about us, so we have to, you know, we have to kind of realize we are representatives of God's way of life. We are citizens in his kingdom today, as well as citizens in the United States, and that we do have a responsibility to show the way of truth and light and the things that the Bible preaches. Not just at church and not just in our homes, but in our everyday life, where we go, what we do. So that the word of God would never be blasphemed, or someone would say, if he's part of that church, I don't want anything to do with it.

So we have that responsibility. Paul learned that as well. Jesus Christ was saying, you need to, you know, here in verse 2, please his neighbor, not leading him astray, not telling him it's okay to continue doing these things, everything leading to edification, to building up, to encouraging them, to loving them see, not knocking them down, not discouraging them, but to build them up and bring them so that they want to continue on the path, because all our jobs is to glorify God, as we heard in the opening prayer, in everything we do, and also to help each other live the life that God has called us to and follow Jesus Christ into his kingdom. Let's go back to Ephesians 4.

Ephesians 4.

And in verse 25.

Ephesians 4 verse 25. Paul now talking to the church at Ephesus, which was another pagan-oriented church. They, for years, worshiped Artemis, I think it was, who was the key figure in in Ephesus. And part of the pagan religion, when you read through some of the background, is lying was just kind of a way of life. He just kind of did it. They didn't really have any prohibitions against lies. It tells us something about other religions. And so Paul here in verse 25, Ephesians 4, after he goes through and talks about how the church of God is ordered and what God has called us to, says this. He says, therefore putting away lying.

Well, he says lying many times in his epistles, and it's because this was something that was just part of their lifestyle. They had to learn, no, you can't do that. Therefore putting away, of course, all of us have to learn that. Therefore putting away lying, let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor. Not just about the words of God, but also the things. Don't lie about what this item is really worth. Don't lie about what the background of this is.

Speak truth in all you do. Be upfront with people. Let your yes be yes and your no be no, no, Jesus Christ would say in the in the Sermon on the Mount. Just be just be truthful, even if it's to your own hurt. Let each one of you speak truth with your neighbor, and he's speaking of the people in the church there too, but for we are members of one another. We have that responsibility that when people come across us, what we're saying is truthful, and we know what you're selling other people is truthful. Because it's a lifelong and a 24-hour day, seven-day calling that we have to be a good, a good Christian. Well, we can find, you know, other places in the New Testament that talk about neighbor with this expanded meaning that Jesus Christ was giving the Jews, and expanded meaning that we have today. We find that the same concept is there in the Old Testament. Let's go back to Exodus 3. You know, the Israelites were there in Egypt all those years, and there was certainly separation between them and the Egyptians. They were slaves in Egypt, and certainly the Egyptians didn't see them as equal, and the Israelites didn't see the Egyptians as equal. But God, in verse 22 here of Ephesians 3, as he's calling Moses and getting him ready to go to deliver the people from the bondage they've been in for hundreds of years, he says this, as he's painting the vision of what's going to happen, and they're going to eventually be let out of Egypt. And then he calls the Egyptians something that maybe the Israelites had never thought of before. Verse 22, it says, every woman shall ask of her neighbor, namely of her who dwells near her house. And speaking of Egyptians here, shall ask of her neighbor, namely of her who dwells near her house, articles of silver, articles of gold and clothing, and you shall put them on your sons and on your daughters, and you shall plunder the Egyptians.

He repeats in chapter 11 verse 2, go to your neighbor. Ask them for these things.

Maybe the Israelites had never thought of neighbors as Egyptians before, but they were nearby. They came across their path every day, and God said this is what you're going to do to them. Certainly in the Ten Commandments, we know two of the Ten Commandments specifically mentioned neighbor.

You shall not covet your neighbor's house, your neighbor's wife, etc., etc. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. Those are universal things. God says, not just the people in the church, not just the people in the Jews, you don't covet anything of anyone that you see. You're driving down the street, and you don't begin coveting that house and driving by it all the time and say, man, I just want that house or that car or whatever it is of anyone. And you don't bear false witness against your neighbor, not just against people that you wouldn't want to lie against, but anyone. You don't do that in those last five commandments.

Sum up. Love your neighbor as yourself. Let's go to Leviticus, Leviticus 6.

Leviticus 6 and verse 2. If a person sins and commits a trespass against the eternal by lying to his neighbor and that's a different word than brother that you see elsewhere here in some of the verses in the Old Testament and New. If a person sins and commits a trespass against the eternal by lying to his neighbor about what was delivered to him for safekeeping or about a pledge or about a robbery or if he has extorted from his neighbor or if he has found what was lost and lies concerning it and swears falsely in one of these things that a man do and which he sins. And then he goes on and says what the restitution and what the penalty for that should be. If you do any of those things against your neighbor, whoever it is, we can say the same thing today using Christ's definition of neighbor which is different than brother. If you do any of those things, it's a sin.

Over in Leviticus 19 we find kind of a series of verses that have to do with neighbor and if you look up the Hebrew word for neighbor there, it is a friend, an acquaintance, a countryman, not necessarily a member of your family. Leviticus 19 and verse 11.

You shall not steal nor deal falsely nor lie to one another. Think of the King James, the word neighbor is actually there in 19 verse 11 or at least it's the Hebrew words for one another is the same word that's used as neighbor down here in verse 13. You shall not cheat your neighbor nor rob him. The wages of him who is hired shall not remain with you all night until morning.

Applies to everyone who we would work with, anyone if we're an employer that that goes on with. You shall not curse the death of the 14 neighbors night and death. Let's look for verse 15. You shall do no injustice in judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor nor honor the person of the mighty. In righteousness you shall judge your neighbor. No partiality, the same standards for everyone. Whether you know them, whether they're of the same household, whether they're the same faith.

In righteousness you shall judge your neighbor. You shall not go about as a tail-bearer among your people, nor shall you take a stand against the life of your neighbor. I am the eternal.

17. You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor and not bear sin because of him. Rebuk him if you see something is not going right.

Verse 18. You shall not take vengeance nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, fellow Israelites, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the eternal.

So as God taught New Testament Christians, as Jesus Christ talked about neighbor, and even as God talked to Israel, they learned some things about being a neighbor that apply to all of us today. And certainly if we're going to keep the commandments, we need to understand who is our neighbor. When the young lawyer asked, who's my neighbor, he was asking a question, and Jesus Christ clearly spelled it out for him. Back in Matthew 7, again in the Sermon on the Mount, in verse 12.

Christ gives us what is the golden rule, and he didn't limit it to any group of people.

He says, therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, you didn't say, those are the same faith, those are your family, those who live next to you, therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them. For this is the law and the prophets.

Enter by the narrow gate is the next thing he says. Enter by the narrow gate. You'd be different than the people around you. Be different than what the other people say. Enter by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it, because narrow is the gate, and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.

So to Christ, everyone who comes across our path is our neighbor.

Love all of them. Take some time. It takes away. It takes some time to do that.

Let's go back to Proverbs 27. Many, many verses in Proverbs talk about neighbors and whatever. Let's look at one of them here, because we all are neighbors. Everyone in this room is a neighbor to each other. Everyone is our neighbor, and we are a neighbor to everyone, just as Jesus Christ was a neighbor to all men. We are to be a neighbor to all men the way that he defined and set that standard in that parable of the Good Samaritan.

In chapter 27 and verse 10 of Proverbs, it gives us another role that all of us in this role here. Let's see the difference here. Chapter 27 verse 10 says, Don't forsake your own friend or your father's friend.

There is a friend, and we all have friends, and we're friends to each other. Don't forsake your own friend or your father's friend, nor go to your brother's house in the day of your calamity, and better as a neighbor nearby than a brother far away.

It's better in the day of calamity to go to your neighbor's house than it is to a brother's house.

Now, brother in verse 10 there, and when you see brother in the Old Testament, relates to a family member, a blood relative. You know, we have brothers, we have sisters, who are blood relatives, and they say blood is thicker than water, right? And so we know that if a family member, you know what, we might want to go to a family member, but it may be too far to go, a neighbor can provide us what we need in a time of calamity. But there's a bond between family members that's there that exceeds what it is between neighbors. So in the Old Testament, we see brother, and we see that brother extends, in some of those cases, to hoard fellow Israelites because they're family, they're extended family. They're neighbors, but they're brothers, and there's a closer bond between brother. When you look at the Hebrew definition for brother, it's that family bond. And Jesus Christ talked about brothers as well. Let's go look at brothers because we are brothers to each other, and in Matthew 12, just like the question was asked, who is my neighbor, Jesus Christ defines who is our brother, who are our brothers. Matthew 12, verse 46. Matthew 12, verse 46.

While Christ was still talking to the multitudes, so here he is with an audience of a lot of people, while he was still talking to the multitudes, behold, his mother and brothers, family members, okay, mother and father, blood relatives, mother and brother stood outside seeking to speak with him. And one said to him, look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside seeking to speak with you. But he answered and said to the one who told him, who is my mother, and who are my brothers? Now, that man, when he heard Christ ask that question, had to stop and think, what is he talking about? Who are my brothers? He knew who the blood brothers were, but here Christ was taking the opportunity to define what brothers were when you read that term going forward in the Bible and comparing it to what it was in the Old Testament. Who are my brothers? And he stretched out his hand toward his disciples and said, here I my mother and my brothers. Here they are in this room.

These are the people that are in my family. This is my family now.

What an impact that had to make on that man who asked the questioner or just was announcing, your mother and brothers are sitting outside, they want to talk to you. What an impact it had to have on the people in the audience. I said, you, you're my mother, you're my brothers. Who are my brothers? You are. You're my family. Quite something as he expanded their meaning of who are my brothers, not just your blood relatives. They're important. There's a bond there, but there's a bond that's even thicker among people who are brothers, according to Christ's definition. Verse 50, he defines what a brother is for whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother. And sister there, whenever I say brothers, and whenever the Bible says brothers, it includes sisters too. Brothers in the Greek is number 80, sister is number 79, says it's just the feminine form of number 80. Whoever does the will of my father in heaven, they're my brothers, they're my sisters. If they're following God, if they're committed to doing his will, if they've repented, if they're being led by the Holy Spirit, that's my family. That's who my brothers are. And then Jesus Christ would talk about brothers. And some of the things he says about brothers are different than the things he says about neighbors. There's a higher responsibility to brothers in some cases. We certainly love all neighbors and we love all brothers, but there are things he says about brothers that we can take note of because it is crystal clear when you look in the Greek what he's talking about when he talks to brothers and when he talks about neighbors. Now I can go through some scriptures, but you know the scriptures I would hope. What makes us brothers? How do we enter the family of God? God calls us. He, John 644, says no one can come to the Jesus Christ speaking. No one can come to me except the father who sent me draws him. God opens minds and people respond. And so when we were called and we understood the things of the Bible, we got it. We didn't run away. We didn't let the truth dry up. We made some decisions. We followed God. As we understood, we began to see, wow, the way I've lived my life is so totally different than what God wants. And if I believe in him and I believe that there is a future that sends what our time on this earth is, I have to follow him. I have no choice but to follow the God of the universe who created man, who created and who from the foundation of the earth had a plan in mind for all of mankind. I have to follow him. And so you repent. You totally repent. You totally say, my life before, I don't want any of it. I disdain it. I want to bury it. I don't want to be that way anymore. I choose God and I will follow him. You're baptized. As Jesus Christ said, we must be. We bury our lives and our sins in the waters of baptism, and then we have hands laid on us, and we have the Holy Spirit. You've heard it compared to the Holy Spirit. We can combine to compare it to the DNA. When God puts his Holy Spirit in us, it's like he's now living in us.

And our job is to continue to abide in him and let his Holy Spirit lead us, guide us, correct us, instruct us, bring to remembrance things that we have, give us the strength to say no, and we know we should say no and not just give in to the things that we have naturally done. And God, when he sees his Holy Spirit in us, he tells us in Romans 8, we are children. He sees us as his children. If we're his children, we are brothers. We are brothers and we are part of that family that he is called.

Jesus Christ himself is called our older brother, the same number 80 that he uses here in Matthew 12. In Romans 8-29, when it says Jesus Christ is our older brother. He's our older brother. Same thing he says in Hebrews 2-11. When it says he's not ashamed to call us brothers.

Brothers. And through the New Testament, we find some things. We find epistles addressed to brothers. Let's go back to James 1. James 1.

This is Christ's actual brother, James, his blood brother, who later became a spiritual brother as well. And in verse 1, he begins his epistle in much the same way that Peter and John and the Gospel and Paul began their epistles. It says, James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad. Greetings. Verse 2, my brethren, same words as Jesus Christ used. Greek number 80. Brothers, count it all joy when you fall into various trials. Knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience, but let patience have its perfect work that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. He's talking about brothers. He's talking two brothers who have the same faith, who have become brothers in the faith.

Chapter 2, he says again, my brethren, Greek number 80, my brothers, he could say, don't hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory with partiality. For if there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings and fine apparel, and there should also come in a poor man in filthy clothes, and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes, and say to him, you sit here in a good place, and say to the poor man, you stand there, sit here at my footstool. Haven't you shown partiality among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

You're not loving the way neighbors love, he's saying. Don't show the partiality. They're neighbors, too. Love them as you love them. Love them as you love yourself. But they're also brothers. They're also brothers. No distinction. You don't treat one better than the other just because of what they have or what they can do for you. They're all brothers. They're all brothers.

Treat them equally. You're going to read, you know, the same introductions in Peter and Pauls. Let's go back to 1 Corinthians. Let's go back to 1 Corinthians. I want to go to verse 1. Let's look at chapter 1 here. 1 Corinthians 1. So when we read, you know, James, Paul, Peter, Jude, I'll talk about brethren. They're talking to you and me because they see us as brothers, just as God sees us as brothers. 1 Corinthians, where was it? 1 Corinthians 1 and verse 10. What does it say here? I'm sure this is an introductory. Oh, yeah, verse 10. So we see some things, some commands that God gives to brothers. Now I plead with you, brethren. I plead with you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing. There's one truth. We can't go to the church in Corinth and hear one thing and then go to the church in Galatian and hear another. We shouldn't go to the church in Orlando and hear one thing and then go to the church in Tampa and hear another. We shouldn't go to the church in Chicago or in England or in Africa and hear another. We should hear the same thing. You're all brothers. You all speak the same thing because you have the same spirit. You're living by the same word. You're being led by the same God. Brothers speak the same thing. It's clear he's not talking about neighbors because you know what? My neighbor next door isn't going to speak the same thing as I speak because he doesn't know. The neighbor that I may come across or times when I work, they can't speak the same thing. Only brothers can speak the same thing. And he tells you and me as brothers speak the same thing. And we will if we're led by God's Spirit.

I plead with you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, you speak the same thing that there be no divisions among you but yet you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. Be one. Exactly what Jesus Christ said on that night that he was arrested. My will is that they are one. Brothers, one, one family. If we go over to 1 Corinthians 5 and verse 10. You know here we talked about chapter 5 and what was going on there that the person had to be put out of the church. Not because they were mad at them. Well, they were disappointed in them. But not because they wanted to just separate them and never hear them. They wanted them to come to repentance because that's what we all want for each other. Not that we're playing a game here and whatever. We try to get by with things. Not hiding, as we talked about last week, from each other. Hiding from God. But we're here to be trained and taught and led to God's kingdom. And here, as he's talking about this sexually immoral man, he says in verse 9, he says, I wrote to you in my pistol not to keep company with sexually immoral people.

And some in Corinth misunderstood that. And they thought, wow, this is a really corrupt society. Who can we even talk to? We might think that, right? I have no idea what my neighbors here or in Jacksonville do, but I might say, well, if I heard that, I can't talk to them. I have no idea what they're doing or I even know what they're doing. I wrote to you in my pistol not to keep company with sexually immoral people, yet I certainly didn't mean with the sexually immoral people of this world or with the covenants or extortioners or idolaters. Those are all neighbors, but they're not brothers. I said, that's my will that you live in the world. You learn to work with these people. You learn to love those people. They're your neighbors. I didn't mean that you, the sexually immoral of this world or the covenants or extortion or idolaters, says you would need to go out of the world, and that wasn't God's will for us.

Our will is that we would learn and we would grow, and part of our education and training is we would learn how to love the people around us, even though they saw things differently, even though they may treat us badly. But now, I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, named a brother who is sexually immoral or covetous or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner, not even to eat with such a person. If he's done these things, he's no longer a brother. He's no longer part of the family. Don't give him the impression that you are okay with what he does if you know those things are going on. The standard for what we do is different for a brother than it is for a neighbor. Do you see that? If there's a brother, don't even look at this. Don't even, you know, because he needs to understand that what he's doing is not part of what the family mission and what God's purpose for us is.

One chapter over here in chapter 6, he says the same things. Sometimes this gets misunderstood.

In verse 5 of chapter 6, he says, I say this to your shame. Is it so that there's not a wise man among you, not even one who will be able to judge between... Okay, let me see where I should have...

Okay, well, that's fine. You know the context here. I say this to your shame. Is it so that there's not a wise man among you, not even one who will be able to judge between his brothers?

You know the truth of God. You got the book. You got the Bible. You should be able to work these things out, whether it's husband and wife, brother to brother, sister to sister. And if both have the Holy Spirit, you know what these things will work out. If there's continuing tension, if there's continuing things, someone needs to look and see, you know, am I being led by God's Holy Spirit? Because if both our brothers or both our sisters or a brother and sister, something will work out. There will be reconciliation. There will be acknowledgement of fault. Or if we have this issue between us, we'll be able to work it out like Christians do. Paul is saying, why don't you work it out among yourselves? You're citizens of the kingdom. You know the truth. You know the standards that God has called us to. You need to be looking at this and come out of the world. But he says in verse 6, but brother, brother goes to law against brother and that before unbelievers. You're taking each other to court. You're suing each other. Brother goes against brother. That shouldn't be. Guide your judge. The Bible is the word. You can work it out. And if you need someone to intervene, talk to someone in the church. Come to the minister. Come to the elder. Come to someone and work it out.

But let God's Spirit be there to guide and direct.

Now, he doesn't say here that it is always wrong to go to court. If a neighbor, not a brother, takes you to court, you can't really say, I can't go, because he's not under the same. He's not a citizen of the same kingdom that you are. He lives by the law of the land. And if that's what it is, then we would have to do that. But brothers should not be doing here. Paul is saying, Corinthians, come on. Don't take each other to court. You know the answers. You need to let God lead you to these things. You need to work out those things with fear and trembling before him.

And he says in verse 7, it's already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another. And he's speaking to the church here. He's not talking to the whole city of Corinth. It's an utter failure. You've done something wrong. You've let God down. You're not paying attention to what God is teaching you and how you have to work these things out.

You have to apply Matthew 18, 15, which applies brother to brother.

And then if that doesn't work out, you bring in an elder. And if that doesn't work in, you bring in the church. And those things happen the way that they should.

Over in 1 John 2, he uses the same term for brother. 1 John 2 in verse 7 He says, Brothers, brethren. Whenever you see the word brethren, think every single time in the New Testament, see brethren. It's the same word that Jesus Christ said. Who are my brothers? You are my mother and my brothers, he said. Brethren, I write no new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you heard from the beginning. Then he says again, a new commandment I write to you, which thing is true in him and you because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining. He who says he is in the light and hates his brother. I hate that person.

I don't want anything to do with that brother. Not of the church of God. Sometimes things can happen and we can be really upset with each other and may take a while to get over it.

But you know, we need to get over it. We need to be reconciled. We need to forgive.

And sometimes it takes some time to do that.

He who says he's in the light and hates his brother is in darkness until now.

He who loves his brother abides in the light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. God says, my will is that you will love one another. You will love your neighbor, and certainly within the body you will love your brothers, even if they've done you wrong.

In chapter 3, he expands it a little bit.

Chapter 3 and verse 14, it says, we know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren. We love them, even if they have faults, because we bear with them.

We work with them. We're patient with them, just like they're patient with us.

God is patient with us. We know that we pass from life to death because we love the brethren.

He who doesn't love, and that's Agape, he does not love his brother, abides in death.

Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this, we know love, or we know Agape, because he laid down his life for us, and we also ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. It's a pretty tall order, too. Would we be willing to lay down our lives for our brothers? If the time came and they said, it's your life, or the life of these people over here, or this group, or this family, would you lay down your life to preserve the life of your brother?

I think most husbands and fathers would say, yes, I would lay down my life for my wife and my kids, that they could live. And I would guess every one of us, me included, would say, yes, I would, but it gives us pause to think, would we? If and when that time comes, would we lay down our lives for our brothers?

Over the course of time, we will, just like Jesus Christ will lead us. Verse 17, But whoever has this world's goods and sees his brother in need, okay, and sometimes we hear of people who have some problems, who need some things, whoever has this world's goods, who has the means to do so and sees his brother in need and just steps apart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?

If you find out something, help! Bring it to someone's attention. Watch out for one another.

Paul says that. We have all sorts of situations come up. God is looking to see how do you handle that situation? Do you close up your heart for them like the Levite and priest did to the Good Samaritan? He's talking to brothers here. Whoever has this world's goods and sees his brother in need and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not live in word or in tongue, but indeed and in truth. Help! If you can help, help!

We can go through many more verses. I'll give you Matthew 7, verse 3, about the speck in our brother's eyes. You know, to remove first the plank in our own eye before we remove the speck in his eye. Let's look at Matthew 23.8.

Here is Christ talking about family again as you go through this.

And he's talking about those who love to have the preeminent places, those who love the titles, those who love the positions, those who, that's what their real motivating place is. And he's talking about the Pharisees here. And he says to his brothers, which weren't all the Jews at that time, right? It was the people who did the will of God. Those were his brothers.

And he says to this, to you, don't be called rabbi. That rabbi is not your teacher anymore.

That reverend over there in that church is not your teacher anymore.

That priest in the Catholic Church isn't your teacher anymore. He's not doing the will of God in heaven. That guy on the internet who's not doing the will of God, he's not your teacher anymore.

Don't call him rabbi. Don't call him teacher. Look to people who are teaching the truth, he says.

But you don't be called rabbi, for one is that you're a teacher, the Christ, and you are all brothers. Don't call anyone on earth your father, for one is your father. We are all brothers, and we have one father, the Father in heaven. And don't be called teacher, for one is your teacher, the Christ. Family. Family. God the Father, and his people as brothers.

Let's go through chapter 25 and verse 40.

Chapter 25 has some parables. We should all be aware of, you know, it begins the chapter talking about the ten virgins, half of which let their light go through, if they were so thoroughly asleep they didn't see the bridegroom coming. They just kind of close their eyes and waltz through life.

Kind of had that latency and attitude we talked about last week. Kind of like, everything's okay, I don't need to do anything, I'm good enough, I have need of nothing. And then, all of a sudden, the bridegroom came and they were taken by surprise. And they were left out.

Tough thing. Tough thing to do. Then he talks about the one with talents and how God expects us when he brings us into his shirts that we're going to grow, that we're going to bear those fruits that he wants us to, and that, you know, not just monetarily, but that we're going to produce fruits, that he's going to look at us and say, wow, that is a productive tree. He started with a little, but look how much he's grown over his lifetime. And others, that maybe God didn't give as much, but they grew. And then one who did nothing, he was just at the status quo, he was at the same level 10, 15, 20 years down the road as he was when the time called, that God called him. And God said, you know, sorry, you didn't do what brothers do. I didn't call you to be status quo. I called you to grow. I called you to produce fruit. And then in the latter part here of chapter 25, he talks about something else for brothers. And he talks about separating sheep from the goats, and that the sheep go to his right side, the goats do to go to his left side. And you know the parable here. Let's pick it up in verse 33. He will set the sheep on his right hand and the goats on the left. And the king will say to those on his right hand, Come, you blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you took me in. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me. These are the things you did during the course of your life. And the righteous will say to God, to him, saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and take you in or naked and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and come to you? And the king will answer and said to them, assuredly I say to you, and as much as you did it to one of these, the least of these, my brethren, my brothers, you did it to me.

When you saw a need, you filled it. It might have been someone coming from afar. That was a brother. And you saw they needed something, you just did it. They may have been a stranger to you, but you filled the need. You were merciful to them, your brothers. Because, you know, God says that we should be kind to all, especially the household of God. He's looking to see how we learn to be family with one another. How do we handle one another? How do we learn to live with one another? How are we watching out the needs? How are we becoming one? How is what I have I can give to you to help your life be better when I see a need? And in these cases, they may not have even known. You don't thought, I don't need to do that. It's a stranger. It's a stranger. But he said, when you did it to the least of these, my brethren, I watched how you treated each other, and you did it well. And on the flip end, on the other hand, when the goats who didn't do those things, and Christ says the same thing to them when they ask the question, when did we ever see this happen? And he said, whenever you didn't do it to the one of the least of these, the implication being my brothers, whenever you did to the one of the least of these, or didn't do it to one of the least of these, my brothers, you didn't do it to me. It teaches us something about what God is looking for and how he sees us as family. Brothers who encourage each other, brothers who watch out for each other, brothers who pray for each other, brothers who love each other, brothers who learn to love neighbors who aren't brothers as well as themselves, brothers who, when we see someone not going the way that they should out of love and not out of judgment, will approach someone and try to turn them to the way that they need to do, brothers who understand each other and are patient with each other. You know, everyone is our neighbor. Every brother is our neighbor, but not every neighbor is a brother. And as you go through the Bible and as you read the Bible, we can look at that word, brethren. We can look at the word, brothers, and see what God wants for us. You know, he's called us out of this world. He's made us part of his family. We are citizens of the United States, citizens of Orlando, citizens of Florida, citizens of the kingdom of God. And that's what he expects us to do and how to live our lives. So Christ has answered the question, who is my neighbor? And who, who, who are our brothers?