The sermon discusses the duties of church members, focusing on the theme of love towards God and others. It emphasizes the importance of faithful attendance to church meetings, educating children in the Christian faith, and cultivating kindness in speech and actions. The sermon also highlights the significance of living a life of purity and the biblical practice of church discipline for reconciliation. Overall, the sermon aims to encourage church members to fulfill their responsibilities with love and obedience to God's commandments.

Your Bibles to the epistle of 1 John and 1 John chapter 4 and I'm going to begin reading in verse 20 and read down through chapter 5 verse 5. And this, There's been a theme, I don't know if you've picked up on it as well, through our prayers, through the scripture reading, and even in that very last verse that we just sang regarding the love of God, that our love towards him and also his love towards us. And in 1st John I was thinking about this as we're continuing our study through our church covenant and I was thinking about this terrible title that I had called duties of church members. Boy that sounds like a downer doesn't it? But I really want us to refocus our attention on what really this is about.

So look with me in 1 John chapter 4 and then beginning with verse 20. John writes, if someone says I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, How can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from him that he who loves God must love his brother also. Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.

And everyone who believes him, who begot, also loves him who is begotten of him. By this we know that we love the children of God." May I read that again? By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world and this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith.

Who is he who overcomes the world but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. Let's pray. Our gracious Father in heaven, we thank you, O Lord, that you bring us to such a passage as this to instruct us in our ways. And Father, you're helping us this morning to understand what is the love of God and what it means to love one another. And Father, my prayer for your people today here in this building is that you would help us to truly love one another according to your clear definition of love, that we would keep your commandments and that your commandments are not burdensome.

Lord we thank you that you have called us to this time and this place and we pray now that you would help us as we grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ and we ask it in his name. Amen. You may be seated. As I was thinking again about this continuation, this second part if you will, of our church covenant and understanding the duties of church members, I really want you to consider not in just the form of duties but as love towards church members. In our home, if you come, you may see a little placard on our refrigerator or on the wall and it says, moody duties.

That's kind of the things that we require for our children to do within our home regarding their duties of things that they should be doing around the home. But I'm really considering changing that and I don't know exactly the best way to term this but really it should be something described as moody love. This is how we can actually love one another by serving one another and caring for one another. I want you to realize that that's really what our church covenant is about. Our church covenant is not about these duties that weigh upon us that are meant to be some burden to each of us, but rather it is something that should encourage us and instruct us in how we love one another.

What does it actually look like to love one another? It is not how the world describes love, but how does God define love? And that's really what we are desiring here this morning. You know, I was thinking about this thing of unity and love, and for some reason, this is I guess how my mind works. You know, I think about my boys.

I think it was this morning or last night. They were playing with some rare earth magnets. And if you've ever played with a rare earth magnet, you know one thing about them, they are very attractive. They come together and they're difficult to get apart. They're rare in that sense.

But what I really want us to do this morning is to consider how we can be rare-earth Christians. That we would be so unusual because of our love one for another. That we would have such a desire, just like those magnets, to come together for the worship of God, for the fellowship of the body, that we would come together in prayer, that we would come together for the teaching of the Word of God. All of these things would would draw us together, that it would be almost, that we would almost be unable to resist it because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts. That is my desire for us this morning, that God would grow us in this grace of Christian love.

So as we pick up this morning in this second part of our study of the Church Covenant. It is at this point regarding the Church Covenant where we agree as a body of Christ, as this local expression of the universal, that we voluntarily agree to join together by way of membership into a local church body. And it is this which distinguishes ourselves from somewhat of the vagueness or the invisibleness, if you will, of the universal church. And I don't mean disrespect to that I don't mean that in a in a disrespectful way towards the universal church or the invisible church but my point is simply this that being as that we as human beings are limited by space and we are limited by our time. And therefore, it's impossible to the large extent for us to actually fulfill these commands of Christ with the universal body.

There are brothers and sisters in Christ all across this world, whom I will never meet, and I will never have the privilege of worshiping God with. I will never have the joys of serving them, and I will never have just that privilege of obeying the one another's with them. And so God in his wisdom, he brings together local churches for this very purpose, that we might fulfill the love of Christ among one another. And so I want us to to get our minds wrapped around this these commands of Christ as not as what John calls them here that these commandments would be a burden but he defines for us in verse 3 for this is the love of God. He tells us in 1 John 4 that God is love.

And here he tells us and explains to us this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments and His commandments are not burdensome. That we actually love God and if we truly love God we will love one another. It's clear from Scripture throughout that the Scripture recognizes local churches as being actual churches. Now this may seem unusual to you, but I am trying to make a point. In the scriptures, the apostles used the terms the church or the church at Corinth.

Or the church, he uses it in numerous places, as seen in the book of Acts and Philemon and Romans and 1st and 2nd Corinthians and Galatians. And then also they use this term the churches. So the church and the churches. And it shows us here that in the midst of the universal church that the Lord has established, that there are actually real churches that are localized that God has ordained to be. This is one of them.

We are the church at Hope Baptist. This is who we are. We are the church. We're one of the churches in this area. And so we see within this this instruction from Scripture because remember what we learn from is not just commands from Scripture, but there are also precepts and principles that we learn from and how we should love God and how we should live in obedience to God and bringing these understandings together so that we can rightly walk in the faith.

And so in chapter 26, I wanna read again and it's listed there in your outline. I wanna read again from the second London Baptist confession regarding the church and this is chapter five and sorry paragraph five and paragraph six of chapter 26 in our confession of faith and this is what it says it says in the execution of this power wherewith he is so entrusted the Lord Jesus calls out of the world unto himself through the ministry of his word by his spirit those that are given unto him by his father that they may walk before him in all the ways of obedience which he prescribes to them in his word those thus called he commands to walk together in particular societies or churches for their mutual edification and the due performance of that public worship which he requires of them in the world. And then paragraph six says, the members of these churches are saints by calling, visibly manifesting and evidencing in and by their profession and walking their obedience unto that call of Christ. And do willingly consent to walk together according to the appointment of Christ, giving up themselves to the Lord and to one another by the will of God in professed subjection to the ordinances of the gospel." Now that's a huge mouthful of things to think about there that we are given instruction in regarding the church and specifically the local church here that he has called us into these local churches for the performance of public worship and then in paragraph six that we would give ourselves up to the Lord and to one another.

If I could also bring this heading in for the rest of this church covenant, it would be the one-anothers. These are many of the one-anothers of Scripture and in fact unless there is this local body called the church, we cannot truly function and participate in the one-anothers of the Scriptures. So within this paragraph we receive first as we're picking up in this next section in our church covenant we receive this exhortation to the faithful attendance to the meetings of the church. Now, why is it important? Why have we gathered here this morning?

Our covenant states, we will not forsake the assembling of ourselves together, nor neglect to pray for ourselves and others, nor avoid the meetings of the church." Why is it so important to God and to us here at Hope Baptist Church that we gather together for the meetings of the church? What is it about this? Is this just the the rantings of your elders and we just desire to have you here a lot? Or is there something more to it which God has called us to? So one of the positive impacts of COVID in the last few years has really been to expose in a large degree what the visible church believed about the meetings of the church for worshipping God and the duties of our living together and how we live together as the body of Christ and how we love one another.

You see what we witnessed is that many churches bowed their knee to their ultimate authority, the state, and yet at the same time we witnessed other churches take stands at possible risk of their lives and their freedoms and even their wealth and properties in order to obey the King of Kings who says all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth." So we saw this and so this circumstance in history, this situation in history revealed for us and it was helpful. Even though it was hurtful in many ways, it was helpful for us to see things more clearly. It really distinguished. We ended up having people come here from other churches, and we called them our COVID refugees. They came because they were almost like a refugee to come because they wanted to worship God and their churches were not meeting.

God has called us to obey the ultimate authority over all things and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. So why is it essential that the meeting of the church take place? Why is that such an essential? That was the big question. Is it essential?

Even our founding fathers of our nation wrote in the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights, it says this, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. So this is not the most important reason by any stretch of the imagination. And it is not that they were giving us rights. The Bill of Rights is not giving us rights, it is stating what they are and that the government is established to protect those rights and it limits them in what they can do. They cannot step into these rights and specifically that being they cannot prohibit the free exercise of religion.

They cannot. They have not the authority to do so and here's another reason, the bigger reason is because the Lord Jesus Christ has commanded the church to gather for worship. He's commanded it. He has all authority in heaven and on earth and there is none higher than Him. He has commanded it.

And so as we consider this the reason that we meet together and that we understand and that we believe and hold very dearly the essential nature of the meeting of the church is because Scripture tells us. This is why we do what we do. Not because the government can't tell us what not to do but because God tells us what to do. He explains to us in the book of Hebrews in chapter 10 verse 24 and 25 he says and let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching." Again I want to go back to how I began and open this message up regarding our love for one another. He tells us here that one of the main reasons for the meeting of the church is that we are to consider one another to stir up love.

You're here this morning not only, which is the greatest reason, to love and worship God, you're actually here this morning to love one another. You're actually here this morning to love one another you're actually here this morning to stir each other up to love and good works I hope you have come with that purpose in mind. You're here not just for yourself, you're actually here for everyone else, and you're here to worship God. And part of that worshiping God is stirring up each other that we would love God more, that we would do good works more. And he tells us here that we are not to forsake this assembling of ourselves together as is the manner of some.

There are some who are limiting themselves, they're hindering themselves, they're neglecting their responsibilities of love. Throughout 1st Corinthians we see this phrase that says when you come together. It was never something that was questioned in the early church. Am I going to go to church today? Am I going to meet with the people today?

With God's people? It was never really a question. Paul says it over and over again, when you come together? When you come together? When you come together?

He says it over and over throughout 1st Corinthians. It was not something that they questioned, it was something that was understood. If anyone ever had a good reason to avoid the meetings of the church, it was many of those who were in that early church. That we read even in the book of Acts and into the next few centuries there. We see that they would have actually had a really good reason to to let their pastors know we won't be there today.

We're being persecuted. They are threatening threatening to throw us into prison. They are killing people because they are Christians. Boy, that would be a good reason. You see, the early church suffered horrific persecution and they were often put in prison and put to death simply because of the name of Jesus Christ and that they were gathering together.

The Roman world did not understand this new sect of Judaism that they called it. They thought it was a just a new sect, a break-off of the Jews. And when they could no longer meet in the temple, the Christians began to spread, and Christianity began to spread throughout the world, that they not only would meet in their homes, but even that became dangerous and they began to meet in fields and sometimes they would meet in the woods and when the persecution arose to such an extent they would meet even in tombs, in the catacombs underneath the city, underground. Why did they go to such an extent to assemble themselves together to sing and to pray and to worship? It is because God commanded them to.

It was not because their pastors pressured them. It was not because of cultural pressures, but it was because of the Word of God. We see throughout history that the church is often persecuted and rounded up during the meetings of the church. While they're meeting, people will come in, it happens even today in other countries, that they will break into the very buildings where they're meeting and arrest Christians for meeting and yet they still continue to meet and they go again and again. You see I would imagine that the excuses of modern Christians and this is not a guilt party please don't hear this as a guilt trip I'm not saying that but I could imagine that the excuses of many modern Christians regarding their neglect of the meetings of the church would surely cause Christians of bygone ages to marvel at the trivial value that they placed upon the meeting of the church.

Can you imagine our Americanized Christianity? It is really more impressed with the successful and the prosperous and the movie star Christian so often than it is the fateful Christian. Ian Bounds once wrote this he says the easy smile the temperate deportment and the contented visage of successful and prosperous Christians can but impress few. But the determined faithfulness, the long-suffering fellowship, and the stalwart compassion of yoke fellows in hardship is certain to convey the hope of grace to many. When we read in church history about our Christian heroes we do not read of those who had it easy.

We do not like the stories of those who had all of the wealth and had everything at their fingertips. We read and marvel at those who suffered for the cause of Christ, who were willing to lay aside life and liberty and fortunes for the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and for the church his bride. And I wonder in the future will there be books written on American Christianity when we hold these things so lightly. May God help us to understand that it's not just because it's in our church covenant but it's in our church covenant because it's in the Word of God. I'm not here to preach some document of man.

I'm here to preach the Word of God. There is something that is supernatural that takes place when this body gathers together to worship God. When you were singing this morning, you were stirring up in me a spiritual thing that happened, and it was love, and it was encouraging me to good works. It was actually encouraging me and putting with zeal within myself that I should preach the Word of God to you so that I then could exercise my gifts towards you to stir you up to love and good works. This is not just something that you come to watch.

This is not a show. This is participation in the work of God in his people through the spirit that we would stir one another up and if you neglect the meeting of the church You're neglecting so much not all but so much of the opportunity That God has given you to do this very thing that he's called you to do. So often people want to know what kind of programs do y'all have so that I can get plugged in. We have the program of love. That's our program.

We want you to be here and we want you to love each other. There you go. It's a simple one. We just want you to love each other. We want you to stir each other up.

We want you to participate in the one another's of scripture. Listen to what Romans 12, it was read this morning, for as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we being many are one body, in Christ and individually members of one another, having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them. If prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith or ministry, let us use it in our ministering. He who teaches in teaching, he who exhorts in exhortation, he who gives with liberality, he who leads with diligence, he who shows mercy with cheerfulness, let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil, cling to what is good, be kindly affectionate one to another with brotherly love and honor, giving preference to one another, not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer, distributing to the needs of the saints given to hospitality.

This is what our church covenant is talking about. It's talking about the word of God and what it teaches us is our duties, which is the demonstration of our love. Colossians 3.16 says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing with grace in your heart to the Lord. Did you realize that when you sing you were actually obeying these commands? He says that we are teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and in hymns and in spiritual songs singing with grace in your heart.

You're actually obeying the commands when you sing. Do not come to this church with your mouth shut when we sing. Sing! Sing with passion! Sing to the Lord!

Sing to your brothers and sisters! Sing as we started out. Sing to your soul! Arise my soul! Arise!

Shake off thy guilty fears! That is what we are called to do as we gather together. We see this all throughout the book of Acts and throughout the New Testament. And so really I want you to understand that my hope and prayer is that we will willfully embrace the importance of the meetings of the church and not forsake the meetings for light and trivial reasons. It doesn't mean you never can't be here.

Of course if you're sick and you've got the flu, we want you to love us by perhaps not coming to church on that Sunday. But we do desire that you be here and don't neglect it for the trivial reasons that so many do, but that we would value the presence of the Bride of Christ as Christ does. He values our presence and we should as well. Secondly, in our church covenant we come to this next paragraph, if you will, and I've titled it Family Responsibilities. It says this, we will also maintain family and private devotions to educate our children in Christian faith and demonstrate the love of Christ in all of our household relationships.

In Deuteronomy chapter 6, this is not something new only in the New Testament, in Deuteronomy chapter 6 we read this, now this is the commandment and these are the statutes and judgments which the Lord your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land which you cross over to possess, that you may fear the Lord your God and keep his statutes and his commandments which I command you, you and your son and your grandson all the days of your life, that your days may be prolonged. Therefore hear O Israel and be careful to observe it, that it may be well with you and that you may multiply greatly as the Lord God of your fathers has promised you a land flowing with milk and honey and listen to what he says, hear oh Israel the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your strength. And these words, which I command you today, shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up.

You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates. This is what we are talking about in this part of the church covenant. That it will be something that we are actively teaching our children and our family. We will religiously educate our children in the Christian faith.

So that they will know the commandments of God. We read in Deuteronomy, he says, in Deuteronomy 32, he says, set your heart on all the words which I testify among you today, which you shall command your children to be careful to observe all the words of this law, for it is not a futile thing for you because listen what he says it is your life it is your life and by this word you shall prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to possess. Have you ever considered that the religious education of your children as you're teaching them the Word of God, as you're teaching them all of the things of God, have you ever considered it as your life? When you think about your life, what is your life made up of? We think often times when men are talking, the first thing we ask, what do you do?

We want to know what kind of vocation you have. Often times when people ask me that question, I tell them I'm a father. And part of my job is to teach my children the things of God because that is actually my life. My jobs may change. I may become disabled and can't work.

But here's the fact, the job that will never change in my life is the job of educating my children and teaching them the ways of God and not only my children but if you'll note he says to you, your son, and your grandson, we could say all of our grandchildren are still our responsibility in that sense that we are instructing them to remember the commandments of God. We want to teach them over and over and over again. What happens though if this is neglected even for a generation, one generation? Well we see this. It actually did happen And it does happen.

In the book of Judges, in chapter two, verse 10, listen to what is written. When all that generation had been gathered, he's speaking about Joshua and those priests who had actually seen the miraculous things that all that God had done, all of this in God bringing them out of Egypt, in God bringing them into the land, all of the things that God had done. He says, when all of that generation had been gathered to their fathers, they died. Another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord, nor the work which he had done for Israel." And if you know anything about the book of Judges, then you read continually how they did evil in the sight of the Lord. We read how every man did what was right in his own eyes.

And we see that they were again, over and over and over again, they were given over to slavery and subjection to other foreign leaders because they did not know. There rose up a generation that did not know the Lord. How does this happen? It happens when you disobey Deuteronomy 32 and Psalm 78 and a thousand other passages of scripture that tells us that we have that responsibility to teach our children the things of God. That's why our church covenant says we will also maintain family and private devotions to educate our children in the Christian faith and demonstrate the love of Christ in all of our household relationships.

Why is this? Why does the Bible put such emphasis on families teaching biblical truth to their children and to their grandchildren? Well there are many reasons. One of them is that God instituted the family first to be the educators of children, not the state. This was and is the role that God intended for the family from the very beginning.

Adam and Eve had the responsibility to teach their children the things of God and guess what? You do too. The Old Testament is full of passages that prove this. The reason our covenant states this to educate our children the Christian faith and demonstrate the love of Christ in all of our household relationships is because Who you are at home is who you are. Now this is where it gets really convicting.

If the love of Christ is not first demonstrated in your home, then it will only be seen as hypocrisy if it is shown outside the home. How you live in the day in day out normal life, You see that is the real you and I always say this real Christianity, your real Christianity is really lived at home. If there is no love of Christ at home, there is no love of Christ. If it's only demonstrated when you come here to gather and it's not demonstrated among husband and wife and parent and child and child to child, brothers and sisters, if there is no demonstration of love there, there is no love of Christ, but only a show of it. This is hard, but we are covenanting together that we will strive for these very things that we would love one another and that that love would begin in the most intimate relationships that we have within our families, that we would love each other.

Those God put in your family as the closest and most intimate are those that God ordained to reveal you. He puts you there and you think, boy, maybe as a child you think I have a brother or I have a sister that really rubs me the wrong way they get on my nerves let's be honest. God put them there to get on your nerves. He did that to show you that you're not nearly as righteous as you thought you were. He's actually using that to reveal what's already in your heart.

They're not putting that in your heart. God is showing you what's in your heart. The tendency of man is always to think too highly of himself. But God will tear down all of those things and show you the real you. And let me tell you something, can I testify?

It is humbling. It is humbling. The most difficult circumstances in your life and the most difficult relationships in your life are actually God working out to purify your faith. Just like I preached last Sunday afternoon about the purifying of our faith. You remember how is our faith purified?

Through trials. How is gold purified? Through the fire. And God ordains both of those. This is why the love in our household relationships is so important.

And there is, if there is no love there, there is no love. Next we see that we are our brother's keeper. He said we write in our church covenant, this is what we've covenanted to, that we will watch over one another in brotherly love, to remember one another in prayer, to aid one another in sickness and distress, to walk circumspectly in the world, to be just in our dealings, faithful in our engagements, and exemplary in our deportment. In Romans, again Romans 12 verses 9 through 13, listen to what Paul says, let love be without hypocrisy, abhor what is evil, cling to what is good, be kindly affectionate one to another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to the other, to one another, not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer, distributing to the needs of the saints given to hospitality. One of the greatest blessings of being part of a local church is the comfort of knowing that I have brothers and sisters and that we all have brothers and sisters that are watching out for us.

One of the things that makes some sometimes new visitors uncomfortable when they come here, we actually believe this. We believe it is our responsibility to look out for each other. And sometimes people feel like, boy, you're a little kind of up in my business a little bit too much. It's actually our job to be in each other's business because we love each other. We desire your good.

In covenant we are publicly proclaiming that we are here for each other. It's not just like we're going around rebuking each other all the time and trying to point out every little problem. That's not the point. The point is I love you and I'm here for you. I want to be there when you, we list here, in sickness and distress that I'm going to remember you in my prayers, that I want to aid you, I want to walk circumspectly, I want to be just in what I do and my dealings, I want to be faithful in my engagements and exemplary in my deportment.

You see we are so much better off within a church family than we are outside of a church family. A believer individually or a believer believing family that is outside of a local body in membership in covenant membership with that body they are actually they're in danger They are an island to themselves with no one to watch out over them and to challenge them in their thinking and understanding about the Word of God and God loves us by placing us within covenant communities. Because guess what? We need one another. We're not sufficient in ourselves even as families we're not sufficient in ourselves we need the church.

God ordained it this way. It's clear as to why the Bible so often calls us to love. In the midst of loving each other within our family and loving each other within the local church, why does the Bible continue, continually command Bible continually command us to love simply because that too often we lack it. Too often we lack true biblical love that we're not truly loving one another. What is that which distinguishes us from the world?

Jesus said it was the greatest mark of distinction. In John 1334 he says, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, that you love one another. This is the most distinguishing mark of a true believer, is that we have love one for another. If you're an island unto yourself, how are you practicing and participating in this love one for another because he's commanding us to do something that we're not really great at doing.

If you'll think about it almost the entirety of the New Testament is written to correct things that we're doing wrong. He's actually instructing us on how to live and interact in a close relationship with those who will get on your nerves. Why do you think he tells us to be long-suffering and patient and kind and gentle? He's telling us these things over and over again because we fail in these things so often. He's actually commanding us to put ourselves in this situation where we're going to get to practice these things together.

I get to practice loving you and guess what you get to practice loving me and you're gonna have to show me patience. I'm gonna have to show you patience. This is part of us growing in grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. As Christians we actually have this responsibility towards one another. Listen to what James says in James 1 27 he says, pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this to visit the orphans and widows in their troubles and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

My responsibility is not only to you in the sense of me actively serving you or actively loving you or actively being patient with you, my responsibility towards you and yours towards me is that we keep ourselves unspotted from the world. That actually my example if I'm living a, I tell my children this all the time, you're being an example because you are. No matter what you're doing you're being an example. You're either being a good example or you're being a bad example. We want to be good examples and I have that responsibility to be a godly example before you.

That's part of me loving you and that's part of you loving me to keep myself unspotted from the world. But we have this responsibility not only among ourselves but we actually have the responsibility to demonstrate our Christianity before the world. Jesus said in Matthew 5 16, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven. It is our duty to walk circumspectly in this world. The word circumspectly here is interesting.

It means not willing to take risk. In other words, I'm not willing to live in such a way that would risk marring my testimony before you or before the world in order to enjoy some liberty that I believe I have. I would rather want to live in such a way that my message will not be undermined by my actions. That's how I want to walk circumspectly. I don't want my actions to speak so loudly that you can't hear what I'm saying.

I want you to hear what the word of God says, that we would walk circumspectly, that we would consider one another. Paul says in Ephesians, therefore be imitators of God as dear children and walk in love as Christ also has loved us and given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling aroma but fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness let it not even be named among you as is fitting for saints as is fitting for saints neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor coarse jesting dirty jokes which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks." Passage after passage after passage, I don't, I really don't have time to read all of them. Within our church covenant, they are listed there for your benefit to read. And we have a few references that we added to this covenant that's on the back, not in this room, but in the hallway there, that will be on the wall. Read every one of them.

All of those references there in our Church Covenant will be such a help and a blessing to you. Next, this leads us into our responsibility, or our duty if you will, of loving you in this sense that we live a life of purity. This next paragraph says we will abstain from gluttony. Boy who wants to list that one first? Surely we could talk about drunkenness first but gluttony, drunkenness, illicit drugs, materials, entertainments, or practicing things which jeopardize our own or another's faith or practicing things which jeopardize our own or another's faith.

You're not only responsible for you, you're responsible for others. I'm responsible on how I live before every one of you and you before me. We all have this responsibility. So it's not only to actively love, but also to love others by what we abstain from. Did you know that you can actually love somebody by not doing something?

You see, I am to be considerate in what I say and what I do so as not to cause you to stumble. Your Christian liberty is not your highest aim, but actually loving others is your highest aim under loving God of course. So we should consider others as more important than ourselves. Think about Philippians 2, it speaks of this. We also see that we do not live for ourselves but we live for Christ.

We live for the benefit of others. We should live in such a way that we could say with the Apostle Paul in 1st Corinthians 11.1, imitate me just as I imitate Christ. We are to seek to live above reproach. Ephesians 5 says, but fornicators and all uncleanness and covetousness, let it not even be named among you as is fitting for saints, neither filthiness nor foolish talking. I read that just a moment ago.

But thinking about all of these things that God has called us to do, he's called us to purity. Romans 14 13 says therefore let us not judge one another anymore but rather resolve this not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother's way. And of course Galatians speaks about the works of the flesh and Galatians 5, the works of the flesh and the works of the spirit. We know the works of the flesh, he says, they're evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousy, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murder, drunkenness, revelries, and the like of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. We are responsible one for another.

We are to love one another and this leads me to my fifth heading of kindness. I just listed it this way in this sense that he says, or we say, we will cultivate Christian sympathy in feeling and courtesy and speech striving to avoid all scriptural prohibitions such as tattling and backbiting and unrighteous anger, to refrain from speaking evil of one another, to be slow to take offense, to think the best of one another, and always ready for biblical reconciliation and mindful of the rules of our Savior to secure it without delay so far as it depends upon us." This is really divided up into two ways if you will and how we in what we say, we to be kind in what we say, but also kind in how we respond to what is said to us. Have you ever considered that you actually have a responsibility in how you respond to what is said? That is a two-way communication, it's a two-way relationship. They're responsible for what they say we're responsible for how we act.

No one can make you act a certain way. You choose how to respond. I choose how to respond. It's very difficult to do because we're not only in danger of offending others by what we say but we can even offend others by what we fail to say. If any man is not sinned with his tongue, he's a perfect man.

We all sin with our tongue. And that's why we're given this other, be slow to take offense, to think the best of one another. That's how often does that happen? We assume we know what that person means because we're not thinking the best of them. We're thinking, this is what they mean.

They're just poking me. No, assume the best of others. This exhortation here of slow to take of offense. If we could just keep these verses always before our mind, these verses I'm getting ready to tell you, if we could keep these in the front of our minds then maybe we would not get into so much trouble. Listen to these verses.

Psalm 19, 14, let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. Psalm 34, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking, deceit, depart from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it. Or Proverbs 15-1, a soft answer turns away wrath but a harsh word stirs up anger. Think about that, what I started with, how We are commanded to stir up what? Love and good works.

But here the Proverbs tells us that if we have a harsh word, we're going to stir up something else. We're going to stir up anger. Proverbs 19, 11, the discretion of a man makes him slow to anger and his glory is to overlook a transgression. And then James 1.19, Ephesians 4.29, 1 Peter 3.8-12 read all of these things. They're such a blessing if we could keep these things in the front of our mind.

So much of this, listen, so much of this is just basic Christianity. Christians are to be kind. Wow, there's a revelation. Be kind, love one another. Be gentle.

Consider the things that you say. But that is the one of the biggest problems in any relationship and especially the relationships within the church is that we get our feelings hurt and we're offended very easily. The reason this happens is because of pride. We believe you should treat me better than you're treating me. And when you don't treat me better you're not being kind.

Think of how often Christ covers your sin with love. Oh, think how often he does not deal with us as we deserve. So we likewise should not deal with each other as we may deserve but that we love one another and that we're not easily offended and that we're going to be quick to think the best of one another. And then lastly, and I hate to run through this one, but I don't know if it's enough for a whole other sermon, we'll see, but church discipline. We've got to end here.

We will, if necessary, submit to biblically defined and regulated church discipline for the purpose of reconciliation with God and man. And we accept that refusing to communicate or to flee is to usurp the power of the church and to break this covenant. This is the most often disregarded and avoided actions within most evangelical churches. I've only been a part of two churches and this is one of them that ever practiced church discipline. And both times, I believe that it demonstrates, not just that it happened once in each church, but in both churches, when I saw Biblical church discipline, It was a demonstration of love to the person and love to the body and love to God.

That we consider these things important. I'm not going to read them because you know these passages in Matthew 18 regarding church discipline. But one of the true signs of even being a church is that there will be church discipline. You know it's interesting that in every jurisdiction, the family, the church, and the state, there is a form of discipline. And the family is corporal and the state is capital but in the church it's neither of those.

It's actually in some form a censure. It can go to the point of excommunication but sometimes it's much lighter than that but think about it just for a moment. No one in their right mind thinks the state is out of line for punishing those who break the laws of man And no parent who truly loves their children thinks it is a crime that you discipline your children. But boy, for some reason, when discipline is enacted within the church, The church is almost always seen, almost always seen as being harsh and unloving. When the fact is, discipline in every sphere is actually loving.

It's loving when a parent corrects their children and disciplines them promptly. It is loving when the state removes that evil person from wreaking havoc upon the general population and it is loving when in the church when necessary that there is church discipline in such a way because it is loving to them. Remember it is for the point of reconciling them to God and to man. That there would be biblical reconciliation so that they would be restored. You read of this in 1st Corinthians 5 of course and he lists here that it's for the point of reconciliation.

Listen to what he says, you know in 1st Corinthians 5 regarding this man who was sexually immoral but he says down in here in chapter 5 He says, let's see here, he says deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. He doesn't leave it there. Then he says that, that tells us the purpose or the reason that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. In 1st Timothy it's not limited to congregants, it also includes elders. Do not receive an accusation against an elder except from two or three witnesses.

Those who are sinning rebuke in the presence of all that the rest also may fear. Now, Hebrews, we begin with some Hebrews, we're going to end with some Hebrews. Hebrews gives us the reality and the desired end of all church discipline. In Hebrews 12, 11, listen to what the writer says, Now, no chastening seems to be joyful for the present but painful. Can every child testify to that?

I can. I was once a child, believe it or not. All discipline. And in fact, if it's not painful, it's not discipline. No chastening seems to be joyful for the present but painful.

Nevertheless, here's this desired end. Afterward, It yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Not those who have received it, but to those who have been trained by it. You can actually be disciplined and not trained. But we desire within the church, within the family, within the state that those would be trained by it and it is at that point within the church that it produces the peaceable fruit of righteousness.

Our great design in here in closing, our great design in going through our church covenant that we have done is that we will all be unified in our understanding and in our practice to fulfill the principles, precepts, and commands of God's Word because this is love. That we live at peace with God and man. That our lives would be a blessing to each other and that our lives would be a testimony to the world that God's ways are best. Brothers and sisters, let us strive to keep this covenant one with another for the good of this church and for the glory of God. Let's pray.

Our Father in heaven, we do thank you for your instruction for us today in your word. I thank you oh God that you have you have just pulled back the truth of your word for us you have you've shown it to us in your word that true love means that we keep your commandments and that we don't look at these commandments as a burden. We look at these responsibilities that you've given us towards one another as actually the demonstration of love and so Father I pray that you would increase us in our love one for another and yes Lord towards you that we would truly love you with all of our heart with all of our soul and with all of our minds and we ask this in Jesus name. Amen.