I want to talk about privileges
of church members to one another. Privileges of church members
one to another. You know, it's this next thing
after dealing with the preacher, calling of a pastor is calling
of a deacon. Well, we don't have a deacon, so I wasn't going to
deal with that. Ain't no sense dealing with something we don't
have. Some ain't gonna do, but I do know that we as believers,
we as members of the body of Christ, have responsibilities
one to another. A lot of people like to call
them, the old timers called them duties. Duties. I don't like
the word duties. I don't. Because what we do is
we do out of love, and I like to call it a privilege. Privilege. It is a privilege. for God to
do anything for us. It is a privilege to God let
us understand anything about His Word. So I want to talk about
privileges of church members one to another. Now when we talk
about church, we're talking about the people, the people. A church
is people. People's the one that hear. People's
the one we're dealing with. This church has no ears. This
building don't. We say, we're going to church.
Well, we really ought to say, we're going to worship, or we're
going to meet together, or we're going up to worship the Lord,
or going up to the house of God. You know, because we ourselves
are the church. I'm going to go meet with the
church, would be an appropriate way of saying it. But how do
you get in the church? How do you get in the church
of the Lord Jesus Christ? He called it the church of the
living God. Why did he call it the church of the living God?
Because there's churches that's opposed to people who have idols. There's lots of people that have
idols, and especially in the scriptures, they had all kinds
of idols, temples made to idols. And then all over the world,
there's places now where they still have idols, and they worship
idols. And now you know, you see these
people have their idols on the dash of their car and hanging
around their mirrors and things like that. So, when we talk about
the church, how do you get in the church? How do you get in
the body of Christ? How do you get in it? Well, first of all,
you have to be born again. You can't get in the church without
a new birth. You can't get in, and you've
got to be converted. The new birth is this. The new
birth is God giving you life. He comes and regenerates you
and puts new nature in you and saves you and raises you from
the dead, quickens you from the dead to life. And then the conversion
is, is that after He gives you life, conversion is as He turns
you and leads you and guides you, you turn To Him, that's
what conversion is. New birth causes you to turn
to Him. Turn from your idols to the living
God. Turn from yourself to the living God. Turn from your sin,
turn to Christ. And that's what we're talking
about here. And you have to be called to that. And then there's
another way, another requisite, I believe, to be a member of
the church of the living God. And this says how to behave yourself.
How do you behave yourself in the Church of the Living God?
Well, to some degree, you have to have a knowledge. What do
you need to know? First of all, you need to know
there ain't nothing to you. That's one thing God begins to
teach you when He regenerates you. He makes you know that self,
self is nothing. Self is the misery. You know,
The Scriptures for God says a man is a lover of himself, a lover
of pleasure instead of a lover of God. The first thing He teaches
you, deny yourself. What does that mean? Deny your
righteousness, deny your hope, deny your good works, deny everything
that you've done until you come to Christ. And I tell you, it
also means this. You got to have some knowledge
of God. How in the world could anybody come to God that don't
know that He's God? A man cannot come to a God that
has to depend on him. Either he's God and he's got
the power to save you. He's God got the power to keep
you. He's God to save you. He's the God that's on the throne,
heaven and earth. How can you come to a God less
than that? Say, I come to God. Well, how'd
you come? Well, I tell you how I come.
He brought me. I didn't wake up one day and say, I'm gonna
go to God. Say, I'm gonna go find God. No, no, God has to
find you. He has to find us. And look what
else it says here. And I tell you, we gotta have
some knowledge of Christ. If a person needs saved, where
do they need saved from? What do they need saved from?
Saved from sin. Christ come to save us from our
sin. And I tell you, we gotta have
some knowledge of the way of salvation. And these things,
these two things make you a member of the body of Christ. These
two things make you a church, a member of the church of the
invisible body of Christ. Everybody that's in a church
building, everybody that sits on a pew is not necessarily a
child of God, not necessarily united. Well, now how do I, and
let me ask you this, if I wanted to unite, with a physical, a
local assembly. Say, if I want to unite with
the Lantana Grace Church, or if you move up to Kingsport,
I want to unite with the congregation at Kingsport, Tennessee. I want
to unite with the church in Todd's Road Grace Church. How do you
do that? How do you join yourself to the
visible church? First and foremost, this is the
way they did in the New Testament, baptism. Says, what must we do? Repent and be baptized, every
one of you, calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
how you get in by baptism. And there's two baptisms in the
Scriptures. Did you all know that? Two baptisms
in the Scriptures. There's the baptism of water.
that's emblematic of the death, the burial, the resurrection
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so that's what water baptism
represents. But then there's a spiritual
baptism. For as by one spirit are we all
baptized into one body, and that's by the Spirit of God into the
body of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I tell you, you know, and
this water baptism, That's the way you confess faith in Christ.
When somebody comes to you and says, I want to confess faith
in Christ. Well, you don't do it coming
up here and stand in front of everybody and say, I want to say I made
Jesus Lord. I come up here and I want to tell everybody the
Lord saved me. No, no. You say, I want to be baptized.
I want to confess Christ in water baptism. What does that mean? The water's not going to save
you. The water's not going to wash away sin. But it tells you
that I want to confess publicly that I want to die with Christ,
be buried with Christ, and rise up and walk in newness of life
to the glory of God in Jesus Christ. And oh my, and let me
ask you this. You know, some couple people
come to me one time, said, how do you become a member of this
church? I said, well, do you support it? Oh, yes, yes, yes. You believe what we're preaching?
Oh, yes, yes, yes. I said, well, what more you want
to do? But if you want to become a member
of a local church, a local assembly, first of all, it's a scriptural
practice. You go through the New Testament and everybody wanted
to be joined to the church. Ananias and Sapphire were members
of a local assembly. They had the church in the house
of Gaius. They had the church in the house
of Priscilla and Aquila. So they had local assemblies.
Dorcas was a member of a local assembly. And I'll tell you another
reason why is because of likeness. We're alike. Sheep like to congregate
with sheep, huh? and because of love. And I want
to identify, wherever the gospel's being preached, wherever there's
a local assembly that assembles together to glorify Christ, I
want to be joined to those people and pledge my allegiance to the
Lord Jesus Christ and the support of that local body. I want to
say, yes, these folks, they know God, they know Christ, and I
want to be identified with them. I want to be identified with
them. And I'll tell you this, now I'm gonna say something here
and I hope it's not offensive, but if it is, I don't mean to
be offensive. But if a person shares in the
blessings, the blessings of a local congregation like ours, sharing
the gospel, sharing the pastor, sharing the fellowship, The efforts
of paying the lights and paying for these pews and all the things
that we've paid for over the years, the money we sent to Alabama.
If you're gonna share His blessings, then you have to support those
blessings, support it. And I'll tell you something,
the church and the pastor and the folks who support the congregation,
we're not here for people's conveniences. We're not here for people's convenience.
We don't open these doors just for whenever somebody feels convenient
enough to come. We're not a place of convenience.
We're not a convenience store. When I feel like coming, or I
need to, you know, we're not here for people's convenience. You understand what I'm saying? But I tell you, most, it's sad
to say, but this is a place of convenience for a lot of people.
It's convenient for me to come. It's convenient for me to go
here. It's convenient for me. And when it's not convenient
enough, and it's not putting too much effort, then I don't
need to be there. But when it's convenient for
me, and I've got the time, and I've got the effort, and I've
got the inclination, then I'll go. And that's not right. There's
nothing right about it. It's not. There's nothing right
about that. How would you all like if every
time I felt like it was convenient for me to come preach, what would
you do? Well, you'd all show up here and say, well, I wonder
if it's convenient for Donnie to go tonight. I wonder if it's
convenient for Donnie to get a message. Well, it wasn't convenient
for me to study today, so I'll just go stay at the house. That
would be, you know what you all say, it wouldn't be long that
you'd say, well, I think we need to find somebody else. And that's,
like I said, I don't mean to be offensive, but that's what
preachers are called for, pastors are called for, to lead the people,
tell people the truth. When they, and I can be sure,
and I was talking, a lot of, you know, we come to the service
and we get blessings, no matter how tired we are, how weak we
are, how frail we are, how dead our minds are. We come and God
quickens us, God quickens us. And even if he reproves us or
corrects us, it's still a quickening, it's still a great blessing.
And now let's talk about these privileges, these privileges
that believers have with one another, church members have
to each other. And I hope these things for your comfort, my comfort,
your edification, but most of all, I hope and pray that for
the glory of God. Here's the first privilege we
have for one another. The first privilege we have to
one another is to love one another. That's the first thing in being
a member of a local assembly is to love one another. Our Lord
Jesus said that himself. He said, by this shall all men
know you are my disciples because you have love one toward another.
Look, I want you to look over here in Romans chapter 13 and
eight. We looked at this the other day.
Romans chapter 13 and verse 8. And our Lord Jesus, I want to
look at it here in a minute. Look what he said here. You know this is the law of our
head, this is the law of our master. He said in verse 8, Owe
no man anything but to love one another. You reckon we'll ever
get that debt paid? You reckon we'll ever get this?
Oh, oh, no man anything but to love him. So that means we're
constantly owing, owing to one another to love one another.
Owing that to one another. For he that loveth another hath
fulfilled the law. Now I want you to look over here
in John chapter 15. Look what our master said about
this twice. Look what our master said in
John 15. You know, and if there's anyone,
and that's what, this is a privilege, this is a privilege. For me to
get up here and preach is a duty for you to love one another.
You know, then you feel like you gotta do something.
But this is not something you have, this is a privilege. This
is something God does for us. And look what our Lord Master
said in John 15, 12. This is my commandment, that
you love one another. How much are we supposed to love
one another? As I have loved you. Greater love hath no man
than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Oh
my, and not only did he command it, but he's our example. He's
our example. Love one another as I've loved
you. I've loved you. And I'll tell you another reason
why we're to love one another, because we're the same family.
We're the same family. I mean, we're brothers and sisters. We have the same Father. We have
the same Lord. We have the same Master. We're
all in the same family. We're brethren. The Scriptures
calls us over in 1 Peter, it says, brethren. Brethren, he
called us brethren. And Bruce Cratchit with his preacher,
he'll say brethren and sisters. He'll say that all the time.
My brethren and my sisters. That's the way he addresses the
congregation so many times. And we're brethren, we're members
one of another. We're all, Christ is the head
and we're body. We're his body and we're members
all one of another. And you know what our master
said? Evidences of being one of the Lord Jesus Christ people.
He said, by this, by this, by this one thing, all men shall
know that you're my disciples. Why? Because you'll have love
one toward another. And I tell you, this is the most
honorable, delightful, comfortable, and honorable thing you can do.
Let me show you Psalm 133. I won't take too long on this
tonight. Look to Psalm 103. You're talking
about a blessing. And we enjoyed this this week.
Down there I see there was four, eight, nine, ten. Ten people down there. Ten men
down there. And then Larry Chris and his
wife. So we had all these people and
we was all around one another and we enjoyed it. We had fellowship.
We enjoyed one another. But look what it says here. Behold
how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in
unity. It's like the precious ornament
upon the head that read down upon the beard, even Aaron's
beard that went down on his skirt. That's when he was denoted as
the first high priest. As the dew of Hermon, as the
dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion, for there the Lord commanded
the blessing, even life forevermore. Oh, what a blessing, what a blessing.
And I know this, there's nothing, nothing more uncomfortable, nothing
more dishonorable, more deadly for a congregation of believers
for there to be a wound of love in the congregation. You go to
a place where there's not any love, that's one of the most
miserable things that could ever possibly happen. He said, the
love of God shed abroad in our heart And the love that God puts
in our hearts is not phony. It's not phony. It's real. It's
vital. It's without dissimulation. We
don't have to lie about it. We don't have to put on about
it. We don't have to pretend. And it's universal wherever we
go to be with the Lord's people. We love people that we never
even met when we go get in a congregation. I know that for a fact. And then
look over at Ephesians with me real quick. Ephesians chapter
4. Let's deal with this over here.
These are blessings. These are such privileges for
us as believers. And I'll tell you something else
about people that love one another. They don't go around pointing out one another's faults.
They don't go around talking about one another. They don't
go around getting upset with one another. They don't go around
fault finding. They don't go around getting
upset with one another. They don't go around getting mad and
getting upset with one another. You know, it just doesn't happen. If it does happen, there's a
fellow, bless his heart. I remember this vividly. There
was a man come to my house one time. And we had a picnic table
out in the backyard. And he come to visit me one time.
He'd been coming to service this all for several months. And he
was sitting down there and he started telling me all the things
that's wrong with the church with some people in the church.
And I said, now wait a minute. Just wait a minute. I said, I
don't see that. I don't believe that. I don't
think that's right. What he was doing was, is he was finding
fault because he was getting ready to quit, and he did quit.
He quit for about six or seven years because I would not agree
with him about the way the church loves one another. He said, people
up there don't seem to love them. He was the one that was the problem.
He didn't love people, and he wanted to point to everybody
else, and he ended up quitting. He got up come the next Sunday
and didn't come back for years. And I won't listen to that. And
if somebody comes to you, listen, if somebody talks about you,
if you talk to somebody about somebody, then they'll talk about
you. And that's something, if you love somebody, what do you
say about them? Oh, they're sweeter than sugar.
They're the most wonderful people. I love to be around them. They're
enjoyable. They're delightful. Oh my, well I said, it'll go
here in Ephesians 4 with me right quick. Look what he says down
here in verse 3. Here's another thing of privilege,
not only to love one another, but to keep the unity of the
Spirit in the bond of peace. He said in verse 3, endeavoring
to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. That means
it takes some effort. The unity of the Spirit, and
how do you do it? In the bond of peace. If you
got peace, you want to keep peace, you delight in peace. So you
endeavor to not let anything destroy that peace among the
Lord's people. No wonder our Lord said, blessed
are the peacemakers. Promote and preserve affection. Be of one kind, be you like-minded. In one accord, in one mind, in
the mind and judgment concerning the doctrines of the gospel. We're one. And I tell you what,
we have this unity of faith. Look what he went on down there
to say. Here's why we keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond
of peace. We're bound by peace. We're bound in peace. We have
this unity of the Spirit. And see, that's capitalized in
the Holy Spirit. The Spirit's one that binds us
together. So we don't want to grieve Him. We don't want to
upset the apple cart, if you please. But here's why we endeavor
to keep unity of the Spirit, because there's only one gospel,
one unity of faith, what Corky said, there's one body, one body
of Christ, one Holy Spirit, even as you're called in one hope
of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God,
and Father of all, who is above all, through all, and in all.
Now how in the world could you not Get along if y'all got all
that. And that's why, what a wonderful,
wonderful thing it is. And you know how you keep the
unity of the body, of the unity of the spirit? Is don't let no strife come in.
Just don't let no strife come in. Look what he said over here
in Philippians. Go to your right to Philippians.
Look what it says here in Philippians 3. In verse 3, this is what we're
talking about. For we are the circumcision.
We worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and
we don't have no confidence in the flesh. No, no. No, we don't. And I tell you, you know, we're
all of one mind, one accord. Now let me say what causes disharmony,
if I can. I'm gonna give you three things
that'll cause disharmony in a congregation of believers, like a local assembly
like ours. Three things that'll cause it. Those people that come to the
services, come in the meeting, that are not really members of
it. They're not truly joined to Christ. They're not members of it. And
then the second thing is, is that they don't obey the head.
They don't obey the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, our bodies
function because of our head, because of our brain, because
of our head. But we got one head, and our head makes this body
function. Well, Christ is our head, and he's the one that makes
this body function. And when you don't obey the head, and
you don't do what the head says, then we're gonna get out of,
we're gonna get out of pocket. And things ain't gonna go right.
And here's the third thing that'll cause disharmony is, Twin sins. Twin sins. What are they? Pride and jealousy. Pride is
one of the awfulest things. God said He hates a proud look.
And pride and jealousy. And I tell you what, pride and
jealousy will cause more trouble than you could ever possibly
imagine. Diocletian loved to have the preeminence. And he
didn't care who he had to hurt to have the preeminence. And
then jealousy, be jealous over somebody. Jealousy is crueler
than the grave. Those who want to be first. Well, our Lord Jesus
Christ says that the last will be first, and the first to be
last. You try to get up there to the top, and God's gonna make
you go all the way back to the back. And that fellow come in
last, didn't take himself to be nothing, he's the one that
God's gonna say, you come up here. And I'll tell you, it's
a, it's a, This idea, you know, that not getting along with people
because, you know, you just don't want
to admit you're wrong. Don't want to admit that you
said something wrong, done something wrong, you're acting some way
wrong. People just, they don't want to admit it. This pride,
this flesh is so proud. God take His Holy Ghost and just
bust our hearts all to pieces. Just bust it, break it, smash
it. Scott Richardson one time, bless
his heart, he made people cringe. Big meeting up at Ashland. And
I mean, you know, that meeting at Ashland, you know, was a big,
big meeting. I mean, that place was full.
Scott was up preaching one time, and he said, do you know what
you're worth? He said, do you know what you're worth? A warm
pitcher of spit. You could just see them cringe. But nobody forgot that. And everybody
started thinking, if that's all I'm worth, I'm not worth much.
Warm pitchers spit. That kind of puts it into perspective,
don't it? So by the time you feel good
about yourself and think that you got the answers and that
you know, just remember. spit in a bottle, say that's
what I'm worth. I shouldn't say things like that.
All right, let me hurry on. I tell you, this is gonna be
my last one. I've got plenty, but I'm gonna
let it go now. You know, the scriptures tells us not only
to love one another, keep the unity of the spirit and the bond
of peace, but to watch over one another. Watch over one another. What does that mean? Galatians
6.1, look what it says in Galatians 6.1. You know, watch over one
another. And to watch over one another
is not to watch over one another to see what they're gonna do
and that, but to watch over one another in the sense that like
you watch over your children when they're little. You won't
watch out for them to keep them from hurting themselves or going
this way, that way or another way. And here he says, brethren,
if a man be overtaken at a fault, you which are spiritual, restore
such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou
also be tempted. And so to watch over another,
and we watch to keep it from happening. And we watch ourselves
to keep from bringing reproach upon the Lord Jesus Christ, bringing
reproach upon the gospel. And I tell you what, and we want
to watch people that they don't receive thanks any doctrine contrary
to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Watch over one another
and bear with one another. Ain't that what he says now in
the next verse? Bear you one another's burdens.
Bear you one another. Oh, the strong ought to bear
the infirmities of the weak. Now everybody has burdens at
one time or another. That's just part of life. That's
part of God, us living. And we all have burdens sometimes
and we share them. A lady told me Sunday morning
about something that's bad news. I mean really bad news for one
person and her family. And she asked me, she said, you're
the only one I want to know because That's the way it is. And so
she told me the burden. She told me what was going on.
And I bear that burden. And they have to bear the burden.
And I tell you, men, forbearing one another. That means whenever
somebody is doing something or something and that, you just
forbear with them. You just say, well, you know, they're young. Something's up. And so we'll
just bear with them. We're not going to find fault with them.
We're not going to chide them. We're not going to get angry with them.
And when you talk about bearing one another's burdens in love,
that don't mean to bear down hard on them. That's what a lot
of people think. You know, bear one another's
burdens. When they see something, bear down hard on them. Bear
down hard on them. Oh my. Our Lord said the Pharisees
lay heavy burdens on people and they won't lift a finger to take
them off of you. And then here's my last one.
Pray for one another. Pray for one another. Oh my,
what a blessing. Pray for one another. You know
what, when we all pray, you know who we're praying to? To the
same Father, same God, same Lord Jesus. Huh? We pray for one another,
pray for the church, all of it. Lord, preserve us, keep us. Don't
let us Falter away, don't let us just dwindle away. Pray for its members. I go over
the congregation sometimes, and I go over where everybody sits,
and in my mind I go where everybody sits and call everybody's name.
And I'm not saying that to be pious, but that's the way I have
to do it. I have to go over where people sit and ask the Lord,
you know, that way. And I tell you, And to give thanks,
give thanks, not only pray for them, but give thanks. You know
I can give thanks, there's not a person in this building that
I cannot give thanks for. Get before God and not find one
fault, not have to ask for one thing, and say, Lord, I thank
you for them. I thank you for them. And I tell you, pray that
we all might grow in grace and in spiritual knowledge of our
Lord Jesus Christ. Pray that God would keep us all
faithful and keep us preserved blameless before our Lord Jesus
Christ when He comes. And oh God give us peace and
give us prosperity and you do for us what only you know we
need. And we don't want nothing but
what you will for us to have. And so we pray for one another.
And next time when you go to pray, if you want to pray for
the church, pray for all of it. And I'll tell you something,
I pray for it, and I'll say this and then I'll quit, really, honestly.
I pray, Lord, save the church. Save it, don't let it dwindle
away. Don't let us get old, and don't
let us get to where there's just a few of us left, and then one
of these days there ain't nothing left, and we have to sell the
building, and they have to, you know nothing, nobody left, because
everybody dies and withers away. God, send some people in. Send some young people in. Send
some folks in that, you got sheep out here that's young and they
can have children and we, Lord, send some people in. Don't let
us die as a congregation. Don't let us die. Don't let us
get old, and then we're down to the last two or three members,
and they're old, and they just barely can't go, so let's sell
the building and give the money away. I'll tell you, that's happened
all over the world. God save us from that. And if
you pray for anything, pray, God, please, send some folks
in. Send some people in to hear the
gospel, believe the gospel. Wouldn't you want that to happen?
I'd love to see that happen. Our Father, oh our Lord and our
God, in the blessed name of our Lord Jesus, thank you for allowing
us to be here tonight. I pray that we learn some things,
we're blessed by some things. I know we've heard all this before,
and we know it's true. We know every bit of it's true.
But Lord, to be reminded again, to be brought into contact with
the scriptures again, let us lay it to our hearts, lay it
to our souls, lay these things up deep in our heart and soul,
keep them, keep them and guard them. And let us guard one another,
pray for one another, or watch out for one another, people and
bear one another's burdens. God help us to honor our Lord
Jesus Christ and do it for His sake. Amen and amen. Amen. Let's sing 303 in the hymn
book. Stand together and then we'll
go home. 303. 303. Let's stand together. Everybody knows
this, I believe. I think that's it, ain't it? 303? Jesus, Savior, Pilate, me? Yeah. Go ahead, you go ahead
and lead it. You can sing it. Okay, you gonna
play it? Alright. Listen, I got somebody
playing for me while I sing. TBT, I never had that happen
before. pilot me. come for me. Jesus, Savior, pilot me. As a mother steers her child,
back his toe, Jesus lives, O may thy will,
when thy sins to them be stilled, on this side of the sea. Jesus said good-bye to me. I love this. But at last I hear. And the fearful beggars roar.
And the fearful beggars roar. and that this flesh can while
waiting on Thy bridge, may I hear Thee say to me, Fear not, I will pilot Thee. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
See you Wednesday, no Sunday. This is Wednesday. See you Sunday.