Address—B. Conrad
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Like to Good afternoon. I'd like to start our meeting today by singing in #13 in the appendix.
Before I do that, I will give you my best.
Crack at a definition of what the word repine means, because it's not a common English word.
I looked it up a few minutes ago and it means, at least in normal English Dictionary, to express or to feel dejection or discontent.
You and I might say discouragement. And so when we get to that part, you'll, you'll catch the drift of the of the hymn writer's thought there.
If somebody could start #13 in the in the back of the book.
Love of God by Christ. Salvation.
Rise our sin and fear and care. Jordan still in my military expansion. Something's going to do the Lord and.
Pray for us children. Cross breath and make me wild.
I think that Jesus died to win me.
You know.
Well, I'd really like to speak this afternoon for the minutes that we have.
On.
The subject that I am.
Not in any means an expert on.
Or display any more of it than anyone else.
And that is the subject of joy.
Recently.
At some general meetings in California, a brother, brother, friend, I call him.
Read those nine aspects of the Fruit of the Spirit from Galatians chapter 5.
And he said, I'm going to speak about one that you never hear anybody speak about. And he did. You can, you can find it online. He spoke about fidelity of faith. I can't remember whether it's #7 or #8 or it's in there.
And I'm sure the subject of joy is more common.
And I would like to speak in the context of of our growth as believers.
Because in a certain sense, as we've mentioned before.
Your joy. And there's more to joy than your joy. His joy. But your joy is like we used to call the.
The Canary in the coal mine.
In the old days, the miners, before the men, would go down on their shift, they would send a little bird in there or carry one in. And that little bird was more sensitive to the lack of oxygen than the humans were. And if the Canary went down in the cage?
You know, everybody out and nowadays we, we have professional people in minds and in our tunneling work that I used to be involved in and there's, we call them sniffers. I don't know what the right nerve term is for them and they go in and sniff it out.
Make sure everything's good.
In a certain sense, the way I look at my own soul.
00:05:00
Is when I'm not happy, when I don't have a sense of joy in my heart?
Then it's the Canaries.
Not doing well in the cage. Something's wrong. Something's wrong. And our tendency, at least mine was for I think much of my Christian life was that, you know, if I'm not really exceedingly happy, it's, you know, it's just, it's just all me. It's just.
You know, it's kind of like a bonus. It's like dessert or something.
Like in our home, we really don't eat dessert. We eat food. And when we're done with food, we that's it. But so I had a tendency to think of joy. It's just kind of an added thing, like a bonus, like optional.
I've come to see it's it's not that way at all. It's not that way at all. Isn't it? Striking and pondering it this morning.
That when the Queen of Sheba went all the way up across North Africa to Jerusalem to see King Solomon, who she'd heard about, that one of her comments after she digests what she had seen was that happy Are these thy servants?
It was a real testimony. I feel I'm a bad testimony when I'm not happy.
And so I would like to read just a little bit in John 15 and then maybe touch on some few other places.
And I want to attach it to connect it with our spiritual growth, because happiness isn't just, it's not like the weather.
You know, you get up in the morning and a lot of you folks work outside. I worked outside most of my life. You get up and there's weather and you just deal with it. You don't really control it.
You can't control it.
And yet isn't it interesting that when you connect anything with growth?
Let me just back up. So I'm pondering things just at breakfast and just two of us now. And so I'm just lingering at the breakfast table after everything's finished and a brother friend text me a little, a little write up that he had enjoyed brother from way back East.
And.
And so I read the maybe two paragraphs and it was about growth. And the interesting comment is that in, in natural things, you know, none of the parents in this room take their children off to, to, to to a side room, or I'm going to take you into the kitchen or I'm taking you out in the garage. And you stare at them and say, now grow.
You folks that you know, you make your living growing things.
You know that it's not like that, but in the Word of God, think of the verses that come to mind about growth. For example, the very last verse of Second Peter 3.
A verse that was repeated to me by older brethren in in in the assembly where I was first gathered.
Over and over and over again.
These brothers would repeat, I needed it apparently clearly grow in grace.
And in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so there is in spiritual things.
A certain responsibility, a participation by us in our spiritual growth. And since spiritual growth really is the work of the Spirit of God in US, what does it do? It produces love, joy, peace, and you go down through the line. So I like to touch firstly on in John 15.
As I take it at the end of chapter 14.
The Lord says arise, let us go. Hence they are leaving the upper room and the scene of the supper, and they're starting to walk. And I picture the Lord saying these things while he's walking along with his disciples.
And so he says in verse one, I am the true vine. My father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away, and every branch that beareth fruit he purges it, that he may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself.
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Except it abide in the vine, no more can ye.
Except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches.
He that abideth in me, and I in Him the same bringeth forth much fruit, for without Me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch in His withered. And men gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified.
That ye bear much fruit, so shall ye be my disciples.
As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love. If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you.
And that your joy might be full.
This passage will raise questions in your mind for the younger people or older ones too.
If you connect it with the salvation of our souls and I don't believe that's the that's the real thrust of the passage has to do with the salvation of our souls, because that's if that's the case, then a vine that doesn't abide as it says there in verse six. If a man abide not in me, he's cast forth as a branch and is withered.
And they're just thrown out and and burned.
So it really has to do with discipleship, it has to do with the walk of somebody that's already relation, relationship with the Lord.
And so when we take it that way, we say.
We get the distinct impression that God is very much interested in something from me. He's brought everything to me and done everything for me, and now he's looking to produce something in me. It's very beautiful and so.
And so I remember in a in a in a reading meeting.
I was in with a bunch of brothers from the Dominican Republic and from Mexico and and hosted by a brother back east and my Spanish is terrible but I understand enough at times to to catch the drift of what what we're reading and studying and I heard this younger Dominican brother.
And I my Spanish is good enough to know what he said. He said fruit, more fruit.
Much fruit.
And I haven't forgotten it. It was a very helpful thing for him to say.
Dear brother. And so it is that.
God is invested in your life.
And in what goes on in your heart and mind?
It's a place where he's presently bearing fruit.
And that fruit is for His glory.
And you'll notice here it doesn't say the sun, it says my father is the husband. Men.
And when you read in Hebrews 12 and other passages like that, you see.
That God takes the place, having taken the place of Father to you and me. He's the Father of spirits, and He's working in your heart to produce that which is for His glory.
To abide.
Is a word I understand and I get this from my dear brother Nick Simon, who I, I, I'm on the readings with a lot. He's a great wordsmith and he has pointed out to me a number of times that this word abide is translated abide, remain or continue. It's the same word and all three different ways are used in English for the same word and so you can substitute it in according to the text.
And so when you're abiding, you're really remaining in the place where you should be.
And the thought is you're continuing on in the place where you should be.
And we see in that passage, without going through adverse by verse, if you abide in me, and my words abide you.
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You shall ask what you will.
And it shall be done unto you.
John continues this theme in his epistle, saying that if we have a good conscience.
And we're in fellowship with the Lord, and what we want is what he wants.
And what He wants is what takes place in our heart to want and when we express these wants and desires in prayer.
They're they're aligned. It's quite a thing to think about that and we see examples of it in the scriptures in different Saints.
But it leads up to verse 8. Herein is my father glorified, that she bear much fruit.
And then in verse 11, these things have I spoken unto you, that my joy right might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
What dampens the joy in our lives?
If we look at it this way, that joy in my life is the fruit of the Holy Spirit indwelling in me.
If we look at it, that this divine person and it's amazing how we can go through an entire day and not even think that we have a divine person indwelling us, isn't that amazing? I do it all the time. Guilty.
What a thing though, to have a divine person in you.
And if the Holy Spirit is not grieved, then he does what he does, if I could put it this way.
He does what he likes to do best.
What he likes to do best is to bring before us the precious things of Christ.
Because.
You know.
God says we had in John 317 repeatedly this morning.
He didn't come, didn't send his son to condemn the world. The world by him might be saved. He could have sent his son to discharge your sins and mine and left us right where we were.
You're forgiven, but please, I hope I never pass you on the street.
You're forgiven, though you have the forgiveness of sins.
But more than that, more than that, He has justified you through His blood. You're justified by faith. Justification is beyond forgiveness because it takes the forgiven Sinner.
And puts him in a new place and a new condition.
And This is why it's so fascinating to me in the Word of God that justification, yes, it's through faith and through his blood is the foundation of it, but it's connected with his resurrection.
I I'm a terrible one for digressing, but I want to digress a SEC. 1St Corinthians 15 I want to read you a verse for you to think about.
1St Corinthians 15.
Verse 17.
And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain. Ye are yet.
In your sins.
And you say as a young believer, as you're starting, you're learning. We spend our lives learning the gospel.
Of the grace of God, different aspects of it. It's a joy.
You say, well, I've been taught and I believe and understand that the work that the Lord Jesus accomplished on Calvary's cross was completed by him.
He bore the wrath of God During those three hours of darkness. He died.
Integral part. He shed his blood.
Isn't that all there is? Yes, that is all there is and ever could need to be.
With respect to the pardon and to the glory that he's brought to God.
But beyond that, on the third day, he took his place.
In a place where men had never been before in resurrection.
And he having taken his place, he having been the forerunner, the pioneer, to take a new place on the other side of death in a risen life.
That's the place He is assigned to you and me and Grace and so.
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I believe that's why I'd love to hear the thoughts of others later. I believe that's why that language is there in First Corinthians 15. You are yet in your sins. It's where you would have been but now Christ risen. Justification crowns the work of finished work of God's Son on Calvary's cross, and it's in that new place that we join Him there.
So to continue, we're not just.
Saved Sinners.
And I keep going back to Tim's grandfather, whose ministry I sat under in my early days, Adrian Roach.
And if somebody, and it was a large gathering of about this size and somebody gave out a gospel hymn.
Only a Sinner save my grace. I just knew that as soon as Sam was over, Adrian was going to speak up and say, well, you know, he's, he was a New Yorker. He spoke even faster than me. He said, you know, that's not really true. We're not just the same Sinner. And he would give a little paragraph on it and it it was helpful. You're not just a safe Sinner. You're now a St.
You're now identified with him. You're justified.
And you have a life which in places is called resurrection life.
Through which sin has never been attached, nor ever could be.
How about that?
Justified.
But still forgiven. Hope I don't see him again, but he's forgiven.
Justified has a new place, but now we're reconciled.
And that it just adds to the blessing because reconciliation shows that he wants our company.
And that the forgiveness and the cleansing and the justification and and bringing us into His place.
In reconciliation, normally two parties have to move to come together.
He he's the same. He's never moved. He always loved you.
And he doesn't need to move, and we would never want him to, and He never will. We're the ones that move all the way from that position we were in to now be reconciled to God. And to be reconciled to God includes.
Not no longer having a mind that is at enmity with God, no longer having a nature that is alienated from God. We could say now we are on the same page with him. We speak the same language. We're capable of thinking the same thoughts. We all like it when we're with an old friend or a relative that we grew up with and we see something in on the street or whatever and we form an opinion in our mind and we look to our friend.
Wife, our relative, our brother. And you know that they're thinking the exact same thing.
You're having fellowship. That's fellowship. That's the oneness and God. God has acted in the sending of His Son and the creating of this whole planet so that it could be accomplished, so that that could happen.
So that he could bring.
US into fellowship with him, thinking his thoughts.
And having a capacity to know him and to love him.
But I think I'm digressing big time here.
And So what holds us back from the joy, as we were saying?
It's usually.
Something.
Careless in my life. The Spirit of God is the Holy Spirit.
Barbara Ann's father used to tell us when he visited, and he visited all the time.
Late brother Norman Berry, He would say communion is like a spider's web.
It's easily made for the believer, but can be quickly broken.
Those older brothers in that generation.
Continuously spoke about.
Communion.
They weren't referring to partaking of the loaf and cup as that that word can be applied to that. They were speaking about the state of soul in which you are in the enjoyment and oneness in our measure with God's faults, God's affections.
Quickly made, but quickly broken.
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And So what?
What do I do then?
If I ignore it and I just let things snowball in my life.
Which we're all capable of doing. We can go through the motions.
Guilty.
Go through the motions.
Gotomeeting read the word.
Formality in prayer.
Occupied with work, you know.
Guilty.
We're sleepwalking.
We're sleepwalking.
And This is why the word in Ephesians 5, I believe, is to believers. Awake thou that sleepest. It's not It's fine. Use it in the gospel all you want.
You guys use it in the gospel day after day. Fine. What really? It's addressed to believers awake thou that sleepest and arise from among the dead.
Christ shall give thee light.
And so we find this beautiful.
Process that we have.
Again by the Holy Spirit, which has a kind of a stern sounding name.
And we'll call it self judgment.
Self judgment.
There is a little tiny pamphlet, one of the first ones I ever owned many years ago. I can't remember the exact title, I know Bill would.
Self judgment.
The inescapable condition.
Of a walk or life in communion with God.
Is that close?
Thank you.
Made me nervous there for a minute.
What does that mean to younger people? What is self judgment?
It means when it becomes apparent to me that I'm thinking or acting in a way that is clearly I can recognize in myself that is not.
That is not the thought, the affection, the.
The action produced in me by the Spirit of God.
Impatience. A short and angry word.
Of foolish talking or jesting, whatever it might be that, you know, sacrifices someone's feelings or you know, all the all those kinds of things.
Does it mean I have to run home?
And close the door and get in my private place, not necessarily at that moment.
But I recognize it.
I know what the Word of God says about it. I step over here on God's side and I look at it.
And I say, that's not of God.
I'm judging it. I'm.
Reinstalled in my thoughts are the way he thinks about it.
And I have judged it.
When I was young I used to read because Adrian Roach told me it would be a good foundation for my soul and he looked like he had a good foundation.
He said When I was young, I read CHM's Pentateuch 5 volumes, you know, on Genesis X's.
Laid a good foundation from my soul, I said. It looks like it worked well for him. So I started through. I didn't get all the way through.
But I do appreciate one of the things that stuck with me all these years.
And he was actually speaking about David. He said a Saints life, a believer's life is 1000 fallings away and 1000 restorations.
And that can take place during the space of a work day.
Not quite 1000, but you get the point.
How wonderful.
That.
Our relationship with God is fixed and eternal. We have eternal redemption and eternal salvation and eternal inheritance, eternal life. Nothing can break. That's not like a spider's web, but the present enjoyment while we're here in this world of Himself and the things which concern Himself.
Is the spider's website and how wonderful that we can say like in Psalm 23, you restoreth my son.
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I learned a lesson about restoration when I was maybe a saved a year and I was staying in a home in Dorothy, NJ. A bunch of us, some of the the boys in the family were my age. We slept in the cellar and we're up in the kitchen in the morning. And this older brother, like he was like my grandfather's age, I thought, and not quite.
And he comes in out of his bedroom. He had a bedroom. He comes in out of his bedroom in the morning.
And says to the sister that was cooking for us all. He says, ah.
He restoreth my soul.
I don't know if my jaw dropped or not. I'm like, this is like a 30 year, 40 year, 50 year believer. He needs restoration.
I knew how he lived. He's a godly man.
But no doubt he had felt that in his heart he was a bit away from the Lord.
And the Lord worked somehow in his heart that morning or overnight, I don't know.
In his morning prayers and he really felt refreshed and restored to the Lord.
And he's still living that brother. And he came out and shared it. And I'm so indebted. It's not just what I thought. There's a lot of you here that are in your 20s still thought it was just us in our 20s that get astray and restoreth my soul.
So communion is restored.
There may be situations where in our sleepwalking or in if we allow carelessness to be in a chronic condition.
That the Lord may allow us to really make a mess of some things.
Think of David in his life.
We were noticing in Philippians 4 lately in our readings back home. How Paul.
Could say I have learned.
Whatsoever state I'm in there with to be content. I've learned how to be abased. I've learned how to abound. In other words, it didn't just come natural to him. It's not like here come right out-of-the-box and you've got all that. No, he had to learn it practically.
David is an example of someone who didn't learn it well.
He didn't learn how to abound very well.
There were times when he was a base when he was running like a like a flea on a mountain.
I think he said, running from Saul, where he.
All of a sudden you turn the page in the account and he says I shall one day perish at the hand of Saul. And it's like you were doing so well. I remember the first time I read it, the young person, you're doing so well.
And then he goes back. Isn't that when he went back to to Gath and scrabbling on his beard? That's what we can do. We can act like an unbeliever and be so, so in type scrabbling on our beard like like a crazy person. There's there's nobody. I was thought nobody is difficult to deal with or as intractable as a Christian that's out of communion.
The old brothers used to say.
Better an upright unbeliever. You know you've got them on your crew or you're working with them in your work or whatever. Boy, a believer that's out of communion with the Lord. That's a rough ride.
And so David didn't know how to abound very well either.
And at the time when the kings go forth, the battle he was up in the night, and the rest caused the enemies of the Lord to blasphemy for centuries to this present hour, because of David's carelessness leading to that sin, and he reaped the government of God in his life.
But the thing I want to point out is not so much the government of God in his life, but the fact that he had a restored soul.
And many of the sweetest psalms that David wrote and the sweetest experiences and affections that he communicated or after that period of time.
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Who's like God that can do that?
Beautiful that David was brought to that place of sweetness, the sweet psalmist of Israel.
But painful that it came at such a cost.
So young people.
God is not mocked.
Remember Mr. Lundin saying decades ago to us, you always lose through sin?
You remember him saying that when you were a little You always lose through sin. Always.
It may not seem like it's right tomorrow or the next day, but you always lose.
So we need to walk carefully.
But as we read in Psalm 51, Psalm 32, and these other Psalms.
Where the psalmist goes through and experience where the Lord intercedes in his life and his carelessness.
And brings him around.
And causes him to judge himself. And you see the evidence of it. I think it's in Psalm 51.
Make me to hear joy and gladness in the bones that thou hast broken. He felt the dryness, the brokenness, the as it one of the prophets says, Thine own backsliding shall correct thee. God loves us too much.
To allow us to be happy.
In a careless path, as believers, He loves us too much. God is faithful.
And so he allows these things just like the purging of the similar to the purging of the of the of the.
Branches.
You're bringing forth fruit in your life. You have a disappointment. I thought I was pleasing the Lord. What's going on here?
He wants more fruit.
And by purging, he's going to bring forth more fruits in your life. And you say, OK, we got that behind us.
On we go. We've dealt with that situation, then you have.
Even more purging say I don't understand.
He wants even more food. He wants much fruit.
So it is that he, as the Father of spirits, works in our lives like a Potter with clay.
To enable us to be brought back into communion and fellowship with himself.
Say well, OK.
I've been able, as the old ones used to say, to keep short accounts with the Lord.
I feel like I'm walking with the Lord.
I have a prayer life that's real. I enjoy the word.
I'm walking along happily, but my circumstances are so difficult. Brother brought that out in the open meeting in Psalm 16. My circumstances, they're rough.
Not what I would have chosen.
Let me just briefly touch Well, it's going to switch to the Apostle Paul in Second Corinthians chapter.
Chapter.
Chapter six of Two Corinthians. I just want to extract a verse. Well known verse verse 10.
Well, let me read verse 9 as unknown and yet well known as dying. And behold, we live as chastened and not killed, as sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing. How does that work?
How does sorrowful?
And yet always rejoicing work.
Because we naturally would think that sorrow and joy are upsets and they can't inhabit the same.
At the same time, the same, the same soul.
A believer understands this. I think you've understood it in your Christian life, in your spiritual life.
There are times when you feel sorrow because there are difficult situations. There's babies that are in the critical care unit, your daughter, your granddaughter.
There's a close brother, friend, sister, friend that has taken home to be with the Lord. You missed him terribly. These are sorrows we sorrow. It's a feeling. It's not wrong.
The Lord was the Man of Sorrows.
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But at the same time.
We're in communion with the Lord. As we experience these sorrows, we have joy.
I can't explain it.
I trust you've experienced it. It's our portion and it shows.
That the circumstances of life don't determine our happiness.
Our state of soul.
Or negatively impact our growth. Matter of fact, it's probably just the opposite.
These purging experiences, these sorrows that the Lord allows, produce fruit in our lives.
Go to the next chapter, Chapter 7. We see another joy if I can find it quickly.
Verse 4. Great is my boldness of speech toward you. Second Corinthians 74.
Great is my boldness of speech toward you. Great is my glory of you. I am filled with comfort. I am exceeding joyful in all our tribulation.
Another circumstance? Tribulation.
Can I be happy in tribulation? Yes, you can.
The next chapter, Chapter 8.
Verse two. How that in a great trial of affliction, the abundance of their joys. Referring to the Saints in Macedonia.
The abundance of their joy and their deep poverty.
Abounded unto the riches of their liberality.
Beautiful.
As you travel around and you have Christian friends, brethren, that you know in all different circumstances.
Some are fairly wealthy by world standards here in America, some are pretty poor by American standards.
If you travel overseas like like Tim was mentioning in the early meeting this morning.
You see, what poverty is is really like. Does it have to dictate our state of soul? We all know it does not.
We've had the privilege, my wife.
And I have had the privilege of living in seven different gatherings as my work transferred me from places to build things and.
So we've seen, we've seen a lot of lessons, assembly lessons.
Because assemblies have personalities like people do.
In my opinion, they have their strengths and their weaknesses and we've appreciated.
Some assemblies just. They do certain things so well.
He's digress. If I get on that subject, I don't want to.
But my point is this is that the first assembly we were in, the Saints there were poorer than any of the rest poorer.
But very much richer.
No education saved in midlife.
Grave clothes and baggage, yes, but.
The poverty seemed to only just draw them closer.
The distractions were less.
And they taught, some of them taught themselves to read by reading this Bible and by reading written ministry in the English language.
And you knew that the words that they were reading in the English ministry written in a previous century, they had never worried a human, they had never heard a human say those words because they had no idea how to pronounce them. And so they just took a swing at it. And I.
I was young in the Lord, but I had had a different background. I had had a tremendous.
High school education, they, they really pushed us. We're hard on us. And so I, I knew the word but and so, but there was a desire in there.
To learn, and it was a desire to learn because it was joy to them.
And then get up the next morning and do horrific jobs that nobody in this room would want to do.
And they were happy in the Lord.
And they grew.
Their growth, their happiness.
Developed and grew.
00:45:00
And so.
Indebted.
I've been in other gatherings where.
PH D Medical Doctor pH D.
That's fine. His medical doctor right here.
But that doesn't necessarily necessarily mean there's going to be understanding of the things of God in the Word of God.
And sometimes it's just the opposite.
So whatever it is, whether it's the sorrows of life, whether it's the tribulations of life, whether it's just the ongoing.
Situations we can't escape, like poverty. It doesn't have to rob us.
Of communion with the Lord and of our joy.
Let's turn for a few minutes to Ephesians chapter 4.
On the subject of growth.
In Ephesians 4.
We read.
That the Lord Jesus.
Having risen from the dead, ascended far up above all heavens. Verse 10. That he might fill.
All things.
And he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers.
For the perfecting of the Saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.
Till we all come into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.
Unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
That we henceforth be no more children or babes. Literally it is.
Tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. But speaking are really its holding the truth in love.
May grow up.
Into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.
From whom the whole body fitly joined together.
And compacted by that which every joint supplier according to the effectual working in the measure of every part.
Maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.
Now, of course, there's a tremendous amount there. Tremendous amount.
But we see.
The desire and purpose of God for you and me.
To avail ourselves of nourishment that comes down from the head through various.
Joints of supply, if we could call it that, through the different brothers and sisters that the Lord brings us into contact with.
That we might receive nourishment and that it would have the effect of bringing each one of us.
Into the unity of the faith of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man.
So isn't that a bit much to think that I'm going to be perfect?
When you look up, I know all you young people, you've got all these phones, you can look up these words in Greek in five seconds.
And what the younger brothers do in the readings nowadays, it's I'm fine with it. I think it's great.
And you can see how the word.
For perfect can be translated complete or full or mature. It has these various meanings according to the context. It's not as if he's saying by availing yourself of good spiritual teaching and pastoring that you're going to be perfect. Like Like you take a spelling test and you get 100 because you didn't miss a single word.
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How did you do? The teacher says it's perfect.
Single mistake. That's not perfection as it applies to our state as believers. A perfect Christian, as Paul refers to it here in another places.
Is somebody that has, you might say, mature enough to realize what they're about?
They've laid hold of what life is really about. They are a mature Christian. They know that their object is Christ in glory.
They know that they have adversaries, the world, the flesh and the devil. They know they have a fallen nature that they need to be watchful about.
And they know that they need to keep themselves steeped in the word.
They need dependence on the Lord, which is often expressed in prayer.
And they need to meditate on the word.
The older brothers back where I was from.
Were equipment. A lot of them were equipment operators.
Loggers and equipment operators.
And heavy trucks and they're always, you know, to them an RPM is part of their life. And so they would always tell me, brother, you're going to need to keep your RPMS up. I said, what's the RPM? I can see the tachometer reading, prayer and meditation.
And this is a word to all of us.
To fall into the pattern.
And I haven't been to the local assembly here so.
I'm just shooting from the hip.
But if you come here and you and this brother over here is there, so you say, well, I don't need to even read the chapter in advance. I he'll carry it. He'll carry the reading or so. And so is there this brother there. Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that.
That's like just one one source of God has a bundle of avenues that the nourishment comes down South that we all might grow up.
And so it is as we read.
Verse 16 From whom the whole body fitly joined together.
We feel like at times like an odd collection of humans together.
But we're fitly framed together, fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplier, if you are a joint of supply.
And when Paul wrote to the young Thessalonians who were saved maybe three or four weeks in the first epistle.
I believe it was that epistle where he said edify each one the other.
I get a lot of edification.
These things are taped. I need to be careful about naming names, but I get a lot of edification after a reading meeting by an older sister.
We're just maybe having a bunch of us having coffee and she'll say, did you ever think?
Did you ever notice?
And.
She's edifying me.
And.
There are other brothers who, for whatever reason, are very quiet in the meeting.
But in between or over at the house, Oregon having coffee, they bring out thoughts so beautiful that none of us who are walking through the chapter verbally.
Thought of or mentioned.
So take your responsibility seriously, not just for your own growth.
But for the growth of the brethren in your assembly.
Young and old.
I'll put in a pitch for reading Written Ministry.
Most of us, English is our first language.
So we have a better.
Better shot at understanding convoluted.
Old English syntax, we were talking the other day while we were walking at you read a sentence. You say this was a lot in that sentence, but there's like 5 negatives. So a double negative I can get pretty quick. Triple negative goes back, you know like in math plus minus plus minus and after a while you're worn out trying to you, you almost have to.
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His brother said you got to diagram the sentence.
But with the English as our first language, we have a good chance at that.
And there are other brothers more in our generation who have really done excellent job at at compiling a lot of this good ministry. Avail yourself of it. You're not going to get everything you need in the local assembly, no matter what assembly it is or who's there.
You're not, in my opinion.
Because of what Ephesians 4 tells us.
These gifts were raised up and there's nothing that I've seen in the word of God that says that I only should avail myself of gifts that are living right when I'm living and where I'm living, say call it North America. I haven't seen anything that says that. It doesn't mean I sit home in my study, which I love to do. If I'm home and read all day and and don't go to the meeting, that's not.
Obviously the point either, but.
There is nourishment for us from the head through all these joints of supply, and you're one of them, and that which you enjoy and the communion you have personally with the Lord can enable you to help someone else. Lift up the hands which hang down in the feeble knees, and as we make straight paths for our feet, it can help those that are not as.
What? What's the word you used yesterday?
Agile as you may be.
And so.
Digressions and all, we are through. Umm.
How richly we've been blessed, and the best is yet to come. May we avail ourselves of the little time that's left.
Would be jealous to pursue and follow hard so that our practical state, our experience, our thought life, our prayer life.
Our everyday life just aspires to be as excellent as our standing. Are we going to get there? Most likely not.
But that's what the apostle Paul expressed in Philippians chapter 3. That's what he says. Everything else is done. That's what I wanted. I want my practical life to be as pristine and glorious as my standing. Because all of us, the youngest believer here to the oldest believers here.
Are standing can never be improved.
And no one else is any better than yours. You've been accepted in the Beloved.
And now it's our exercise to seek to be acceptable, agreeable to Him and how we spend our days. Let's just commend ourselves to the Lord.