00:00: Let's pray.
00:04: Father, we come before you and confess our need.
00:12: We confess our need as we hear coughing and sneezing.
00:18: We confess our need for health and for healing and recognizing that the little colds and illnesses that we experience periodically here, are nothing compared to the greater issue of death and our need for eternal healing, for death and disease to be eradicated and made no more, as you will one day bring to pass in Jesus Christ.
00:49: We confess our need for changed hearts and changed minds.
00:54: Even those of us who have been following Christ for decades, we need that because...
00:58: we are not fully united in our hearts to follow you.
01:04: We have yet part of us that rebels and wants our own way.
01:09: And so, in love and grace, we ask you to pry open our hearts and our hands as we cling to things that are not honoring to you.
01:21: We pray for our time in your word this morning to be honoring to you, not to be a burden.
01:28: Not simply in the declaration of truth, but in our receptiveness to it, which we confess, we need you to make us receptive to it.
01:38: And we pray that you will grow us in our love for Jesus, our confidence in him, such that we share our faith with the people around us.
01:49: I pray that there won't be a single person in this church who refuses or resists sharing their faith this coming year.
01:58: That we will instead really desire to be your witnesses and to make disciples all around us.
02:09: We pray these things in Jesus' name.
02:12: Amen.
02:14: If you have your Bible, please open it to Romans chapter 16.
02:20: As you find your way there, let me describe for you a situation that I've experienced many times.
02:25: I imagine that you have as well.
02:27: You're out and about.
02:27: You're at a store.
02:29: Maybe you're even traveling out of the area.
02:31: And you run into somebody that you know and that you haven't seen in a while.
02:36: You're like, oh, wow.
02:38: And you go up to each other and you start talking and catching up.
02:41: And what's new?
02:41: How are the kids?
02:43: How's the mister?
02:43: How's the missus?
02:43: Whatever.
02:45: And after a certain amount of visiting, you get ready to part ways.
02:50: And there's some version of, well, give my best to the missus or, you know, say hi to so-and-so for me.
03:00: Maybe a family member.
03:00: Maybe a common friend.
03:03: How many of you have experienced something like that, right?
03:07: That's kind of the passage that we have here where Paul, the apostle, is approaching the conclusion of his letter written to the church in Rome.
03:18: And he's now sending greetings to a bunch of folks.
03:22: He's saying, make sure that this person and this person and so on are greeted from me.
03:29: Paul intended that this letter would not only be shared with church leaders and the church at large, he wanted the bearer and the readers of this to make sure, hey, Paul says this to you and to you and to you, specifically by name.
03:47: Go ahead and follow along as I try to read through all these names.
03:52: Paul writes to the church, I commend to you, our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church at Sincre, that you may welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints and help her in whatever she may need from you.
04:09: For she has been a patron of many and of myself as well.
04:13: Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their necks for my life and to whom not only I give thanks, but all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks as well.
04:28: Greet also the church in their house.
04:30: Greet my beloved Eponidas, who was the first convert to Christ in Asia.
04:37: Greet Mary, who has worked hard for you.
04:40: Greet Adronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and fellow prisoners.
04:45: They are well known to the apostles and were in Christ before me.
04:50: Greet Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord.
04:55: Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ, and my beloved Stachys.
05:01: Greet Apellas, who was approved in Christ.
05:04: Greet those who belong to the family of Aristobulus.
05:09: Greet my kinsmen Herodian.
05:12: Greet those in the Lord who belong to the family of Narcissus.
05:16: Greet those workers in the Lord, Tryphena and Tryphosa.
05:22: Greet the beloved Persis, who has worked hard in the Lord.
05:26: Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord.
05:28: Also his mother, who has been a mother to me as well.
05:33: Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobus, Hermas, and the brothers who are with them.
05:43: Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus, and his sister Analympus.
05:52: And all the other saints who are with them.
05:55: Greet one another with a holy kiss.
05:59: All the churches of Christ greet you.
06:04: Now if you're reading your Bible day to day on your own, as I would heartily encourage you to be in the habit of doing, as you work through the Bible and you get to Romans chapter 16, your own personal time with the Lord reading, that's probably not the paragraph or two that gets you excited, right?
06:22: That's not the one where you're like, ooh, today I get to read the list of names, right?
06:28: Not typically the kind of passage that thrills us.
06:33: Maybe you recognize the names Prisca and Aquila, who get some screen time, as we'll call it, in Acts chapter 18, though there it's Priscilla and Aquila.
06:43: You may say, well, are Prisca and Aquila the same as Priscilla and Aquila?
06:48: Yeah, it's the same couple.
06:50: Prisca is the formal name.
06:51: Priscilla is the diminutive version of the name, as they call it.
06:56: It's like what we have today.
06:57: You might say Timothy and Timmy, Jonathan and Johnny, Julia and Julie, Richard, Rick, Catherine or Caitlin or Kathleen becomes Katie in many cases, right?
07:11: We have these personalized, familiar forms of names.
07:17: Maybe if you're really familiar with the Bible, you might say, well, isn't there a Rufus somewhere else?
07:22: Well, that's Mark 15, if it's the same Rufus, which would be one of the sons of Simon of Cyrene, who carried the cross for Jesus.
07:32: Not that that seems to matter in this passage.
07:35: You might have these couple of associations, but all the rest of the names in this passage, they don't show up anywhere else, at least not with any additional details.
07:44: They might show up in another greet so-and-so section, but we don't know about these.
07:49: We don't know about these people.
07:52: So what use is it to us to read through these names and say, okay, this is one of those passages where I think we're tempted to say, the whole Bible is God's word.
08:03: All scripture is God breathed.
08:05: I need to make myself read this and check it off the list and move on.
08:08: Do my duty, right?
08:11: I don't think so.
08:14: I think there's a goldmine of encouragement that we had in these greetings.
08:21: In fact, I'm not going to do this to you, but I really wanted to preach two sermons on it.
08:26: I think there's that much there.
08:28: First of all, does it strike you odd in any way that Paul is greeting so many folks by name at the church in Rome?
08:40: A couple of people are nodding their heads, yeah.
08:42: Because remember, chapter 1 and chapter 15, Paul talked about wanting to visit them, and he hasn't had the chance to do so yet.
08:51: This is not a church he planted, and this is not a church that he has, as of this time, ever visited.
08:57: He's never been there.
08:59: I'm impressed that he knows this many folks by name, in many cases with details, at a church he's never visited that's a thousand miles away or so from Jerusalem in a day without...
09:18: major transportation like we have today, no cars, no trucks, no trains, no airplanes, no mail or email or phone calls, and he knows these folks by name?
09:33: How does Paul know so many people there?
09:36: Well, part of it is people traveled.
09:39: People traveled.
09:40: Part of it was travel, and part of it was persecution, right?
09:43: Christians were not super popular.
09:46: They upset the status quo.
09:47: And so there was often persecution from the Jews towards the Christians.
09:51: That got a lot of people scattered out.
09:54: We read about that in the book of Acts.
09:56: Also, the Gentiles didn't always like the Christians because these Christians were teaching loyalty to Jesus above all, and if you want them to be loyal to the emperor, the human emperor, that's not a real positive stance to take.
10:13: So there's a scattering.
10:15: There's a sense of, you know, a descending that takes place through those things, and so many of these folks are known to be folks that Paul had contact with somewhere else, and then they emigrated to Rome.
10:29: I want to focus in on about five sections of encouragement that I see in this passage.
10:35: The first has to do with names.
10:38: He doesn't just say, I greet y'all, and leave it at that.
10:45: He cites 20 names.
10:47: There are 27 names here.
10:50: One of them, Phoebe, seems to be the courier, the deliverer of this letter.
10:56: It seems like the way he's talking about her, she's probably the one bringing the letter along with her to Rome.
11:03: Scholars think that when you put together the book of Acts and the epistles of Paul, he was probably in the area of Corinth when he wrote this letter, getting ready to head east to Jerusalem to take the offering, the love offering, the financial support.
11:21: And we see in this passage that Phoebe's from that area, that area where she's identified from is in that Corinth region.
11:28: So she's probably local and getting ready to head west, and so he says, hey, take my letter with you, bring it to the Christians over there.
11:35: But the other 26 are folks who are in Rome already.
11:42: What do we take from him knowing all these names?
11:44: I think this, at least.
11:47: Knowing people's names matters.
11:50: It says you matter when you can remember someone's name.
11:57: It says I care enough to learn your name.
12:02: I care enough to remember it.
12:05: I want to identify you and know who you are and remember who you are.
12:11: I work hard at remembering names.
12:13: It's not just about the name.
12:14: It's not that I just automatically remember them.
12:16: Sometimes I have to write them down in my binder and review it a few times during the week.
12:20: Okay, this, or I'll come up with ways to remember it.
12:26: Sometimes you should ask me how I remember your name.
12:28: I might have a story.
12:35: I want to encourage you to learn each other's names.
12:41: Most of the folks in this church probably don't know, every other person in this church.
12:47: Only a few probably do.
12:49: But I want to encourage you to get to know the people you don't know, including with, including and starting with, get to know their name.
12:59: It's a way, small but simple way of saying, I care.
13:04: You matter.
13:07: The second thing I notice is that in this passage, there's all these descriptions of relationships and categories of who people are.
13:19: Tells us a lot about how we should be thinking about our fellow Christians.
13:24: We see terms like sister and brother used.
13:29: Starts off, I commend to you our sister, Phoebe.
13:35: Thousands of miles apart.
13:36: And he says, we're all sister.
13:40: She's a sister to us all.
13:42: We all have that relationship.
13:43: Well, why?
13:44: Because if we're a believer in Jesus, we're adopted by God as children of God.
13:49: If God is our father and we have the same father, what does that make us to each other?
13:54: Brothers and sisters.
13:57: We see in verse 14, a list of names and the brothers who are with them.
14:03: We need to recognize that our relationship to one another is not people who go to the same building on Sundays.
14:11: It's not even people who like the same style of worship or enjoy sitting in the same kind of chairs or any of those outward similarities.
14:23: We are family in God.
14:29: Our unity with one another because of our relationship with God is far more than any other relationship we're supposed to have with non-Christians out and about.
14:39: This is a defining, this is a defining reality.
14:43: We see verse one, Phoebe described as a servant.
14:50: Servant of the church.
14:52: Oftentimes this word is used to describe people in relationship to Jesus.
14:55: They're a servant of Jesus.
14:57: And that's right and correct.
14:58: But here it's servant to the church.
15:01: I look out and I see so many servants of the church present today.
15:07: I see so many people that pour themselves out for the good of their fellow Christians here.
15:13: We just had a time of worship.
15:15: These folks who led us in worship did not just show up at the start of church and do that.
15:22: They came early this morning to practice and to pray.
15:26: They came here during the week to practice together and to organize and to structure.
15:32: They worked to choose music, to consider the passage, to consider what we're going to be learning today and select songs to help us worship God in a way that connects with that.
15:41: They're serving you as they serve Christ in doing those things.
15:46: And not just worship, but so many different ways.
15:50: We see them described as saints, which we've talked about before.
15:53: This means people who have been set apart by God, set apart from sin and worldliness and normalcy in the worldly sense of it, and set aside for God.
16:04: They're to be living differently.
16:06: Just as we are.
16:07: We are all saints if we are believers in Jesus.
16:09: We are all saints if we are believers in Jesus Christ.
16:11: Welcome her, we see in verse 2, Phoebe, welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints.
16:18: In a way worthy of, where all Christians are worthy of being received as and welcomed as.
16:25: We see the words show up again in verse 15.
16:27: She's described as a patron.
16:30: She's been a patron of many and of myself as well.
16:33: In other words, she's been a financial sponsor.
16:37: Right?
16:38: Brad and Kendra, Joel and Joanne and others could describe you and me as patrons if we are financially supporting the work and the ministry that they're involved in.
16:49: And many of you are.
16:50: Some of you directly through the ministries that they're part of.
16:53: Some of you through your giving to missions here at the church.
16:59: Financial supporters of ministry is one of the categories.
17:02: Fellow workers.
17:04: We see it in verse 3.
17:05: Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus.
17:07: We see it in verse 9.
17:09: Our fellow worker in Christ describing Urbanus.
17:13: Greet those workers in the Lord, Trephana and Trephosa.
17:17: These are folks who are not just, well, I believe in Jesus and I'll show up weekly or whatever.
17:22: They're saying, I am pouring myself out in ministry.
17:25: I am doing what I can do to benefit others, to make a kingdom impact.
17:31: And I hope that describes every one of us here.
17:34: We see the term church.
17:36: Do you remember what church is in the Bible?
17:40: It's not this building.
17:42: The building we call a church more often than we call anything else a church.
17:46: And it's not biblically.
17:48: The church literally means the gathered or the assembled people.
17:55: God's people as they gather together are the church.
18:00: The idea that you can be a Christian and not be part of the church or you can be part of the church and not come together with each other is just crazy nonsensical.
18:11: We see verse 5.
18:13: Somebody described as first convert.
18:16: Eponidas, the first convert to Christ in Asia.
18:19: Asia is a region of modern day Turkey.
18:22: We see Andronicus and Junia described in verse 7 as those who are in Christ before me.
18:27: So Paul's recognizing I may be an apostle, but I'm not the first guy to bring this all to you.
18:33: There's people in your church that have been following Jesus.
18:36: They've been following Jesus longer than I've been following Jesus.
18:39: He's giving recognition to the longevity of some of these believers comparatively.
18:46: I shared last week that I just hit my 30 year anniversary of being a believer in Jesus Christ.
18:53: Some of you are here today and can say, oh 30 years, that's nice.
18:58: Some of you have been following Jesus longer than my parents have been alive probably.
19:03: And I love that about you.
19:05: I guarantee you I am not picking on you for your age.
19:09: I love all ages.
19:11: It's a beautiful thing when people walk with the Lord for 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100 years.
19:19: It's God's grace.
19:22: Fellow prisoners, verse 7.
19:25: Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and fellow prisoners.
19:30: These are folks who have followed Jesus, enough so as to annoy people strongly enough that they get arrested for it.
19:41: Now we're not talking about my fellow prisoners.
19:43: I was following Jesus and they were ripping off the corner store.
19:47: And so we were Christians that met up in jail.
19:50: No, he's talking about fellow prisoners because they follow Jesus.
19:54: You follow Jesus faithfully enough, publicly enough, you're going to get yourself in some trouble now and again.
20:02: Maybe, maybe not legal.
20:03: But at least in their situation it was.
20:06: They were also his kinsmen.
20:08: That is his fellow Jewish background believers.
20:12: You're going to have some folks in a church that have the same kind of background as you and some who don't.
20:19: We see the term beloved.
20:21: Greet my beloved at Benidus.
20:26: The love that Paul has for these folks.
20:29: Approved in Christ.
20:30: Greet Apellas who is approved in Christ.
20:32: We see chosen in the Lord.
20:35: And we see Rufus' mother who Paul says has been a mother to me as well.
20:42: The more I thought about that, the more I liked it.
20:45: I thought, okay, greet Rufus and his mommy.
20:50: Now we don't know her name.
20:52: So in my head, she's Mama Rufus.
20:55: She's Mama Rufus.
20:57: And I think we tend to think of Paul as a mother.
20:59: And I think we tend to think of Paul as a mother.
21:00: And I think we tend to think of Paul as a mother.
21:01: And I think we tend to think of Paul as this Paul.
21:03: He's this independent, bold, strong missionary.
21:07: And he describes this lady.
21:10: She's like, she's been like a mommy to me.
21:13: She's just taking good care of me.
21:16: And so I almost picture these folks in Rome going, hey Mama Rufus.
21:22: You Mama Paul too, right?
21:24: Like there's this tenderness and relationship and care that's described there.
21:29: You put all these names together and it's pretty clear there is a depth.
21:37: There is a magnitude of tenderness and significance in a relationship between believers.
21:50: Steve, I could describe as, he's our AV tech guy.
21:56: He runs point on that.
21:57: That'd be fair.
21:58: That'd be accurate.
21:59: I could describe him as our internet and tech specialist, which would be accurate.
22:07: I could describe him as one of the guys that helps out with youth group, which would be true and accurate.
22:13: But he's so much more than all those things.
22:16: In all those things, he is a worker in the Lord.
22:20: He is many of the terms that we've seen described here.
22:24: But when I think Steve, I think more readily, that's my goofball friend in Jesus.
22:36: We ought to have a tenderness that springs to heart and mind as we picture one another's faces, think about one another's names.
22:45: There's beauty to it.
22:50: If you look at your bulletin, you'll notice on the back that it lists our purpose here at Faith Chapel.
22:56: We say that we exist to worship God by enjoying relationship with him and one another through Jesus Christ.
23:06: That was an intentional ad by our elders as we thought through who are we supposed to be as a church?
23:12: What are the New Testament priorities that need to happen?
23:15: And of course, it's first and foremost centered in God and our relationship with God.
23:20: But over and over and over, we see that that has horizontal implications.
23:24: You cannot live vertically in relationship to God rightly and well without also simultaneously as overflow of that live rightly horizontally in relationship with one another.
23:39: If I get up here and I say, ugh, I can't stand this gathering, this group of motley crew, whatever, I'm not living right vertically if that's my attitude, right?
23:50: Both and.
23:52: And if there's a difference between the two, if the goal is to worship God or to honor God or to praise God or to glorify God, that's got to happen in our relationship to him and our relationship with one another.
24:07: It's a both and.
24:08: And so as we look at all these names that are remembered and recited, all the relationships that are identified and categories that they fit, we need to say we need to enjoy those kinds of relationships with each other if we're going to glorify God.
24:24: We honor or glorify him by enjoying relationship with one another, that is fellow Christians, and by not just having relationship with fellow Christians, but enjoying it.
24:36: If I show up and I'm like, I'm going to talk to Brian, that's just what I got to do.
24:43: I'm not honoring God.
24:45: If I'm like, sweet, Brian's here, I'm going to talk to Brian.
24:49: Well, then I'm honoring God through that, right?
24:51: But not just Brian, who happens to be a pretty cool guy.
24:53: If you haven't talked to Brian, highly recommend it.
24:56: I hope you get swarmed, Brian.
24:58: Good luck on how that works out for you.
25:00: And I'm going to lie to you for a minute.
25:02: He's a touch guy.
25:03: Go give him some hands-on love this afternoon after service is over.
25:08: Longer the hug, the better, okay?
25:17: Enjoying relationship with one another is how we honor the Lord.
25:22: Another thing I see in here is how ridiculously Jesus-centered this whole passage is.
25:30: We've got 16 verses.
25:32: There are six references to the Lord, six references to Christ, as well as a whole bunch of other references to things that only make sense in Christ.
25:42: Verse 2, welcome her in the Lord.
25:45: Verse 3, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus.
25:48: Verse 5, the first convert to Christ.
25:51: Verse 6, they were in Christ before me.
25:54: Verse 7, they were in Christ before me.
25:56: Verse 8, my beloved in the Lord.
25:58: Verse 9, my fellow worker in Christ.
26:00: Verse 10, who was approved in Christ.
26:02: Verse 11, greet those in the Lord.
26:04: Verse 12, greet those workers in the Lord.
26:08: Verse 13, chosen in the Lord.
26:12: Take some of the other words, brother, sister, saint, church, prisoners as Jesus followers, patron in the context of ministry.
26:20: None of those make any sense apart from Jesus being the glue that binds them together.
26:26: If we tried to find something that we all have in common other than Jesus, forget it.
26:35: We're going to leave people excluded.
26:37: We don't all live in the same town.
26:39: We don't all dress the same.
26:40: We don't all have the same income.
26:42: We don't all watch the same movies or TV show or have the same interest in music.
26:47: We don't have anything that truly makes sense.
26:49: We don't have anything that truly binds all of us together other than Jesus.
26:54: And so I see the Christ-centered reality just absolutely permeating this passage.
27:07: We say in our purpose statement that we exist to worship God by enjoying relationship with Him and one another through Jesus Christ.
27:16: We can only enjoy relationship with God because of Jesus.
27:18: We know that.
27:19: The gospel message says that it's through faith in Jesus that you're forgiven and restored into right relationship with God.
27:25: But my relationship with you and your relationship with me and your relationship with one another is just as dependent, if it's right and healthy, just as dependent on you being right with Jesus.
27:36: There's a couple of emphasis on in Christ things.
27:48: I'm going to read a couple of things that I noticed.
27:51: Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord.
27:56: That, like many of the other descriptions here, says, hey, Rufus, he's chosen in the Lord.
28:01: Is that true?
28:02: Yeah.
28:04: Is it true just of Rufus?
28:05: No.
28:06: Every single Christian in the church at Rome, every single Christian anywhere, that's true of.
28:13: You can use the word elect.
28:14: You can use the word chosen.
28:16: That's no more true of Rufus than any other believer.
28:20: So why does he bring that up with regards to Rufus?
28:24: I don't know.
28:25: Maybe Rufus struggled with whether God really wanted him.
28:29: Maybe he and Paul had had some talks about theology and they'd gotten into the election and sovereignty of God and bringing people to faith.
28:38: Maybe that's part of their background.
28:40: He's like, oh, yeah, you remember this conversation, Rufus, right?
28:43: I don't know.
28:45: Maybe it's some other reason.
28:46: But when he thinks Rufus, he's like, oh, yeah, Rufus is somebody that God wanted.
28:54: Similarly, fellow workers in Christ.
28:57: Every Christian is a worker in Christ.
29:00: And so we're all on the same team.
29:02: We're all working together in following Jesus.
29:06: Every single one of the list could be identified that way.
29:09: And yet verses 6, 9, and 12, those three verses identify five names as people who are following Jesus.
29:14: These are five names as people who are fellow workers in Christ.
29:17: When he thought of them, he thought, oh, yeah, that's my teammate in ministry.
29:21: That's my teammate in living for Jesus, helping people to know and love and follow Jesus.
29:29: Verse 7, he calls Andronicus and Junia my fellow prisoners.
29:38: He looks at this list of names and he thinks, these are people who are following Jesus.
29:42: These are people who, like me, have been so committed to following Jesus that it's gotten hard for them.
29:50: It's gotten painful.
29:52: They've suffered in order and because of being faithful to Jesus.
29:58: It creates a bond.
30:03: It creates a unity when people go through hard things together because they're following Jesus.
30:08: Some of the people who are nearest and dearest to me are such in part because they've stuck with me through thick and thin.
30:20: I imagine you have some of those people in your life.
30:25: People that you know, whatever happens, they're not going to bail.
30:28: Kari and I are celebrating our 25th anniversary this spring.
30:32: Now, I like to be obnoxious to my wife.
30:37: It's part of my charm.
30:39: And so I'll say things on my anniversary like, what do you say we go for another year?
30:45: I like to joke that we're on a lease program.
30:47: Let's renew the lease another year.
30:50: We're till death do us part.
30:53: Neither one of us doubts for a moment that the other one's going anywhere.
30:56: Now, have we had conflicts?
30:58: Have we had challenges along the way?
31:00: Sure.
31:01: Every couple does.
31:03: But we know that we know that neither one of us is going anywhere.
31:07: The only way our marriage is ending?
31:08: Is one or both of us dies.
31:11: That's how our marriage is going to end.
31:14: We know there's this unity that's built over 25 years of going through the ups and downs.
31:21: Whatever life brings our way and saying, we're going to go through it together.
31:26: Shared suffering produces a bond.
31:30: Fourth, seems pretty obvious, but the word greet.
31:36: Shows up 13 times in 16 verses.
31:39: Greet, greet, greet, greet, greet.
31:44: Nobody should be overlooked or ignored in the local church.
31:48: Everyone should be greeted, not just as formality.
31:51: You know, we here at Faith Chapel, we have a greeters list and people say, I'll greet folks at the front door.
31:57: And I think that's good and right and a valuable ministry.
32:03: It's good especially for visitors to be greeted so that they can be welcomed.
32:11: They can get answers to their basic questions.
32:13: Hey, where do I take my kids?
32:14: Or where's the bathroom?
32:15: Or where's, which direction do I go for the sanctuary or whatever?
32:19: But the reality is it should be impossible for anybody to show up on a given Sunday at this church and not be greeted.
32:30: Whether they're a regular attender or a visitor.
32:34: If you look around.
32:35: And you see somebody by themselves, consider that a flashing neon sign saying, over here, over here.
32:42: Come see me.
32:43: Right?
32:46: Because greeting is a form of love.
32:49: Greeting is a way of saying you matter.
32:53: Verse 16.
32:56: You know I was going to have to go there.
32:59: Greet one another with a holy kiss.
33:03: I thought about how to explain this.
33:05: And I really wanted to call about a half dozen people up on stage.
33:11: I had people picked out.
33:14: I was going to make Tim come up.
33:18: I was going to make Tim come up.
33:20: Because you all know how Tim greets.
33:22: Right?
33:23: Tim does not do the cheek, cheek.
33:25: Right?
33:26: Holy kissing in context would have been a culturally appropriate, culturally common way.
33:31: It would have been something like we see in the Middle East or sometimes in France where you kind of lean in and give a little peck in the air on one cheek side and then on the other side.
33:40: Right?
33:41: Tim is taking it to a different level where he'll like hug, hug.
33:44: Hug, hug.
33:45: He does the both sides hug thing.
33:47: Right?
33:48: He's like the "I'll do both sides but I'm keeping my lips out of it." Right?
33:53: Hands only.
33:55: I wanted to get Jason up here.
33:58: Jason's like oh no.
33:59: I'm so glad I'm sitting.
34:03: Right?
34:04: How do I holy kiss Jason?
34:06: We have a handshake on Sundays.
34:07: Right?
34:08: Except this Sunday because I'm sick, but we handshake.
34:11: He has never asked me for more than a handshake.
34:15: You can let me know if you need more than a handshake.
34:15: I'll do it.
34:20: So far, it hasn't happened.
34:24: I wanted to bring Pat up.
34:26: Oh yeah, she looks worried.
34:28: What do we do for a holy kiss?
34:31: We do the side hug, don't we?
34:34: She leans in I wrap my arm around her that's how we do it.
34:37: or Autumn, Macy, Macy what do we do?
34:37: Right?
34:37: High five?
34:44: That's how I do it with them.
34:50: More often it's a high five where he's like "nope" and he just goes on his way.
34:55: That's the holy kiss that Ben and I share, right?
34:59: he's laughing he's like yeah I totally do that to him.
34:59: You can ask him about that later.
35:05: The point is that we find a way to say in practical way I see you.
35:16: I recognize you I want to engage with you, you matter to me.
35:17: Why?
35:17: Because we love each other.
35:26: This fist bump I do with people or the high five or the trying to chase Ben down when he won't give me the high five or so on so I was saying I love you in Jesus Christ which we see permeating this whole passage.
35:38: Four times we see the term beloved.
35:47: They use it to describe four different individuals.
35:47: It's in verse 5, twice in verse 8, and in verse 12.
35:54: But really, the whole passage just pulsates with love, doesn't it?
36:00: You read this whole passage, you're like, "Paul cares about these people." He's not going through the motions.
36:04: Now...
36:06: There are pastors who like to stand by the back door, or the entry-way, so they can shake hands with everyone who comes through.
36:13: And there are folks who do that with the absolute best of intentions; it's a great thing when they do that.
36:18: But for me, I got to be me.
36:35: to Cindy, there's going to be French involved, right?
36:35: I talk to Dave.
36:35: I love this guy.
36:35: He's into fountain pens now.
36:45: This is my fountain pen brother.
36:45: We were just talking about that this morning, right?
36:49: I want to hear what's going on with folks.
36:49: And I want you guys to want that for each other.
36:58: Love has to be at the core of this.
36:58: We can do all the outward things.
36:58: Oh, make sure everyone's greeted.
37:05: But if we don't have love, it's empty.
37:05: It's vain.
37:05: First Corinthians 13 talks about how you can do the most spiritual things.
37:12: You can do the most spiritual things imaginable.
37:16: And it's completely vain and without value if it's not motivated by love.
37:23: Yesterday was Valentine's Day.
37:23: We didn't really celebrate much at our house because we're trying to get over this cold.
37:29: But had we celebrated, and I had bought a dozen, dozen roses, approximately $100,000 worth of flowers.
37:45: A sampling of 20 different brands of chocolates in pretty little heart boxes, right?
37:54: I've got this stack of gifts, perfectly gift wrapped, just mounds of treasure indicating to Kari, happy Valentine's Day.
38:03: And she's just wowed.
38:03: She says, he really loves me.
38:11: And I say, dude, I'm just supposed to.
38:15: I've seen the ads on Facebook.
38:15: I know I'm supposed to buy you this stuff.
38:20: That's why I did it.
38:20: No bueno, right?
38:20: Without love, it's pointless.
38:20: I said that we've got to have that vertical and the horizontal.
38:36: What did Jesus say the greatest commandment was?
38:42: Vertical, loving God, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
38:45: And then he immediately asked what, answered what wasn't even asked.
38:47: What's the second?
38:47: Loving your neighbor as yourself.
38:55: I want to close you with two verses from the Gospel of John.
38:55: Jesus speaking to his followers and making love the central test of their following him.
39:01: He says, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another.
39:07: Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
39:15: By this, all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
39:24: So many things that could be said about this congregation, about this church family.
39:30: But above all, may it be that we love one another in Jesus Christ.
39:30: Amen.
39:36: As I close in prayer, please make your plans to hug Brian after church.
39:45: Let's pray.
39:45: God help us to know the love that you have for us in Jesus.
39:45: To know your compassion and care and embrace of us.
39:59: But help us then to be so filled by that experience that we overflow in love to others.
40:06: I pray that we would look around this room, not just this morning, but week after week with deep compassion and love.
40:14: That we would look around with that love every time we gather together, whether it's for a potluck or worship or Sunday school or something else.
40:24: And I also pray that during the week, we would be looking forward to the next time that we can gather together.
40:32: That we wouldn't think about the room or the building.
40:32: We'd be thinking about the people with whom we have unity and relationship.
40:44: In Jesus Christ.
40:44: That we would enjoy that in love to the glory of God.
40:51: In Jesus name we pray.
40:51: Amen.