Our relationship to the Holy Spirit and one another

Okay, so we're going to finish up the last three verses. I titled this Our Relationship to the Holy Spirit and One Another. So I continue to use Chester McCauley's outline. The first five items here is basically what Randy covered last week about our relationship to the truth, to anger, to Satan, to property. It was actually stealing. to the tongue. And we're going to kind of slop over a little bit into, we're going to look at 29 again a little bit.

But today we're going to focus on a wonderful relationship that we have in Christ, our relationship with the Holy Spirit. And then our relationship with one another. There's kind of two parts to that. One part of that is we're to put away a group of things in our relationship with one another. And that's focused on believers, I believe. And then secondly, kind of tied in with that kindness and forgiveness to one another.

And we're going to see that word forgiveness used in the last verse of the chapter. It's really kind of a cool. It's a different kind of forgiveness. It's forgiveness under grace. We'll see that at the end there. So that's kind of where we're headed. So that's from Macaulay there, adapted from Macaulay. So could someone read?

Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking be put one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you. Great, thanks Tom. Okay, so that's the verses we'll be looking at.

I noticed in some translations, including the New American Standard, the conjunction and was not, I was kind of amazed, it's in the original but was not in the text. And I had to go back and I used to use the New American Updated and it wasn't in Even though it's in the original. I don't know. I can't explain. But anyway, I think it's important because it connects back to the previous verse. And we'll see that right here at the beginning.

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. So, Ann, to that point, is connecting, it seems like, with the previous verse which talked about no corrupt communication coming out of your mouth. So now he's going to talk about our relationship with the Holy Spirit, and it seems like, based upon the previous verse, it's kind of connecting speech to that, so that we might grieve the Holy Spirit with our speech. Actually, the idea here with the tense of the verb, it's a command. It assumes that you're already, which is kind of a somber thought, you're already grieving the Holy Spirit, from what it said. And stop grieving the Holy Spirit, it could be rendered. So it assumes that's ongoing.

Something I kind of noticed in looking at this verse, and what it tells us about this, is that we think about the closeness of our Savior. I mean, it's just constantly on our minds. But this really brings in the fact that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, you know, they're one, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God is intimately interested in us, and intimately concerned about us. It's almost like you have, you know, someone that you wouldn't want to, so close that you wouldn't want to offend them ever. You would just care for them so much, like your dear friends, you know, you wouldn't want to ever offend them.

We do. I mean, just because we have a fallen nature. And so it just kind of struck me. This idea of grieving. It's in the active voice to cause pain or grief. And the verse that I have there. Could someone read that? It's in 2 Corinthians 7-8. Paul's talking about his relationship with the Corinthian church there.

He uses a little bit different word. I'm not sure all translations have the same word. For though what made you sorry was a letter, I do not repent, though I did repent. For I perceive that the same epistle hath made you sorry, though it were but for a season. Right. So Paul's kind of, you know, he wrote them letters. They were hard letters. They were tough things to say. And he, you know, it's the same word, grieve. So actually, I thought Chafer's comment was good.

Christians no longer live according to his conscience alone, which conscience may be perverted and seared, but with the Holy Spirit who may be grieved or not grieved by an act, word, or thought. So just kind of sobering things that the Holy Spirit cares for. And we're going to see, actually, the next set of verses here, actually it's going to be a bunch of verses that kind of point out that the Holy Spirit is a person, not an it. It's not an influence, it's not a warm fuzzy.

He has When the Lord Jesus left, he talked about the person of the Holy Spirit and what his job description was going to be. If you had to write down, if someone ever asked you, what's the Holy Spirit supposed to be doing? This verse that we're going to see here shortly shows that mission, if you will. You had a question?

No, I was just going to comment that I find this so interesting. the concept of the Holy Spirit really being interested in us personally. We know really nothing. Very little about Him as well. And our focus obviously is on Christ. We know about the Lord. But it's so... Think about this other third thing. It's God. Exactly. But still, I find it very kind of interesting. It is. And the couple of verses I'm going to share here are pretty cool.

So in Acts it talks... Here's one where It says, then the Spirit, speaking of the Holy Spirit, this is the chariot, what is it? The Ethiopian eunuch, thank you. And so the Spirit, the Holy Spirit says to Philip, now remember this is in Acts. Remember Acts, this transition?

Some Charismatics will take this and they'll say, boy the Holy Spirit told me this morning to Whatever. And they'll run with that. And they'll go down that path. And I don't think that's right. In this case, the Holy Spirit told Philip to go up and join the chariot. He wanted him to share Christ with that. And in a way, we don't need the Holy Spirit to tell us that. We know that's part of our life. There's someone there that needs to know about Christ and is interested. This person was interested, right? He was confused.

He gave a command to Philip, go up and do something. This is more the picture of the Holy Spirit, and this is just really cool here. If you look at the first part of that verse, Christ talks about, here's what the Holy Spirit is going to do. He will guide you into all the truth, for He will not speak as on initiative. Whatever He hears, He will speak. And He will disclose to you what is to come.

This is something at our work at Buckley. We have two sets of phone systems. We've got the secure phone system and the non-secure. All you guys in the military, you know what this is. And you're not supposed to put them together. But sometimes you have to relay information between this one and that one.

So I see the Holy Spirit is going to take the things of Christ and He's going to tell us. Well, it's sort of like I hear something here, And I say it over here. Now you have to be careful in our business that you don't compromise security, but his mission is, whatever he hears, he will speak. He will disclose to you what is to come. I always think of that when I think of this, what the Holy Spirit is doing in the life of belief. So that's his mission statement, if you will.

And then here's another really cool one, talking about our prayer life, in Romans 8, 26. In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness, For we do not know how to pray, as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And this is a whole study unto itself. I had the privilege of doing this in the main service a couple of years ago. It's just a tremendous verse, along with a companion verse. But that groanings, it's something that cannot be spoken.

It's like, and He's speaking it on our behalf. He's interceding for us and He's speaking it on our behalf to the Father. And it's pretty incredible how He cares for us and how He wants our prayers to be answered. God wants our prayers to be answered. It may be a shock.

But it's according to his will. That's the little part that we say, well Lord, I have a different idea. Well, I'm sorry. It's according to his will. So anyway, but the Holy Spirit's involved in their prayer life. So he cares for us. And then lastly, he loves us. It says, now I urge you brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God for me. So the Holy Spirit is a person. He has a personality. That personality is intimately connected with the believer.

And the last part of the verse says, By whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. And this idea of sealing, we actually talked about that earlier in Ephesians, back in chapter 1. By whom, in whom it could be, in the person of the Holy Spirit, you were sealed And actually, Macaulay says that a seal conveys three ideas. It points to a finished transaction, to ownership, and to security. So the fact that we're sealed is to give us great comfort and great security, is that we've been sealed. And we're sealed for this day of redemption.

And actually, could someone read in 2 Thess 2.1? for us. It talks about that I believe. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 1.

Now we request you brethren with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him. So I believe that this day of redemption is when we are gathered together with him. So I think it is actually speaking about when we're raptured and we go to meet him and all believers are raptured you know the ones that are in the grave everybody is raptured together you know no believer is going to miss the rapture I mean it's hard to the ones that are in the grave right now won't miss it you know the dead in Christ will rise first and we come second but we'll all be there together so that's I think is a and the day of redemption. That day, be it said, is not the day of our death, it is rather the day of Christ, the day when the body will be raised, redeemed, reunited to be glorified soul and spirit. So that's a wonderful time when we're all, all believers, past, present, will be pause, one of the reasons could be, would be, this is really it.

Your very last chance within seconds. Believe. You happen to be at the cemetery. You're thinking about people who don't know Christ. Yeah, I agree. Amen. Just like your last chance. I know. Well, that's what I often think when we pray about the Lord. Vern says almost every week, or every other week, about the Lord coming today, and amen to that. But you think about a person that you may know that doesn't know the Lord. You think, wow Lord, if you come then their chance will be gone.

But people are saved in the tribulation period so you could be praying for those people too. So that's basically verse 1. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Alright, so let's move on. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with malice." So what do you think is Paul's main desire here? What's he telling us here? What's the main action he desires for us in this verse? Allow God to do the cleanest work and claim it as true. Okay, okay. I heard a couple of, yeah. First of all, there's a list, right? Bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander. And then I think, right there, I had the advantage of having looked at this already. And looked at the, you know, anyway.

Be put away, I believe is the main idea here. So the main verb is to be put away. be put away is IRO, A-I-R-O, to take up, to remove, and it's a command in the passive voice. And I've been struggling with that. How do I get commanded passively? But I think there's an answer for that, and I'll share it with you in just a second. So what he's telling you, he says there are five items, the first five items, bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander, are to be put away from you.

Oops. Well, let's try that. Okay. Now it makes sense. I'm probably there. It seems to be working. It actually won't go past that point for whatever reason. Does that work? So let all, pas in the Greek, so I believe it applies to, let all applies to those five items. And the sixth item, malice, which is actually could be the word for evil, seems to be central.

And actually Macaulay, this is not real. So Macaulay says it should be noted that malice is attached to the rest of the sins in a special way with the preposition with. It indicates that it's the source of those things, of the others. So I think what's being said here is that he's telling us to put away these things. These aren't part of our life in Christ. And it says along with malice. Malice seems to be the central thing that drives these.

I don't have a chart beyond this for this verse, but I have a listing of all the... Here, I have an idea. We'll do it. I'll make it easier. Especially this list. So these are the things, this is a list of things with malice kind of being the center, the evil. So there are five things and we have a verse for each one of these. So let's just kind of look at these. Now I'm going to ask a question about how do we do that? How do we do that? That's a $64 question.

Okay, bitterness. Bitterness is this idea of pointed, sharp, keen, refers to harshness, resentment, And then in Hebrews 12, 5, 15. I'm sorry. Actually, I was not saying your handout. I had to make some correction. Your handout actually has, I think, 12, 5, but it's really 12, 15. That's correct. OK, well, I thought, OK, good. That's good. It's a good thing.

Okay, so actually in that verse, could someone just read that verse? Hebrews 12, 15. See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God, that no lewd bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it may be defiled. Okay, so that's one of these five things, that bitterness is not to spring up, not to be part of our life as a believer. This focus here is in relation to our other believers.

The second one is Wrath. Wrath and Anger, you'll see different translations. Some will translate Wrath, Anger and Anger, Wrath. Wrath is defined by Anger, so it makes it tough. Some people will call Wrath, Anger. It doesn't matter. Both of them are bad. hot anger, passion, rage that is poured out.

If you go to Galatians 5.20, that is that group of things that are called the deeds of the flesh. Maybe we will come back to that in just a second. Anger from Orge refers to a swelling, an outburst. In Ephesians it is called children of wrath. Then clamor is used of people shouting back and forth in quarrels.

You know, I looked at this list and I thought, wow, this is what I see every day in the newspapers and on TV. I see this every day. All this goes on every day. I'm just like, wow. And the Axe Passes talks about, there was a great, Vern's been showing all these great uproars when Paul went to different places. There was a great uproar or clamor. And lastly, slander. to refer to anything that hurts the reputation of others. And then in that passage in Titus it talks about abusive language. So how do we approach this? Paul has told us to let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander be put away from you along with malice which seems to be the driving force. So how do we do that? How does a believer in the Lord Jesus do that?

OK. OK. OK. OK. That's good. Right. And hence back to remember I said it's in the be put away, it's in the passive voice. Boy, that's actually kind of the key I think. So keep going. I think you're on the right path. I think we all know this because we teach this hopefully a lot here at Holly Hills. Any more thoughts? Pat, keep going. Romans, remember I mentioned that. You know, with, Visions is mine. You know, that kind of thing. I forget where it was. We were talking about anger.

It's one of those verses in Romans that the Lord will take care of it. Okay, alright, alright. Tom? In that same vein, yeah. The Lord was introduced in the Old Lamb of God by John the prophet and who takes away the sins of the world. Okay, okay. Ultimately he does the heavy lifting. Good, excellent. Make sure he gets assigned.

Okay, so the question was, we'll start easy. Question one is, all these sins here, for the believer who's trusted in the Lord Jesus, what's the relationship to these sins? They've been paid for, right? So if we have bitterness tomorrow, or any one of these tomorrow, we don't have to worry. They've been paid for. Based upon that, where to reckon ourselves dead to sin?

We've been disconnected. We've been separated from that nature which produced all these. Even though it's still there, and it can produce it tomorrow, we've been separated from this. So we view what scripture says, we view ourselves separated from that, and now we're alive to God.

And we're to abide in Him, walk with Him. And as we walk with Him, actually that passage in Galatians is really good. Let's go to Galatians 5. It kind of talks about that process. Galatians 5, it has the deeds of the flesh in there. It says, yeah 16, thank you, good.

But I say walk by the spirit and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desires against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. These are in opposition to one another. so that you may not do the things that you wish.

So without going through the whole thing, we're to walk in the Spirit, we're to abide with Christ. That's the way the Christian has victory over these sins. As we walk with Christ, we will not carry out... Actually, it's impossible to carry out the deeds of the flesh. So as we walk with Christ, these items and others, So that's the approach of the Christian life, to walk by faith, to abide in him, to believe that he has paid for these and that we've been separated from the nature that produces those.

Great, good answer guys. Okay, let's go on. The last verse is really cool. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has also forgiven you. Okay, so it's literally, the word and connects it to the previous verse. And there's kind of an implied you here. You be kind, you as a believer in the Lord Jesus, be kind to one another.

And be, it's a small little word, but it's really kind of an important word, ginomai. It's coming into a new state of being, a state of being that never existed before. So what's being said here? Actually, let's just keep looking at that word for a second. It's actually translated became. So to try to grasp what this word's talking about, I'm going to look at another verse about our Savior and then come back to this B-ginome.

Can someone read John 1.14 for me? The Word became flesh and woke among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. Great, thank you. So, at the start of that verse, and the Word became flesh. It's our word, ginome, ginome, ginomai. So, think about this.

The Lord Jesus, before he came as a man, he was God, right? He was God only. But he came into a new state of being, the God-man, right? That never existed before in all eternity. But he came into this new state of being. That state of being was the God-man.

So what's being said here is, and this is kind of mind-boggling, when you start looking at the truths about the believer, you realize they're impossible for you to do. Because they require God to do it. And this is one of these cases. We're going to find out to be kind. You cannot be kind. You think, well that sounds pretty easy. I know how to be kind. I help the old lady across the street. I bag the groceries at the grocery store so they're not too busy. And I do whatever, right? But this being kind is something that only God can do.

I'm pretty sure it's a battery. So it's actually in the present tense. It's literally, be continuously kind. Well, when you say that, you say, mm, that's one up. That's one a little bit harder than just be kind. I can be kind occasionally. But continually be kind? Ooh, that's a toughie. That's a toughie. OK, so kind is this word. It's almost like... I won't try to pronounce it. Krestos? Krestos, I think is what it is. Good, gracious, kind.

It's a characteristic of Jesus in Matthew 11, 30. And also in 1 Peter 2, 3. So let's look at those two occasions there. So, Matthew, and actually here, I have 29 down, so someone read 11, 29, and 30 for me. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest unto your souls, for my yoke is easy and your burden is light.

Okay, so does anybody want to venture a guess which one of those words is kind or could be translated kind? It's not, isn't, I know because I looked it up, so I have an advantage. So which one do you think? is the word, could be the word kind, good, gracious, it's in verse 30, I'll give you, let's narrow it down, it's in verse 30, yes, yes, and actually, if you happen to have an amplified Bible, it kind of expands, useful, good, not harsh, so the Lord is saying, my yoke, my relationship with you, is kind, good, gracious, So he talks about his relationship with us is kind or good or gracious. And then in 2 Peter it says, if you have taste of the kindness of the Lord. Kindness is an adjective which describes the subject you.

It says we've come into this continuous state of of kindness. So here's my thought. Only Christ's life in you can be continuously kind. And that is a completely new state of being as we abide in Him. So that's something that before you're a believer is an impossibility. But God's Word says, and be kind continuously kind. And that's something that we couldn't be before. Only Christ's life can be continuously kind.

And so our part in that is to abide in that truth, to walk by faith in that truth, to believe that truth. And that's going to go ahead and it's going to expand on that a little bit more. It's going to expand and give us another word about being for kind. So does that kind of Are you ready to... We're kind of fixed up on that. Okay, well good. And it's to be kind to one another. And one another is something that I hadn't quite heard the term before. It's a reciprocal pronoun. And it kind of means... Believers are to be kind mutually. It's supposed to be both ways.

That's to be our the nature of their relationship with fellow believers. So it's only referring to fellow believers? In this context, now it doesn't say scripture doesn't talk about our relationship with other people, but if you notice God mostly is concerned about our relationship with other believers in scripture, that is mostly the thrust. And I believe since it says one another, I believe that's the case. So what about love your neighbor as yourself? That's neighbors then? Well, I don't think it's saying don't be nice to not-believers.

No, no, no. If you think about it, another person that, he's your brother or sister, first of all, you have a special relationship with him. I mean, that's a relationship you have with no one else. Your brothers and sisters, they are unique people. In fact, they're closer many times than your physical brothers or sisters. So that's a special relationship.

So let's look at this verse here. This is kind of interesting. Let's look at the John. And I think I messed this up here a little bit too. It's John 15. I think I had John 12. I messed this up a little bit. I corrected it here. It's John 15, 12, and 17. So let's look at that for a second. Could someone read In the Gospel of John, verse 15 and then verse 17. I'm sorry, in chapter 15 I want verse 12 and verse 17. Do I have that right? I messed up.

Okay, so 15, verses 12 and 17. This is my commandment, that you love one another just as I have loved you. 17. This I command you, that you love one another. So here the Lord is saying, remember how I loved you. And we think about Christ's love.

We're going to see that comparison here in a second, in the last part of this verse. And this seems to be a focus of much of scripture. We look about what's happened to us in terms of our Savior, and then that's to be, I don't want to say, the example might be a little bit strong.

But anyway, He'll point to that first, and then He'll say, based upon that, you're to love one another. And that's what's being said here in the passage in John 15. So he says, that you love one another just as I have loved you. So I believe one another is focused on believers.

And then tender hearted. So it reads, and be kind to one another. And then it has another word, which I think is, and I think I kind of said that here, it just is to amplify kindness. So you're, were to be or to be kind and also tender-hearted as well.

Tender-hearted is, and this is an interesting word, you know, the Greeks, you know, we say, my heart really aches for you, or I, you know, we talk about heart as being the seed of our emotions. Well, the Greeks had it, the intestines, so they'll say, this would be like saying my Intentions really feel for you. I mean it seems kind of strange in my gut.

Go ahead. It's really interesting too, you know, in the world, love is kind of a mishy-mashy, I feel like I want to love you. What's interesting here is we're commanded to love. Exactly. The word command. That's interesting. It is. And we have to remember the commands for the believer under grace, right? So I wonder why we figured that we needed to be commanded. Well, that's a good question.

Maybe because it's our natural nature, our old nature, is not inclined to... Well, isn't our natural nature to be focused on ourselves? And our natural nature is inclined to be focused on that square on page four of the lower square. Right, and we see that in spades all the time.

The thing is, if I'm poked too hard, if I get irritated too much, do I come out with a loving word of kindness? No. Most times I don't. But I also think the Lord is teaching us. He loves us. He wants us to be like Him. He has to teach us. He's your Father. Here's what I want to teach you. I want you to love each other as I love you. It's like He's... I don't know. Does that make sense to you?

We have to be taught it. Well, I think Mike likes to say, we have to be taught grace. We have to understand how God's grace operates, because we just are not in that, our minds don't think that way. To be gracious to someone is that when they poke you, you don't poke them back. We tend to respond in kind most times. Okay, now we're going to start into, and be kind to one another, tender hearted.

And the last part of the verse, we're going to see this word forgiving. And it's interesting, this word, And in the context, you as implied here, you be forgiving each other. So you modify them. So the word translated forgiveness is this word, it's a word connected with charis or grace. Charizomai. It's not the normal word for forgiveness. The normal word for forgiveness, I didn't put it in the notes, but it's a word that you find like in 1 John 1, 9. It's ephemi. decided to send forth.

It's based upon Christ's death. 1 John 1, if we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins. So that word in that context is talking about Christ paying for our sins. God doesn't forgive us because I'm a gracious God. He is a gracious God, but He forgives us based upon Christ's death on the cross. But this word conveyed here is going to speak about His grace. So here's the word forgiving. It's the idea from Charist to bestow a favor unconditionally. I have a bunch of verses in there that's kind of for you to look at. The verse I want to get to.

And actually the way Darby brings us across showing grace to each other. So rather than saying forgiving each other, showing grace to each other. It doesn't mean that, and here's something, we have two words in the original. One speaks of God dealing with our sins and putting them away based upon Christ's death. This word is going to speak about His grace. But they're both translated forgive or forgiveness.

So it's, you have to kind of be a good student and you have to kind of, well, what's that we're talking about? So this is showing grace to each other. So an example, a really cool example is in Luke 7, 42. And this is the one, could someone read, actually let's go back and get the context here. Could someone read verse 40? Let's go down 40 through 42. Read that to get the context here. And Jesus said unto him, Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee, and ye sayeth the Master, say on.

There was a certain creditor which had two debtors. The one owed 500 pence and the other 50. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me, therefore, which of them will love him most. Okay, so it's this interesting story. I like the part where he says, say it. And the other creditors say, say it, Lord. I want to hear this. It's pretty cool. Okay, they were unable to repay.

He graciously forgave them. This is the same word. He bestowed favor unconditionally on them. Now he's going to talk about which one loves him more. That's another question. But the word here is rendered graciously forgave. So we're to graciously forgive each other. That's the idea. Okay, so Darby kept carrying on. Just as God in Christ has forgiven or shown grace to you. So I just kept trying other versions of this verse.

I apologize. So I like what Macaulay said here. grace each other just as God in Christ has graced you. Isn't that horrendous? So I would suggest in your Bibles, I know if you like to mark your Bibles up, some people don't like that, but I would put in there, above the word forgiven, grace. Because this verse is talking about God's grace.

I think that's powerful. I mean this is powerful, as was mentioned. But it's also the concept that we have under grace and not the concept under law. And that's this really key thing that Chafer is going to point out. The reason for Christian forgiveness, this is the reason for Christian forgiveness, one toward another, is seen here to be a reversal of the merit system of the law system and to appeal on the grounds of superabounding grace. And actually if I can get that, there we go.

So if you go and look at, and we probably should do this, and this might bother you a bit, but we need to look at the Matthew passage. And let someone read that Matthew 6, 14 and 15. For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. If ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your fathers forgive your trespasses. So how do we reconcile those verses? We have one verse. That verse says, the Lord is not going to forgive you if you don't forgive them. This verse says, we're in a different domain here. We're under grace, right? We're to grace each other. And why are we to grace each other? Because we've been graced. So we've moved from the law system, which is described in Matthew there, to the grace system, which is what Paul writes about. So in that transition, some people, and they're not taught that, first of all, many times. So that transition is hard. They say, well, I've got two verses. They say different things. What am I supposed to do about this? And it can be very confusing. But I think once you see it in the context of Paul's writings, you see this, and to recognize that is huge. To recognize that he wants us to grace each other based upon the grace that we've received.

I guess to put it in a nutshell, back there in Matthew, it was Jesus talking to Jews. Exactly, under the law, talking to the Jews, under the law in Israel. That's right. But here, this is a part of the church age teaching, Paul is pioneering this. Right, right. And I know not everyone is in the Wednesday Night Bible Study, like what we just covered, the different Gospels.

Right, exactly, exactly, exactly. Honestly, if no one tells you that, I'm Mike Doyle's daughter. I'd never heard that. I had no idea. Right. That's something that we've tried to teach here. Vern's gone through that before. There's a gospel that Christ came and proclaimed to the Jews. I'm going to establish a kingdom. That was good news. I'm going to establish a kingdom. That's the gospel of the kingdom. Now we have the gospel of God's grace. That's kind of a big picture there. So, we operate under grace. Grace each other just as God in Christ has graced you.

So, a tremendous way to kind of wrap up chapter 4. Well, we actually are just... No buzzers yet, right? Other thoughts? We're going to continue on. Actually, next week we're going to do a review. Randy's going to do a review of Chapter 4, which is going to be challenging.

In an hour. There we go. See, I got it. Go ahead. Go ahead, Pat. Walking in the Spirit. It seems like I have a hard time grasping that. Just recalling what has been revealed to us in the scripture. OK, well, you know, there are many. What's the right word for walking? I think two weeks ago, actually on camp out weekend when a lot of folks were gone, Vern did a short little thing and there are many words that are synonymous with one another. Walking, abiding, trusting, resting, having faith.

They're all talking about an exercise of our faith in relationship to our Savior and what He's accomplished. So I think what's being said there is that when we walk by faith, we remember what Christ has done for us. We remember that we've been graced. We've been set apart. We remember all that we have. And we walk by faith in those truths. We walk by faith that we no longer are slaves to sin.

I can go there. I can be bitter and slander and the rest of that. But I don't have to. I have a choice now. And we're thankful. Lord, thank you that I have a choice here. And so we mess up. Hey, we don't do it every day probably. But Lord, thank you that I see that I messed up. And I want to go on from here.

We see where we're at. We see who we are in Christ. What He's done. What He's accomplished. And we put our faith and trust in that. And that's what's called walking. Walking by faith. Abiding in Him. And there's all these examples about the vine and the branches. It's a wonderful example. He is the vine, we are the branches. So out from our new life in Christ can come His life.

And that's what He desires. That's how we can be kind. Continuously be kind. What's that? Our brother Hal Malloy, he used the term hanging out. Hanging out with the Lord. It sounds a little more You know, it's not so formal. You know, I'm just going to hang.

I'm just going to Lord, here's what you know. Yeah, I said I did that. Yeah, that was wrong. But I know Lord helped me to, to remember what's wrong and to go on from here and trust you and walk by faith. Graciously the Lord will do it to you. Sometimes I laugh at myself second by second. And what's cool is what we learned today is that the Holy Spirit is involved in this too. And He cares about us.

And He can be hurt. It's kind of hard to grasp it. I can hurt the God of the universe. I don't know, it seems... He can be grieved. It just seems an incredible thing. But I think it points out the fact of his care and concern for us and how much he loves us. And that's to allow us to trust him and rest in him. If we know someone, think on a human level, if we knew someone that cares for us so much, and we know that when they know we're hurting, they're hurting, then boy, that's just really, that's a special relationship. Remember that person that they're always there, that I'm hurting, And I can go to them and tell my hurts, on a human level, how much more our Heavenly Father who cares for us.

And so when we hurt, He hurts. Let's go ahead and close. We thank you, Father. We thank you for our time today, Lord. We thank you for the blessings we have, Father. Thank you just for your marvelous grace, Lord, and that we're to remember that grace, and we're to count upon it, and we're to treat our brothers and sisters in Christ based upon the grace that we receive from you, Father. We ask it in your Son's name.