Person & Work of the Holy Spirit

We left off actually with question 10, but I wanted to review a few things from question nine. If you'll if you'll bear with me. I know a few of you folks have said that you you forgot your your completed handouts at home, but we'll we'll work together on this. I suppose you're on nine. Lesson nine. Question nine. Actually, we're going to review question nine real quick just to make sure everybody's on the same page.

Since we're going into the concept of communion, I want to make sure that we have just the same starting point. So question nine is, what does communion of the spirit mean? And I want to make sure we are starting off with that fresh in our minds. Anybody remember what we talked about last week?

There were three pieces to that. Well, I said sharing and participating in his thoughts, affections, and truths. There we go. Those are probably the three key things there. I'm sorry, thoughts I had. Affections and purposes. Affections and purposes. And we talked briefly about the Holy Spirit allowing us to It's written in one of the letters to the Corinthians that we take each thought captive. Then how about our affections? That's an important thing. It's very easy for me to be distracted by things and have them engage me.

There's an entire practice in today's job world called marketing. And their job is to try to woo your affections away from where they were to something that they're trying to sell you, right? When you turn on the television, I have a DVR so my computer basically records the TV shows and then I can fast forward through the commercials. I hate commercials because I know all of their ploys that they're going to use.

But they're trying to steal my affections. They're trying to get me to go, oh, I don't need my money, I need that. And I need to spend all my time with it. And they try to draw my affections. But if we have the Holy Spirit's affections, that doesn't mean that I, you know, okay, I have a computer here. It doesn't mean that I hate my computer. But the computer is not my affection.

It might be cool and there will be new ones next month. Apple's going to make new announcements. What do I need now? Well, hopefully, if there's a good business sense to it, I can upgrade my computer or whatnot. But the idea is my affections are the Holy Spirit's affections, not the earthly things. I'm guessing that you, as a crowd overall, statistically, don't go out and buy a new Apple product every time they announce it. You don't buy new Macs? We don't even know how to work them. Yeah, that's what I was afraid of. This analogy is falling short, I can tell.

All right, what do you get excited about? What's your affection, right? But the principle is there, you know, before there were computers, then it was, you know, I've got to get the new car or the new appliance or the new house or, you know, the new things, the new clothes. the latest fashion, the television, the video game machine. All of those things try to draw our affections. But if we have the affections of the Holy Spirit, that's what matters.

Why would you say it's the difference between affection and love? Okay, so this is not... Okay, so the difference between affection and love. Affection is something that you are drawn to on a materialistic basis. more than love being a benevolent bearing will towards something.

I love my wife and even if we're having an argument, I still love her. It's an act of the will. My affections should not... affections I look at as fleeting and passing. They're contextual. I should not go through enough wives to have multiple affections towards multiple wives versus I should have one wife and love her until the Lord should part us in some eternal way. You say affections are fleeting? The tendency for affection is to be contextual.

So for example, when Paul was in Ephesus, the major work of his ministry was in Ephesus, though he would be writing to other churches. And then when he moved to different places, his affections His love did not change, but his affections and his focus. That's the way that I would describe him in this context. The problem with a lot of English words is that there's sometimes various definitions of it, and so it can fluctuate a little bit. I hope that my wife would describe me as affectionate, but that doesn't mean the same thing as love. That I would be loving, but there are distinctions, I guess.

How about purposes? The Holy Spirit's purposes. What's His ultimate purpose? To glorify the Lord. And so that's not going to change a lot, is it? But the context in which you are glorifying the Lord might change. In Paul's life, what are some of the contexts that Paul had? Where was he at? We talked about Ephesus, but where else did Paul end up going? prison, okay? Was the purpose for the Holy Spirit in his life different?

No. And in fact, Paul writes about glorifying the Lord and worshipping him in chains. I love the fact that in a carnal mindset, if you were saying, oh no, I'm going to prison, you'd think I'm trapped, right? Paul said, these people are so crazy they're going to chain people to me and I get to witness to them all day long. When Paul writes and closes in the book of Romans even, he says he knows from the house of Caesar, even Paul was able to have a ministry to where people throughout all of Caesar's household knew who he was because he'd been chained there with them, hadn't he? So the ministry opportunity was there.

I'm going to look up the address because it bothers me when I say something like that and it's the wrong thing. Nope, it's coming up short. I'm doing something wrong. We won't follow that rapid trail for too long. So we have affections, thoughts, affections and purposes, right? That's the direction of the Holy Spirit in our lives. And what are the opposites of that when we don't have the Holy Spirit guiding and directing those steps, then what is it that's calling the shots? It's the flesh, right? And obviously the thoughts and affections and purposes there are going to be different.

So, we've got that covered. So the communion with the Holy Spirit, which I will call a vertical relationship. We're going to use a direct analogy here. That's your vertical relationship with the Lord. Everybody's good with that? Because now we're going to shift over to the horizontal relationship between fellow believers. So question ten, what does the question say here? Is there communion among believers and why? So yes or no. Who doesn't think there's communion among believers?

Nobody's raising their hands. But there's a reason for the nickname Frozen Chosen. So everybody says yes. We have agreement on that. But why? That's the question. Why is there communion among believers? We have a common life and a common object. I would even say the Holy Spirit within each of us draws one to another. Strangers. I couldn't disagree with that. And sharing belief in Christ. There's a confidence and joy in relating to other Christians because you feel understood by them. Absolutely.

And like you just have a common bond that's the most important one in the world. Yeah. That bond that is there is not of yourself, is it? And that's the thing that we're looking at. So we have the vertical communion with the Holy Spirit directing our thoughts and our affections and our purposes. And then when we run into other people who have that same horizontal or vertical relationship, it instantly creates a bond between us. And there's where the word horizontal should go. So that we are communicating in this condition in a way that is a deeper relationship.

If you've got your Bibles with you, please turn to Ephesians chapter 4. I love the book of Ephesians. I think you won't find a person that teaches the Bible that doesn't love Ephesians. But if you get to Ephesians chapter 4, It's actually continuing on from a really mind-blowingly awesome part of Ephesians chapter 3 where he talks about the love that should be within the body. But I want to draw on something in chapter 4 because I think it's a really key concept.

I'm going to start in verse 1. He says, Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called. With all humility and gentleness, with patience showing tolerance for one another and love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace, there is one body and one spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all." Now I'll stop there at six.

But you can see that there is one body in one spirit that's preserving unity. Now we can talk about church denominations and church splits and things like that. Those are carnal things that exist because people walked in the flesh. We won't talk about who is walking in the flesh more or less because it's contextual. The thing that's interesting there is that within the body there is one spirit that should be moving through us. and bringing about that communion. These are not questions that are on here, but these are questions that I ask when I come to this topic. I did a whole series on the Thursday night Bible study some time ago and we just talked about basically this topic. We just didn't use the word communion. So I have a lot of material I've developed on it.

But let me ask this question. In the church, should there be people that you really can't stand and hate and wish would not be a part of your church body? Is that what this is describing? What about people that... I mean, I have a really strong personality, so I will start with me as an example. I can be irritating. I keep harping on this communion thing. I've been teaching Sunday school classes for years and every time I get a chance to talk about intimacy, I bring it up. Cheryl will testify to that.

There was one class that we were doing verse by verse exposition through and it didn't matter what the verse said, we ended up talking about intimacy. But communion among the believers is a really key thing. What should prevent us from having communion? Nothing should, but what does prevent communion or intimacy?

Sin. Walking in the flesh, how do we put it that way? Self. Alright, being selfish and walking in the flesh. So, if you find yourself really irritated with somebody in the body, it's an opportunity for the Lord to maybe give you a lesson, some growth. It's an opportunity for you to ask yourself, am I abiding? I know I can be irritating. So if I have caused you to be distracted, I apologize. Is there anyone that can't be irritated? Is there anyone that can be irritated? Cannot. Cannot be irritated? Well, but the thing is that irritation is one of those things that can happen, and I wrestle with that too as a human being.

But I know that if I'm abiding and I'm waiting for the Lord to direct my conversations, He can keep those relationships growing and strengthening those rather than making them negative. I know that too. So that's the angle and attitude that we have if we look at it from a biblical perspective. Everybody knows I can be irritated. Well I didn't know that until right now.

But the idea is that we look at the principle of the biblical attitude that Paul, looking here in Ephesians chapter 4, Paul is putting forth that if these doctrines are true, then we shouldn't see difficulties on a relational level, on a conditional level, as insurmountable because we have the Holy Spirit to resolve those things. We're not insurmountable. Oh, I know. I'm not saying you're saying you're insurmountable.

I'm just saying that it's very easy from a fleshly perspective to say, you know, I'm just going to cut and separate myself from these people because they bother me. They irritate me. Isn't it? You've done that in social circles at different occasions, I'm sure. Well, maybe you didn't, but I did, okay? I'll just say that about myself. It's easy to cut off people, right? Is that what the Holy Spirit's in the business of doing, though? That's what we're getting down to with this communion. But sometimes you have to cut people off.

There are biblical cases where... I'm not talking about in the church. I'm talking about... Outside of the church, in the world, there's a whole... set of principles like Romans chapter 12 would talk about where we have to be aware of how we're engaging the world and what goes on there. It's called caller ID. Caller ID, yeah. I really needed milk but I saw that person down the dairy aisle and it just wasn't happening. That's a different area.

But we're talking about the biblical principle within the body that the Holy Spirit brings about communion, right? and that the Holy Spirit can get past the boundaries of social norms and things that we normally find ourselves hooked up on. And that for me is useful because anytime I've found that I have somebody that gets under my skin, I realize several things and one of them is that they're all being grown by the Lord too. How many believers are not going to be conformed to the image of Christ?

I guess zero. I hadn't thought about it that way. For example, if you know April's pregnant with this precious little baby, but when the baby comes out, she knows that there's probably going to be waste removal services required. You're going to have poopy diapers and pee and all the puke and all the fun stuff, right?

You expect that to happen in a maturing baby, but when it comes to human beings that are in the body, and you start to realize that they're growing too, then you realize, you know, there are times even as believers, that might be adults, that our knowledge is less, and we are growing, and we are being transformed. And so that's when we can come and have an attitude of, wow, the Lord is working on this person, I can't stand this trait that they have. That's their own uniqueness. But he's working that out of them just like he worked that out of me. I'll close with one story and then we'll go to the next question because it's important.

I had a guy that I knew that when he was in seminary, not at the seminary I went to, but at a different seminary, that his roommate kept swearing in their bedroom and that offended his senses. He wasn't very fond of that. But later on, after being offended for a while, they actually had kind of a heart-to-heart conversation and the guy told him shared with him his testimony. And he'd grown up with severe child abuse, all kinds of molestation, and swearing, and all kinds of other things.

And the Lord had worked him to the point now where now the Lord was working on the swearing. And when you have a context that's great like that, it doesn't mean that we should go around swearing and going, well, the Lord hasn't worked with it yet. But the idea is that we don't find ourselves hypersensitive because we know the Lord is in the process of transforming us. And then we can have the communion that comes from the Holy Spirit, right? Does that make sense? I'm not saying anything too crazy. I know I've offended somebody. Not too crazy. Not too crazy. Just the right amount of crazy. No. Alright, let's go to question 11 because I don't want to take the whole...

We should finish this so that when Mike Doyle comes back from his trip that he actually finds that we've accomplished something. Question 11. What is the main factor of communion among believers? And we've already got the answer to this, so somebody tell me what it is. Love. Love. Okay, that's good. What does the book say? I think this is good. It says, Share. Okay. Write-up says we have a common life and common objects that make communion. Okay. So our life, our source of life is the same. And it's a powerful thing.

If you turn to Acts chapter 2, verses 42 through 47, This is the brand new church. It's the baby churches. It's within days of having been created by the Holy Spirit. Acts chapter 2 verse 42-47. And if you get there someone please read that out loud for us. I know it's a big chunk. 42? 42-47 end of the chapter.

They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles. teaching and fellowship to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles and all those who had that believed were together and all things in common. And they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing with them all as anyone might have need. Day by day, continuing with one mind in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart.

Praising God and having favor with all the people, and the Lord was adding to their number day by day, those who were being saved. Thank you, Gary. Alright, so that's a big chunk of things and we have to realize that historically there's some transitional things going on. This is descriptive and it's not prescriptive. But they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching. We can do that today, can't we? Through God's word, right? Everybody's comfortable with that? We can do that? They were devoting themselves to fellowship and to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Are those things that we can do today? Yes. Okay, so we're good with that.

And then everyone kept feeling a sense of awe and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. Well the apostles have gone to be with the Lord. So we don't get to have the apostles around doing signs and wonders and miracles. They were establishing the church. The church is here today so we don't need that same foundation. I'm sorry, we need the same foundation, but they were building it.

And then verse 44, and all those who had believed were together and had all things in common. And that's where Rideout is driving, having common objects. Now this is offensive to my American senses of everybody should buy one of their own. You know, is it a chicken in every pot? The principle that everybody has one of their own. I live down the street from Wayne and Sue and Cheryl. When I don't have a tool, I don't always just race out to Lowe's or Ace, the two hardware stores right by my house. Sometimes I go and I bug Wayne about it. I think he's got caller ID. Who mentioned caller ID? He doesn't always answer his phone. No, I'm just kidding.

They're very gracious, Wayne, and so they've been gracious about lending me tools over time. But it's one of those things where because our relationship in Christ is already established to us, that means that we can do things. People call me for computer help all the time. And I don't mind it. If you have something that I can bless you with or I can serve you with, then that's a really cool opportunity. I've been telling people for years, if you have manual labor jobs you need help with, please call me. And no one calls me. I'm guessing they've seen my work. But it's one of those things where the idea of service and having common objects and working together as a body is a tremendous opportunity and it's exciting to see how the Lord can work through that.

You know another example of that is after the Oklahoma tornado and everything, so many people responded and still are. Yes, and a lot of churches have sent people to go serve there. I have a lot of friends in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. A number of groups have come right out of Dallas and just gone north. It's a couple hours away, but they can get up there with materials and resources.

I'd much rather that we do that as a church and take care of other believers and have outreach than the federal government step in and put everybody into a program. Ah, we'll fix you with programs. How about love? Fixing with love and the work of the spirit sounds better. I've been with the Salvation Army for many, many years and their logo is heart to God and to man. The attitude of serving is part of their outreach opportunities and that's good.

So question 12, we'll keep moving here. Question 12 says, what does the author cite as a distorted view of communion? And this one's a humdinger. Any notes from those who did the humdinger? When you worship the act instead of what it means. Okay, that's great.

I think that's probably the thrust of his concerns. You're saying depending on form and ritual? Okay, depending on form and ritual, looking for the fruit of the communion and focusing on that rather than the life of the spirit living through you. I will do the ritual or I become obsessed with...

Oh, wasn't it so great to have the Smiths over? It was so great. It was much better than when we had the Johnsons over. We should have the Smiths over more. All of those are carnal responses and by the way we have people in the church with those last names but I'm not referring to them. Don't take that that way. But it's one of those things where I will go ahead and I'll read the two paragraphs that Rideout had there because I think they're just incredibly well-worded.

He says, Many Christians have a very unhealthy, distorted idea of communion. They think of a dreamy sort of life, elevated far above its common duties and affairs, the soul in rapt gaze looking heavenward, the body cheaply prostrate in the attitude of prayer. This thought has peopled the convents and monasteries with those who thought communion too wholly a thing to come, even in outward contact with this world. But even where such extremes are not reached, how many twist the thought of communion into a certain state of feeling, or into certain strange and rare experiences? Many would say they have no time for communion, business or family care is pressed too much. But how unhealthy is all this?

So communion is what the vertical relationship pouring out and impacting your relationship with the believers around you. So we're good with that. I just had a funny thought. Vertical, you went down this way and then this way, the L stands for love. Okay, there we go. You can take that. But the principle is that the Holy Spirit is working through us and reaching out to the body. Now in my own walk I found that there have been seasons in my life where I've just been overwhelmed. My work has consumed too many hours of the day and I don't get enough time even with my own family.

And so there will be, unfortunately, seasons in our lives where we don't always, due to commitments we've made previously, get to hang out. What are real things that can prevent us from having communion? That's not a question for me to answer as a class, but whatever you see as an obstacle in your own walk, I don't have time, I don't have the location, those are all things that are concerns. We had friends who would not have people over and be hospitable because they didn't have a dining room table at one point in time.

So somebody in the church bought him a dining room table. But it was one of those things where whatever your obstacles are, give them to the Lord and say, OK, Lord, this is an obstacle. I see this as an obstacle. He'll deal with it. And then you have no excuse, really. There's no excuse.

There might be a seasonal excuse, but reality is that intimacy should happen I am of the humble opinion, this isn't in the lesson, this is not from the elders, this is just my opinion, that whoever has a church key to lock the doors should be sitting hours and hours after the church service got over going, good grief, these people are fellowshipping like nobody's business, I have to go. Rather than, well that was quick and fifteen minutes after the church last prayer is said and somebody says have a great week, The door is clicked locked and everybody goes home. Because there's an opportunity right after church for that communion. There's a great opportunity right before church so that when I'm leading worship I have to call people in and say, come on, come on, you're communion. That's great, but that should be normal.

Question 13. What is the author's response to, I have no time for communion? We sort of just answered that, but instead of time, it's probably priority. OK. Priority. I think that's a really good insight. It's making it a priority. Right out has has cited Romans chapter five five. So let's let's turn that. Well, I thought he said that even if you're very busy or something that you still have time.

The Holy Spirit lives in you. You still have time for communion. I mean, the Holy Spirit is there. We should always realize that because we're indwelt by the Holy Spirit that we have that vertical communion is an ongoing life. And if there are seasons of horizontal or fellowship within the body distractions, those can exist, but that shouldn't be normative and we shouldn't make excuses for that.

So Romans 5.5 says what? And hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. and then we're supposed to hog all that love and keep it to ourselves and put it in jars and not share with anybody. The opportunities exist for there to be an almost infinite amount of expression of this and that is why when we looked at communion with the Holy Spirit affecting our thoughts, our affections and our purposes.

How many of you feel like you're just called to be hosts or hostesses. And you should always have people over. This is not a show of hands thing, but just the question to think about. Not everybody is wired that way. Not everybody is always hospitable at their own homes, but that doesn't mean that there's not that fellowship and those opportunities that exist.

Whether it's the potluck meal that we have on the first Sunday of the month, or any number of other things where there can be various events and opportunities to get together. Look for those. Maybe somebody can meet you for dinner after work. Maybe you can get together and do something at some other external location. You don't always have to be a host or hostess. But it's that life and that outpouring of the spirits. love or the Father's love through the Spirit in your life. That's a real thing. Okay, you keep on the subject, so I'm going to have to say this. Okay, straighten me out.

No, it has nothing to do with that. But there is one thing in this church that is different from any other church in that there is no women's group. I mean, I know you have all kinds of Bible studies, but you don't have anything where women get together and maybe, I don't know, go out to lunch or something. It seems like that it's all... Now, I'm not being critical.

I love this church, but... We used to have, we definitely used to have something like that. It was held, Bertha, Cheryl's mom, it used to be held at her house but she's at the convalescent center. And so there's an opportunity there now for someone else to take that up and run with it. And I'm not saying that's you. No, I would be glad to have it at my house. That is a true observation.

Here's the thing that's interesting inside the body. We talked about the maturing process for the individual believer. We started with babes and we're being transformed in the image of Christ. The body is constantly in flux as the Lord brings people in and out of the body due to moving or passing away or whatever else happens. In some cases people will get married and Some they'll go to the spouse's church, which is somewhere else. But there's any number of reasons why someone might come and go, but the opportunities are there. So then we have responsibilities as believers who are here now to be raising up the next generation, to be equipping the next generation of saints.

And that's a whole other discussion. It's one I love, but it's probably outside the scope of this class. should be a priority and we should see that the life and the love of the Spirit is being poured out and impacting other hearts and lives. I'm going to go ahead and read Rideout's answer from the book because, again, there's a reason why we're reading out of this book. It's good material.

Let it suffice here to say that there is never any excuse for the Christian not to be enjoying this communion of the Spirit. So as was appropriately pointed out, the relationship with the Spirit is the first priority and there is never any excuse for that. Even if I have a busy work life today or this month, that should not interrupt the relationship with the Lord. The busiest are not debarred from it, and it is the strength of the weakest.

Love is the atmosphere of communion, the love of God, and this love is shed abroad, poured out, in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, Romans 5.5.

Let our hearts expand under the warmth of that infinite tender love. Let them revel in it, be at home in it. Keep yourselves in the love of God. That is communion. Fear is cast out. Sin can have no place in the life where the love of God is enthroned. Remember, it is His, not our love. So we don't keep it to ourselves.

Is everybody uncomfortable yet? Because every time I get to this kind of material, I think, okay, Lord, I have some growth opportunity here. I could have more people over. In fact, as I look through this room, some of you I haven't had over to my house yet, and I feel bad about it. So when we're done and we're not recording this, let's figure that out. I'm crummy with calendars, though, so I may have to get back to you after I talk to my wife. Question 14. What is the problem with being too much engaged with the results of communion rather than the fact? We kind of touched on this earlier. You know the old saying, they were so heavenly minded they were no earthly good. I would actually say that to be of any earthly good in this context we need to be heavenly minded. You're right.

What are the Well, what does Rideout say on the answers? Does anybody happen to know what Rideout is talking about here? Well, I think it said that it's too formal and stilted. The joy and freedom flow from communion. So what you're saying is that we need to be more like the hippies. She said yes. I tricked her into it. It's not necessarily a call to live on a communion. But is the focus the stuff and the results? What should communion be drawing our focus to?

The Lord. So what we're saying is the Holy Spirit is consistent, right? The Holy Spirit consistently draws our attention to Christ. He draws our attention to the Father and the Lord is glorified. The Father is glorified. And so the outworking of communion should be the glorification of the Lord.

So while we can observe benefits outside of that, our focus should not be on those benefits. Now this is a rough thing as a teacher, so I'll just say it this way. Illustrations are a lot easier if I can show you the outworking benefits, if I can talk to you about the fruit. But that's not where our focus is supposed to be primarily.

I can talk to you about how the Lord took care of various things and how Acts chapter 2 verses 42-47 like activities were taking place where people saw they had needs and they sold stuff and the body had been blessed through it but what ended up was that the Lord was glorified. That's what we care about. But we need to be together. We need to be together and so The thing that I find is most difficult about this is that in our modern culture it's very easy for all of us to live relatively far away but still get here on Sunday mornings at one place so that we can get good teaching, right? Because we're here primarily for the teaching. It's not because there's a great rock and roll worship service going on upstairs, right? Nobody even laughed. That was supposed to be funny.

Yeah, what was that guitar you played and you said that was something different? The guitar? Oh no, so Tristan had a... I called it a Celtic instrument, it's not. It's actually an Appalachian. It's called a lap dulcimer. But it was actually inspired by the Celtic instruments. That's the sound I was going for. But I misspoke when I said that during the worship service. It is an Appalachian.

But we're here for the teaching of God's Word, but also we should come expecting the communion, shouldn't we? And that for me is probably one of the largest challenges, is that if I only see you on Sunday morning, and you only see me on Sunday morning, we've got six days of the week that we're missing out on opportunities. Now it doesn't mean that you should see me seven days a week, because this mug gets old after a while, let me tell you. But you could still be seeing other believers and having fellowship.

Let's go back to Acts chapter 2, just because I think it's such a powerful place to wrap up this lesson. 2.42-2.47 again. They were continuing on in verse 45, and they began selling their property and possessions, and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have needs.

Now that's not me suggesting that everybody here should sell everything they have, and we'll put all of our finances into one central bank account. If you need something, just let one of the deacons know. Because I knew a church, there was actually a church that did that in Nevada, It ended up being a real problem. Everybody thought we'll sell all of our possessions and we'll pool our resources and we'll have our bank, our direct deposits all pooled in the same account. If you need something you just write a check and unfortunately fraud took place.

That's not the point of this passage. But there is a sense, how do you know if somebody has need? Let's ask that question. Well, they'll let you know. Well, they'll let you know, but wouldn't it help if you saw them so they could do that? And that's part of the point. And there is this new, what's her name? Zara. Zara. You know, she just sits in her apartment, her son said, you know, would somebody please, you know, call her? Come visit or communicate? Because she just sits in this little apartment and so, Mary and I... But there was communication? I'm not saying like, oh Mary and I, we did this wonderful thing. Well I was going to set up I was going to set up a big poster and we were going to have congratulations. You don't want that? No. Not this week. If my flesh comes into it next week. But see, that would be focusing on the fruit and having the wrong motive, right?

But because someone... I know what it's like being, you know, I mean, A lot of us are single women. I don't even know what I'm trying to say. What you're saying, or where I would go with what you're saying, is that we have to know that there's a need before we can respond to it. Far too often in our culture is it especially now common for someone to go to St. Discover card and that's a joke about credit card debt going on.

I have a need. I'm not going to mention it in America because we're not supposed to have needs. I'm not going to mention it to the body. Cover my eyes and hide myself in shame and have my secret debt rather than going to the body sometimes. And the thing is that that is a tremendous opportunity for the body, but we don't even let anybody know that we have the needs. Because we'll just go deal with it with a financial institution. Or we have need...

How many of you would like help whenever there's a snowstorm? We've got to shovel driveways and things like that. Those are opportunities where I'd like to say I'm able-bodied. I have an all-wheel drive vehicle, so I can get to most anywhere. But if somebody called me and said, hey, I really need help with my snow, that's an easy thing for me to do. But I don't always know where everybody lives, and I don't want to be a creepy stalker guy peering into windows. But that opportunity exists, but you've got to let me know. And so the idea about communion and getting together and having fellowship is that then this can happen.

They were constantly selling their possessions. Look at verse 46. Day by day, continuing with one mind in the temple. Now in this case, they were actually still meeting in the Old Testament temple because they didn't even realize the church was going to have to go meet somewhere else yet. And breaking bread from house to house. So they were, again, eating together.

Come over to my house. Let's schedule a time. I'll feed you something. Because I gather that they were a little closer proximity. And that might be the case. And that is probably my greatest concern for the body at Holly Hills. I'm going to put that on the record. My greatest concern for fellowship and communion within our body is just simply distance. Now, as it happens, several of you are within my neighborhood, so I have not much of an excuse. But the truth of the matter is that they were getting together regularly and breaking together, and they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart.

Isn't it cool that the Lord is doing this awesome thing and we get to be part of it? That's not a statement that should just be isolated to Acts chapter 2. We as believers should be able to say, isn't it cool that God is doing this awesome thing and then commune over those things that the Holy Spirit is doing. And the last sentence, because we should be done here, is praising God and having favor with all the people. Do you think people would be really angry at believers that are constantly loving one another? It's hard to be angry at people who are loving one another, isn't it? And the Lord was adding to their number, day by day, those who were being saved.

Evangelism was almost a surprise thing that took place, because this was a branded church. But people saw it and said, this is so different from the legalistic Jewish jerks I've seen. And I don't say that. to be mean or nasty. But that's what they saw. They saw legalism from the Jewish people. And then suddenly this group shows up that's not legalistic. And they're loving. And there's communion and there's fellowship. It's a powerful thing.

Next week we'll pick up, I'm not sure if it'll be Courtney or Mike or myself who teaches with Lesson 11. Speaking of which, we just finished Lesson 9 and 10. It's one lesson, but we combined the questions from section 9 and section 10 that we broke this up into. So it jumps all the way to 11, but that's why if you're confused by the numbers, that's why they're marked that way.

Let's close in prayer, and we'll head on upstairs. Actually, we'll get our calendars out, and we'll schedule some fellowship, and then we'll go upstairs. Heavenly Father, we ask that you just continue to remind us of the communion that we have with you and that that is the source of our life and the source of the love that we have to share with one another. We do pray for an open heart and mind for fellowship and growing together. And Lord, thank you so much for the communion that we have already had. Pray that the communion that we may be having in the future would be rooted in the truths that we've learned today and that your Holy Spirit would show us the appropriation and the actions from that. We just thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.