Greet One Another

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Our Father in heaven, you alone are God and you alone are worthy to be praised.
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You're King of King and Lord of Lords.
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You who directs the affairs of this world and we know that you're working all things together for our good.
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Thank you, Lord, for the amazing thing that your Son did for us.
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It's in His name I pray.
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Amen.
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Amen.
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Too hot? Too cold? Just right? Hot? Okay, so if you can't sit quietly in the back, you could sit up front.
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So this morning we want to continue on the path that we've been taking and I don't know about you, but I've been enjoying it.
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I've been enjoying it for myself.
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I've learned a lot as we hopefully will all continually learn.
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Just going through these one another's and trying to understand not only the worth of it, but the necessity of it and the responsibility of it.
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So this morning we've come to greet one another.
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So if you would, we'll probably stay mostly in Romans 16.
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So if you want to turn there and we'll just have some conversation around that, that we are to greet one another.
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And I want to say this as we begin, I was actually rather amazed when I started to put together some thoughts for this morning.
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And I was amazed for a couple of different reasons.
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And I want to explain that to you this morning, but it made me think of this, that every time we come to God's word, there's always something for us.
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God's word is fresh.
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At least it should be, right? It should be living and powerful.
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It should move us.
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It should stir us.
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It should never be where we just open the Bible and say, you know, I read this thing already, or I already know that or this, that and the other thing.
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And so I was amazed and I was thankful that as I started to think about some of these thoughts behind greeting one another, that God's word just seems so true and so fresh and so real.
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And in that sense, it is like any, unlike any other thing that has ever been penned because it's been penned by God, right? God greet.
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So I hope you'll find that a little bit this morning.
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And so let me start it this way.
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So I looked it up, the word greet, and that's usually how I like to prepare.
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I start to try to find out how it's used in the Bible, how often it's used, where it's used.
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And so I did that and I found out that for the most part, the word greet is basically something that's found in the New Testament.
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There are instances in the Old Testament where we're told to greet or greeting, but really the lion's share of it comes out in the New Testament.
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And so here's some of the things that I was amazed at.
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The first was this, how often it's used.
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Now, again, as we look at Romans 16, you'll see it.
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And I think there's reason why Paul did it the way he did it.
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And that's really going to be the focus of it this morning.
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But I was amazed how many times we were told in the New Testament to greet one another and whether we said greet or greetings, but in that thought, how often it was used.
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And what really amazed me was the reasons why we should do it.
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Because I never really set my mind to it on why we should greet one another.
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Because I think in our day, it's kind of like a common courtesy.
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So you see someone and if you walk past someone that you know, and they don't say good morning to you, or hello, or hi, or whatever it is, what do you begin to think? What's wrong with you? Right? Or what did I do? We kind of use the thought of greeting one another in a courtesy kind of way.
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But what I found is I started to look at some of these places in Romans 16 and some other places where it says we are to greet one another, that there's a whole line of reasoning behind why we are to greet one another.
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And those are the things that I want to kind of look at there.
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So I was amazed at that.
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And not only was I amazed at that, I was also amazed of how the writers who use that, and mainly it falls to Paul and Peter mentions it, Luke talks about it, John talks about it.
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But I was also amazed about what I gleaned from it, that they were genuinely concerned to do that, to greet one another, to show that, if you will, greeting and to display it.
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And again, I hope you'll see it as we go through it.
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So let me go a little bit further and ask you.
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So when I say greet one another, what do you think it means, besides saying hello? That's what I thought.
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I thought everyone would have the same answer.
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So really, what do you do when you're greeting someone? Welcoming them? Okay.
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Okay.
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So there's the thought of commonality or camaraderie, certainly.
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There are a whole bunch of things, but how many of us, honestly, we just walk past somebody.
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I remember when I was still working, you'd walk in and you see all kinds of people, and you don't even say good morning, it's morning, or morn, or we used to do that kind of thing.
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You know what I'm saying? It just, it's almost like a reflex, rather than something that you have thought out, and that you sincerely want to convey, right? Certainly, I would think when you first wake up with your husband or your wife in the morning, I know this, if Candy came out in the morning, and usually I get her coffee for her, and if she walked by, and I just did one of these, I don't think that I would have a good cup of coffee, right? Because what's her expectation? That I would be happy to see her.
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That I would be, I wanted to show that affection.
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I wanted to truly greet her.
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And so, as we go through this, I want us to see that when the authors, the apostles wrote those very words, that they were really moved to do so.
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Just by way of some facts, it's used over 50 times in the New Testament, which really amazed me.
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Not only was it used 50 times, Paul uses it alone in Romans 16 21 times.
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Now, you might think, Paul, why would you say it 21 times at the end of your great epistle of Rome to Rome? Why? Couldn't you have shortened it, Paul? Couldn't you just said, greet all the brethren? But he doesn't do that, and as we look at some of them, and I'm not going to try to pronounce every word.
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I remember when we were reading the scriptures.
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If you remember that week that we were reading Romans 16, brother Mike made a comment from the pulpit that brother Andy set him up and made him to be the one to read Romans 16 with all the funky names, right? Because what I would have done was greet Paul, greet Joe, greet Billy, but I wouldn't have done any good.
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But anyway, I don't want to specifically read everything, but I do want to pull out some things that there's good reasoning why Paul uses that term to greet and that he does it in such a affectionate way and very specifically for very specific reasons.
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So it's mentioned 50 times.
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We are told to greet individuals.
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We are told to greet churches.
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We are told to greet unknown saints.
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We are told to greet, basically we ought to greet everyone.
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And so I also went back and I tried to understand what the word really meant.
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It really means this as much as I can get from it.
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That when we greet someone, we are receiving them with joy.
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Again, when you first see someone that you haven't seen, or even when you first come back into a company with someone, it ought to be that we say greetings, not necessarily greetings, but hello, whatever it is, because we joyfully want to receive them into our world for lack of words.
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So I want us to think about that as we go through this, because I want us to think about, do I really do that? In other words, when you saw me this morning and I saw you, was it really, yeah, hello, were you truly happy to see me? Now, was I truly happy to see you, or is it just commonplace? There's something we flip around.
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It ought to be that we really greet one another.
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And the reasons behind it should be the thing that provokes us to do it.
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The reasons why we do that, but that we would truly greet one another.
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And so I was talking with brother Mike, as we first walked in, is when he saw that on the board, he said, so we should greet one another with a holy kiss.
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And I said, well, I was going to mention that a little bit.
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I was going to say the CDC probably would have great issues with us saying that.
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But here's something that amazed me.
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Do you know how many times we're told in the New Testament to greet one another with a holy kiss? Five times.
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Five times we are specifically told to greet one another with a holy kiss.
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How many of us would have thought that it was that many times? I didn't.
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I figured it was in there once, and I didn't even remember where it was, honestly.
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I just knew it was in there.
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But five times we were specifically told to greet one another with a holy kiss.
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And I guess some people would kind of curdle with that thought today, right? Unless we mask up or something.
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I remember when people were still wearing masks.
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I saw people kissing through masks.
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I was like, dude, that can't be fun.
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I mean, just being honest.
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I mean, why bother? You see that? You've seen the new husband and the new bride? The first kiss through masks? That's cray cray.
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I don't know how else to say it.
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But this whole thought about greeting one another with a holy kiss, it's that bad affection that is within us should rise up and cause us to joyfully receive one another.
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And we probably, if you go to some different cultures and different places and different customs, they might have more of a tendency to do that, right? To greet one another with a holy kiss.
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And some people go left and right and all kinds of things.
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But do we really understand what's behind it? And so I want to look at that as we go through this.
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So it does really mean to receive one another with joy, to really be happy to see one another.
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So I know you're overwhelmed to see me this morning, and I am to see you.
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And we ought to be like that on a continual basis, right? It ought to be something that stirs up within us.
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So let me ask you to think about this as we go through this.
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How many of us, if we were honest, would say that even in our church, which is certainly not that big, right? How many of us would say that this morning we could greet everyone in this church by name? Something to think about.
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How many of us could say that we could, that we actually know each other's name? Because I will tell you this, that even the Apostle John makes this very specific statement, and he says that we ought to greet one another, ready, by name.
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So how many of us are going to say something, say good morning to someone this morning, and we're not going to know, not even know their name? And if we know their name, that's about all.
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You ever do that? I've done, I've gotten caught just, I'm sure you have too.
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Somebody walks up to you and says, hey Andy, how you doing? And I'm like, yeah.
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Hey brother.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Hey dude.
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Dude covers everything, right? I don't really have to know that your name is Mike, as long as I can say, dude, you understand.
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But really, we ought to be of such a mind and heart that we actually greet one another by name, right? And could you imagine if I, if Candy walked in, got up in the morning, and I walked in, I said, hello Sally.
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I mean, that could be a career-ending move.
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But again, because the name is attached to the person, right? So we want to think about this as we go through this, and that we, that we approach it and consider it in that kind of way.
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So I want to mention, before we get too far on, I want to mention four reasons why we ought to greet one another that I found in Romans 16, and in some of the other places where it is, and like I said, Peter uses it, John uses it, Luke uses it.
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But four reasons, I want to mention them, and then maybe we can look at each one of them for a minute.
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First, we ought to greet one another because we're fellow workers, and that, I'll show you that in Romans 16.
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We ought to greet one another because we're fellow workers.
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We ought to, in second place, greet one another because we are ministers to one another, that we are those that minister to each other.
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Therefore, we ought to receive one another joyfully because we are ministering to one another.
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So we ought to do it because we are fellow workers.
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We ought to do it because we're ministers to one another.
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We ought to greet one another because we share the same sufferings, and I'll show you that.
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And we ought to also greet one another because, and perhaps this is the ocean from which all the rivers flow, we ought to greet one another because we're, we are the chosen of God.
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And I believe that's one of the reasons why Paul takes such labor, if you will, in all the greetings here.
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And again, as I said, as you look at Romans 16, he mentions the 21, I'm still going to work on that word, specific times he mentions that we ought to greet one another.
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So let's just take some time, questions, comments, concerns, bring up as we go through this.
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But first of all, we ought to greet one another because we are fellow workers.
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So look at Romans 16, and in verse one, it says, I commend them to you, Phoebe, our sister, who is a servant of the church in Centuria.
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We ought to receive, we ought to greet Phoebe because she is a servant of the church there.
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In verse three, he says the same thing, greet Priscilla and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus.
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Look at verse nine, greet Eubanus, our fellow worker in Christ.
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And I don't know, brother Mike, how do you say that? Yeah, that works.
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Yeah.
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And Stachys, my beloved, see our fellow worker.
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Look again in verse 12, amen, greet Jack and Joe who have labored in the Lord, greet the beloved Persus who labored much in the Lord.
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You see what he's doing here? He's not always saying that we should greet them, he's telling us why he's greeting them, because they're fellow workers, because they are, if you will, they're in the same occupation.
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Just to look at verse 21, Timothy, my what? My fellow worker, and Lucius, Jason, and Sam, my kinsmen greet you.
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Again, Paul could have balled this all up in one, right? He could have just said, greet those who work with me, but he doesn't.
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He makes a point in God's inspired word for all of history to show forth that he greeted them and he wanted others to understand it, to greet them by name and to mention them by name.
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And I would suggest that we ought to work on that.
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So instead of me saying, good morning, dude, I should say, good morning, Gary, good morning, Jack, greetings, Mike.
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But again, in order to do that, you got to know something.
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And so this idea of being fellow workers, that struck me to begin with, because if you think about it, brothers and sisters, hopefully we're all laboring in the same in the same occupation, right? We are all fellow workers.
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And I remember when, and many of you know, when I was working, I was involved in transportation, trucks, supply chain, logistics, and all those kinds of things.
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And whenever I got into a group with other guys who were familiar with trucks and transportation and supply chain logistics, it was very easy for me to greet everybody.
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Why? Because there was a sense of commonality that they were working in the same area I was working.
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And therefore I wanted to receive them joyfully because I could be helped by them.
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I could help them.
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But this whole idea, brothers and sisters, that when we see each other, we should receive each other with joy because we're all working for the same master.
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We all, at least I hope that's why we would do it, that we are co-workers for the same king.
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We're laborers in the same vineyard and that vineyard being the kingdom of God.
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But that also begs a question, I think.
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Do we really see ourselves as that? Do you and I really see ourselves as co-laborers, as those who have been called, empowered, entrusted, and charged to labor to the same end and that end to be to glorify God? Or is it just other people? Is it just somebody else, not me? I'm not really to be the worker.
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Just think about that.
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How would you like it if, what would you think if, I'll use Keith as an example, since he's not here, we'll use him.
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If you walked in this morning and you walk by Keith and you just walk right by him, what would you think? What's up with him? He's supposed to be the one who's working here, or Brother Mike, or anybody.
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Again, this whole idea of being fellow workers and so on, Paul lays this out and he mentions it specifically that you and I would begin to consider how do I see myself and then how do I see you? Do I see you as co-laborers in this glorious work of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ? So that's one reason why I think he mentions it specifically, that we are fellow workers, that we have been, because if you think about it and you think about what we often say, that we have been freed from one master, for what reason? To serve another, right? And that's in that with the Lord Jesus Christ, what the apostles teach throughout the New Testament, we've been freed from slavery to sin to be what? Slaves of righteousness.
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So we're never going to be exempt from being laborers, whether you're, I don't care what station you are in life, we ought to labor.
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And certainly we could look at the parables of Jesus teaching that we ought to what? We ought to labor till he comes.
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We are not to be those who don't consider it.
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So again, you greet me, I greet you because we are fellow laborers in this great and glorious kingdom of God.
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So that's number one.
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Number two, we ought to greet one another, and I want to show it to you just briefly, because we are all ministering to each other, or we ought to be ministering to each other.
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Look in Romans 16 where we are, and let's look at verse six a minute.
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It says, greet Mary, I could do Mary, that's not a problem, right? Greet Mary who labored much for us.
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She was, he wanted to greet her because she had ministered to him.
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She had not only ministered in general in the kingdom of God, but she ministered to Paul and for Paul.
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And so you and I have to think about that, that we ought to consider those all that are true laborers, that they really have this thought of ministering to us.
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Again, I ask you to think about that this morning.
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Did you come here this morning with a thought to minister to me? Did I come here this morning with a thought to minister to you? And should we greet one another with that kind of a thought? I would submit to you we should.
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Let me show you something.
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Look in Hebrews if you want, just for a minute, Hebrews 13.
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Interesting way this is laid out.
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And it's the same word that's used in all these examples.
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In Hebrews 13, yeah, verse 24, look what it says.
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Greet all those who rule over you and all the saints, and those from Italy greet you and grace be to you all.
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Amen.
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Greet all those who rule over you.
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Now you can think of that in many different ways, but I'm going to take it at least to help support this whole idea that we ought to greet one another because we understand that we have each other's welfare in mind.
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Again, you've got to take a step back and say, do I really have someone else's welfare in mind? I know we do that with the ones that we are in close relationship with, right? But shouldn't we be in close relationship with each other? Again, when you start working backwards, this stuff is very pointed because, again, it causes you, and this is what really got to me, it causes me to think, what's my motive? Is my motive when I greet, say hello to someone just to be polite, just not to insult, just to do what everybody else does, or is there something? Is it a loaded greeting? And ought it be a loaded greeting? It should.
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I really honestly believe that you and I have to consider not only what we do, but why we do it.
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And again, no one sees the heart of God, but we need to remember God does see the heart.
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So again, God knows when we just doing something because either we feel like we have to, or we ought to, instead of we do it because we want to.
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So again, I will say this to you, and maybe because it's on my mind right now, I am truly happy to see you this morning.
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I really am.
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And I know, I know me and brother Mike and brother Kip, we talk about it all the time.
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We're just so happy to not only see one another, but we're happy to come and gather together as the people of God.
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And that really ought to be because we have this desire to minister to each other.
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And you know what I thought about this? All these one another's that we're going through, they're all, what's the, what's that rock, that foundational rock on which all of these are premised.
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Maybe I'm not saying it though, because I know you, yeah, Jesus Christ.
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And as far as all the one another's that we demonstrate so forth, it's really all based on what? The love of God, right? That was the first thing that brother Mike spoke on was that we ought to love one another.
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We ought to love one another because God so loved us.
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And again, if you work backwards from all these one another's that's where you're going to settle is the fact that God so loved us that we ought to love one another.
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And God's love was not an idle love.
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It wasn't just some vague love.
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It's very specific love.
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I know we are thankful that God greets us every time we come through his throne, right? He joyfully receives us and we want it that way, don't we? So think about that as we, as you consider this, that when we greet one another, it ought to be loaded.
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It ought to be like the baked potato fully loaded, bacon, cheese, sour cream.
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I don't like, you keep the chives.
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You can have my chives.
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I don't like chives.
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It might be difficult to do that, but it's always easy to greet someone that you believe is actually out for your good.
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Would you agree? Would you agree that it's easy to say good morning, hello, how you doing to someone who you feel is on your side rather than on the other side, the other side might be, right? Yeah.
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Are you here today? Yeah.
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Yeah.
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I know you would agree with me on that, but really we ought to be comfortable in believing that we are really here to minister to one another and to be ministered to by one another.
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Therefore that greeting should be genuine.
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So we ought to greet one another because we are fellow workers.
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We ought to greet one another because we are those who minister to one another.
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And in the third place, we ought to greet one another because we share the same sufferings or we share the same experiences.
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And I want you to look at verse seven in Romans chapter 16, greet Antronikos and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners who are of note among the apostles who also were in Christ before me.
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Greet them because they are my fellow prisoners.
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You see friends, that's one of the reasons why we ought to greet one another is because we share the same experience.
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It's almost like you're talking to someone, you say, how are you? And they say, I got a headache.
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And you said, man, I'm really sorry to hear that.
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And one of the reasons why you might really be sorry to hear that is because you suffer from headaches.
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You know, brother Mike has told me about his migraines.
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I'm not trying to single you out.
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And it bothers me, but, and I even think I mentioned this to him.
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I probably have had a handful of headaches my whole life.
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I never get them.
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I just never get them.
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Now my wife does.
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And I know some of you suffer from headaches, but a brother Mike says, I got a stomach ache.
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Then I said, yeah, man, I know what you're talking about.
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Why? Because I have the same experience.
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My stomach kills me sometimes.
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And again, we ought to be really desirous to receive one of those.
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We say we share the same experiences, whether it be a physical, whether it be, but certainly because we share the same spiritual experiences.
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We suffer the same temptations.
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We go through the same tribulations.
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Yeah, they have different costumes because we're all so different, but it's still the same, right? That's like when we greet someone after they've lost a loved one.
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Why do we, why could we, why, why is that genuine? Because we know what it's like, right? And if not, again, if not, it comes off as too bad for you.
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And I'm not trying to be cowardly.
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I'm trying to make a point.
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Thoughts.
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It's amazing.
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Again, to me, just think about it this way.
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It's amazing to me when there's a hurricane or some sort of devastation, how all of a sudden people who have had the same experience, all of a sudden they lose all their prejudice and all their pretensions and everybody is out to help everybody else.
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You ever noticed that? I mean, even in the, in the world at large, you'll see whole neighborhoods all of a sudden, people that never knew the name of their next door neighbor are now hand in hand and foot in foot with that next.
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Why? Because they shared the situation.
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And so they're more willing.
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Again, I'll say it this way.
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Suffering has a, suffering has a way of causing us to lose all our prejudices, which, which we have many of them, by the way.
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But isn't it amazing that even those who might not have any regard for Christ and the name of God, they will in, in an environment where there is shared suffering, shared experience, they, they all of a sudden their, their thoughts are much deeper.
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They're attached to something.
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And that ought to be the way it is with you and I.
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We ought to really, when people come in to see us, and I'll say this to you and ask you to think about this as a church, when people come in to visit us here, they ought to see that we truly, genuinely care for one another and that we really are happy to see one another.
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And I've been involved in churches where, you know, they do the, the, the force fellowship with, and we have our little fellowship time where they do the force, force fellowship, turn to the person to your right and shake their hand.
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Right.
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And so you do that.
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You don't know their name.
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You don't really care to know their name.
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And if they get in a parking lot, you're going to make sure you get out of the parking lot before they do.
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What kind of a greeting? I mean, again, insincerity, there's no, there's no real concern.
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We ought to truly be concerned.
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And it's, it's, it's something that you and I should really think about.
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I hope we're beginning to see that greeting one another is much more than just surface.
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We all suffer for him because he suffered for us.
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And so we ought to share.
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And that's really a lot what these one another's are is a lot of sharing.
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It's a lot of sharing and a lot of caring.
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So Paul mentions that about a fellow prisoner.
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And then finally, I want to just mention that we ought to greet one another, joyfully receive one another because we'd have chosen a God.
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Look at it in verse 10 here in Romans chapter 16.
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Greet a palace approved in Christ.
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Greet a palace who is approved of Christ.
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Look at verse 13.
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Greet Jack and Joe again, who have labored in the Lord.
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Greet the beloved Paris who labored much in the Lord.
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Greet Rufus in verse 13, chosen in the Lord and his mother in mind.
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Why should we greet one another? Because we are the chosen of God.
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John says that the children of the elect lady greet you.
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In third John, when he writes to Gaius, he says that, that we ought to receive such that we may become fellow workers for the truth because we are of the truth.
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Right? I mean, you ought to greet me because I'm a child of God.
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I ought to greet you because you're a child of God.
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Listen, get used to me because you're going to see me for all eternity.
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Now, if that bothers you, I'm sorry.
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We are going to see each other for eternity.
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And I don't know how or how it works out to you.
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I mean, but the reality is we all have the same future.
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We're all chosen of any true believer.
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Is that not the bond that binds us together? Is that not the unity of the spirit and the bonds of peace? Yeah.
37:07
I mean, you know, um, and I'm, I would assume it's going to be a joyful greeting.
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Oh, um, it'll be joyful.
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I don't really think we're going to do this.
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And I'm just trying to be, I don't think we're going to walk past Abraham and say, Hey dude, I just don't think so.
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Abraham, so good to see you.
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I think there's going to be that reality of such joy in our hearts to, to see and to, to experience and to have interaction.
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And it's going to be interaction, right? Abraham, Moses, Moses, I got to talk to you.
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What was that like walking through the, the, the, the red sea again? One of the greatest things that I experienced as a Christian while I was in the Navy was the commonality that I had with other Christians as I went to wherever I went, Japan or it was in Iran or Kuwait, wherever it was, they had this bond that you could go and you have fellowship and you have a, you know, I didn't know these people from anybody and it was really encouraging.
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Yeah.
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And that's a really good way of, of, of pointing out.
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Cause we all do that too.
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Again, that has to do a little bit with that.
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We're like-minded, right? We're doing this.
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We're in the same labor, right? We all suffer the same things.
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So, so that commonality and that, and that interaction blends and adds to this whole idea.
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So I got about two minutes left.
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I want to just take a minute and I ask you to, and I'm just going to write down what you say.
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So I won't put your name next to it.
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Unless you say something really special and your name goes next to it.
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Give me some reasons why we wouldn't greet one another.
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I mean, if you had to think to, what are, what are some hindrances to truly greeting one another? I wrote down a couple just to myself, just for 30 seconds, 45 seconds.
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Give me a reason why you wouldn't greet somebody.
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Thank you.
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God.
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Bitterness.
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What else? Absolutely, Brian.
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Thank you.
39:35
Yeah.
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They're not like me.
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And that's one of the things that I've tried to lay out this morning.
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They're a lot more like you than you think.
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They're not like me.
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Bitterness.
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What else? Shyness.
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Thank you.
39:54
Absolutely.
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Yep.
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And that could be misunderstood, right? What else, sister? Absolutely.
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Yeah.
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I'll just put differences.
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How many of us would say it's easier to greet people, whatever, people in the same boat that we're in, right? I think about it now, because, you know, I'm getting a little bit on how I used to think about older people.
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Like, I think differently now, I'll tell you that.
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So yeah, the differences or different age groups, different society status, different positions, different this, different that.
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And so that's another hindrance to greeting one another.
40:52
Anybody else real quick? How about this one? And again, how about this? Prejudice.
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What is prejudice anyway? Preconceived thoughts, right? How many people would say that if they were being honest? I'm not going to greet anybody that has a four and a half foot beard.
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Okay.
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But you get my point? Why? Because I'm prejudiced against people who have four foot beards.
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Okay.
41:44
Yeah.
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Again.
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And why? Because we develop prejudices and we develop, we have preconceived thoughts.
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If someone is dirty and smelly, it couldn't be because they were working.
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It has to be because they're a slob.
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Therefore, I'm not going to greet them.
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I will tell you that this one I think has a lot to do with it.
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And I would also say that this is something that I can say to it too.
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Yeah.
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Most people don't want to say anything, because they want to hear what to say, how to say it.
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And if they actually do get in a conversation, what's it going to turn into? Yeah.
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And that works both ways.
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Either you're afraid of someone or you're afraid of what happens as a result, they might actually get to know me.
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And by the way, I don't really, there's another one that I think, one of the reasons why we don't greet one another, we just don't care.
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We just don't care.
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So there's a lot of reasons behind this.
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So I'm way over time.
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So I hope that as we go through these one and others, that we can discover more and more of these things.
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And as I said to you, I was truly amazed that there was reasoning behind greeting one another, not just make sure you say hello to Billy, Bob and Jane.
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Okay, let's close.
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Our Father and our God, again, we thank you for this time.
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Thank you.