Extraordinary Affections for an Extraordinary Church

At this point your Bible should fall open quite nicely to the Book of Romans. As we have been here for a while, and I don't know about you, but as we draw to a close, and as we march through these last paragraphs here in the Book of Romans, I feel a tinge of sorrow as I recognize that in the not too distant future we will be finished with our journey through this letter. And I think that that tinge of sorrow is shared by the Apostle himself as he comes to the close of his letter. And we see that. As we read these very personal portions of the letter today, looking at verses three through sixteen. Before we read there and get into our message today, let me make a sort of apologetic side note. And the apologetic side note is this. There are those who argue against the authority and the authenticity of the Bible. There are those who argue that the Bible is no more than conjured facts, no more than an attempt by spiritual con men, if you will, to pull one over on the people of their day and create religious myth out of whole cloth. They argue that the writings of the New Testament are no more than just myths and lies and fairy tales, and one of the things that argues quite convincingly I believe against that whole concept sections like this, where the apostle closes a letter to real people in real places during a real time, uses real names, and offers personal greetings. It just doesn't fit with the. Whole idea of trying to create theology out of whole cloth. It doesn't fit with the whole idea of trying to dupe people by just writing a theological treatise. No, what it fits with the best evidence is that it explains and validates for us the idea that this is exactly what it claims to be, a letter written by a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ to a church followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we see that as we begin reading here in verse three, Greek Chrisca and a quilla, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus who their next for my life, to whom not only I give thanks, but all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks as well. Greet also the church in their home. Greet my beloved Epenitas, who was the first convert to Christ in Asia. Greet Mary who has worked hard for you. Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to the Apostles, and they were in Christ before me. Greet Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord. Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ, and beloved Stakes. Greet Appelles, who is approved in Christ. Greet those who belong to the family of Aristobulus. Greet my kinsmen, herodiant in the Lord, who belonged to the family of Narcissus. Greet those workers in the Lord. Now those of you who, if you ever come across twin girls, God ever blessed you with twin girls, you might want to think about this. Triphena and Triphosa, Greet the beloved Purses, who has worked hard in the Lord. Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord. Also his mother, who has been a mother to me as well. Greet a syncretous Flagon, Hermes, petrobas herm Us and the brothers who are with them. Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympus and all the saints who are with them. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you. This is another one of those passages of scripture that has for us a list of names, one of those passages of scripture that more often than not we merely hurry through. Sometimes we read our Bibles this way. Greet those people whose names I can't pronounce, and these other people whose names I can't pronounce, and so on and so forth, and all those people greet with the Holy kiss. Now let me get to the other part that really means something, because, after all, what is a list of names. I've said this before, but it bears repeating. God has revealed himself in written form in the Bible, and. The God who spoke the world. Into existence, who has condescended to reveal himself to us, fought these people important enough to put their names in his book. This means something. This means if nothing else, this reminds us that the God of the universe is concerned about individuals, not that he needs us or that he pinds over us. Because by definition God has no needs. Amen, he lacks nothing. He is completely and utterly self sufficient. He has no needs. And yet. He knows your name. He knows the names of these individuals, and in his book, we find the names of these individuals. Lists of names in the Bible are important for various reason. For example, when we. Look at that first genealogy in Genesis chapter five, we recognize that that genealogy in chapter five is very important because of our understanding of the promised Seed and how the rest of the Book of Genesis is reminding us of how God is bringing forth that promise and the promised Seed. We recognize that when we get other genealogies, those genealogies are important in connecting people to the covenant community and the community of promise. We recognize, for example, that when we get to the New Testament, when we get to the Book of Matthew, when the New Testament opens with the genealogy a list of names, that that genealogy is important because God is hearkening back to that first genealogy and beyond that to the promise in Genesis chapter three and verse fifteen that the seed of the Woman is going to crush the head of the serpent. And there in that genealogy we are reminded that God made that promise and it is demonstrated to us that Christ is the promised Seed and the fulfillment of that promise. This is not that kind of list. So why is this list important? I'm glad you asked. This list is important because it gives us a picture of the intimate relationship that the apostle had with the church. It gives us a picture of an extraordinary affection for an extraordinary church. That's what this is about, an extraordinary affection for an extraordinary church. And I want to ask you a question today. Do you love the church? Do you love the church or is the church merely a convenience in your life? Do you love the church or do you just merely need to pick me up once a week. Do you love the church or is the church a nice place for you to be when it's convenient. Do you love the church or is the church actually a burden for you? Do you love the church or are you just ticking a box so that when you stand before God, he will know that you were here. Do you love the church or do you merely endure all of these people around you so that you can get what you need out of the service. Do you love the church or does this just happen to be the place that does things the way that you like things done so that after you've finished all of your shopping, you've decided to land here for a while, that is, until you get upset or find a better deal. Do you love the church? Do you see her as the blood bought bride of Jesus Christ? Or are we merely here to fit into your agenda? Do you love the church? That's the question today? And if you love the church, what is it about the church that you love? Paul gives us at here in this passage description looked at this and as preachers, I just cannot tell you how overjoyed we are when we look at the preaching schedule and realize that our name comes up at a passage where there's a list of names. I mean, we really do. In fact, in our elder meetings, we usually get along in our elder meetings, but sometimes we have knockdown, drag out fights in our elder meetings. And one of the times we have knockdown, drag out fights is when we find a list of names and we all go no, no, no, I want to preach the list of names. No, you can't have the list of names. I want to preach the list of names. Are you serious? Actually? I jest. The opposite is usually quite true when we go really I got the list of names again, but in when you dig deeper, there's beauty there, and that's true here as well. As I looked at these list of names. One of the ways I sort of got through this was I decided, Okay, let's do some color coding. And every now and then I do some color coding. And I did some. Color coding, and some very interesting things popped up as I looked at the list of names. Paul makes comments about the Greek this person greet this person, greet these people, and he says greet them, and then he says something about them. And as we look at what he says about them, it falls into several categories. And it was looking at those categories that helped sort of unpack this picture of his extraordinary, extraordinary affection for this extraordinary church. The first picture I saw was this that Paul loved this church because of his extraordinary unity. There's a picture here of unity in the church that would have had tremendous implications for Paul and his theology and would have brought him great joy. For example, in Galatians chapter three, verses twenty seven to twenty nine. Paul says this, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free. There is neither male nor female. For your all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring airs according to the promise. We've already looked at the fact that Paul sees the gentiles coming into the church as part of the fulfillment of the promise that God has made to Abraham. And so he sees incredible unity here. And guess what we see in this list, males and females, Jews and Greeks, slaves and free men, extraordinary unity in this church. But go beyond the surface of that idea. Yeah, there's males and females listed. You and I hear that, But get out of today, get out of your cultural surroundings. It's normal for you to have males and females listed. You don't get it. You don't understand. That this is a time and a place and a part of the world and a period of world history where women had little or no value. You don't understand that in much of the world today women still have little or no value. You don't understand how women are treated, for example, in the Islamic world, where they're testimony is useless in court. Two of the three names at the head of the list are of women. Four of the first seven names in the list belong to women, and of the twenty nine names in the total list, fully one third are women. That's not normal in the first century. But Christianity is not normal in the way that it treats and values women. And we see a picture of that here, this picture of male and female. It's easy to just sort of skim across that. For one thing, if you don't understand the endings on these names, you don't understand the difference between the male names and female names. But you know, Prisca, who's also Priscilla junior. Try female Triposa, among others. These are women, and Paul lists these women. He doesn't even make a big deal about the fact that he's listing women. He just lists them and it sort of rolls off his tongue. So as Paul is thinking about this church, what he loves about this church and the people whom he remembers in his church, as he thinks about the incredible unity in this church, he thinks about male and female. And his list is indicative of that. Know that one of the incredible things that Christ has done is bring about unity in his church. And that picture of the relationship between men and women, where you do not have women on one side of the church and men on the other, or women at the back of the assembly and men at the front of the assembly. It is a beautiful picture of the unity that we have in Christ. That we are one in Christ, not just male female, but Jews and Greeks. The beauty in this church, and we've heard it even from the beginning. And the way that Paul divides up the letter, we see that he addresses the Greeks and he addresses the Jews, and there's this sort of interchange in interplay between jew and Greek. As he writes this letter, this is a church that is filled with Jews and Greeks, mostly Gentiles and Jewish. Paul recognizes that Prisca or Priscilla and Aquila were Jews who worked with Paul in Corinth and Ephesus Andronicus and Junia. Now these were Greek names, but he identified them as his kinsmen. This is important to him. We also see Mary who is obviously a Jewish woman. Herodian is a Jewish name, probably connected to the household of Herod. And then you have all of these other names. We have Appelles, we have Aristobulus, we have Narcissus, we have Flagon, Hermes, Petro, all of these names. These are Jewish or these are Greek names. But Paul doesn't put Jewish names over here, Greek names over here. But when Paul thinks about the Church in Rome, he thinks about his brothers and sisters in. Christ, Jews and Gentiles. Paul jew who would have been raised to believe that not only are the gentiles unclean, but if you come in contact with one, you become ceremonially unclean. Paul who would have thought of gentiles as dogs. Now when he thinks favorably about the Church at Rome, thinks favorably about this church where he sees Jews and Gentiles worshiping God the Father and the name of his son Jesus Christ, the Messiah, and fulfillment of the promise that God made to his fore father Abraham. Folks, there is no other entity on planet Earth that unites people across ethnic lines like the Church. Now, there are other times and other places where people can be united across ethnic lines. I think, for example, in the military. The military is one of those places where you know, people are united across ethnic lines and you fight, and you go to battle. Together, and you know. But people don't choose to do that. I mean, you choose to go to the military, but you don't choose what unit you're placed in. These are the men you're gonna fight and bleed and perhaps die with. These are your brothers, because I told you, Saul, Yeah, you get that in the military. In church, nobody tells you to come to a church with people who don't look like you. It is the work that Christ has done in us that draws us to one another in spite of the fact that we're not the same. There are a lot of places where that is not the case, and there are many things that we fight. It has been said, and it's less true today than it has been before, but it has been said eleven o'clock on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in the United States of America. Not as true today as it was fifty years ago. And there's different reasons that that occurs, but the fact that the matter is from the beginning, Christs broke down dividing walls, and that's part of the extraordinary unity that we find in the church. And it's voluntary. Here. It's not because of a common fear that we have or a common adversary that we have other than the devil themselves. But it is because of the common Father that we have, the common Savior that we have, the common salvation that we share. That's what brings this kind of unity in the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ. Then their slaves and free men. This one is not readily available on a surface reading of the text, but there are several names in this passage of scripture that were well known slave names, and many of them are gathered together there at the end of the list. So I plead us urbanus, both men. They were Roman slave names, Rufus, Felogus, Julia, Nereus, Olympius. Likewise slave names, pursus common slave name. So not only again male female significant for his day in time, Jude gentile significant for his day in time and any day in time. Slave and free significant for his time and for any time. We're not talking about poor people and rich people going to church together. We're talking about slaves and freemen going to church together. We're talking about usually slaves and their masters going to church together, not sitting in one section for this class of people and another section for that class of people, but slaves and free men as brothers and sisters in Christ. Because of what Christ has done in us and for us and through us. What can do that? People? I mean, we don't get this, especially in our culture, because we don't even have a servant class really anymore in our culture. But I was sort of poking around to try to find something to give us a picture just not that long ago. If you look towards at the end of the nineteenth century, for example, listen to this. This is from Chicago history. The explode of economic growth of the latter half of the nineteenth century transformed Chicago into the nation's leading interior metropolis. Men and women of the burgeoning urban middle class, again middle class, middle class middle classes, most of us here in this church. It would be part of that categorization. Burging urban middle class sought to display their prosperity through the hiring of domestic servants to perform daily cooking, cleaning, and childcare chores by eighteen seventy. One in five. One in five Chicago households employed domestic workers, who accounted for sixty percent of the city's wage earning women. Over the next half century, domestic service represented the leading occupation of women in Chicago and the nation. The idea of a live in domestic servant. Most of the world still has live in domestic servants. The United States has utterly transformed economically, and most of us know nothing of that. Most of us don't know anyone who has a full time living domestic servant who cooks, and who cleans and takes care of the children, and who washes the clothes and so on and so forth and does all those chores. But if you travel the world and you look at a large portion of the world, there are people who are still in that category. And in most of those cultures, there is a strict divide, not just unspoken, but spoken, a strict divide between the servant class and the class who would hire servants. Your paths just don't cross socially. But we're not talking about merely a servant class. We're talking about slaves who are the property of other people. There is no such thing as a culture that has slaves, that looks favorably upon the class of slaves, it just doesn't exist. You don't hold people as slaves if you think favorably about that group of people. You only hold people as slaves if you believe that they. Are less than, not equal to you. And so here in a culture that held slaves, Paul is writing a letter to a church. And as he writes the letter to a church and gives evidence of their extraordinary unity, male, female, Jew, gentile, slave and free. Only Christ can bring about that kind of unity. Only Christ can make a man who owns a slave realize that he's no better than that slave. Only Christ can make a man who is a slave realize that no one's any better or worse off than he is. Only Christ can do that. And let's just be honest, folks, Even when you're in Christ, it's hard to do that. If you can't say amen, you want to say ouch. There's an old I don't it's not a joke because it's really not funny, but but there's an old story from back in the days of slavery and Jim Crow. In the United States, there was many a church who would not allow black. People even to come in. And as the story goes, there's a black man who comes and he wants to go to the church. And he's a visitor in town, and there's a church in his town and it's the same denomination as he is. And he comes to the church and he's met at the door by some deacons who say, sir, we don't allow your kind in this church. And he's devastated, and he goes and sits on the front steps of the church with his head in his hands. And as the story goes, the Lord. Jesus comes and sits down beside him, says what's wrong. He says, they won't let me in that church, And Jesus says, that's all right. They won't let me in either. Do you realize that there was many a church in our culture who bowed at the feet of a Jewish savior, but would not let a Jew come worship. By the way, what ended that the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is Christianity that ended slavery. By the way, there are more people in slavery today than any other time in the history of the world. I don't know if you realize that or not. Most of those people are enslaved in the Muslim world, But in the world where the Gospel has flourished, slavery has always ended. Why because of the extraordinary unity that Christ brings. That's why, that's why. Not only do we see this picture of extraordinary unity, but there's a picture of extraordinary people just because there's extraordinary unity in the church. You know, loving the church doesn't mean that you don't recognize distinctions among people. And by the way, let me just put a footnote here, because you know there's people who say this from time to time. You know people who say, well, you know, I'm colorblind. Brother. When I look at you, I don't see color. Okay, Well, first of all, you just lied, because I'm a big old, deep, dark milk chocolate man. When you look at me, you see color. Amen. But here's the second thing. Not only did you just lie, I believe you just blasphemed God. You know what that's akin to. You know, when I look out at all of the flowers that God has created, I don't see diversity in his creation. One flower looks exactly the same as the other. When I see a rainbow, I don't see the distinct colors in the rainbow. It's just a big old blob out there in this I don't recognize this beauty. When I look out at the animal kingdom and I see all the different kinds of animals that God made, doesn't matter to me one critter, another creator, They're all the same. I don't see the beauty and the diversity of God's creation. That's what you're saying when you say I don't see color. You better. You better because the diversity in. Us screams about the diversity in all of God's creation and the beauty that exists in the diversity of God's creation. Don't you dare claim not to see color because if you don't see it, you can't celebrate it. That's just good, right there, you all, That's just you know. So as he looks out at this church, he sees this incredible unity, but there's also some diversity in what he acknowledges. Here's why this is important. Loving the church doesn't mean that you can't have closer relationships with some people than you do with others. What are some of those categories. Well, first, there are converts of distinction. That's one category. Converts of distinction, he says, Greet my beloved Epinatus, my beloved Epanatus, who was the first convert to Christ in Asia. Greet Appellus, who is approved in Christ. They're his conversion, greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord. So in these people, he points to them, and he points to their salvation, their standing in Christ. There are some people who we look out look at in church, and they're distinguished because of the way they came to Christ. Doesn't mean if they're any better than other Christians, but it means that their testimony brings great glory to Christ. Listen to this in one Corinthian Chapter one, verses twenty six to twenty nine, for consider your calling, brothers, not me. Any of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not to bring to nothing, things that are so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. The overwhelming majority of people throughout history who've come to faith in Christ haven't been a big deal humanly speaking. Amen. Glory to God. But there have been instances where God has brought people to faith in Christ and you just couldn't ignore it. Let me give you some examples. When God brings a person to faith in Christ who is very old, that's something that you remember. It sticks out because usually people are not having that kind of dramatic version when they get beyond a certain age. But if somebody who's sixty years old, seventy years old, eighty years old, comes to faith in Christ, and you write a letter to that church, and you know that person who came to faith that late in life, I guarantee it's gonna come to your mind. You know that church where so and so goes the guy who didn't get saved to leave. He's seventy five years old. That doesn't mean that he's any better than anybody else, But that's one of those moments where God is uniquely glorified. Sometimes just because a person was a notorious sinner, God brings a notorious sinner to his knees and takes him from one who was a terror. By the way, I seem to recall that that's the testimony of the man who writes this letter. Amen, glory to God. And again this does not mean that that person is any better. In fact, there's a danger when we s glory in that. How many times have you talked to somebody about their testimony and they say, I don't have much of a testimony. You know, if that's a. Result of testimony services where we pick the most dramatic testimonies and have people stand up, and everybody feels like, well if I don't have something that sounds like that. The first person in your family to come to faith in Christ come to faith in Christ after being lost in another religion and practicing it faithfully. There are instances where someone is distinguished because of the way that God got a hold of them. And that's not that that person might boast. It is to the glory of Christ. And we recognize that second group is workers of distinction. He says, Greek Prisca or Ricilla elsewhere called Priscilla and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ. Greet Mary, who has worked hard for you. Greet or badness, our fellow worker in Christ. Greet those workers in the Lord, Trafeda and Trafosa. Greet the beloved perses who has worked hard in the Lord looks. We remember people in the church who are uniquely hard workers, who have gifts and talents and abilities that put them in a position to do things for the church that the church needs desperately. But we remember that. We remember that and again, not that a. Person who works hard in the church is somehow set apart, because people work for lots of reasons. Some people work hard because they're control freaks and something's not done right unless it's done their way. If you can't say amen, you ought to say ouch. Some people work hard because they want to be in the middle of everything and always gain praise from men. Again, if you can't say amen, you ought to say ouch. Some people work hard because they're nosy and they want to be in the middle of other people's business. If you can't say amen, you ought to say ouch. Some people work hard because they believe in works righteousness. But guess what, even if a person works hard for all those wrong reasons put together, it's work done for the bride of Christ, and you'd be grateful for it. And let Jesus sort out their motives. And if you can't say amen, say ouch. This is the bride of Christ. Praise God for the who serve. Praise God. There are also personal affinities, Paul says, greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and fellow prisoners. Greet my kinsmen, Helodian Herodian, and greet beloved Steakies. These are people who, for other reasons, Paul just had personal affinity for in the church. Didn't mean that he didn't love other people in the church, but there was just personal affinity. And by the way, on at least two of these occasions, it's because they're Jews, and he has a personal affinity for them because they're Jews. But look Romans chapter nine, verse two, for I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers my kinsmen. According to the flesh, I'm a Jew. I want my people saved, folks. There's nothing wrong with that. Romans ten to one. Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that. They might be saved. That's his desire. So absolutely, when he looks at the church in Rome that is just exploding with gentile growth, it warms his heart when he sees Jews who ought to get it, who get it. There's a personal affinity. There's nothing wrong with that. You you know, you come into a church like this and you're a person with you know, a Spanish speaking background, and you see somebody come in with brown skin and a little you know, Spanish accent, you just might try to find him during the meal time. There's nothing wrong with that. But you know what a lot of people will do. Well, I'm black and that person's black. I don't want it to look like I'm just being friendly to them that they're black, So I'll stay away from them so that people don't think I'm just being friendly with them because they're black. Help you now, If they're the only people that you have in affinity for, you got a problem. But there are people who work in the same field we work in. There are people who have the same you know, hobbies that we have. There are people who have the same you know, sort of family size that we have. There are people who come from the same part of the country that we come from. There are people who have or whatever number of things. And that's okay. That's okay because oftentimes here's what that is. God saved me as a member of that whatever group of people, and I'm grateful for the way that he snatched me out. Would that he would snatch all of those like me out, but he hasn't, but I'm grateful every time he does. And then there's memorable families. Greet those who belong to the family of Aristobulus. You know, one possibility is that Aristobulus wasn't a believer, and Paul, he didn't say, send greetings to Aristobulus and his family, but those who belonged to the family of Aristobulus. Could be that this is a family that's unique in the church because here they are and the head of their household is not a believer. That could have been costly for them, and you'd remember that family, he says, Greet those in the Lord who belonged to the family of Narcissus. Again, greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and also his mother. I love this who has been a mother to me as well. Greet Rufus and his mom. She was like a mother to me. This does not mean that Paul doesn't love the rest of the church, but he remembers this family, particularly because of the kindness that this family showed to him. Greet those workers in the Lord. And again these two sisters. I'm telling you, if you have twin girls, Trafana and Trafosa, greet those two sisters. I remember those two. They were sisters. I remember them. Sometimes you remember a particular family, or you'll have an affinity for a particular family. That's okay, because in the midst of the unity that we find in the church, we also find distinction and diversity, and that brings glory to Christ as well. Because Jesus saves people from all different walks of life, and he doesn't save us from all different walks of life and then make us little automatons who all look and dress and talk and act alike and enjoy the exact same things. He doesn't do that. We're many parts in one body, and sometimes when you're a hand, you just I don't know, just get attracted to somebody who's afoot. That's just great. I'm a hand. I don't get the foot thing. But that person's a foot, isn't that awesome? And that's okay. Doesn't mean you don't love the rest of the body. Then finally we see extraordinary affection. Greet one another with the holy kids. The churches of Christ greet you. You know, I when I read this, every time I read that, I kept reading this, I kept reading this, and I kept reading this, and I because again, Paul's not setting a rule here for how Christians greet one another. But there was a moment. You know, when you read. And reread and read and reread, sometimes God will just grace you with something. And he graced me with something, and it blessed me and it broke me all at the same time. And I'm reading this. And I could hear the voice of my father, who died the month we started this church, by the way, and God had restored my relationship with my dad. But he was in California and we're here. There are several of our children that my father never met, and every time we would talk before we was hanging up, he would say. Kiss my grandbabies for me. And I heard that. I heard that in Paul, because in many ways, these are his grandkids. In the faith. Greet that family, greet. That brother who works so hard, greet those two sisters they work hard in the faith, greet that group of slaves, a couple in fact, just kiss all my grandbabies. For me, there's extraordinary affection for the church, and I have not always had that, and I regret not always having that extraordinary affection. For the church. We live in consumeristic times where we look at the church like consumers. Trying to find in some place that has the right mix of you know, they read from the right version of the Bible, and they sing the right kind of songs, and they dress the right way, and they talk the right way, and they have the same. Opinion of this and of that and of the other. And it's consumers down and we sit in judgment and we look around and decide if we're going to buy or not. And then when we decide we're going to buy, after shopping for a while, we sit back and we check to make sure that everything is going to stay just the way we want it to stay. And then we get up and we leave. We don't like it anymore. And it never crosses our mind to say, kiss the babies for me, because I. Love them and I miss am. No, our attitude is there's another place that didn't stand up under my scrutiny and meet my expectations. That's not loving the bride of Christ. God has plucked brands out of the fire and brought them together here in this place to share life together, to give our lives to one another. And in some instance Priscilla and the Cola, they were willing to give their lives for Paul greet them. They risked their lives for me. This was not consumeristic Christianity. This was the body of Christ. There are things about people in this room that you don't like. There's things about people in this room that you don't know, and you wouldn't like if you did know, and you won't like when you find out. But newsflash, first and foremost, there's things about you that the rest. Of us don't like. Who do you think you are? But here's the other thing. There's things about your mama, your daddy, your brothers, your sisters, your uncles, your children. That you don't like either. And I hope that your inclination is not to just get up and walk away from them and never look back. My prayer. Is that when God calls you away from this place and sends you somewhere else, that one night, in the middle of the night, you take pen to paper, because this place is so impressed upon your heart and what Christ has done to create this place here, and what Christ is done through this place to minister to you in your life, and your overwhelming love for Him and overwhelming affection for this place causes you to sit down and just jot a note, and in that note you think about people and faces who remind you of the diversity that Christ has brought together here to make a unity. Individuals who stand out to you because of the way that they were brought to faith in Christ, that bring much glory to your Savior. Families that you just remember, Individuals who work uniquely hard. And at the end of it, my prayer is that you're so overcome with affection for this body that before you put the final period, you just have to say, kiss the babies for me, because I love them and I miss them. Folks, this is not the way we view the church and our culture today, and we are the worse for it.