The Church Ministering to Itself in Love, Part 2

The point: You must seek to inculcate a biblical concept of their identity as a church and then you must constantly encourage the scriptural attitudes essential to the performance of this duty. And then, thirdly, by constantly dire…

Martin compares the self-evident nature of prayer for one another to the act of breathing, arguing that it's so fundamental to Christian life that explicit generic commands are rare because it's assumed.

Very difficult to find a single text where the generic responsibility to pray one for another. You have Paul say, pray for me, pray for this, pray for that. We're told to love one another, forbear with one another, forgive one another. And the reason I'm personally convinced that we do not have it, it is so self-evident, it's like looking for a command in the Bible to breathe.

10:17 - 10:40 Read in full sermon

The point: So surely if we're commanded to pray for our enemies, how much more then for our friends in Christ. So prayer for one another is the first of the spiritual activities by which we discharge our true biblical, body, life, …

Martin shares a personal experience of praying for enemies, finding that it delivers from carnal desires for vengeance and makes one's spirit like Teflon, preventing ugly attitudes from sticking.

It's very interesting. In recent days, I have been brought to learn afresh, not for the first time, but to learn afresh and to learn at a deeper level than ever before. It is impossible to truly pray for anyone, friend or foe,

13:00 - 13:17 Read in full sermon

The point: So these are duties that we must lay upon our people from the word of God. Direct them to the scriptural activities by which they perform the duties of biblical body life. Prayer for one another, mutual intercession, enc…

He contrasts a 'huge sore toe mentality' (easily offended) with a 'blanket factory' heart (fervent love covering sins), illustrating the difference in how believers should respond to each other's faults.

Have fervent love among yourselves. And when you do, that love will continually be covering what a multitude of sin. What a difference from what I call the huge sore toe mentality. The person that goes around almost leading with this big toe about the size of a blown up balloon saying, anybody disposed to touch my...

27:12 - 27:37 Read in full sermon

The point: You must teach your people they don't have the luxury as a pattern... they have an obligation to stay around long enough to greet one another with a holy kiss. It's a duty and you need to bind their consciences to that d…

Martin uses his own practice of being the last to leave church on Sundays, greeting brethren with hugs, kisses, and handshakes, as an example of binding one's conscience to the duty of physical affection, adapting it to different life stages.

Now don't bind their consciences to an outworking of the duty that goes beyond scripture but bind their conscience to the duty and if anyone's conscience should be bound to it, yours is. Now I perform that duty differently now than I did when I had three little ones. It would have been wicked for me to be the last one to leave the church building week after week when my wife had three little ones.

34:34 - 35:00 Read in full sermon

The point: When you bind your conscience that your handshake with a brother means that I tell you if you're determined to obey that injunction there are times when it'll force you to take a brother aside and say, brother, I can't r…

He compares the significance of a holy handshake to a husband taking his wife's hand, arguing that if there's a 'burr' in the relationship, the physical act forces a confrontation, thus keeping believers honest.

I shocked someone recently when I said if we're ready to rest our whole argument not our whole but a major pillar in our argument of the change of the appointed day from the seventh to the first day of the week on two or three texts that explicitly delineate apostolic practice and we're prepared for so radical a thing to rest on a pillar constructed of those materials and I am not as the only but as one of the major pillars. And what about a duty that comes a five-pronged imperative? How in the world are you going to wiggle out of that? And you see, God knows how we're made. Just like with you...

35:55 - 36:58 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin transitions to social duties, detailing visible physical confirmation of mutual love (the holy kiss/greeting), aggressive hospitality, and sympathetic identity with each…

He references Genesis 18 and Abraham's hospitality as an example of entertaining angels unawares, encouraging believers to show hospitality to strangers.

He says, use it one to another without murmuring. Use it one to another without murmuring. Hebrews 13, 2. We're commanded to show hospitality to strangers because some have thereby entertained angels unawares.

39:01 - 39:19 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin transitions to social duties, detailing visible physical confirmation of mutual love (the holy kiss/greeting), aggressive hospitality, and sympathetic identity with each…

Martin uses the chemical reaction of vinegar and baking soda to illustrate the negative impact of a wrong attitude (e.g., false cheerfulness) when approaching someone who is heavy-hearted and needs empathy.

I may be in a happy frame and I come in a brother who's in a weeping frame. And I tell you, you know what? It says in Proverbs about the reaction of someone who comes with a wrong attitude. He says, it's like putting vinegar and water together.

42:23 - 42:37 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin transitions to social duties, detailing visible physical confirmation of mutual love (the holy kiss/greeting), aggressive hospitality, and sympathetic identity with each…

He shares his pastoral practice of greeting chronically negative people differently ('It's good to see you today' instead of 'How are you?') until they mature, illustrating how to handle those who are 'all wrapped up in yourself'.

If it's raining and you've had a drought, say, isn't it wonderful the Lord sent us rain? Yeah, but I bet it'll be raining for the next three weeks. I mean, there are people like that. Now, the best thing you can do for them is just don't take them seriously.

43:07 - 43:18 Read in full sermon

The point: don't you tamper with any of God's institutions administered by God's rule simply to accommodate people who have unbiblically framed expectations

Martin reads a letter from a sister who repented of talebearing after being confronted by fellow church members and listening to a sermon series, illustrating how biblical body life often happens privately and is revealed later, like the 'base of an iceberg'.

6 says don't be like those who want their gifts their alms to be known to all remember Matthew 25 come be blessed of my father I was hungry you fed me naked you clothed the Lord when did we do this there is a modesty about true virtue finding expression in biblical body life that doesn't go around tooting its own horn and parading itself there are there is an element of of veiled ness in terms of much body life so that in a truly well ordered healthy biblical church biblical body life will be like the base of an iceberg and all people see in the stated meetings is the tip of the iceberg and th...

62:53 - 64:22 Read in full sermon