Father, thank you for this gift of mutual encouragement. Thank you for making us brothers and fellow laborers in your your vineyard. I pray that you would refresh us today. Let your spirit be here encouraging our hearts making us ready to go back to work with increased zeal make us faithful men we pray in Jesus name Amen Well I'm prepared to say everything Jeff said but less coherently. It's amazing the overlap.

There are two things that God has persistently been putting on my heart and mind through writings of J.C. Ryle. And those of you who know me aren't surprised. The first is this. In J.C.

Ryle's book, Holiness, I think that's his best book of many good books, chapter five is The Fight. And he presses on all Christians the nature of the life that we're living. It's not a life of comfort and ease. Even if we live in a country with a lot of comfort and ease. That's not for us.

And so he just lays it out, hey, the world is bringing war to your doorstep every day. Are you ready? The flesh is bringing war to your doorstep every day? Are you ready the devil is bringing war to your doorstep every day? Are you ready?

And so I'm finding this help helping. I'm finding this to be a help to me just in the sense of proactive awareness, meaning if you have an expectation that the world, the flesh, and the devil are bringing war to your doorstep every day, You wake up and it's unthinkable that you're drift, that you just sort of drift into the day. We cannot afford to drift into the day when we have such mighty enemies bringing war to our doorsteps every day. And it's making me want to have more proactive measures in my life against the deceitful things that the world, the flesh, and the devil always use over and over again. There's nothing new under the sun, brothers, and yet we find ourselves surprised.

That's shameful. And so proactive awareness that there are these mighty enemies bringing war to our doorstep and proactive measures in our life, just a carefulness over the things that trip us up over and over again, to not be ignorant of our enemy's schemes and to be on the lookout. Just knowing that you have blind spots that are exploited by your enemies has your head, your spiritual head on a swivel, you know what I mean by that? Like looking for the things that are out there. We need to have this, and we need to build things into our lives that have us feeling like we're in a war, even though we live in a place that still has many comforts and ease.

That's the first thing. The second is very related to what Jeff was telling us, which is union versus communion. Union as opposed to communion. If you're familiar with Ryle's books, he doesn't let a book end without putting that forward at some point. So I'd like to just read a snippet from Practical Religion and then make a couple of comments.

Here's what Ryle writes. Let me ask whether we know anything of living the life of habitual communion with Christ. By communion I mean that habit of abiding in Christ, which our Lord speaks of as essential to Christian fruitfulness, and then he cites John 15, abiding and divine. Let it be distinctly understood that union with Christ is one thing and communion another. There can be no communion with the Lord Jesus without union first, but unhappily there may be union with the Lord Jesus and afterwards little or no communion at all.

Union is the common privilege of all who feel their sins and truly repent and come to Christ by faith and are accepted, forgiven, and justified in Him. To many believers it may be feared, never get beyond this stage. Partly from ignorance, partly from laziness, partly from fear of man, partly from secret love of the world, partly from some unmortified besetting sin, they are content with a little faith and a little hope and a little peace and a little measure of holiness. They live all their lives in this condition, doubting, weak, halting, and bearing fruit only 30-fold to the very end of their days. Of course, he's talking about Matthew 13, the parable of the soils, and that's 30, 60, and 100-fold.

So he's talking about sort of the least measure of fruitfulness. Communion with Christ is the privilege of those who are continually striving to grow in grace and faith and knowledge and conformity to the mind of Christ in all things, who do not look to the things behind and count themselves to have attained, but press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Philippians 3. Union is the bud, but communion is the flower. Union is the babe, but communion is the strong man. He that has union with Christ does well, but he that enjoys communion with him does far better.

It's striking me how sad it is to have have union that buys the privilege of communion and then just to leave that on the table as if it's a small thing to commune with Christ And how our people need men who have been with Christ. And just like Jeff was saying, you can tell. Our people know. And it's been very convicting to me to as much as I treasure my union with Christ and as much as I know, That's the source of spiritual life for me. I am spiritually alive.

Just feeling a great sense of need for more communion. I think that's one of the key things I can do for the people at Sovereign Redeemer Community Church is to set aside the list and to be with Christ, to be less efficient in accomplishing even important things, but to be with the Lord, this rubs off on our brethren. When we have savored Christ by being with him it makes them want to savor Christ by being with him Father I pray you would do this for us that you would You would keep on the front of our minds that the world the flesh and the devil are bringing war to our doorstep Every day that we would wake up ready ready to fight knowing that Christ is our great captain and the victory is ours. God, I pray that we would treasure our union and we would relish, relish the privilege of being with you we would go to you day after day to be with you to sit at your feet and learn from you we pray in Jesus name amen Amen.