Should Christians Practice the Holy Kiss?

Well, good morning and greetings in the name of Jesus this morning. You can turn your Bibles with me to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. Begin reading, just read the end of this letter here in verse 14.

"Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feeble-minded, support the weak, be patient toward all men. See that none render evil for evil unto any man, but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves and to all men.

Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Quench not the spirit. Despise not prophecies. Prove all things. Hold fast to that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil.

And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly. And I pray, God, your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it."

Brethren, pray for us. Greet all the brethren with a holy kiss. I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen. The closing of that letter is just loaded.

Did you notice that? I mean, he's just giving us, the church here in this case, one after the next of big words and subjects that they need to be and do among each other.

And the very heart of this, I think, is found in verse 23. The very purpose of these instructions are that the God of peace sanctify you wholly, set you apart, make you beautiful, whatever that word all means. I think it's a broad word. Set you apart. Make you special. And the second part of this is that you will be made blameless. And I don't know what that does to you, folks.

It's one thing to be blameless with my local township supervisor or with blameless with my wife. But here he's saying we're going to be blameless before a God when he comes back to receive us. And there is nothing else in this life or in the life to come, I think, that we desire more than that, is to be blameless. And we're going to be presented blameless through Jesus. Now, why is Paul making this whole list of things put right in the middle of becoming blameless and be sanctified wholly?

There's a list of things, and verse 26 is the subject of the morning. It's the holy kiss. If you remember, I made a commitment to teach and preach on the ordinances, the Christian ordinances of the Bible, about seven of them, I believe. And the holy kiss is one of them, the subject I've never really spoke on before and never really did a lot of research on it. It's one of those things that I'd probably just as soon not be necessarily speaking about. I would much rather prefer going right on into Romans and keep going there. Wow, that is but this is part of the good news of Jesus Christ. It's part of the same gospel.

It's part of the same shaping and molding us into the beautiful sanctified vessels that Jesus Christ wants us to be.

So the question of the message of this, the title, is a question.

And this question I want to be personal this morning.

Is the holy kiss something that we need to practice?

If the answer is yes, I mean, I trust that answer is yes across the board here this morning. Young girls, do you say yes to that? Yes. This is something we need to do. I mean, literally do.

I find it interesting in my study the many, many churches, including churches of sort of our sort, are fast losing this practice. They're dropping it. And I tried to study history on it and even modern churches and those that have once practiced it and lost it, how it became and why and why are some of the excuses. And we're going to look at some more scripture later to help us see that this is not a suggestion.

This is a commandment. We're going to look at at least five passages that it comes across as a commandment. Now, I don't think this commandment is saying that every time you meet each other, you need to practice this kiss, and if you don't, you're disobeying the word of God.

But I do believe that if a person just on a regular base just dismisses this and excuses it and ignores it and refuses to practice it and make it a part of the Christian life, I think we are violating God's word.

Here are some of the excuses. The one group said, "We don't practice it simply because it's awkward."

It can get awkward. I mean, I've had a few awkward experiences with trying to do the holy kiss.

I don't think we can argue that. It can be an awkward thing, but that's part of the teaching and the part of my burden this morning. I would like to make it not awkward as much as possible. And I hope by the time we're through here, it will be less awkward.

Another church, and I think this was the Baptist Church as a whole, made a statement and said, "We don't practice this because we're not queers."

In Romans, Paul wrote a letter to the church at Rome that they are to salute one another with a holy kiss. And I think Rome had probably a lot of queers in that day. So is this the first generation that we're exposed to queers? Is this? No.

History, they've had this too.

And it's interesting in my study, there's a commentator that I read, commentary I read on many subjects. And I went to this one. I found it very interesting. This commentator has a lot to say about almost every subject of the Bible. It's a verse-by-verse commentary.

And these verses, the five passages in scripture, I went to see what he has to say about it, and he just skipped over it.

No beans made over it. I thought, "Well, that's very convenient. If it's verse-by-verse, then you are committed to at least say something about it." But he just dismissed it. He just went over it. I thought, "Well, that's probably better than trying to explain it away."

Another writer said it this way, "We can't ignore it. It's in the Bible, and it comes as a commandment, and it's there, and it's there to be observed and practiced." He didn't argue that, but he went out of his way to explain then that this particular kiss is not a physical kiss.

And he went on to explain how that it's a spiritual kiss and how we spiritualize this thing and how we can do things to each other in the church that are equivalent to this kiss.

I thought, "Well, that's interesting." Suppose, Marvin, suppose you would convince Virginia that your kisses to her are just figurative or spiritual. There's nothing physical about them. You think our wives would take to that? From now on, we're just going to stop kissing because it's figurative and it's spiritual, and we do our kisses by doing kind little things. Kind little things are good and fine. That's part of it. But every language we look at, God, I think, is the one that came up with the whole kiss thing. Now, we can look at that later.

And this argument is most of Christians today that explain this away would, of course, say it was a cultural thing. It was practiced in ancient times and even today. Some cultures practice it. So therefore, it's okay and acceptable to do the kissing in church and among the brethren if you're in a culture that's cozy to that.

I just get tired of those explanations. They do that with almost every ordinance in the Bible. They explain the head covering away because cultural things. They explain foot washing away. It's culture after all. I would like to convince all of us this morning that these are not cultural things. If it's cultural, then it's cultural in a whole different way than we think. And whether or not we're going to take things and cut things out of the Bible because they don't fit our culture, to me, that is very flimsy.

My mind just goes back to the Old Testament times, and I like to read a passage and help us to understand culture and the church today.

I have many favorite scriptures, First Peter, and if you want to turn there, I'll read a few verses there. This is one of my favorite ones, and especially reading and studying the Old Testament a little deeper in the last year or so. These verses have become very special to me. First Peter 2:5.

Peter says, "You also," it's sort of breaking in the middle, but he's saying to the Christians, "You also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, 'Behold, I lay in Sion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. Unto you therefore which believe, he is precious; but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient, whereunto also they were appointed. But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that you should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into the marvelous light."

Folks, in this particular passage, we see that's Old Testament quotes and pictures and so on. But two things that really stand out to me here is the house. In the Old Testament, if you remember, Solomon's house, the temple, was something that was anticipated for years. God wanted a house for his people, and David was wanting this thing, and David was gathering together materials even though he's not allowed to build the house because he's a man of war.

That's going to be Solomon. But David was anticipating. He's gathering materials for this way ahead of time. And then Solomon comes, and this house was a beautiful place. And the details of it, the energy that went in, the money that went, the gold, the silver, the everything that went in finally, and God said, "I'm going to establish my name there forever."

That house was lost. The other thing we see here is a nation. God always desired a nation. Always. He wanted to mark the Old Testament Israel with the marks saying, "These are my people, and I delight in them." He wanted to expose them and show them off. And that never went away. And we see Peter picks up on that, and he's talking about a new house.

He's talking about a new place. It's not Solomon's temple anymore. The children of Israel couldn't keep that. Why? Because they were messing around. They were allowing the outside culture to influence and to shape their thinking. They were constantly impressed with the other nations. They were making alliances with other nations. They were copying their places of worship. Constantly, that battle or that stress you see in the Old Testament time.

And King Nebuchadnezzar finally comes along with Babylon and says, "Okay. All right. We're just going to take over." He took over so easily. The temple's destroyed, the nation's taken captive, and it went away right there. And what can we learn from that?

We still see in Peter here the heartbeat of God. He wants a house, and he wants a nation. And he said, "I'm going to build that house, and I'm going to put Jesus Christ as the cornerstone." Right here we have it. He is the chief cornerstone. And whosoever says that he is precious, that word precious, I think, goes right back to the instruments that would put in the temple of Solomon.

And now this temple has stones from the foundation, cornerstone, all the way to the roof. It is built with lively stones.

Isn't that beautiful? Every one of those lively stones is together leaning on the chief cornerstone. And there's a promise that we see that Peter gives. He said, "This thing will never be ashamed or destroyed." And Daniel says that about the kingdom of God, doesn't he? That coming kingdom which will never be destroyed and does not have an end. Peter is giving us that picture. This house we see in Peter is building their foundation, their practices, if you please.

They're building everything off of the chief cornerstone and the truth of God's word. And I think that's a challenge for us today. When we think of the practices, the ordinances, and the modern churches, the modern Christians of America are explaining them away because it was that cultural thing. It was practiced in those times. It's not really for us today, but are so apt to pick up all the cultures of this present time. That was Old Testament problem. And every time they did that, their faith, their belief, their standards, their way of living was becoming weaker and weaker and weaker and weaker. And all that time, the nations, the surrounding nations, were gaining strength and input into their system, and they lost it over and over.

And that's happening today. I want to be with a church. I want to be in a house that we say that the Lord Jesus Christ and his inspired word is going to shape a culture, and we're going to build off of that, and we're going to let the cultures of the nation do their thing.

For too long, the church has been intimidated by the nations of the world and their practices and their cultures. I think it's time that we say the world needs to be intimidated by the church. That was the very point in Old Testament. Remember, how often did God tell the children of Israel that this battle is not yours?

It is God's battle. And as long as you're plugged into God, you're going to win every battle. And they did. They did. It was only when they took their eyes away and started looking at other nations they became weak, and they lost the battle.

If we believe that the church today, in other words, the culture needs to go with the church because the church is basing their life on the word of God, building a culture that the world is going to notice. Here in Peter, it says they're going to be a peculiar people. They're going to stand out. They're going to be different. They're just like Solomon's temple was. Everybody surrounding Jerusalem, I believe, knew about Solomon's temple. And they walked, and they was like, "Wow."

Even Queen, what was her name? Came from all the way to was impressed with it. And Alex read Jesus' word, "That you are a city," said on a hill, "when men see you, when the world sees you, the church, the Christians, the life of Christ in you, they're going to notice because you can't ignore lights that are on a hill.

You just can't ignore them. You look the other way, but you're drawn over to that." That kind of effect is what the church needs to have in society today. What do we believe about culture and the word of God?

It's going to go a long way with what we're going to do with the ordinances such as the holy kiss. What do we believe about the word of God? If the word of God says so, even if it doesn't always make sense, even if it makes us feel awkward, do we have the right to change that?

Do we have the right to change the word of God? Let's page to the last book in the Bible, the last Revelation. Look at a few verses. Revelation 22, just the closing thoughts of the word of God. Verse 12, it says, "Behold, I come quickly." Jesus is saying this, "And my reward is with me to give every man according to what his work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Blessed are they that do his commandments.

Blessed are they who do the holy kiss." Would that fit?

Would it fit?

Yes. Is it in the Bible, or is it not? We will look at more passages to see that it's there. But would it fit to put in verse 14, "Blessed are they that do"? There's no figurative language. It's do his commandments.

And he says there's promises then that go with these, that they may have the right to the tree of life. That sounds like good news to me. I don't know for sure what it means. But do we want the right to the tree of life?

And may enter in through the gates into the city. We want to enter in through those gates, whatever they look like. Jumping down a few verses. Verse 18, "For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book. If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book. And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life."

That is serious business, folks. It is telling us we don't get to say. We don't have the authority. None of us has the authority to make adjustments, to add or to take away from the word of God. And then jump down another verse. Verse 20, second to the last verse in the Bible, it says, "He which testifieth these things saith, 'Surely I come quickly.'" That's Jesus, I believe.

As I understand this passage, as the Bible is being closed, he says everything that's written in here, Jesus is testifying. He's bearing testimony that these things are true and right. And at the end of Jesus' sermon on the mount, he said, "Whosoever heareth my words and doeth them, I will liken him unto a man." You know the story, the comparison.

And this has the same idea. So I say that to say, who's going to shape us, the church, the people of God? Is it God's word? We see right here that this word is inspired by God. And Jesus comes along, and he says, "I testify." Everything in here is the truth, and it's meant for you.

And the word of God, remember what Jesus told his disciples on his ascension day? He said, "Go you into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." And he doesn't stop there, "But teach them to observe all things." All things. Would the holy kiss fit in there?

"Teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." And then he ends with a promise, "And I will be with you." Can anybody finish it?

"To the ends of the earth." To the ends of the earth. That's very telling. That's telling us that whatever is written in here was written for all nations, for all times until the return of Christ. It doesn't say that, "Oh, that was for that time. That only meant back then, in that era." It meant, "It will stand until I come back, and it's meant to be practiced and taught until I come back." It doesn't matter what society says. It doesn't matter if you move to China or India or Chile. If the word of God is not going to shape our culture, we're being shaped by somebody else, and we're going to lose our strength just like the children of Israel.

And we're opening the door wide to be invaded by the present-day king Nebuchadnezzar. That's what we set up ourselves. If we succumb to this cheap explanation of, "Well, it's not for our culture."

Let's just turn our Bibles to every one of these passages and get a little bit of context. Let's go to Romans 16:16.

Romans 16:16. I won't read the whole chapter, of course. It's more toward the end of this particular chapter. But I want you to just glance down through the chapter 16, and there's a whole list of names there. I won't even begin to try to pronounce them. But ladies, I want you to notice that there's a number of sisters mentioned in here.

Verse 1, it says, "Our sister," Phoebe, I guess I'm saying that right, "Our sister, I commend her," which is a servant, and so on. And down through, we see verse 3, it's Priscilla and Aquila, their helpers in Christ. And verse 6, Greek Mary. And then down through, and all these names, Paul is simply, or the writer here is simply saying, "I want you to salute these people. Salute them. Salute them. Salute." On down through all the verses, salute, salute, salute. Verse 16, he says, "Salute one another with a holy kiss. The churches of Christ salute you." In the context here, it's nothing to do with society and culture, nothing, because Rome was a really bad society, city.

And this is the church at Rome. It all has to do with church and brotherhood. You notice that? It names the sisters. It names the brothers. And salute, salute, salute, salute one another. The one another is all about the Christians, the believers within. We get that? Let's go right on into Corinthians.

First Corinthians.

First Corinthians 16. So that was to the church at Rome.

Again, toward the end here, verse 19, "The churches of Asia salute you." See, it's a church thing. It's a God thing. It's a Christian thing, nothing to do with what the outsiders are practicing. It's all about the church, the Christians, the brothers, the sisters.

It says the little church at the house church, apparently at Aquila and Priscilla, was a house church. And I want you to salute them. And then verse 20, he says, "All the brethren greet you," all of them greet you. That could mean young and old. And then he says, "Greet you one another with a holy kiss."

So then we go right into Second Corinthians 13.

There again, toward the end of the letter, finally verse 11, "Farewell.

Be perfect. Be of good comfort. Be of one mind. Live in peace. And the God of love and peace shall be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss." You get it? It's there again, the same context. In this context, I think the expression, the Holy Spirit is an expression of what he just said in verse 11, "Be perfect. Be of good comfort. Be of one mind." See that? "And be at peace with one another." So that's what we aim for. We aim to be in unity and in love and togetherness. And then the icing on the cake is greet each other with a holy kiss.

All right. And then we looked at the passage in Thessalonians there. Let's just keep going back into Peter. First Peter. I'll look at another passage here.

First Peter chapter 5.

There again, toward the end of the letter here. Verse 13, it says, "The church that is at Babylon elected together with you." There we see it again. It's a church thing. It's this church that you have fellowship with. You're together with. You're of one heart with. Greet them.

Greet one another with a kiss of charity. Now, this is a kiss of charity. So far we've read it was a holy kiss. I think it's somewhat the same. All right.

Is that clear to everyone that it's very clearly commanded in scripture? It's just there. We can't argue with it. If we argue with that, then we're going to have to argue with baptism and many of the other ordinances we keep. It's just there. I can't squirm around it. It's in the Bible. And this word is breathed and inspired by God. And Jesus testified that it's true and right, and it's to be obeyed.

I think we get that. Now, there's two words that I want to look at here. I thought for sure I'm going to break this sermon up into two different subjects, but never thought I'd take a whole sermon and talk about a kiss.

So what is a kiss? Let's talk about a kiss, and let's talk about holy. And then I think this will help us understand the holy kiss. So what is a kiss? It doesn't matter what kind of language we go into. Kiss, I found out, is a kiss in every language. If we look at Hebrew, if we look at Greek, if we look at our English modern language and translations and dictionaries, it all sort of means the same way. And I remember years ago, Danny Kenniston once made the remark. He said, "You know what kiss means in Greek?" He says, "It means kiss."

And that's what I came up with in my study. I mean, you try to wiggle around it and say it means something else in this case, and in this case, it means this or that. A kiss simply says it this way.

A touch with the lips as a sign of affection or a greeting or respect or peace or sympathy or oneness or support. So that is sort of what the kiss or behind the kiss often. You have my love. You have my support.

When my little grandchild comes running to me, I can grab the child and, well, I can shake the child's hand, or I can even say, "Hey, bud, how are you doing today?" and sort of do this. Or I can grab him and hug him, and I do, and I think that's special. But the job isn't completely finished until I just give them a good, sweet little kiss.

Do we relate to that? There is something that's built in us that a kiss means a kiss in every language of the world. It's an expression. It's whatever. Now,

let's talk about holy.

And I found this very interesting, the word holy that's used in the Bible. In the Greek, it's the same word that is used to describe the holiness of God in Revelation, the holy God. It's the same word. This holy kiss is the same word used in Greek where it talks about the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost.

And in those senses, what does holy mean? I guess the way I understand holy to mean in the Bible is it's set apart. There's only one. Remember, God said there's one God. The Bible says there's one God. That's why we say holy God. There is a unique one. There is only one, has the idea of that holy. It has the idea of set apart. It has the idea of pure, unspotted, untainted with anything else.

The Webster's dictionary says it's specified or set apart for religious purpose. Now, we talked about those two words, what's a kiss and what's holy. Now, what is a holy kiss?

Well, let's first say what a holy kiss is not.

When I meet a friend out on the street that I haven't met for quite a while, it's an unbeliever, but it's a friend. And so I'll just grab him and give him a kiss of friendship or good to see you again.

That's not a holy kiss, as we understand from scripture. That is a kiss of friendship. It's an expression to him, "I'm glad to see you," and, "Wow, how have you been doing?" whether he professes Christ or not. When I grab my little grandchildren and give them a kiss on the cheek, that's not this holy kiss. That's a kiss of

Proverbs 27:5-6 say, "Open rebuke is better than secret love." Try to figure that one out. That's a verse that I've pondered over and over already. Open rebuke is better than secret love. Continuing that thought, Proverbs says, "Faithful are the wounds of a friend." Figure that one out. A friend gives you a wound, and it's a positive thing because he's a friend. That's sort of how I understand that verse. But he says, "The kisses of an enemy are deceitful."

A contrast, isn't it? So I'd rather have a wound from a friend than a kiss from an enemy.

And I think what we can learn from this, and Judas would be that example, when Jesus was in the garden just groaning away and dreading the thing that was ahead of him. His disciples were there. You know the story. Judas was one of them.

And the Bible says that Judas drew near to Jesus. Now, this wasn't a spiritual kiss or a figurative language, I don't think, because it specifically says he drew near. So I think it was a physical kiss. And just before he kissed Jesus, Jesus says, "Judas, are you going to betray me with a kiss?"

That kiss represented something even in Jesus' time. A kiss was to be something good, positive, kind, loving. And Jesus said, "You're going to do this beautiful thing to me. You're making a lie out of it. It's deceitful." And I think Proverbs is saying, "An open wound from a friend or a wound from a friend is better than this."

So Judas' kiss to Jesus was not a holy kiss. And I say, friends and brothers and sisters today, when we have kisses in our midst and the brotherhood just as a motion to go through, and it's just what we do, and there's envy and strife and unforgiveness and bitterness in our hearts, we're sort of doing the same as Judas did. We're using a kiss to lie.

We can. And if we're not careful, we can just go through the motions, and it does nothing but make a hypocrite out of us. The point of the holy kiss, and we'll talk about it a little bit later, it will not produce any kind of affection or love or appreciation.

It's only a reflection or a fruit of that greater commandment that the Word of God gives us.

James says that if we have this kind of relationship in our midst, we glory not. And Jesus says, if this kind of relationship is in our midst, we need to go back and be reconciled with our brother or sister. And then we come and offer our gift. And in this case, it could be the kiss.

Okay. Another thing, what is not a holy kiss?

And this might be part of my opinions, but I don't think kissing on the lips is a holy kiss.

I think this, again, is my strong opinion. Kissing on the lips, I think, is only for married couples in a private setting. Kissing on lips in public, I don't think is appropriate. That is not the holy kiss that we're talking about in all these passages that we read. It had nothing to do with intimate relationship, and kissing on the lips is getting pretty close.

It's getting pretty intimate. So let's not kiss on the lips in the church.

And well, then where do we kiss? In Acts, the apostles practiced the holy kiss, and they kissed on the neck. Acts, I can't pull up the reference now.

In the Old Testament times, it was pretty customary for men to kiss on their beards. Now, that would be a little problematic for the ladies today and for some of the brothers, but it was kissing on the beard. Now, I think we can kiss on the neck. I think we can kiss on our cheeks.

There's maybe other places, maybe on the hand. Jesus had a kiss on his feet one time.

Those are some of my opinions. I don't know that we have a real clear, but I think from the passages we read that it's pretty clear that the kind of kiss that we read about in the Bible, we can't deny it, it's a kiss.

It's not figurative. It's not spiritual only. It's a brother Christian church. It's a God thing. It has nothing to do with society and practices outside. That, I believe, is very clear. Another thing that is not a holy kiss is a crossing genders.

Some say that we Anabaptist people are inconsistent because nowhere in scripture, in these holy kiss verses, does it say that only men with the men and ladies with the ladies. While it doesn't specifically say that in the passages we read, we have enough of other scripture that when men begin to kiss ladies, there again, I don't care what culture you're in.

We are crossing boundaries that need not to be crossed. Now, we say, "Well, that's the cultural thing where you go." I've visited countries where that's the practice, where the female and the male kiss each other. Yes. You greet each other that way.

I try to be respectful to their culture. I'll eat their fish, and I'll even samble whatever, try to be respectful to their culture, but, "Sorry, lady, I'm not going to kiss you, and you're not going to kiss me.

And you, guy, don't really get to kiss my wife because on my wedding day, I said, 'I'm going to keep myself only unto you.'" And that is the sanctity and the sacredness of marriage. And when men and ladies, it'd be like we dismiss after church, and all the guys go over and kiss the ladies and so on. That's how some cultures do. And there again, the culture should go with the church. The church should not be influenced by their culture. If that culture says, "Oh, you're being rude or disrespectful," I will explain, "Nothing against you, person. I don't kiss other women. I just don't. I'm sorry." The Bible says it's better not for a man to touch a woman.

And in the context that is said, it all has to do with this, and that's to Christians. It's not saying it to unconverted people. It's saying it to Christians. It's better for you Christian men to not touch a woman in the context of avoiding fornication.

In Proverbs 7, we read about the woman, the wicked woman that led a simple young man to her bedroom with a kiss. That wasn't a holy kiss.

That was another kiss.

The early Christian writings, they had a phrase in there about this, and they said it's for baptized Christians, and it's men to men, women to women, with a closed mouth. That's how the early church practiced it.

So we said what is not a holy kiss. Now, what is the holy kiss? What does it do? I'll hurry up here and finish up. I think it's a very expression of the very nature of God because when God created man out of all His creation, He didn't create man from a distance.

God is a social God. When He created light, He said, "Let there be light," and there was light. And I get a picture when God created the moon and the sun and whatever produces light, He did it from a distance just by speaking the Word. But when He created Adam, our father, Adam, He came down, and He came very personal, and He made him from dirt.

And then He got on top of Adam, and He breathed. And that word breathe has the idea of blowing and putting forth effort from out of His lungs, if you please, into the lungs of Adam. And that is how Adam became a breath-carrying person.

God got very involved. If that wasn't about as close as a kiss, I don't know what it was. But can you imagine getting so involved? And then when they needed a woman, ladies, I mean, Adam was put to sleep. We know the story.

And it says that He closed him up when He took the rib out. He took you out. He closed him up. I mean, that's hands-on. I get the picture. It's hands-on. Did He use stables? Did He use needles and thread to sew him? How did He sew Adam or put Adam back together? But He closed him up. I say that to say the very nature of God is very personal. He comes right down with us, and He saved us not from a distance. The Word dwelt with men. The Word became flesh and dwelt with us.

That's Jesus. He came down with us. Then we walk in a room sometimes, and we're almost too stiff. We say, "Hey, bud." "Hey, bud." That's the new way of greeting, or we just it's not a holy bud. It's not a holy hug even. It's a holy kiss.

I once, my wife and I, walked into a room recently. It was a committee there that was together to make some plans for an event. There's nobody from here, I guess. But we walk into that room, and most of these were strangers to us, some of them that we somewhat knew.

But we walked into that room with probably 10 people, and it was one of the coldest places I ever entered. I mean, bulk of them were sitting on their phones just like not even look up and say, "Hi, it's good to see you. What's your name?" None of that. Zero.

I just felt, "This is the loneliest place on earth, and there's 10 people around here that are image bearers of God that are breathing the same breath I am." But we don't look at each other.

God isn't that way. He came to us, and He said, "Yes, brothers, sisters, don't be embarrassed. Don't be awkward. Just kiss each other with a holy kiss." Is that clear enough? It's an expression of the very nature of God. It's a celebration of oneness.

Jesus said in His prayer, "Oh, that they may be one, as Thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee, that they also, they, the church, the people of God, might be one." And when we kiss with a holy kiss, it is an expression of oneness.

It doesn't produce oneness, but it should be an expression of oneness. It's a sign of affection among the people of God.

The word brothers and the word brethren in the New Testament alone is used over 400 times. That is a lot. And most of those times, it is not talking about physical blood brothers. It's talking about becoming brothers some other way.

And Jesus told His disciples, I believe, or was it His own mother, that, "My brother and my sister and my mother are those that do the will of my Father, which is in heaven." So any person here this morning that is in tune with doing the will of the Father in heaven becomes siblings. And Jesus said, "He's the firstborn." I believe Hebrews says that He became the firstborn of many brethren. That means Jesus is our older brother. And Romans 8, it says that we're heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus.

And in our earthly understanding, that would mean that if there's an inheritance, an earthly inheritance, and each of the siblings gets $1,000 of the inheritance, Jesus doesn't get more. We get what He gets. He gets what we get. We're His siblings. That's how strong that language is. We're heirs together with Christ.

That makes us the family of God. Now, the holy kiss is done among siblings according to that.

When we're part of the family of God, we have a lot in common. We really do. We have fellowship. We have things to talk about and how we became a part of this family. And we also have future goals together in this life. That makes us one, and I believe the holy kiss symbolizes that. And closing here, I'm thinking of something symbolic as well. The American flag, every American citizen, I believe, when they look at the flag, that flag means something in America.

It represents something. What are some of the things it represents? Many of us feel the fight for the Lord. Well, that's a different yeah, that is definitely, isn't it? What else does it represent? Freedom. Freedom. Freedom. The holy kiss can be a symbolic of freedom. We're free in Jesus together as a family, as brothers and sisters. What else does this flag represent?

Does it state the $30? There you go. Yeah. What else does it represent? One nation. One nation. That's one of the things I was thinking about. Togethered us. That's where our strength lies, America says. When we're together, we're strength. Military strength, it represents a number of things. The holy kiss is a representation of the greatest principle there ever has been established. The greatest principle is love.

That's woven in scripture. And the holy kiss is symbolic. It's lifting that up. It's shining that forth. It's something we can do to remind us that we're following not just a commandment of the holy kiss, but we're following the greater principle behind it, and it's love. It's peace. It's forgiveness. Brother Alex talked about kindness. We could add that. We could say it's a kiss of it represents or symbolizes kindness in the brotherhood, for bearing one another, being knit together in love, abound in the love toward one another. Let brotherly love continue. Love the brotherhood, being rooted and grounded in love.

Love, peace, and reconciliation, unity, were the very essence of the New Testament church. And may our kisses today represent that. Any thoughts before we pray?