The song stops abruptly, doesn't it? Thank you, ladies. A beautiful song and beautifully done. And choir, I thought you did a great job with the song this morning. That's a real blessing to me personally. Choir's worked on that music for a long time and it's just an exciting song for them to sing and for me to lead them and I appreciate getting to hear that and to have the ladies trio. All the music's been a blessing. If you have your Bible, you can turn it to Psalm 49. This has been our springboard for our message concerning what will your Christian footprint be. And we hope you'll be back for the evening service tonight. Bring your Bible along. Brother Byron will be opening the scriptures to us tonight. And for now, in Psalm 49 and verse number 10, a passage of scripture that is accredited as a psalm for the sons of Korah. That's who it's for. It says that verse 10, ìFor he seeth that wise men die, likewise the fool and the brutish person perish, and leave their wealth to others.î And verse 11, ìTheir inward thought is, that is, they think internally without speaking it, that their houses shall continue forever, and their dwelling places to all generations, so much so that they call their lands after their own names.î Verse 12, nevertheless, man being in honor abideth not. He is like the beast that perisheth. Verse 13, this their way is their folly, yet their posterity approve their sayings. Like sheep they are laid in grave, dead shall feed on them, and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning, and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling. But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave, for he shall receive me. Verse 16, Be not thou afraid when one is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased. Verse 17, For when he dieth, he shall carry nothing away. His glory shall not descend after him. Interesting passage, because in light of what we were sharing with you the last time, there's been a lot of talk and conversation, discussion, even news reports concerning the carbon footprint that we have. And the carbon footprint, as we know it now, is just evidence or indicators that we were here in the first place. I mean, everything you leave behind. And for us, just go to the local garbage dump. That's what we leave behind. And that's the idea. It's just a matter of people can understand you better by what you're going to be leaving behind. Well, from that, I took you from Psalm 49 to the book of Titus, Chapter 2, where there's spiritual instruction, not about carbon footprint, but about our Christian footprint, what we leave behind from the standpoint of being Christians and what it is that we leave for others to discern and learn about us. And I called your attention to Titus, Chapter 2. In chapter 2 and verse number 11, Paul wrote to Titus these words, he said, ìFor the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men.î And verse 12, ìTeaching us,î and heís still talking about the grace of God, ìTeaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world.î So the idea is that there are two things that we call your attention to. We got to the first. The first one is about denying ungodliness. And that's what the grace of God. Once you've been saved by the grace of God, that's the grace of God that brings salvation appearing to you. And once you've trusted Christ, placed your faith in the finished work of Christ and Christ alone. You're not trying to help him out. You're not trying to work hard to keep it. You're not making installments on it. You have accepted what he did is sufficient and all sufficient. And you're trusting him and him alone. Then once that's done, then the second stage is that same grace that brought that salvation. begins to work in your life. And the idea of that grace is to help you and me to deny ungodliness. That's the first stage. And denying ungodliness and to live godly, it means to say no to anything and everything that does not reflect the attitude and the action sanctioned by God and His Word. It's a matter of, as we read in Proverbs, just say no concept. It is a matter of recognizing, does this meet God's standard? If it doesn't, then it's a no-no. We say no to it. And if sinners entice thee to go along with it anyway, just say no. Just say no. So the fact is that's what the first command is teaching us. The first thing is denying ungodliness. The second one is, and this is where we stopped the last time, is denying ungodliness but also denying worldly lust. Worldly lust in the context here are any of those things, the desires of this world, that attach themselves to the fleeting things of this passing away life. Worldly lusts, then, are those passionate desires which say to earth, and to what earth can give you in any of its forms, quote, Thou art my God, and having you, I am satisfied. That's what it's saying. And until a person is saved by the grace of God and then taught, trained by that grace to deny ungodliness and worldly lust, they'll never be able to get to the last part of chapter 2, verse 12, where it says, so they can live soberly, righteously, and godly. You'll never get there until you do the first two things. You have to deny ungodliness and you have to deny worldly lust. before you'll ever get down to the thing of living soberly, righteously, and godly in Christ Jesus. The humanists and the secularists tell us, and they write it in their magazines all the time, quote, you can be all you ought to be, you have just got to want it badly enough. Well, the fact is that's not true. It's not in mankind to be what he ought to be. It takes the grace of God, not the ability of man. Mankind has to be freed from his sin enslavement before he can be free to be what God ordained him to be. You can't be what God wants you to be as long as you're enslaved to sin. You can't be. So the first thing that has to happen, the grace of God that brings salvation has to appear. Once that salvation is in place, then the grace of God begins to work on making us a free people. And not that we're not free from salvation, but there are things that linger. You didn't come into salvation by virtue of the fact that once you get saved, everything is eradicated that's wrong. Doesn't work that way. People who smoke still smell like smoke, you know. People who drink, they may sneak out and get a drink every once in a while. It just doesn't eradicate all the problem. So what has to happen is you have to deny yourself. You have to deny yourself. You have to say no to yourself. I can't have this. I can't do that. Same thing that Brother Mike will point to you when we get back to the thing on homosexuality. The problem is denying oneself. I don't care how many predispositions they have and how interested, they are in somebody, you have to say no to it. Deny yourself. Now I grant you, it's the grace of God that brings salvation, that same grace does the teaching about denying. I grant you that. So it's important, it's imperative, it's absolutely necessary that we understand that principle taught throughout the scripture. It reminds me of the case with Nehemiah who went to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls there. They could not even begin to build a wall back until they had removed the rubbish from the ruins of the first wall. There is in every person's life the rubbish from the ruin of our being born a sinner. In a life of sin, being educated with sinful philosophies of life, built around sinful ideas and sinful pleasures and self-centeredness, That's why the scriptures teach us in Romans chapter 12 in verse number 2, be not conformed to this world, but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind, the remodeling of your mind, that you may be able to prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. When we come to Christ for salvation, we have to turn our backs. We have to deny the rubbish that was left behind of our lives in sin. And we deny ungodliness and worldly lusts so we can begin to build the walls that reflect and protect the holy cities of our soul. So our conduct can show every other person on planet earth what it's like to be one of God's people who have been set free from sin. That's what it's about. Here, and it's important, at this point from the book of Titus that I insert and tell you how you can have that done, what helps that you get. It's at this point that I would tell you that there is an important facet of the helps that are made available to believers in teaching the grace of God that often are not taken advantage of. It is, as it's explained in the book of Titus, it's the local church. A local church, a place where believers assemble to learn how they are to live free, to conduct themselves and function as God's very own people on planet earth and share the gospel with the world about us who is still in bondage. Look back at Titus chapter 1 and I remind you what we started when we began reading from Titus. In chapter 1 in verse number 5, Paul wrote this to Titus. He says in Titus 1 verse 5, For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city as I had appointed thee. What he's talking about is getting these churches established. and getting the churches established is a way by which they'll be teaching stations. It'll be places where people can go and sit in under Bible teaching and preaching and the ministry of the Word and the fellowship of the saints, and they can be equipped, as it were, to live the Christian life. And consequently, it's obvious that that's what he's talking about, because he tells him that he wants them to go about it and ordain elders, leaders in those churches, so these churches could be well-staffed and be prepared to receive people who live in their area. And you notice that it was to be done in every city. I said it to you when we began these messages concerning conduct, and I talked about the local church then. The fact of the matter is, it ought to be so. Not that it is. It ought to be so that if you're going to find God's people when you went into any strange city, you would just go to the church. That's how distinct the church was ordained to be. It wasn't supposed to be a place where you have a club and you come together and just have fun and just, boy, shoot the breeze and just had a wonderful good old time, you know, and you leave and go home and be the same old wicked thing you were before. It was intended that the church would be a place that was identified as where God's people assemble. And so he says to Titus, you pick a godly man to lead those people. And you make sure that these men fit this criteria. And he gave him a list of things. And he said, now once that's done, then quite obviously there are doctrinal teachings that need to be carried out. And much of the book of Titus, the rest of it, is assuming those points. So the local church, from the book of Titus' standpoint, is to be a fellowship of caring, learning, sharing believers. Today, I would tell you, there are more than ever, it seems, people who profess to know Christ as Savior seem more than ever isolated from local churches. The Bible teaches very clearly that every believer, every believer, every believer, every believer in the body of Christ needs, needs in one way or the other, other members of that body. Let me just remind you, sometimes we forget, but to put the brethren in remembrance. So look, if you would, at 1 Corinthians chapter number 12. 1 Corinthians chapter number 12 and verse number 12 to begin with. Much more could be said earlier with the passage, but beginning in 1 Corinthians 12 verse 12. For as the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of that one body being many are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body. Whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, have been all made to drink into one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body? And if the ears shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body? Verse number 17, If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now hath God, now hath God, now hath God set the members, every one of them, in the body, as it had pleased him. Verse 19, and if they were all one member, where were the body? How could they function as a body? But now are they many members, and yet but one body total. Verse 21, and the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee, nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. What's his point? Very simple. All in the body of Christ need one another. Simple and sweet. And the idea is that others have said, I believe, and I think personally they're right, quote, a New Testament Christianity is personal, but it's not individualistic. And I agree 100%. There are too many people who have this idea that you just get saved and do your thing. And I'm telling you, that's not Bible. That's not Bible. that's not Bible. And that's what's been wrong with a lot of the set of circumstances. This idea is that, in fact, let me put it to you this way. Some historians went so far as to say in the New Testament, if people did not attend a local assembly and identify them with a group of people, they were not counted as believing. They were referenced as pagans. That's where one word, part of the word pagan came from. They did not identify themselves with the believers in a locale. And because they would not do that, they were accepted as pagan. These are the pagans. They don't associate with the believers. The believers congregate, assemble in a certain location. And when those folks don't show up, their idea is they're not a part of this. That's one of the reasons, of course, we know for the fear of the Jews, why when the disciples came to be with the Lord, that they were in that room and it would close the door out of fear for the Jews. That's been said. That's the same thing that happened in other occasions among people, and it was not just with the Jews they feared. It was the pagans. who had no faith in that, they just believed they could believe in God and they could be out there by themselves. In fact, it's interesting, when I was a young boy, and maybe when I read this you may remember it too, maybe it happened with you. I was in a church one service and I heard this song they sang. It wasn't our church and we'd never used it that I can recall. It was simply these words, on the Jericho road there's room for just two, no more, no less, just Jesus and you. Anybody ever heard that? You talk about individualistic, you talk about anti-Christianity, you talk about anti-church, that's about as bad as it gets. It's the whole idea that somehow it's just me and Jesus going to heaven. The rest of you are going to have to find your own way and you're going to have to find your own Lord. This is mine. What foolishness. Now how can a song like that be set into a setting? It can't be. You can't force it in to 1 Corinthians chapter number 12. It's isolationism and the Bible knows nothing about Christianity that's isolationist. None whatsoever. And anybody who tells you otherwise is not honest with what the scriptures teach. Isolationism of Christianity, which contradicts the New Testament, and it happens all the time, happens right here in the city of Franklin, talking to some folks not long back. I said something to them about, I heard them talking, and they came to me and handed me a little piece of paper and whatever, and from that I said, oh, church-related matters. They said, oh yeah, yeah. I said, then you folks are Christian people. Yes, yes, we are Christian people. I said, then do you go to church somewhere? This is not at a church location, so do you have a church home? No, no, no, no, no. We don't believe in church. I said, excuse me? What's this about? Well, we call ourselves sort of the outcasts. We don't go to church. We're just a bunch of people who love God. And I so much wanted to say, let me get my New Testament and just wait right here. Let's do some talking, you know. Foolishness. Years back, and this sort of tells you how publishers do, publishers want to sell books. That's what they're up to. Years back, they sold a ton of books that taught isolationism. They taught the idea, you don't need a local church. You don't need to meet with the believers. You can just be in your house and your home and your little place and it's us four and no more and everything will be just fine. I'm here to tell you it is not fine, it is not right, and it's not scriptural and God will not like it because that's not what he laid an example for you to do. And the example is set forth in the scriptures and it's not just about you and yours. And may I say to you, the general public would say yes to Christ nowadays, that is who are religiously inclined, and no to his church. Yes to Christ, no to the church. And I'm telling you that's a contradiction of scripture. I remind you Christ died for his church. And where that church was to assemble was in a local fellowship of believers. It's not a universal spirit out there somewhere that all over the world there's these people who are born-again believers and so forth. That's the body of Christ. But it said, and he, Paul, said to Titus, you go into Crete and you go through all these areas and in every city you establish a church. And you get a man to lead that church and teach those people and it'll be in those contexts of those city churches that we'll have the grace of God teaching people to deny ungodliness and worldly lust, and they can live soberly and godly, righteously, and this will show the world what my people are really all about. And the further we got away from that model, the less people see any difference between us and them. And that's where our churches are. So consequently, the further we've gotten away from the model. You see, people who know Christ have identified with Christ in baptism. That's the way that we identify with Him. That is, once you've placed your faith in the finished work of Christ, the death, burial, and resurrection, People come to follow the Lord and believers baptism. And that's good. It's illustrated by that. Then people who know Christ are to identify with other of God's very own people in a local church to show, to demonstrate to the world how God's people function under God's blessing. It was John Wesley who has written some of our music that's in our song book, our hymn book. He said this, the New Testament knows nothing of solitary Christianity, none whatsoever. And he's right. Even historians will talk about that, that it was a matter that there was this constant draw to other believers. And when you get to a point where it's withdrawal, then you've got a contradiction of what the Bible is teaching. Even our Lord in Luke chapter number 4 and verse 16, it came to pass, he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up and as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up for to read. His custom was regularly attend the synagogue and it was a commitment that he made and I say to you it should not be any less a commitment for you and I to our local fellowship. It is to be an important part of God's plan for you, for your family, your loved ones, to reach them with the gospel and then encourage them in the Lord to be faithful to his house, to sit under his word that they may become one who will deny ungodliness and worldly lusts. And I'm submitting to you that that's the thing that's getting lost. By the way, the local church is treated almost like an after-dinner cup of coffee. It can be skipped. You don't have to have it. It's not part of the meal. I say to you, it is a vital part of God's plan for every single one of His people and their impact on a lost society. And I submit to you that a Bible-believing church, a Bible-preaching church, and help every person every family be what god wants them to be if they'll sit under the faithful teaching preaching in the fellowship of god's people it can be otherwise god made a stupid mistake in saying i want my son to die for the church but the church is never going to get together just when they don't feel like it we're getting too busy we don't have time to go to church and because we're too busy then churches down on the list women women women God was saying, Paul, I want you to write this epistle to Titus. God inspired Titus. Nobody argues that Titus was inspired of God, written by the Apostle Paul, by Holy Spirit's leadership. It was the Holy Spirit telling Paul to write this down. I want you to establish local churches in every city in Crete, and I want the people to go there who identify with me. That's what he's saying. Where are the Christians in Franklin, Indiana today? Have we decided that we are going to go to a place that can offer the best music, the more exciting circumstances, the biggest giveaways, the shortest service, the least sermon? What are we going to? Where do we go to meet? I've said it for years. There are some people who go to church to leave. They don't come to get. They come to leave. And honestly, and I don't mean this unkindly, every church would be better off if they did not come. Because we're not here, frankly, for one another. We're here to worship him first. We're here to learn of his word so we can deny ungodliness and deny worldly lust and we can be what we ought to be. And boy, we need all the help we can get on that. Every one of us do. And the issue is now in this society, it's a pick and choose kind of thing. And it's the one pick with, you know, got the thing that I like most. If I don't like it, I'm not going. And everything has to be just right or I'm not going. Hogwash. This is the Lord's work. This is not ours to pick and choose and paint and change and portray to make what we want it to be so we can really have a great time. That's the problem with the Church of Jesus Christ that's been so changed by public input. We don't need public input to design a church bought out of sin and restored to what God wanted to be under the auspices of His Holy Scripture. We don't need them to tell us that. We need to read His Word and follow His model and submit to it. That's all we need. In this particular case, it's an interesting thing to me, that in Hebrews chapter 10, we know the verse, it's not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching. It's interesting and it's probably true from some people's perspective that to forsake the assembling of God's people in a local church is to vote to close it. Oh, and by the way, across this country this week, just this week, there will be 4,000 so-called churches that will shut their doors. 4,000. We in Baptist circles, we couldn't create 4,000 churches in a week if our lives depended on it. And yet there'll be 4,000 of them close their doors. Now, I'm not telling you they're all Baptists. I'm telling you they're called churches. Maybe they're liberal and they should have died. Bless the Lord, O my soul, if they were. And all those churches that were just out there for show, if they died, bless the Lord. But I bet you in that 4,000, there were some churches out there in some 10 buck two place that people just kept saying, you know, I just, I'm not getting anything out of it. We don't have all these programs and we need to get more stuff. And if we could just make everybody happy, everybody would come. So let's just change everything to make everybody happy. Good luck. Good luck. Oh, I don't believe in luck, but good anyway. What's the issue here? The issue is people just decide on a whim about doing something that will change it to their liking. Church is not supposed to be about my liking or your liking. It's supposed to be about His model. And in this particular case, we're admonished not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, as some had already back then begun to do. And the consequence is, if it was bad back then, it's horrible now. And it is important also to note that it should become, I think, even from this verse of Scripture, Hebrews 10, it should become more important to the true believer, the further down the road we get and the darker the clouds get of what we're facing as people and country, that we'd be more faithful. more committed, more dedicated, more separated from the world, so the world could see the distinction between us and them in the behavior we carry out. There's another thing. This came to mind in study a week or so ago on Sunday for the Sunday night messages over in Galatians. So look at chapter 5. You are familiar with it if you've been here with us on Sunday evening. We've been teaching, preaching from it for a long time about the fruit of the Spirit. And we're presently in verse 23 on meekness, but look at all of them. Galatians 5, 22, it says, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law. I was just reading the text and it just seemed to jump off a page of me. These traits and these characteristics of believers that are in Jesus Christ cannot, cannot, cannot be developed apart from two things. One is the Holy Spirit. It's the fruit of the Spirit. That's obvious and we've hammered that from the day one we began the lessons on that. But there's secondly something that's written right in the words that sometimes is hard to catch unless you just sit and think and meditate on it. It's a simple fact that the Holy Spirit does this work of producing these within us, that provides the power, and it has to be in close fellowship with other believers for it to happen. How do you figure that? Very simply, look at the very first one in the Fruit of the Spirit. It says the first one is love. Let me ask you a simple question. How can you love all by yourself? I'm not going to church, I'm just going to be me, my little house, and I'm going to get in my backyard, my tent, and we're just going to be here. How are you going to learn to love the way God ordained you to love by virtue of the fact that to do this, the very first fruit here carries the ideal of somebody I care and concern myself with somebody else as much, if not more, than I care for myself. How can you develop the fruit of the Spirit isolated from other believers with whom it's supposed to be demonstrated, illustrated, or practiced? Can't be done. You say, well, Pastor, I'm going to learn to love myself. You don't need any practice for that. You came into this world loving yourself. You were born loving yourself. That's not what the passage of Galatians 5 is about. It's talking about loving others. How are you going to love others if you're not around others? And it's not, by the way, pagans out in front. Most of this is dealing with and has to do with, in Galatians, with the fellow believers. And that's so very obvious as it goes along. For instance, the idea of a long-suffering. Long-suffering cannot be demonstrated or acted out apart from somebody with whom I show patience. You have nobody to get challenged to you, you're not going to learn that. And it should be challenged within the body of Christ within the local assembly. There's the word gentleness here. That's a kindness that's exercised, compassion, forgiveness to others, especially believers. In fact, Paul wrote it in Galatians chapter 6 and verse 10 when he says, as we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, but especially unto them that are a household of our faith. By the way, all through the scriptures you've read it of those commands We have them all, they're scattered all through the Bible. I'll read you just a few to remind you, but over in Romans chapter 12 in verse 10 it says, Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love in honor preferring one another. You see, I believe the reason for the one another commands the very idea for the other commands that are set forth in scripture are built on the premise that you're going to be a part of a local fellowship that identifies with Jesus Christ, and in that fellowship there's going to be this functional operation. It almost becomes a Bible science lab, you know, where we learn how to address things and deal with things, and we do it with one another. One another. And then it also happens, he writes similar things Paul did to Colossians in chapter 3, verse 16, when he said, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another, in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your heart unto the Lord. Galatians 5.13, For brethren, ye have been called unto liberty, only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. Galatians 6.2, bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. How can you do it if you're isolated? And yet in this fellowship with a number of folks on our membership list, we have folks who don't show up. And you ask yourself, why don't they show up? What is it that they are looking for that they didn't get? What we're in the world Do you go when you are a member and a part of the local body of believers, and yet you're not faithful enough to have some people who know who you are? Do you see why the early church might have said, look, these folks don't identify with the local assembly, they're probably not saved. Probably not saved, probably not believers, and they don't want any part of that. We don't have to lock the door out of fear of them, but the fact of the matter is the early church had some of that. The fact is that every person in this room, including this preacher, identifies himself with God's people, and the official way of doing that, of course, from the scriptural standpoint, is being a part of a local assembly of believers in a local church setting. When I talked to a fellow this last week, and we were talking about he travels a lot, I said to him very simply, where do you go to church? Oh, he said, well, I'm so busy, you know, and all that. Let me be honest with you." And I said, I know you well enough that you know that I shoot straight with you. I don't care where you are, wherever you are on Sunday morning or Sunday night, you ought to be in God's house if you're one of God's people, and you ought to find where God's people are hiding out, and you ought to be there with them. to let him know, if nothing else, that you are saved by the grace of God and you want to be around God's people. And he said, you know, the Lord's been bothering me about that thing for a long time. And he said, you're right. That's exactly right. I need to do that. He's been convicting me about that very thing. Well, he should convict us. And yet we have this simplistic idea of criticizing the church for its ineptness, its inability, and its lack of power. Well, let me tell you something. You can't take all the people out by them just acting like the church membership is no big deal, and it not hurt it. Let me tell you something. Being a member of a local body of believers is a big deal. It's where God's people assemble. And anybody who comes to this city through this summer months and visits here, they ought to look us up and say, is this a place where God's people meet? And we can gladly say, yes, this is where God's people meet. Are we perfect? No. Nobody claims that. Nobody has. That's a straw man they like to kick down. Churches are not perfect. We never will be perfect in the flesh. And there's not a church on earth that's absolutely perfect. That's not the point. The point is, this is God's people in this place. And God's people who are part of this thing ought to be faithful to it so that everybody around here would know we're on God's side and we're going to do God's work. We may not do it perfectly, but we'll do it to the best of the Holy Spirit's ability He gives. And let the world know on whose side we are. It's an interesting thing. I think that you can see the point from all these references about the one another's and from the Galatians 5, 22, 23 point, but I hope you can. If we are believers, we should be a vital part of the local church, not sitting in the bleachers, but in the game, taking our place and our position to fulfill the ministry that God has given to us to advance His cause and His church and encourage His very own people in this local area. It's sad and disappointing to me as a pastor. that many professing believers have drifted in and out, up and down regarding membership in a local fellowship, and little is thought about it. It shows our lack of taking our membership in a local assembly among God's very own people as a serious matter. John chapter 1 and verse number 12 says, But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. Exousia is the word for power there, and it carries the sense of ability, privilege, authority, right, liberty, and strength. But listen carefully. No one has the right or privilege to be a part of a local church, a local body of believers, who has not experienced conviction of sin, a conversion of life to Christ, and a confession of true, genuine faith in Jesus Christ. Membership in a local church, a Bible-believing church, is reserved specifically for people who have truly become sons and daughters of God in Jesus Christ. That's why verse 13 of John chapter 1 says, which were born, not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. Drop out what it's not, and you read verse 13 of John 1, which were born of God. That's what a church is made up of. people who have been born of God. And you take that group of people and that group of people meeting in a location and assembling themselves together and the purpose being to worship and to sit at the feet of the teacher, Sunday school teacher, pastor, missionary, evangelist, whoever. God says that's the context of which I'm going to work in lives of people. I'm saying to you one is you're not a Lone Ranger. Don't try to be one. You're a member of the New Life Baptist Church, let me exhort you. Take what you have agreed to in membership seriously. This is not a fluke. It's not a fake. It's the real deal. God ordained that there be local assemblies. And in those local assemblies, the people who know the Lord, they grade together, they stand together, they pray for one another, they serve one another, they encourage one another, they work side by side, shoulder to shoulder. to carry out the Great Commission, to get the gospel into all the world, and do what they can do to help each other. Serving one another takes into a large category of things. And it ought not be that we do just basically what a club would do. We're supposed to do what we do under God's empowerment through His Spirit. And when it's done that way, it brings great stuff. So this morning, if you're a member of the New Life Baptist Church, let me exhort you to take seriously what God has placed you within. And may God use you in a wonderful, magnificent way to impact the people around you and the people in our community. May they come to know who you are by virtue that you have this assembly of Christians that you meet with, God's very own people in this area. And you meet with them and you assemble with them. And you serve here, and you work here, and you pray here, and you do everything you can to impact our community through this group of people. And we hear it all the time. You know, we hear it about firemen, you hear it about policemen, you hear it about union workers. They call it a brotherhood. Now you listen carefully. The bona fide brotherhood is that's found in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone. You can join all the clubs and organizations, service organizations. You can be a 50-year member of a working organization down the street, no matter where you are. That's built on something totally different than the Word of God and the Holy Spirit and salvation in Jesus Christ. That's why this place is supposed to be different than all those places. We do not work by the same criteria, we're not built on the same foundation, and we do what we do for a different total reason. Everything they do is temporary. We deal in eternity, and we ought not forget that. Ours is a higher coinage. Ours is a higher issue of its stake. It's the souls of men, women, boys, and girls. And much of it has to do with how good a job we do in here as to what we can do out of here. If we equip ourselves properly under the teaching of God's Word and become doers of the Word and not just hearers, we can affect them for good. And someday, one day, they may turn to you and say, hey, you know, I didn't realize all this until I came to faith in Jesus Christ, which you shared with me. I see it now. I was not all I needed to be and I was not fulfilled in my life. It was not what it ought to have been until I found Christ or Christ found me. We have the answer, and it's the only answer that will satisfy men's needs. Let's don't sit on it. Let's share it. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for your goodness and your grace, and we thank you for your patience with us. As believers, we're not always all we ought to be. We recognize that, we know that, and we confess that. Father, one of the things I pray this morning that you will set a new fire in the hearts of our people. As members of the New Life Baptist Church, those that are here that are, I pray God that you will stir us to a new respect and appreciation and admiration for this thing called church family. I pray you'll cause us to understand that you didn't do this by some kind of fillage of some need to tell a story that you needed space in Titus to fill up, and so you added this need of establishing churches as you did. I pray, Father, help us to understand this was a priority with you. It serves a full linkage in the Christian life for them to come to a place that they can trust and be sure that the Bible is going to be taught in Sunday school worship service, Sunday night or Wednesday night, And they can take your word and we can become believers who are actually servers using the scriptures as the basis of what we do, what we do with. I pray today that you'll help every one of us, including this preacher, to appreciate afresh what it means to be a part of a local church as the body of Christ assembles here. And I pray you'll help us to realize the high profile position we hold to. We're born-again believers. We are, as John 1, verse 13 says, born of God. What a prestigious position. And Father, to go out and tell the world that right off the bat probably would be offensive to them, and they'd call us arrogant. But inside the walls of this building, that's such a noble position. Born of God. It means we didn't have anything to do with it, and we know that. It was you searching for us, you finding us, and your Spirit convicting us of our sin and our alienation from you, and drawing us by your Spirit to yourself, and to be called sons and daughters of God. Father, help us to live like it. Help us to plant our feet and stand upon them sometimes, as it were, to take our stand and Tell people that we're part of a local assembly whose heart is after and pursuant of God's will in this place. And help us to be doers of the word, not just hearers. So I ask you to speak to our hearts. And if there are folks here this morning to whom you've spoken to about this matter, this issue of our fellowship, I pray draw them to yourself over it. Help us to resolve these matters. Help us to be a better church than we've ever been before. Help us to be more compassionate to lost people who were in the condition we were when you found us. and help us to do what we can to serve one another, to encourage one another in the work of the ministry here. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.