All right, let's turn to Ephesians chapter number two, Ephesians chapter number two. And yes, I'm very sunburnt. Yes, it hurts. And no, you're not feeling sorry for me. All right, but been outside a lot this week, had a school picnic today. So do you want to think I was, having any issues or upset at anybody so just very somber so Ephesians chapter number two and been looking of course on Thursday nights at without spot or wrinkle and working some of you know, some issues out and reviewing things. We looked at the family. We looked at holiness for quite a few weeks and want to look at some doctrinal issues the next few weeks. And a lot of these things, you say, I've heard this before. Amen. Aren't you glad you've heard that before? If I start preaching doctrine, you're hearing totally new stuff and you've been in church a long time, something's wrong with what I'm teaching. There should be no surprises here, but at the same time, this next generation coming up needs to know these things, and we need to be reminded of these things, because there's going to be a pulling away from sound doctrine. And if we're not careful, it will cease to be important to us as much as it should be. So we need to know these things. So we're going to look at a few things in Ephesians chapter 2, but what I want to start out with tonight is simply this. One of the most distinguishing doctrines of the Bible as a Baptist is this doctrine, and we're going to start there. It's the doctrine of the church. We as Baptists don't hold a monopoly on all truth, all right? And we should be all truthful, but there may be, don't get ahead of me and get upset at what I'm about to say, but there's other churches, even in different denominations and that, they're going to agree with some things, and we would agree with what they preach on some things. When you start getting to things like salvation, there's going to be...I'll never forget, I got a track from somebody in Goshen, and it's from the Goshen Church of God, and it was the same track that we hand out. But you can be saved. I don't care what. you're sitting under, if you're trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ and him alone is your savior, you're going to heaven, all right? You know, but salvation, things like creation, a lot of other denominations are gonna agree with us on creation. Abortion, I've stood side by side with a Catholic saying abortion is wrong. Marriage issues, and marriage is for a man and a woman, we're going to agree with other denominations. You get what I'm saying, right? You know, even the Bible in our King James Version, you know, there are many, when we were in Scotland, many churches of Scotland, which is an Anglican church, that hold only to the King James Version, because that's where it started. They hold to that. All I'm trying to say is this, other places we may share in some truths. Now, salvation, there's only one way to salvation. I don't want you to leave in confused on what I've just said. Everybody with me on what I just said? The fact is this, the one distinguishing doctrine that separates us from any other denomination is the doctrine of the church and what the church is. I'm not saying they agree with everything else, but this one they're all gonna disagree with us on, all right? It's what makes us Baptists, all right, along with many other things. But it is one of the distinguishing doctrine, and a lot of times our doctrinal stand on the church is where we park company with a lot of others in fellowship and things. But what we believe about the church, and praise the Lord, we've had a lot of new members coming to church, that's a blessing, amen. And people have joined the church, and church is growing, praise the Lord for that. And so it's important that we continually look at these things so we're reminded about what the Bible teaches about the church because it does matter what you believe. And your belief on the church makes a difference in so many other things that we will practice and believe in. Now, our belief on the doctrine of the church has nothing to do with us going to heaven or not. All right, that is in Ephesians chapter two, verse number eight, for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. If you're going to heaven, it's because you trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior, amen? But when it comes to our service, our belief in the doctrine of the church greatly matters. And in verse number 10 of Ephesians chapter two, for we are his workmanship. created in Christ Jesus to good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." Our workmanship or our practical service, what we believe about the church, greatly affects that. Now, one such illustration, turn over to 2 Timothy chapter number 2. 2 Timothy chapter number 2, And in verse number one, 2 Timothy 2, verse number one, says this, So we understand here we're talking about this is the work, all right? We should be making disciples. We should be teaching others who are faithful so they may teach others what we believe in Amen verse number three thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ no man that worth entangle himself with the affairs of this life that he may please him who had chosen him to be a soldier and if any man verse number five also strive for masteries and Yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully. Now that's what the Bible says. And verse number five says this, that we're all gonna be striving for masteries, but there will not be a crowning unless it's done lawfully. In other words, it matters how we practice and serve. Amen? God has, if you will, some laws Some ways it ought to be done. That word lawfully means properly. It means, you can look up the word, it means properly, it means legitimately. You're all just staring at me. That's what it says. If we're gonna be committing to faithful men, we need to teach them that they would continue this and there is, God says it, that if we're gonna strive for masteries, it must be done lawfully. Unto him be glory, where? in the church. When our doctrine on the church is wrong, there's a really good chance that we're going to begin to do things not lawfully. So it's good for us to periodically look at this doctrine and other doctrines to make sure that we're lining up with God. So I'd ask you, as we begin this message tonight, in your own minds, don't raise your hand or nothing, but what is a church? We talk about a church. What is a church? Some people just relate a church to a building. This building is not a church. This is a meeting house for the church. If everything, God forbid, burns down on this property, we still have a church. If they come and put yellow tape around this place and armed guards and tell us we can't meet here, we're gonna meet somewhere, but this building and this property is not the church. We are the church, all right? The church is not a building. The church is not a denomination. Some people look at the church as a denomination, like you have the Catholic Church, and the Presbyterian Church, and the Methodist Church, and the Baptist Church. It's not a denomination. Nor is it a universal, invisible entity. A lot of people would refer to it as the body of Christ. That is, there is no such thing as a universal, invisible church. Those three things, neither one of those three are what a church is. Now what is a church? And we need to, we should have a good understanding on this. Now this is nothing, and I hope it's doctrine, so we need to teach it and preach it. I don't, this is not a pride thing. And I'm glad and thank God to be a Baptist. Because I believe it holds to the truth. But I'm not going around telling other people I'm better than they are because I'm a Baptist. I do believe Baptist holds the truth, and that's why I'm a Baptist. And be very careful, just helping as your pastor, right? Be very careful about Bible churches. Most of them will look at you and say this, well we believe the same thing. Then why aren't you Baptist? There's a reason they choose not to be. And you can check me out on that, you'll find it to be true. There's a reason, I'm not saying they're not good people, might be good brothers and sisters, but there's a reason that they choose not to be. I've got a lot of criticism. And you have too, you just don't know it as much as I do, right? Because you're at a church. But, you know, for, you know, the flag over there behind me, right? It is not a symbol of pride. It is not a symbol of arrogance. It is not a symbol of anything other than what we believe in. Again, I have no motivation behind it. I haven't tried to sell them. I don't go around and advertise them. I don't do any of those things. You say, why do we have it? Well, I have it because it more exemplifies what we believe in. There was the Christian flag, which most people are used to, the white flag with the blue banner with the red cross in it, which was a Presbyterian man that came up with that, which said that we all should just be proud that we're under the cross, and started in a YMCA, and I know all the history behind it, and it's a ecumenical flag. And I can't put my arm around people that don't preach true salvation, or the ordinances are off, and I can't just pat that on the back and say, well, that's okay. Now, I don't get mad at anybody that has a Christian flag. It's fine with me. I don't care what anyone does, and it's not my business. Only because I had a Baptist temple. You say, so if you walk in another church and you see a Christian flag, I don't care. Neither should you. Who cares? As Boasley used to say, not my monkey. All right? Who cares, right? You know, it doesn't bother me at all. Then there came what's called the Baptist flag, which is the book and the blood and the blessed hope. And I'm not against that, that's awesome, but then again, who doesn't agree with that? The book. The blessed hope, the Lord's coming back. The blood. Well, pretty much everybody agrees with that, and I don't think that distinguishes us. Like, I would like to be distinguished. I want people to know what I believe. And so, we came up with this, and I only teach it because, you know, if you wonder, we have new members. What's up with that thing, right? We don't pledge allegiance to it. We don't wave it around and, you know, march and, you all follow me, right? But it's what we believe in this, just so you know. It's mostly crimson because without the blood of Christ, we have nothing. You'll notice the pillar and the ground, which is the pillar and ground of truth. The church is to be the pillar and ground of truth. There's a triangle, which represents the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 3.21 is on the pillar, which represents the fact unto him be glory in the church, world without end, amen, throughout all ages. upon that pillar, that a pillar is upholding the Word of God. We don't make laws, we don't make, you know, legislation, we don't legislate, we just follow the Word of God. We uphold the Word of God. In the pillar and ground of truth, the church should be upholding the Word of God and is clear on that, that as we, as Cazetta Baptist Temple, stand upon the King James Bible. Amen. Above that is a globe, which represents that we, as one of the Lord's churches, have the Great Commission. We are to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Also on this flag, you will also find the two ordinances, baptism and the Lord's Supper. The ordinances were given to the local church, and the church is to protect the ordinances. We'll get into this in these next few Thursday nights, but we don't accept alien baptism, which has nothing to do with outer space. You have to be scripturally baptized. The Lord's Supper is for the church, the local church, and for the members of it. We'll look at that later, too. The ordinances are to be upheld, and both the ordinances are upon this flag. There's a flame there, which represents the fact that this is to be passed down. from church to church to church. And I cannot, nor can you, and if anyone says they can, they're just joking to themselves. I cannot give you a church by church by church back to Christ. I can't. Someone asked Brother Joshua the other day, are you a landmark Baptist? He's like, what exactly does that mean, right? Some people wanna claim that I can have a paper trail all the way back to Christ's church. I don't, and anyone says that they are, or convincing themselves of something that just can't be happening, all right? The Lord's churches were persecuted. They were underground. There were years, and everything that they wrote and said was burnt by people who were against them. But, as I said before, if you grab a chain on one side and shake it, it will shake on the other end of that chain, too. And we uphold to the same things that the Lord Jesus taught in the New Testament. That's why we're a New Testament Baptist church. And we hold to those things, and we do believe that our heritage is important. We do believe that we should be started legitimately. If we would have found out, and for a little bit, I'm not going to go into the story, but I almost had a panic issue when we studied our church history, but if I found out that Gazetta Baptist Temple was started as a split, we would get authority and start over. Now, I'm not going to get into a lot of long details. There's a lot of what-ifs. Anytime there's sin, sin creates gray areas. It's like marriage. A lot of people debate about marriage and divorce and all these things. The fact is this, if we all just did what God said to do, there would be no gray areas. You know, when does a church become legitimate? Well, I always just give this, you know, we should strive to do our best to make sure that we know that, you know, a church is legitimate and that we're the only thing that matters is us, right? We're no business and no one else's. But we should strive to make sure we're legitimate. If we found out we weren't, we would become so. And I think it's that important, all right? We should want to. Now, what if we found out that a church grand, grand, grand, grand, grand, grand, grand, grand, grand, grand, Papi Church was off, all right? I don't think that has anything to do with us in the same way that if we have a child that was born illegitimate, it doesn't mean every child in that person's heritage is an illegitimate child. They can do things right, all right? So you say, but what if? I know you can go a lot of what if there is. but let's just stay out of sin and do things right, and we don't have any of those areas. And so it's a flame to be passed down. Now, again, I say all that to say this, there's no pride in that. I mean, I've talked about it now once in the last six years. I don't talk about it, but at the same time, I'm not ashamed of it. And that really offends people, that flag does, people that aren't Baptist, which should tell you something. If you don't believe me, do an internet search on the Baptist standard, Travis Burke. You'll have a lot of fun stuff to read all night, all right? But, you know, I don't have any apologies for it. But it's not a pride issue, all right? You say, but it might offend. You hold to right doctrine, there's gonna be a lot of people that will be offended. And I'm not out to offend people, but I'm not ashamed of what I believe. And so we wanna consider now the church. All I want to do tonight is consider this simple fact, that a church is an assembly. Someone's been playing with this clock. That scared me. It said 820. I was like, whoa. Number one, a church is an assembly. Let's look at that just tonight, because we'll never get past this. The word church or churches is found 114 times in the New Testament. It means, literally, it's the word ecclesia, which you know that, which means a called out It's very first mention is in Matthew chapter 16. Turn there real quick. Please, Matthew chapter number 16 and in verse number 18 is the very first mention of the word church in the New Testament. Well, in the Bible. In Matthew chapter 16 and in verse number 18. Matthew 16 and verse number 18. The Bible says, and I say also unto thee that thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Now, again, see what can you learn from that? Well, just some interesting things. Number one, the disciples weren't confused when the Lord said church. They didn't say, whoa, what's a church? It was a commonly used word then, all right? And it meant a called out assembly. So they knew when he said this word that the, you know, the called out assembly So the disciples weren't confused, but I also want you to know that there was something really important about this word that he used in this verse. He said, my church. So when he spoke this to the disciples, there was not only, the disciples were not confused, but there was a distinguishment made here about this. This was like nothing else. There'd be all kinds of assembly, called out assemblies, and the Ephesians, whenever all that happened there in Ephesus, they called out an assembly. It wasn't a church, but they had a called out assembly, and that's the word ecclesia. All right, but here, the Lord said, this is my church. And the Lord here is showing us, and the disciples understood the word, and this is the Lord's church. There may be all kinds of things out there to have the tag church on it. That doesn't mean they're his church. I'm not the judge. Just trying to hit all the practical things. I'm not the judge. I don't judge any other church. Now, by the fruits you shall know them, and I understand you have some cult or something like that, we obviously know, right? But I only preach this because there are some, I've heard this from other pastors, and I've heard this from church, even in our church. That Baptist church, they're not a church. Well, I just caution you to tell you that's God's business, not yours. I'm all for strong doctrine, and we try to uphold it, and that's why we're preaching it. But that's not your call. That's God's call. Because I can give you all kinds of illustrations. The church at Corinth had fornication running through it. They were all suing each other and going to lawyers. I mean, it was complete carnality. But the Holy Spirit said to the church at Corinth, read the book of Revelation chapters two and three. Those churches had problems. One of them even had a woman leading the services. But they were all addressed to the church at. And all I'm saying, that God obviously removes a candlestick, but that's God's business. It's not mine, and it's not Cazadel's business. Other than, we don't want that to happen here. So we strive to be as doctrinally sound as we possibly can. And we strive to do as much as we can for the cause of Christ. This is exampled in 1 Corinthians chapter number 11. Turn over there real quick. 1 Corinthians chapter number 11. 1 Corinthians 11, look at verse number 18. 1 Corinthians 11, verse number 18. It is an assembly, all right? It is an assembly. In 1 Corinthians 11, verse number 18, for first of all, when ye come together in the church. See that? We come together in the church, all right? It's an assembly. Verse number 20, when ye come together, therefore, into one place. It's an assembly. So an assembly, there's a couple things that we are gonna just establish tonight when we say that the church is an assembly. And they are these four things. That in order to be an assembly, they must be number one, local. They must be number two, visible. They must be number three, organized. And number four, constituted of the right ingredients. Now let's build on that just so we have an understanding of what a church is, all right? Number one, it needs to be local. You can't come together and be scattered everywhere. Everybody follow me? Universal church, right? Just so you know, the word universal comes from, you know what another word for the word universal is? Catholic. They had to create a universal church in order to have one man, the Pope, in charge of everything. So they had to come up with this Catholic Church, or a Universal Church. And that's why there's a lot of denominations that hold to Universal Church, because they were Protestant churches, they protested some issues they saw in the Catholic Church, and praised the Lord for that, and they came apart from it, but they carried some of its false teaching with them, and the Universal Church being one of the main ones. The Lord's churches should understand that we are a local. In other words, you take even, use a car. All right? If all the parts of a car are scattered all across the country, you don't have a car. You may have all the right pieces, but you don't have a car. Right? Until they're in one place and assembled together. Amen? So when we study the word church in the New Testament, again, you'll find it 114 times, and all but 15 refer to a very specific location, a local church. Look over in the book of Acts real quick, in chapter number one, just to see, obviously I'm not gonna go through 100 of these to show you, but in Acts chapter number one, just so you can see what we're talking about here, I'm sorry, chapter eight, sorry, Acts chapter eight, and in verse number one, Acts eight and verse number one, It says, and Saul was consenting unto his death, and at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at, where? Jerusalem. A church, the church that was at Jerusalem. In Acts chapter number 13 and in verse number one. Acts 13 and verse number one. Now there were in the church that was at what? Antioch. These are two entirely different churches. One is at Jerusalem, one is at Antioch. Amen? They each represented a different local church. And that's what you'll find throughout the Word of God and being taught. When I say local, that's what I mean there, all right? Or they might refer to churches of a region in Acts chapter number nine. And in verse number 31, I believe, Acts 9, verse number 31, yes, Acts 9, 31, then had the churches If there's one church, it uses plural, right? Churches rest throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria. So there are multiple churches in these different regions. But there wasn't one church. It doesn't say it then had the church rest. Words are important. It's the churches, right? They were all local churches. All right, sometimes churches met in private homes. Four times, you'll find that in the Bible. Look over in 1 Corinthians 16. Matter of fact, I don't want to go down this trail tonight, but church houses were a much later building churches. We kind of patterned that off other people. They met in Solomon's Porch. They met in locations. There's nothing wrong with it, obviously, but don't think, well, we can't have a church if we don't have a building. That's not biblical, because they didn't have any buildings, church buildings, I don't think, in the entire New Testament. Don't hold me to that, I have to think about it, but I can't recall one. There's nothing wrong with it. Praise the Lord for what God gives us, and we're able to meet, and praise the Lord, nice, comfortable auditorium, amen. But they didn't, all right? In 1 Corinthians 16, and in verse number 19. 1 Corinthians 16, verse number 19 says, the churches of Asia salute you. Aquila and Priscilla salute you much in the Lord with the church that is in their house. Now, there is a movement called the house church. That's not a good movement. What they're saying is you don't need church, just stay at home and have worship God as a family. God called us out to assemble together. So the house church movement is wrong, but there's nothing wrong with a church meeting in a house. You see the difference there? And so, that obviously, and there's three other times that we know churches met in a house. But the context is always a local church. Turn over to Matthew chapter 18. And I know we're using our Bibles a lot, but when I'm gonna cover a doctrinal area this important, I want it just inundated with scriptures, right? Because I don't want you to be like, well, I just want Pastor Burke believes. Now, that's what the Bible teaches, right? And Matthew 18 and verse number 17. Matthew 18 and verse number 17. The Lord's given some instruction on church discipline. And Matthew 18 and verse number 17, and if he shall neglect to hear them, the two or three that went to speak to the offender, tell it unto what? The church. But if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto these, a heathen man and a republican. The context here in Matthew 18 and verse 17 obviously is a local church. You can't do that any other way. There's no other way to handle that. God forbid, but if Brother Joshua over there is involved in a great sin and he's unrepentant and he doesn't want to turn, and we say, all right, we're going to tell it to the church, if you believe in a universal, everybody's just part of this church, how are you going to tell everybody? That's impossible. It's impossible. You can't do that. In context, when you understand what the Bible teaches about a local church, it's very simple. The disciples didn't have a problem with it either. God forbid, but if that were to happen, it's handled within our church body. and we tell it to the church. That's the proper step, right? That's what happened with Ananias and Sapphira, and you remember, the Bible says, remember when they went in, they lied to the Holy Spirit, and both of them at separate times fell down and they just dropped dead, right? Right there in front of the pastor, right? That would cause a stir, right? But that's what happened. And the Bible says, and great fear came upon, what? The church. I don't think they had any idea what was going on in Dalmatia. So when it says great fear came upon the church, what's it talking about? Obviously that church where Ananias and Sapphira were. Church of Jerusalem. It doesn't make sense in any other way. I mean churches 500 miles away, I had no idea they dropped dead. Right? So great fear came upon the church, all right? That local place, that one place. Also, I'll give you this, and we'll keep referring to it as we close the message, but the Lord gave three metaphors for his church. In Colossians 1, in verse number 18, the church is referred to as a body. In Ephesians 1, verse 20 to 22, it's referred to as a building. 2 Corinthians 11, in verse number two, it's referred to as a bride. Now those are metaphors of the church, and I understand that. All right? But a body has to be local and assembled. Don't want to be gross, but if you dismember and send these parts all over the world and country, that's not a body. That's gross. A building You can put a foundation in one place, and all the steel in another state, and all the drywall up in Michigan, and all the electric wiring down in Florida, and guess what? You don't have a building. It has to be in one place, assembled. A bride? You know, better be in one place, or else you don't have a bride. You following that? So it has to be local. Number two, it has to be visible. You can't come together and not be seen. You can't come together and not be seen. The Catholics are the one to introduce this universal church so they can have their Pope in charge of everyone, but Paul oftentimes, if you wanna jot a reference down, 1 Thessalonians chapter three and verse number 10, and there's other places, and oftentimes he said this, that he couldn't wait, these are my, you know, Travis Merck's commentary, but he couldn't wait to see their face. What's the phrase you use? To see their face. A church is a visible entity. You can't have invisible members or invisible locations with invisible officers giving invisible tithes. Amen? The words that you found in the Bible about churches is this, that tell it to the church. The church. Serve the church. The care of the church. If you can't see it, you can't do those things. You can't salute what's invisible. You can't tell it to what is invisible. And again, I go through the three metaphors. An invisible body. It makes nice sci-fi, but it's not real. An invisible building is called an empty lot. An invisible bride, they don't work. It has to be local, it has to be visible, then it has to be organized. It has to be assembled. It can't come together and be an array. Again, I gave the illustration of all the car parts are scattered all around the country, you don't have a car, right? But let's say we bring them all to one location, right outside the front door, underneath the loft there, and we dump every car part in a pile. It may be in one place and it may be visible, but it's still not a car. It's not assembled, it's not organized yet. So a church has to be organized. And that we get the pattern for a New Testament church in the New Testament. And primarily we learn a lot about it from the book of Acts and the pastoral epistles. But a church must be organized if it's going to be correct. it needs to behave itself in an orderly manner. Again, organized, I could use the same metaphors of a body, a building and a bride, but it has to have all the right ingredients and put together in order to be just that. Look at Colossians chapter number two real quick. Colossians chapter number two, just a few verses. Colossians chapter 2 and in verse number 5. Colossians 2 and in verse number 5. The Bible says this, for though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. Order. Look over at 1 Corinthians chapter 14. 1 Corinthians chapter number 14. Don't get messed up by with you in the spirit. We use the same term. When I was over in England and our boys were playing in the tournaments, and we were playing Hillsborough, and we were up in the fourth quarter against a team we hadn't beaten in three years, I was with them in spirit. I wanted to be there, I longed to be there, but I wasn't able to be there. And that's what Paul is saying exactly in that verse. But in 1 Corinthians chapter 14 and verse number 40, let all things be done decently and in what? Order. Book of Titus, few more pages to the right, book of Titus chapter number one. Titus chapter number one and in verse number five. Paul said this to Titus when he writes a letter to him. Titus 1 verse number 5, Paul left Titus in Crete to establish churches. And those churches to be established needed to have order and a pastor. They had to be called to order.