A wonderful message, the greatest story ever told. Amen. Let's take our Bibles this evening and begin tonight in the book of Hebrews, chapter number 10. And tonight we'll be starting a short series on the church covenant. And there's not a passage that we're going to turn to where it talks about the early churches writing a church covenant. But I want to start here in Heroes 10. Look at verses 23 through verse number 25. If you would stand with me for the reading of God's word and if anyone needs a copy of the church covenant, we do have copies, Brother Bill has a copy of that. So if you did not receive one, raise your hand, he'll get one to you. Everyone has a copy? All right, Hebrews chapter number 10, verse number 23. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for he is faithful that promised. And let us consider one another to provoke and to love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the blessing it is that we have to gather together this evening to sing these songs about the birth of Christ and his coming. The first time, Lord, to live the life he did, to take upon himself the sins of the world, to die on the cross in our place. Lord, where he was buried and rose again. Father, where he ascended up on high and where he now makes intercession for us and where we wait for him to return from there to receive us unto himself. And we are grateful for the salvation that he's provided. Father, I pray that you'll bless our time together this evening as we look at the subject of the church covenant and introduce that this evening. We thank you, Father, for the blessing it is to be a part of a scriptural New Testament church. Lord, help us to see the obligations that we have, the responsibilities that we have as members of this body. Father, we would grow in love for one another and grow in our love for you. And Father, we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. Here in our introductory text, the writer of Hebrews tells us that we are to consider one another. to provoke and to love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as a matter of some is, but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching. He speaks here of obligations that we have for one another. We can look tonight at all of the one another passages and we may do that as part of this. It will be included as part of this series. There's many passages throughout the New Testament that speak of our responsibilities to one another. And the church covenant is the place where we have that written down. Not everything is not there. Not all of our responsibilities are there, but it is a good guide for us. When we consider what is a covenant, Webster defines a covenant as a mutual consent or agreement of two or more persons to do or to forbear some act or thing, a contract, a stipulation. He says a covenant is created by deed and writing, sealed and executed, or may be implied in the contract. I recently saw a video of a Christian of some sort, a YouTube commentator, has a variety of things that he does on his channel. I don't know much about him. I just saw this one video that he did. He grew up not in a Baptist church, he grew up in a Christian under biblical teaching, grew up in a church that we would call evangelical. And he was for a point in his life had actually, because of what took place in the church that he was attending, he had left, he says he became an atheist. He had gone to seminary, and he was studying to be in the ministry, and it was after that that something happened in his church, and he just kind of had a falling out with God, and he says he basically became an atheist, and then came back to the Lord after that. But he says he was visiting someone, he was visiting a Baptist pastor, a friend of his that he was gonna interview for a show, not really knowing much about Baptist churches. And in this church on the side of the auditorium, they had a church covenant, a Baptist church covenant. Not exactly what you have, but probably more what's in the back of the hymnal. had that hanging up in the auditorium, he said, well, what's this poster over here on your wall? And so they went over there and looked at that, and he started reading through that, and he was blown away by what it said. He said, if our church would have had this, and if our members of that church would have held to this, that whole fiasco of my life that drove me away from the Lord for so many years, he said, that would have never have happened. if we would have had this and if the members would have actually followed it. Consider covenants in the Bible. The word is used over 300 times in the Bible, or just right at 300 times. It's first mentioned in Genesis 6, verse 18, when God made a covenant with Noah prior to the flood. He told Noah, but with thee will I establish my covenant, and thou shalt come into the ark, thou and thy sons and thy wife and thy sons' wives with thee. So he made a promise to Noah, I'm going to destroy the world, but I'm going to save you. I'm going to save your family. After the flood in Genesis 9, he established a covenant not just with Noah, but with all mankind. In Genesis 9, verse number 9, he says, And I will establish my covenant with you, and neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood, neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. And God said, this is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you for perpetual generations. I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth, and it shall come to pass when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud and I will remember my covenant which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh and the water shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh and the bow shall be in the cloud and I will look upon it that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, this is the token of the covenant which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth. So he made this covenant not just with humans, not just to mankind, but he says with all flesh. With all the animals, every creature coming out of the ark, I make a covenant with them as well. He says this is the token of the covenant, a sign of the covenant is the rainbow. And that description there, that token of a covenant, we see other times in the scripture where when a covenant was made, something was used to remind those that were in the covenant that you made this promise. When David Livingston was in Africa, many of the African tribes, they would make covenants with one another. When they did, they would make a cutting on the arm to show that we are in covenant with you or in covenant with your tribe. And when David Livingston approached a hostile tribe in his journeys, which he came upon many, it was said that he had I don't know exactly how many scars on his arms. All the way up his arm, he'd just pull up his sleeve and lift it up and show them. I wanna let you know how many covenants I have with the tribes throughout this region. You better be very careful how you treat me. And it was a sign that others would say, you know what, he's got all these other tribes that have made agreements with him, have made covenants with him. We better be careful. We better not kill him. We better not eat him because we don't know what all those slash marks on his arm. We don't know who all that represents. But it was a sign, a symbol. We have the Abrahamic Covenant in the Bible. We had the Davidic Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant, the Palestinian Covenant. Look over to Hebrews 8. We have the New Covenant described here. It's described many places in the Bible. But Hebrews 8, verses 8 through 13, we have the Old Covenant. in the New Covenant, the Old Testament and the New Testament described for us here in Hebrews 8 and verse number 8. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws into their mind and write them in their hearts. And I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people. And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord. For all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. In that he saith a new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away. So he describes there the new covenant that he was going to make. So God makes covenant with men. And men made covenants with themselves. We see this with Abraham and Abimelech in Genesis 21, verses 27 through 32. when there was an issue over wells being dug and whether they belong to Abraham or whether they belong to Abimelech. And when they made a covenant between themselves in Genesis 21, verse 27, It says that Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them unto Abimelech, and both of them made a covenant. And Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock by themselves. And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What mean these seven ewe lambs which thou set by themselves? And he said, For these seven ewe lambs thou shalt thou take of my hand, that they may be a witness unto me that I have digged this well. He was telling him, listen, every time you see these lambs, every time you see when they grow up, whenever you eat of their babies that are born and their flock grows and you got dressed up in their wool, every time you're doing anything related to these sheep, you'll be reminded that this well belongs to me. We made a covenant here. It was a sign, a token of that covenant. In verse number 32, it says, Thus they made a covenant at Beersheba. In verse number 44, it says, Now therefore, sorry, in Genesis 31, verse 44, we have a covenant made between Jacob and Laban. And so they make a covenant. And the token of that covenant was a big pile of stones. That was a witness between them that they'd made this covenant, that the terms of the covenant they would keep whenever they saw this, they would be reminded about that covenant. And in verse number 50, it says that God is a witness of this covenant. God's a witness between me and you. And when churches have, like that one church had a covenant hanging up in their auditorium or we have them in the back of our hymnals. That's meant to be a sign of a covenant. It's a reminder, hey, there's that covenant. I made a covenant. When I joined this church, I made a covenant as a member. Again, not all churches have church covenants. Very few non-Baptist churches have church covenants. It's mainly a Baptist, well, it started off as a Baptist practice, and then there have been some churches that have adopted that, other churches. But is it wrong to make a covenant? There are some that would say, well, it's wrong. You should never agree to a church covenant. Well, these passages that we just read show that it's not wrong to make a covenant. But we need to understand the seriousness of it. Look over at Ecclesiastes 5. If you go to Ecclesiastes 5, verses 3, through six, it is a serious thing when we make a covenant with another person, and probably the greatest covenants that we make in life is, first of all, your marriage covenant. There aren't any ifs in the marriage covenant, and there aren't any ifs in the church covenant. It's a sacred covenant that we have. In Ecclesiastes 5, verse number 3, it says, For a dream cometh through the multitude of business, and a fool's voice is known by a multitude of words. When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it, for he hath no pleasure in fools. Pay that which thou hast vowed. Better is it that thou shouldst not vow, So when we enter into a covenant, when we use our words and make promises, we need to understand it's a serious business. There is a danger in some churches when they have a church covenant that they hold up the church covenant higher than the Bible. The church covenant is not higher than the Bible. If you notice that you look through there, that wasn't taken out of the Bible. It's a piece of paper written by man. It has no authority over the Word of God. But the principle is in there. we find in the Bible, and that is the foundation of the church covenant. Think about where did the idea of a church covenant come from? Is it found in the Bible? Is there a scriptural mandate for it? There's no scriptural mandate, no passage of scripture that says when a church is formed, you must write out a church covenant. There isn't anything like that. But it is implied in different aspects that we see in the Scriptures. This concept is implied. A church is a called out assembly. As membership, so if there's gonna be membership in a body that implies some stipulations, implies some necessities to be put into place, it implies that there's gonna be an honoring of the doctrine of a church. When you join a church to know this is what the church believes, and I believe that. And I'm gonna honor what this body believes. I'm gonna honor what this body practices. I'm gonna honor that. And so there's that understanding when someone becomes a member of a church. The Bible is our foundation. It's not any man-made covenant. It's not any book. But the principles found in the word of God, that is what's expressed in our church covenants, what's expressed in our covenant of faith, our articles of faith. The history of the church covenant as we know it, first came about 200 years ago in 1827. The Baptists in New Hampshire wanted to distance themselves from the Philadelphia Baptist Confession, which was Calvinistic in informing the churches that held to the Philadelphia Association were Calvinistic. And so they wanted to distance themselves from that. And so the churches in New Hampshire put together a Confession of Faith, the New Hampshire Confession of Faith. There's quite a few churches today that will use that as their Confession of Faith, as their Articles of Faith. J. M. Pendleton, and in that Confession of Faith was this Baptist Church Covenant written in there. J. M. Pendleton incorporated it into his Baptist Church Manual, which was published in 1869. It was published in a Baptist encyclopedia in the 1930s. or I'm sorry, the 1830s, not 1930s, 1830s. And so about 200 years ago is when the form that we have it, when it came about. Edward Gardner, his book, The Church That Jesus Built, says there's two reasons for a church covenant. It tells us what members should be and what members should do. So what you should be and what you should do in the context of the Bible. So again, a church is a local assembly of believers. They've made a covenant together to be a church. It's founded upon the Word of God. They come to worship God. They come to carry out the Great Commission. One person defined the church as a visible, local, independent, organized congregation composed of baptized believers associated and united together in the belief of what Christ has said and covenanting to do what he has commanded. And that is essentially what a church is. A church is not just any gathering of believers. So, well, two or three are gathered together, then that's a church. Well, that's not what Jesus said. In fact, look over to Matthew 18. In the context there, he's speaking to that first church which he established. He's dealing with the issue of church discipline beginning in verse 15. Well, I should say offenses, beginning in verse number 15. Church discipline comes into the picture as he progresses through that. But in verse number 15, down through verse number 20, he says, Moreover, if thou, brother, shalt trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou hast gained that brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church. But if he shall neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican. Verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. He's speaking here, the ye there is plural. He's speaking there to the members of that first church. He's speaking to the church. Verse number 19, again, I say unto you that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. That phrase there, in my name, is important. It speaks of Christ's authority. This isn't just a gathering together as Christians. Here are two or three that are gathered together. They have assembled together by the authority of Christ. What's Christ talking about here? He's talking about church context here. Gathered together in my name speaks of authority. When we baptize in Matthew 28 in the Great Commission, We have the authority. Jesus said in verse 18, all power is given unto me, that speaks about authority. All authority, all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, Christ gave authority to the church. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. When he says baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, there's a lot of false teaching today about that. They'll say that shows us there in the name. It doesn't say in the names of the Father and Son and the Holy Ghost. So there's just one name. What's that name? That name is Jesus Christ. There's not a trinity. Jesus is the Father. Jesus is the Holy Spirit. Jesus is the Son. He just kind of shows himself as different things. That's not what Jesus is saying here. When he says baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, he's speaking about authority. When a deputy pulls you over, And he says, and he gives you a ticket. You can't say, well, you're just a deputy. You don't have any authority to give me a ticket. He'd say, I do have the authority because the sheriff made me a deputy and I'm here on behalf of the sheriff. I'm here in the name of the law. I'm giving you this ticket. Or you're running away. They pull out their gun. They'll say, stop in the name of the law. They're not saying, stop, I'm Jason Jones, you need to stop because who I am. Who he is personally, he has no authority personally, but as a law enforcement officer, he has authority. And so you stop in the name of the law or in the name of the sheriff, however they want to term that, the authority is there. And when Christ gave us the commission, he gave us authority. And we were baptizing in the authority of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. People will say, well, if you haven't been baptized in the name of Jesus, then you haven't been baptized. That's not what Jesus is saying here. It's speaking about the authority here. And Christ started the church during his earthly ministry. In Matthew 16, verse 18, he says, Thou art Peter and upon this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. He is the authority. He's given the church authority. And when two or three gather in his name, it's speaking of a church assembly. A church assembly can be small, it can be two or three. But just two or three or 10 or 20 or 5,000 Christians gathering together to sing and to hear preaching does not make a church. There has to be the authority there, which comes from the Word of God, which comes through teaching we're not going to get into this evening, but when they're gathered in his name. So there's authority there as a church. Christ started his church. Why did he start it? Was it just because he felt like it? No, because we needed it. And it was his plan by which the gospel would be spread throughout the whole world. And if Christ built it, there are Christians today that say that church membership isn't all that important. If Christ built the church, then it's important. If Christ, in Ephesians 5 verse 25, Paul says that Christ loved the church and gave himself for it, if he gave himself for the church, then it's important. And not to be a member, not to be a faithful member. And with Scriptural New Testament church, you're seeing that what Christ did and what Christ thought really doesn't matter. He had his priorities all wrong. It's really not that important. My ideas, my leisure, my being able to stay home and just enjoy not having any accountability, that's more important than what Christ said. Church membership is important. He is the head of the church, and he promised perpetuity to it when he said that the gates of hell would not prevail against it. He gave us a great commission, gave us the ordinance of baptism, the Lord's Supper. There's authority in his churches. And when we unite with a New Testament church, we have the opportunity to be part of the most important work ever committed to man. And that's not something that's to be taken lightly. That's why membership in a church obligates us to live our lives for the glory of God and we are presenting ourselves to him to be used by him through the church. So a church covenant is just a recognition of the authority that Christ has and the responsibility that we have as being members of a church and how God's gonna use us in that way. It is voluntary. Church Covenant is a voluntary agreement. If you don't agree with it, you don't need to be a member of the church. There have been people that have come here that have read the Church Covenant, and there's just a few things in there they say, well, I don't know about that. That's fine. It's voluntary. You don't have to become a member. Well, I want to be a member. I want to just cross it out. We don't cross the things out. There's no line item vetoes in this. You don't have to join. You don't have to be a member. You're welcome to be a visitor. You're welcome to come and hear the preaching, but understand the responsibility that there is, how important church membership is. And that covenant is to is an emphasis to ourselves personally, how important church membership is. And it's a, it's a means that members promise to conduct their lives in such a way as to glorify God and, and promote the ongoing work of the Lord's Church. And a general outline of the covenant It speaks about our salvation, our baptism, the knowledge that God is leading me here. God's directing me to become a member of this church. It speaks about the duties to the church. It speaks about the duties in our own personal Christian living. It speaks about our duties to fellow members. It talks about all those things. So what does a church covenant provide for us? We'll read through here in just a bit. But what does a church covenant provide? One thing it provides, it provides a ground for unity. Those who are members of the church must agree not only with the doctrinal statement, but also with the standards set out for membership, what's expected of the membership, standards set out for service, and the church covenant spells those duties out. while there's still a lot of flexibility in there and how things are carried out. And people ought to be taught that they have responsibilities towards the church, they have responsibilities towards their brothers and sisters in Christ within the church and shown that with membership. There's responsibilities, there's duties to accomplish, so it provides a ground for the unity in a church, that this is the direction we're going, this is what we desire, and all of us can look at that and say, this is what's expected. Number two, it also provides a guide for teaching and discipleship. There's a lot of things in that church covenant that a lot of Christians today have no idea are even issues. There are some Christians out there, professed Christians, they make a profession of faith that they have no, in their mind, there's actually nothing wrong with living with someone before you get married. I mean, it's foreign to them that you would ever talk about fornication because a lot of the I think this came up maybe, I don't know if it was in our meetings, we were talking about the Constitution, we talked about some of the terminology, how in a lot of doctrinal statements, they'll take out the word fornication, they'll put in immorality. Well, what's immorality? Because what some people call immoral, someone else might say that's not immoral, that's amoral, morality has nothing to do with it, or it's moral. So there's things in here where it helps. It's a guide for teaching and discipleship. We have a responsibility to see members grow to maturity in Christ. We see that in Ephesians 4. to all come in the unity of the faith and to the measure, the stature, the fullness of Christ. That's our responsibility to see each other come to that point. And the church covenant can be a guide for teaching and discipleship. It's not just a responsibility of the pastor. It's the responsibility of the church members, one another helping another. So we could have a goal toward which the church can work to seeing how members grow and become more Christ-like and have these areas where they may have no idea at all that it's even an issue. One thing that comes up, and I'm not even sure if it's in this list or not, in article number three of the church constitution, just a quick look down through there. We may have, I'm not sure if it was in there before or not, but I'm not sure if it even talks about tattoos. It might not even say anything about tattoos in there. I'll say something about tattoos when we get to it, not through that section. But there are believers today that, I mean, tattoos, it's just a popular thing to do. It's no different from, you know, wearing red tennis shoes, if red tennis shoes aren't a style. But the Bible is clear about marking our bodies and that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. But I know a preacher who, and I mentioned him before, he preached here before, that was saved when he went to his grandparents' church when he was ten years old. Soon after that, his dad pretty much forbade him to or any of his family to go to church, kept him out of church, taught him to be rebellious, introduced him to pornography, introduced him to drugs, introduced him to, you know, when he came home and the teacher said, you know, to play in the band, you can't have long hair, and he says, you go back to that teacher, you tell him you don't have to obey them, you're not gonna cut your hair, you're gonna have your hair however you wanna wear it, because they have no authority over you, and you go tell them that you're gonna be a rebel. And that's what he was taught. And his situation with his parents were awful. Basically, he's got his parents and his step parents were both his parents at one time. Basically, his parents just swapped wives, swapped spouses. And he grew up like that. And so for years, he was away from the Lord. But throughout all those years, the Lord was dealing with him, bringing people into his life, bringing conviction to him. He got into the Navy. Tattoos was normal. He had tattoos. And after he came back to the Lord, he was in a church and he was gonna get another tattoo of his daughter's name on his back. And another church member said, do you know the Bible talks about tattoos? And the church covenant talked about tattoos. He said, where does it talk about tattoos? So they turn to the Bible in Deuteronomy or Leviticus and show those areas. And he said, you know what, I never knew that. I'm not getting a tattoo anymore. It was a means of just, this is what the Bible says. And the church covenant is one means of helping provide a guide for teaching and discipleship. Because there are some of those things in there that people just really have no clue about. It also provides a gauge for discipline. Church discipline is not common today in churches. It's painful. We don't like church discipline, but it is a responsibility that we have. But people can't be faulted if they don't know, you know, if there are things that they just think is normal, and they've never been taught any differently, and they just, maybe they're needing to mature in some areas, they just don't know any differently. Whose fault is it? When we have a church covenant, we can say, listen, you've read this covenant, you've agreed to that, it says right here very clearly about some things that you're going to be doing in your life, or not going to be doing in your life, and you're violating that. You're flaunting that, and it needs to change, it needs to stop. It's a gauge for discipline. When someone's disciplined, it should not come as a shock to them. that this is happening. But oftentimes, with some, it almost seems like a shock. A church member is not a consumer. We're covenant members of this body. You're not a consumer. You don't come here expecting, well, as a church member, here's a list of all the things. Here's my grocery list of things. These are all the things that I expect to get when I come here. You're not a consumer. You're a member of this body. You don't come here with a grocery list of what your needs are. So often people call up a church and they're looking for, you would think they're looking for a good church to come to to hear God's word preached, to fellowship, to grow in God's word, but they're not because they have their lists. These are some things that we need. One of them needs to have a youth program with a certain number of kids in the youth program. That's their criteria. We had a one lady call here. And one of the things on her list was the playground. And then the playground that we, you know, we put that rubber mulch stuff, whatever that whatever product that is out there, she found out about that. And, and she went on about a 15 minute lecture about that product. Well, that was on her that was on her grocery list. And we weren't going to take out all that mulch just because she wanted to come visit us. But uh, We're not consumers here. This is the Lord's body. We're members here. Do we expect things from church? We do expect some things, but as a member of a body, we're also in a place of service. to our brothers and sisters in Christ. We're here for a purpose. God's gifted us for a purpose to meet the needs of the body. And we're coming here as gifted members of this body to provide what the body needs. And other members, we understand, have gifts and needs that they're there for me. And they're going to be providing things for me. Some of them may just be a smack upside the head saying, hey, wake up here. You know, those that have the gift of smacking people upside the head, getting them to wake up and see some things wrong in their life, that gets an exhortation, that might be exactly what you need that you're going to receive. It's not going to be maybe a warm, fuzzy feeling in your heart. It might just be a painful reminder that you need to walk the straight and narrow path and that brother or sister reminds you of that when you come. but you're also there to give back to the church body what God has gifted you with. So church covenant can define our agenda, gives us direction, it deserves our attention. How often have you read through the church covenant or even thought about it since you've been a member? It ought to determine our actions. There's a lot of great things about the church covenant and if you have a copy of it, Before you, we'll just read through this this evening. We'll finish up this evening reading through this and then as we go further into the series, we'll paragraph by paragraph and spend some time going through these things and why we haven't even had them in here. A lot of these paragraphs we could follow with parentheses and have verses in there. But we don't. We just have these statements. But as I teach through it, we will look at the scriptural purpose behind what's said here. So paragraph one, having been led as we believe by the Spirit of God to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior and on profession of our faith, having been baptized in the name of our Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, we do now in the presence of God and this assembly, most solemnly and joyfully enter into covenant with one another as one body in Christ. And that there defines it as a Baptist church. And that's why a lot of non-baptist churches, they don't have the church covenant because that first paragraph there says that that congregation is one body in Christ, that they are the body of Christ. Paragraph number two, we engage, therefore, by the aid of the Holy Spirit. That word engaged there is important, and we'll deal with that. We're promising to do something. We're going to walk a certain path, go down a certain course. We engage, therefore, by the aid of the Holy Spirit to walk together in Christian love, to strive for the advancement of this church in knowledge, holiness, and comfort. to promote its prosperity and spirituality, to sustain its worship, ordinances, discipline, and doctrines, to give it a sacred preeminence over all institutions of human origin, and to contribute cheerfully and regularly to the support of the ministry, the expenses of the Church, the relief of the poor, and the spreading of the gospel through all nations. We also engage to maintain family and personal devotions, to bring up our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord, to educate our children in the truth of God's word, to seek the salvation of our families. acquaintances, and all others, to walk circumspectly in the world, to be just in our dealings, faithful in our engagements, and exemplary in our deportment, to strive to live a separated life, holy and acceptable unto God, and to be zealous in our service for the Lord. As we are the light of the world and salt of the earth, we will seek divine aid to enable us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, to avoid such sins of the tongue as backbiting, anger, and gossip, and to abstain from and oppose all conduct that undermines or upholds the high biblical standards of Christian morality, such as those involving drugs, alcohol, tobacco, gambling, pornography, sexual sins, worldly and sensual entertainment and activities, associations with oath-bound secret societies, and other such things that could compromise our Christian testimony, give an appearance of evil, or bring dishonor to our Lord. We further engage to watch over one another in brotherly love, to remember each other in prayer, to aid each other in sickness and distress, to cultivate Christian sympathy and feeling and courtesy of speech, to be slow to take offense, but always ready to secure reconciliation without delay. We moreover engage that when we remove from this place, we will as soon as possible unite with some other New Testament church of like faith and practice. We can carry out the spirit of this covenant and the principles of God's word. It's a very clear direction in there. But again, not just a list of do's and don'ts. Paragraph three does have a list of things that we're going to strive to abstain from. But that's not everything. It speaks about anything that could compromise our Christian testimony or give an appearance of evil or bring dishonor to the Lord. There's a whole lot of things that aren't in this paragraph that fall under that. And as we consider that, when a brother or sister comes up to us and says, listen, I've noticed that you've been involved in this, and it's bringing dishonor to the Lord. There's an appearance there of evil. You might not be doing anything wrong, but it sure appears so. Listen, it's your responsibility to respond to that. You've made a covenant to do so. You've made a covenant to live a life that's honoring the Lord and is a light to the world. the world. So as we go through this in future weeks, we'll just go paragraph by paragraph, some spending more time on some of these things, such as in paragraph three, we'll spend many messages dealing with specific things going through there. But what a privilege it is to be a member of a local New Testament church, a scriptural church. But with that comes obligations and responsibilities. And that's laid out for us there in the Church Covenant. And we'll look at the scriptural principles behind this as we continue. So we'll finish there for this evening. I would encourage you to memorize that. Memorize the Church Covenant. Maybe by the end of our series, try to have it memorized. And it'll be a blessing to you and a blessing to others.