Good morning. Whoa, that's loud. Woo. Let me check the woofers. All right. We'll figure it out. There, that sounds a little better. We headed up to 11 on that one. All right, well, we're going to continue this morning in our Sunday school hour to talk about church issues. Maybe we should have started here to define what is the church. And that may sound kind of basic. It may sound sort of pedantic, but I think it's important because of the way that church is defined oftentimes in modern context, how some people view the church. It's important that we have a biblical view of what the church is and what the church is designed to accomplish. So when we think about when people talk about church in our modern English vocabulary, we'll talk about it as a place of meeting. We go to the church. Now there's nothing wrong with that, but the fact is the church isn't brick and mortar. We are not in a church. We are in a school building, and yet we are very much a church, right? So it's kind of come into our vocabulary as a place of meeting. Number two is where we are going to be. It's a local organization of believers, that the church is a local body. And some of you heard me talk on it before, but number three is a universal body of believers, and there is very much a universal church. We have brothers and sisters in Christ all over the globe, but the fact is you're not going to meet 99% of them this side of eternity. So you can't do ministry with those people. Now you can pray with them in a general sense. You may know missionaries in certain places that can give you information so you can more effectively pray for those people, but the fact is you're not going to be doing ministry side by side with most of the Christians in the world. You're not going to even know their names. You're not going to know their faces. That's the beauty of heaven. We're going to be all together there. But to view church simply as a universal or an invisible entity, it's not very helpful in the practical Christian life. It exists, but when you read the New Testament, and I'll point out some things as we go, the New Testament speaks of the church as a local body. There are 114 references to the word that is translated church in the New Testament. Five of those are not involved with the church, so 109 of those are left. Other than four or five verses, which you might be able to apply to the universal church, over 100 of them are applying to the local church, because that's the entity that God has designed. So if we are to exhibit and use our spiritual gifts for the edification of the body, Our spiritual gifts are probably not, your spiritual gift of service is not edifying the church in China. It's edifying the church here at Freedom because you are applying that gift in this context. So it's always in that local context. You know, I'm very much a local church guy, but that's what the New Testament talks about. The fourth way people will talk about is a particular denomination. You'll have a Lutheran church or a Methodist church or a Again, I know what people are talking about, but again, when we're talking about a biblical view of church, it's not along denominational lines. That's not how it's viewed. Not that all denominations are bad. Not that the motivation behind some of that stuff isn't noble, but that's not what it's talking about. So, kind of building on that, what the church is not. It's not a physical structure. It is an assembly of born-again believers. I'll give you a definition here in a second that I really like. It's not a national organization. I think you don't have to look very far to look around even those national denominations and whatnot that are more conservative that we would line up with much more in a biblical sense in terms of what beliefs are. Even in those organizations, there's a lot of chaos right now. There's a lot of confusion right now. There's a lot of conflict right now. And it's not a particular denomination. If you ever run into somebody that says our church is the only church, go the other way. That's not a good statement unless they're talking about the Bible-believing church under Jesus Christ. The one church is a bad thing. That's a cult-like thing to talk about, and so that's not what it is. So what is the church then? Well, here's Elmer Towne's definition, and I think it's very good. He defines it as the local church is a body of baptized believers in whom Christ dwells under the discipline of the Word of God, organized for the purposes of worship, evangelism, education, and fellowship, observing the ordinances, and reflecting the spiritual gifts. So in one sentence, I think that covers everything we need in terms of defining what a local church is. Baptized believers assumes agreement on the principal issue of our faith. What is that? That God, in His great mercy, sent His Son to testify to the truth, to die on the cross in our place, paying the debt for our sins, satisfying the justice of God the Father. On the third day, he rose again. Forty days later, he ascended to heaven, and he sits at the right hand of the Father, and he will return and rule and reign on this earth one day in his holy kingdom. That's what we believe. That's what binds us together. In whom Christ dwells assumes the presence of the Holy Spirit within every believer. We've talked about that in Galatians. That's the seal of our saving faith. It's the guarantee of our eternity. And then very importantly, we are under the discipline of the Word of God. The Word is our standard and we are beholden to it above all else. We'll hit these things as we go forward with some of these things that we're doing in formulating everything, but we have a set of bylaws. We have bylaws that we want to observe and I'm probably jumping the gun a little bit here because we're going to talk about this at some point, but we have in our bylaws the idea of elders that we want to have more lay elders on the board than vocational elders on the board. So if we call an associate pastor at this point, it would be 2-2. Well, we want to get to 3-2 because that's what the bylaws are, but we're not going to put number three in the spot if they're not qualified yet because the Word of God trumps the bylaws. We are trying to get to that point, and we are committed to get to that point, but if we don't have a qualified number three yet, then we're not going to force the issue because the bylaws say it. Our bylaws are man-made. We hope they're good. We hope they're based on the Word of God, but they came from man, and that's fallible. We want to live by the Word of God, and the Word of God gives us very clear definitions of what an elder is supposed to be. The whole point behind that is that the Bible is not just a book. It's not just a textbook. It's not just something we learn from or teach from. Dwight Moody said the Bible was not given to increase our knowledge, but to change our lives. We order our lives by that standard. We are under the discipline of that Word of God. Well, where do we get the word church from? You guys know I like to dive into the etymology a little bit. But where do we get it from? Well, it's from a Greek word. Kyriakon is the Greek word. It means belonging to the Lord. It doesn't even mean a building. It doesn't even mean that. It's describing a situation, something that is belonging to the Lord. The interesting thing is when we read the New Testament, it's not found in the context in the New Testament. We don't find curiacone describing the church in the New Testament, but it was used in the early church to define the place where believers met together. This was a place that was kuriakon. It was a place that belonged to God and it was a people that belonged to God. And so it started to be used to describe the place and the people and be applied to that assembly. So the church was a gathering of God's people in an open and visible assembly. It was people saying, we are followers of Christ, we are worshiping together, this is why we gather. And so that's where we get these other words. Our English word, church, comes from that. The Scottish word, kirk, is where we get church from. And then, of course, you've got the German, kirke. It's the same idea. It's all the same etymology from that word. That's where church comes from. There are other words that describe assemblies, and I want to go through these a little bit to make sure we clear up any misunderstandings. In the Hebrew, there are two words that describe an assembly of the Israelites. One is kahal or kahel. We see it many times, but here's an example, Numbers 14, 5. Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces in the presence of all the assembly of the congregation of the sons of Israel. And then the second word is Eda. It means almost the same thing. Exodus 16-2, the whole congregation of the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And really, in this verse, it's really interesting because it's the Kahal of the Eda. So they're both in that sentence. Both of these words basically just mean an assembly. Neither one is a technical term. So nobody in Israel would have said, we're going to the First Baptist Cahal. We wouldn't have called it that. It wasn't viewed that way. It just meant a group of people coming together for a specific purpose. And it didn't have to even be a religious function. It was a group of people that came together. So the assembly of the congregation of Israel, we know all those Israelites were not believers. There was a mixed multitude in the wilderness. A lot of them were plagued with unbelief and doubt and everything else. Some of them were even actively rebelling against Moses, but they were still part of the assembly because it was a group of people. When we get to the New Testament, the Greek word is ekklesia. And we see this used in place of church, or it's translated as church much of the time. 1 Timothy 3.15, I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church, the ecclesia of the living God, the pillar and the support of truth. We see it in individual places. Acts 20.17, from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called to him the elders of the church, specifically the church at Ephesus. That word is a compound word. Ek means out of and kaleo is to call. So called out is what ekklesia means. Again, 114 times in the New Testament. But here's the thing. When you're in an assembly, you've got to make sure you're in the right assembly. you could be part of a lot of different assemblies. And I want to show you an example of that. Well, before we go, look at this. Look how we define it. The church of what? Of the living God. This is the assembly of the living God. These are people who are under the living God, who believe in the living God, who worship the living God. Look at how it's used in Acts 19. You'll remember when Paul goes into Ephesus, and he starts a riot by preaching the gospel. So what it says, when they heard this, they were filled with rage. This is the crowd. And they began crying out, saying, great is Artemis of the Ephesians. The city was filled with the confusion, and they rushed with one accord into the theater. So then some were shouting one thing and some another, for the ecclesia was in confusion, and the majority did not know for what reason they had come together. So this assembly is a riot. This assembly is what you turn on the news and see people burning down storefronts. That is an ecclesia. You don't want to be part of that ecclesia. It is still an assembly of people. They have a common cause, theoretically. They're committed to the same actions. But if your assembly is not the assembly of the living God, you're in the wrong assembly. Bad company corrupts good morals, right? That's not the place you want to be. And so when we talk about ekklesia, I just bring that up because there are some misinterpretations that are made in terms of ekklesia. because people say, well, Ecclesia means church. Well, understand that Ecclesia does not mean church. It's translated as church, but the reason why it's translated as church is because in the context, it's describing an assembly of people that are coming to worship Jesus Christ. So the defining characteristics of your assembly mean everything. So there are a lot of people that assemble on a Sunday morning who are not worshiping Jesus Christ. I remember years ago I read an article, didn't think about this as a little bit of a tangent, so forgive my rabbit trail, but several years, this is probably a decade ago, I read an article about in Europe, which is further down the line than the US is in terms of a post-Christian sort of society, that one thing they have in Europe now is a lot of abandoned churches. church buildings that no longer function as church buildings. We see that here, too. Apparently it's everywhere in Europe, which was the center of Christendom for so long. But there are many abandoned churches. And it was a very interesting article because what had started to happen was that on given days of the week, and in many cases on Sundays, these atheistic groups were renting out the old churches to gather together. And you know what they would do? They would sing music together. and they would do sort of a life lesson sort of thing. They would do financial things. They would do, this is how you live your life more productively, that kind of thing. And if it was, it's such a picture of, you know, and they quoted somebody in the article and, you know, paraphrasing the guy said, well, we all have something in common and it feels good to be together in community. And you're like, man, there's some truth here that you're not paying attention to. You're gathering in a church building, that's what it was designed for, that building was designed for, because we have this yearning for community. The fact is, most of us are not hermits. Most people don't, maybe more today with the internet and all that, but most people aren't hermits. Most people are assembling in some sort of group with commonalities, because we desire that community. And so the question is, what assembly are you part of? Make sure you're in the right assembly. And when we look at an ecclesia, The qualifications in the Greek mind for an ekklesia would be these. Let's see if it'll go. I just hit the button and nothing happened. Somebody could advance that slide for me. If it's not frozen, that would be nice. I'll just read it, if not. But the qualifications of an ekklesia are, one, it is local. You can't be assembled with people you're not in close proximity with. Number two, it's autonomous. That assembly exists within itself, makes decisions for itself. So the local church will be autonomous, we'll apply that there. There are qualifications to be part of an assembly. So if your assembly is the Boy Scouts, there are qualifications to be that. They've lessened over the years. Apparently you don't even have to be a boy anymore to be in the Boy Scouts. But it used to be there were certain qualifications to be within a certain group. It's the same idea with the church. And then four, democratic. The idea is that it is not a hierarchical structure in worth. People have equal rights within the assembly. It doesn't mean there aren't leadership positions, but it means everybody has a voice in the assembly. When we read the first three chapters of Revelation, Jesus is speaking to local churches in that region. Now, local churches may have interaction. They may have fellowship with other bodies in some circumstances, but they are a local church. They function as an autonomous body, and that's the mechanism by which God has chosen to preach the gospel to the world. So, next question. When did the church begin? When did the church begin? And this is more controversial than we might think. And I think it has implications if we misinterpret this idea. But when did the church begin? And I'll tell you where this kind of comes into confusion. When we read Acts 7.38, if you have a NASB, it says this. This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness together with the angel who was speaking to him on Mount Sinai and who was with our fathers, and he received living oracles to pass on to you. This is Stephen's sermon in Acts 7, and he's giving the Jewish authorities there kind of a history lesson and talking about their unbelief in the wilderness, but he calls the group congregation. Well, in the Greek, That's translated Ekklesia. It's Ekklesia. So this is where it's really important that we have to understand that Ekklesia means assembly. It doesn't mean church unless it's in context. So the Ekklesia in the wilderness. Well, the King James translates this, this is he that was in the church in the wilderness. Because the translator saw Ekklesia and they translated that as church. Now, when was the King James Bible written? 1611 and many other times after that, by the way. Everybody that has 1611 on their sign is not reading out of a 1611 King James Bible, just so we're clear on that. They're using a later rendition, but that's a whole different conversation. But because this says church, that reflects a theological bent to say that the church has always existed. That the church has been around from the beginning. We called it Israel in the Old Testament, we call it the church in the New Testament. Now, I would call that replacement theology. We don't believe in replacement theology. Now, the people that believe that really don't like it when you call it replacement theology. I guess they'll just have to deal with it. They would use other terms to describe that, to kind of nuance it. But if the church existed for all time, then the church is not a new thing in the Old Testament. It's something that represents God's people forever. And I just disagree with that interpretation. So we need to make sure we're clear on this. In the Septuagint, where it's used, remember the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures, there are assemblies of godly people, there are assemblies of wicked people. It can be religious, it can be political, it can be military, it can be national, it can be ethnic. And so, to make this connection, because this is kind of what we have to do, is we go back to the Old Testament, because in the Old Testament, ekklesia is used in place of kahal and edah. And so they go, oh, look, church and church. Well, here's why that doesn't work. And I don't want to get too technical, but here's why it doesn't work. The Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures was written in the second, third century B.C. So 200 years, 300 years before Christ ever came, this translation was written by committed Jewish people. So did those committed Jews, 300 years before Christ, put church into the Old Testament? Does that make sense? They didn't do that. They were using the word they understood to mean assembly, because kohol and ekklesia line up very well, and they translated it that way. Later on, we read the New Testament, and people said, well, ekklesia means church, and so they used ekklesia in the Septuagint, so there must have been a church in the Old Testament. It's really bad hermeneutics. It's a really bad way to put that argument together. Because what we read in the New Testament that Paul says in Ephesians chapter 5 about the church is that it is a mystery. What's a mystery? A mystery is something that before that was unknown, and it was uncovered and revealed, and now we have seen it. That's the church. The church is a mystery that was revealed after the resurrection of Christ, after the ascension of Christ, at the coming of the Spirit. So the Ekklesia of God. And here's a question. How many times is the church mentioned in the Gospels? Anybody know? It's three times, but it's only two verses. The first one is Matthew 16, 18. Remember when he has the conversation with Peter up there at Caesarea Philippi? And he says, the gates of Hades will not prevail against the church. That's the first time. The second time is Matthew 18, 17. Remember when he says, if you go one-on-one, it's our church discipline passage, and the person doesn't repent, you take someone else, and if they do not repent then, then you take them before the church. and that the ekklesia. So those are the only two times in the Gospels that it's used. If the church had been in existence for all time, do you think Jesus might have used that terminology more to describe God's people? He doesn't use it. Then we get to Acts. and it explodes. And the beginning of the church, I would argue, coincides with the giving of the Holy Spirit in Acts chapter two. The Holy Spirit is given to empower the church. That's what it's for. Now, this is a whole different conversation. By the way, Tongues of Fire, we'll talk a little bit about this in a couple weeks. The Spirit has everything to do with our salvation. We are indwelt with the Spirit. We are given the Spirit when we believe. That changes everything about us. It regenerates us. It sanctifies us. It leads us into truth. He, sorry, not it, He. But the fact is it acts too. When that Spirit falls in that room with those 70 people, are those 70 people getting saved on that day? They're all believers already now. as they preach the gospel and believers receive the spirit they are regenerated they're born again don't hear what i'm not saying that the equipping of the holy spirit is for the church to go preach the gospel in hostile situations that's they are filled with boldness you know what why do we have a different peter from running from the courtyard when the rooster crows to ax to the holy spirit the boldness that he gets and so i think that's what we can see because look we see an ax to So then those who had received his word were baptized, and that day there were added about 3,000 souls." Added to what? There must be an entity here. They were added to the body of Christ. They were added to the believers in Jerusalem. And what did those groups do? What were that organization doing? They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching, and to fellowship, and to the breaking bread, and to prayer. What defined that ecclesia? Well, they were baptized believers, they continually devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, they were in fellowship with one another, they ate together, they broke bread together, they practiced the ordinances of the Lord's Supper together, and they were devoted to prayer together. That defines the ecclesia. That's important. Day by day, in verse 46, continuing with one mind in the temple, what's that? The unity of the ecclesia. I've got a slide on that in a minute. We are devoted to the same things. We are all different people, we bring different gifts, we have different backgrounds, but we are devoted to the same things. At breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people, and the Lord was adding to their number. Their number, what number? The Ekklesia, the Ekklesia of the living God. Day by day, those who were being saved. What's the qualification to be in this Ekklesia? You gotta be saved. You've got to believe. You've got to be regenerated by the Spirit. Do you see the community, the sense of membership, the sense of fellowship, the commitment to biblical doctrine, the commitment to discipleship? And where did it happen? Wherever they met. Not in the church building for an hour on Sunday. But everywhere they met, including the temple. But it happened from house to house. It happened around tables. Time and commitment to one another built on the truth of God's Word resulted in accountability, discipleship, personal growth. If we are committed to the principles of the Word, then those things will necessarily follow. And look down here, the world took notice of this. They were so different, they were so committed to one another, the way that they loved one another, the way that they served one another, the world took notice. And you know what happened because of that? Some unbelievers became believers. Because they wanted to see what was different about this group. It's the ultimate church growth model on display. And it's not, you know, it's not real complicated. Preach the word, make the disciples, love like Christ, be above reproach. That's church growth model. That's what you do. It's not marketing. It's not those things, it's doing these simple things. All right, let's turn over to Ephesians chapter four. This will kind of be our core text for what the church is supposed to be doing. Ephesians 4, 11, and he gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers. Those are all gifts to the church. Why does he give those gifts? Verse 12, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a mature man to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. And we'll expand on those parts in just a second. But you see, that's the idea, that God gives apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastor-teachers, in order to equip the church, in order to edify the church. So why does the church exist? I think we can get three E's out of this verse. I like it when I can alliterate. Why does the church exist? Number one, exaltation. And who are we exalting? We are exalting God. Not ourselves, not our institution, but God. It exists for edification of the saints, the building up, the equipping of the saints. We could even put equipping along with edification there. And then evangelism for sinners. Now, you know, when I say sinners there, I don't imply that we are no longer sinners. That's just an easy way to make a dichotomy there with saints and sinners. Those who have believed and those who have yet to believe. So one, exaltation. Kind of goes without saying. Romans 11, 36, for from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen. And then Ephesians 3, 21 gets right to our context. To him be the glory in the church, in the ecclesia, and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. The Lord is here to be exalted. He is worthy. He alone is worthy. And so that's why we sing. That's why we worship. That's why we preach his word. Not to move quickly through that, but I think hopefully we're all in agreement on that. That's one thing we can be totally unified on. Two, edification. So what does edification look like in the church? It's where we get our word edifice from. It's building. It's building up. It's positive. And so what activities and directives lead to edification? Well, it starts with teaching and preaching. That's ground zero. The pulpit is ground zero for this edification. But if we just do that, we're missing big parts of what this church life is all about. Again, I usually say, I hope you come on Sunday mornings. I hope you learn something. I hope it's interesting. I hope you're not falling asleep. But if that's all you're doing is taking in a lecture on theology, then you can do that on YouTube. That's not church. We also baptize believers. We encourage one another. We disciple one another. We know one another. We're in one another's lives. We're meeting house to house and table to table. Those things are happening. And so we can strengthen one another. We can also admonish someone. If I want to speak into your life in a sense that, hey, I've noticed this, and this is something you need to work on. Well, if I'm just some Joe off the street, how open are you to that advice? There has to be a relationship built for that to happen. The parallel I always use from my coaching days is, I can yell and scream all day long. I can Bob Knight it as well as anybody. Chairs can fly and everything. I'm not saying I've done it, I'm not saying I have. I will neither confirm nor deny that that has ever happened in a basketball practice. I've gone through some clipboards in my day, but I could do that all day long and I might be able to affect the behavior I'm looking for. I might be able to, by fear, get somebody to do what I want them to do. But that's not how we do church. There has to be, and so the other person, and I think this worked, this was my philosophy with basketball players too, they've got to know that I care about them so when I get on them, they know it's for their best. If all I do is yell and scream and tell them how worthless they are, then why would they be open to any advice? This guy hates me. He doesn't care about me. He's just caring about this or that or the other thing. And so that investment happens. So we've got to disciple in order to strengthen and admonish. That relationship has to be there. That commitment to one another has to be there. And so the results and objectives are a unity of mind and soul. We believe the same things. We have an understanding of the gospel across the board. You know, it's why I've asked so many men, you know, let's stretch ourselves. Let's go teach a lesson to the kids in the children's church. Well, I've never done that before. Okay. Everybody that's ever done it at one point had never done it before. You know how you figure out where your spiritual gifts are? You serve. That's the only way to figure out spiritual gifts. And sometimes you'll do something and go, okay, somebody else is gonna be better equipped at this than I am. But that's how you figure it out, and it's all about service, it's putting yourself out there. And so if we're unified in that, if we are all teachers in a way, at different levels, even with our children or grandchildren, then we're doing the right thing. Edification, we're building up the body, and we want to be mature. That's what Paul says there. in Ephesians 4. Some translations will translate that mature word as perfect. It doesn't mean perfect like we think perfect. It means perfect as in maturity. It means we are striving to maturity and understanding and living in a godly way. Number three is evangelism. And evangelism starts in the same way. It starts with teaching and preaching. It's proclaiming the gospel. It's testifying the truth. It's also loving and modeling behavior. I think evangelism is far more difficult now than it used to be. and not that it was ever an easy thing to do, but in many ways, if we just, I mean, I'm not talking about first century stuff, we know that was difficult in the Roman Empire, but for many of us, witnessing to somebody 30, 40 years ago is very different than witnessing to somebody today, right? Because most of the people that you interacted with 30 or 40 years ago at least had a Judeo-Christian foundation. Even if they weren't believers, they knew a little bit about the church. Most people would have still at least admitted to some sort of existence of God, whatever form that may have taken, but the morality was basically the same. I mean, if you think about how quickly some of these social issues have taken off or gone downhill. Right? I mean, it was in 2008. Remember the presidential election in 2008? The Democratic presidential nominee that year was Barack Obama. And he said in 2008, definitively, that he believed that marriage was between one man and one woman. That was 14 years ago. Where has that gone in 14 years? If you say that now, you're canceled, you're done, you'll never be able to speak publicly again because you're a horrible bigot. That's 14 years. Things are moving that fast. And the fact is, so now, we are in sort of a post-truth world. So now that Judeo-Christian foundation is missing from a lot of people, especially the younger generation, and so the way you're gonna evangelize is much different than it was before. The other side of that is people don't want to talk to you anymore. If you've noticed anything in the world today, dialogue is now discouraged. I would rather just shout you down with my opinion and not share. Right? And it used to be, and some of you probably grew up in churches like this, I didn't, but that you would go door-to-door and share the gospel. Right? That if you didn't go to Tuesday night visitation, you were probably in sin. Right? One of those kind of things. Well, how hard is it nowadays to go door-to-door and knock on doors and share the gospel? I mean, people have cameras on their doorbell so they don't have to answer the door anymore. Right? If somebody comes and knocks on your door, people don't even open the door anymore, let alone have a conversation with you. Now we can debate how well that was a methodology and how to bring the gospel to people, okay? Because a lot of that was accompanied with, well, if you pray this prayer right now, then you can go to heaven. And they go, okay, well, I'll pray it and get you off my doorstep, okay? That happened a lot too. But even if you wanted to do it, I think that's a difficult way to do evangelism today because people aren't willing to talk. And so we have new challenges on how to evangelize. And so it has to happen. And by the way, evangelism, we could do evangelism classes all day long. But if individuals are not willing to have those conversations with other individuals, then evangelism doesn't happen. So what I think the role of the church is, is to equip its members to do evangelism. That's the idea, that you have the knowledge and the acumen and the application that you can take that into the conversations that you're gonna have with other people. Not, here's a card, read step one, step two, step three, step four, and that person will get saved. That's not how we do evangelism. It means you are equipped to do those things. It means in the very same, how about this, bring it home a little bit, it's the same idea where you are now equipped when your son, daughter, grandson, granddaughter comes to you and says, what's the gospel? Well, now I'm equipped to evangelize my children in my home. What does it mean that Jesus was the Son of God? Now I'm equipped to answer that question. It's the same thing. Don't think evangelism is just knocking on doors and talking to strangers. This is something that's got to happen in a lot of aspects of your life. And I've taught on this before, too. I know, you know, we sit up here and you go, well, that's really easy for you to say. You're a preacher. I work in a business that it says I can't speak about those things. I get that. And I'm not telling you to go get in a soapbox in the middle of your workplace and start preaching the gospel. You'll probably be fired that day. But what do you need to do? It goes back to this idea that we live a life in such a way that the world takes notice and that people ask questions. When people ask questions, the doors open. And how does that happen? Individually. So can you witness at your workplace? Yes, you can. But it has to happen on these individual bases. And how does that happen? Because I've built credibility by living my life aligned to biblical principles. And when you do that, you stick out like a sore thumb. And evangelism opportunities come. So evangelism is not a formal program. And I'm not against all evangelism programs. They're not all created equal, by the way, if you've ever read through some of those. Some are better than others. And that can use a certain guidance for you. But if all you have is a cookie cutter presentation of the gospel, I don't know that that works in the world anymore. I think you need to be nuanced and you need to be able to approach different people in different ways. Their backgrounds are going to drive what you talk about and how you talk about it. A local church has a common lifestyle. What is that lifestyle? Pleasing God. That our lifestyle is pleasing God. We have a common destiny. We are all going to the same place if you're in Christ. We have eternity together. The goal is spiritual maturity. We want to become more like Christ. I know the Spirit does that, but He uses fellow believers to sharpen, to edify, to encourage, to admonish. Our experience is the same. We share a common salvation. Some of us didn't come by works and others came by faith. No, we all came by faith alone in Jesus Christ. I always like to say, no matter where you came from, no matter what your background is, no matter what the age you were when you came to Christ, the moment you came to Christ, we all have the same testimony. We were once dead, now we're alive. We were once lost, now we're found. Once blind, now we see. That's our testimony now. We all have the same Holy Spirit, not to different degrees. The same Holy Spirit saves to the uttermost. Now, we have different degrees of giftings in that Spirit, but we don't have differing levels of the Spirit. That some people are looking for a second blessing of the Spirit so they can become more holy. That's taught in some circles. That's not what happens. If you are in Christ, you have the Holy Spirit. We have the same enemy. Satan is that enemy. We have the same mission is to make disciples. That's the great commission that is given to all. Matthew 28, and we have the same master. We serve the same king. Here's another church definition by Ed Hayes. He says, We worship, we care for one another, we witness to the world. And at the same time, and I'm running short on time, we have different gifts. Look over quickly to 1 Corinthians 12. Just like there is no cookie cutter approach to sharing the gospel, there is no cookie cutter Christian. I was talking to somebody about baseball the other day and In the 70s, they built these stadiums in several places. They built them in Philadelphia, in Pittsburgh, in Cincinnati, in St. Louis. So you could go to Veterans Stadium, you could go to Three River Stadium, you could go to Riverfront Stadium, you could go to Bush Stadium, and it was the same stadium. It was the, they were all round, they were all AstroTurf, they were all multi-purpose. They all were like running on concrete. They all got to be about 115 degrees in the summertime, if you ever sat down on the field. And it was the same field. It was this cookie cutter idea. And after a while, people started going, yeah, these are kind of ugly stadiums. They're kind of boring. There's not a lot of nuance to it. If you've been to one, you've been to another. I think there's a parallel there. We're not all to be the same. It would be awful boring if we were. 1 Corinthians 12, 14, here's Paul's metaphor. For the body is not one member but many. If the foot says, because I am not a hand, I am not a part of the body, it is not for the reason any less a part of the body. And if the ear says, because I am not an eye, I am not part of the body, it is not for this reason any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as he desired. If they were all one member, where would the body be? But now there are many members, but one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, or again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. On the contrary, it is much truer that the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary, and those members of the body which we deem less honorable, on these we bestow more abundant honor, and our less presentable members become much more presentable, whereas our more presentable members have no need of it. But God has so composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that member which lacked, so that there be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another." See, the unity, the fellowship, and the care. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. If one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. So diversity and unity. Identifying, exercising, and affirming gifts within the body for the edification of the body. All for the glory of God and preferring others over ourselves. That's the approach. Think of the other metaphors that we often see in Scripture. 1 Corinthians 3.16. Do you not know that you are a temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you? Now, if you read Corinthians, he uses that temple metaphor both for the church corporately and for the believer individually. You are the temple of the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit dwells within you. But in chapter 3, he talks about the church. The church is the temple of God and the Spirit dwells in all of us. What was the temple in Jerusalem? It was the place where God dwelt. It was His throne room. It was where the glory of God was. Where does the glory of God dwell in the New Testament? In the church. Not in a replacement way. We'll talk more about that in the future. Not in that sense, but in the same way. The church is now the Holy of Holies because the Spirit of God is here. It's where the presence of the Lord dwells. Here's the point. God dwells where his people are. Why is the tabernacle in the wilderness? Because his people are in the wilderness. That's where God dwells. Here's another metaphor. Ephesians 5, for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ also is the head of the church, he himself being the savior of the body. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her. This mystery, as I said earlier, is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. We understand this metaphor, right? Marriage love is particular. It's exclusive. It is only given to the one that is in the marriage covenant from the other one that is in the marriage covenant. It's till death do us part. And here's the good thing. If you are in the marriage supper of the Lamb, you're not going to die. There is no parting. So only in reference to Christ here, we will not die. And so his marriage, love for his bride, is eternal. And that's what we see in Revelation 19. Who's that bride? It's the church. It's the church. And the church's job is to be ready for the return of the bridegroom, to make herself beautiful, to make herself clean and blameless and attractive. That's what we're trying to do and the Spirit is driving us to that holiness so that we will be prepared when our Savior comes to get us. So I'm going to drop off there. But I want us to understand that we're not gonna mean the same thing that a lot of people mean when they say we're going to church. We do more than go to church. Church is not two hours on a Sunday. And if you think church is two hours on a Sunday, spend some more time here, you'll see it's not. But that's not what we wanna be. It's not a gym membership, it's not a book club. This is much more than the hours that we spend here. We preach and teach in these hours. We sing, we worship in these hours. I'm not saying these two hours aren't important, but if that's all that church is, you're missing what scripture is telling us about this body of Christ that is so intimately connected. That's what we're driving to, and it's not easy, and we gotta get out of comfort zones, but that's the vision for the church, not that we have, but that God has given us in his word. Let me pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for this time this morning. I pray you would prepare our hearts and minds for worship, for your word, for the truth that only you can give us. May you be glorified. May you be exalted today, Lord. May your word edify your people. May it inspire us to bring that word to those that don't know in a world that's fallen and needs your gospel. And we just pray your hand would be upon it all. In Jesus' name, amen.