Let's come before the Lord again in prayer. Let's seek the Lord's face once more. We need His help to come to study the Word. We need the opening of the eyes by the Spirit of God to help us to discern these things today. Almighty God and our Father in heaven, we come in the name of our Lord and Savior. And we're thankful for our risen and ascended and reigning Christ. We thank you for a man in the glory. We bless you, O Lord, once seated, the work completed. We thank you, O Lord, for the great simplicity of the words, finished, it is finished. We thank you, God, for the efficacy and the power of Christ's blood, a blood that cleanses us from every sin and indeed opens a way of access whereby we can come and pray in this manner. We can come boldly, we come before Thee, Abba Father, because of the work of Your Son and our elder brother. Oh Lord, we pray that as the family of God today, we would enjoy the sweetness of fellowship with our brother. that we would enjoy the delight of worshiping Thee, the triune God. O Lord, grant us the grace, the strength, the help of the Spirit of God, that every part of our worship today would be honoring to Thee. May Christ be seen, may He be honored, may His name be lifted up, and we pray for, again, the grace that we need. O Lord, we pray for the Spirit to work in our hearts this morning, to open our eyes, to give us the grace to discern the Word of God. Dear Father, we pray that we would be submissive to Thy Word, that we would be those who are guided and directed by Christ our Head, and that we would delight again to walk in His ways. We would delight, O Lord, to hear His Word and to understand and discern His will for His church. We bless our young ones. We pray for the children, the young people downstairs. We pray, O Lord, for the young people of our church. And we ask, O Lord, again for Your blessing in their lives. Those hearts that are against Thee to be turned, turned away from sin towards righteousness. We pray, dear Father, for the youngest ones, that they would marvel at the stories of Jesus even today. That they would marvel at one who came into this world from heaven's glory, and lived and died and rose again on behalf of every sinner that would trust in Him. We pray, O God, that these simple messages will be clearly heard today and that every little one, every young person will be taught of God and may walk in fellowship with the Savior. O Lord, we are thankful for this time. We thank you for the Church of God represented here. And we ask, O Lord, that you would teach us and instruct us and bless us in the name of our Lord and Savior. Amen and amen. Well we are returning again this morning to our studies on the doctrine of the church, but really with a particular respect to the ethics of church life, church ethics. So let's turn again to Colossians chapter 1. Colossians chapter one, we certainly didn't get as far last time as I thought we would. And so we're still in the foundational matters. Before we think about the how to live, we need to understand at least in part some of the foundational principles of the doctrine of the church taught, particularly in the New Testament scriptures. So Colossians chapter one, let's read again from the verse number 12. This prayer that Paul offers from verse number nine, verse 12 says, giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints and light, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature, For by him are all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created by him and for him, and he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body of the church. who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence. Amen. May God be pleased, again, to bless his word to our hearts today. Let me remind you again that we see at the time of creation, the word of God to his first, or to our first parents, that they're to keep a day set aside for worship that itself implies the doctrine of the church. There's a lot of steps before you get to that place, but we do believe in progressive revelation. What does that mean? Well, progressive revelation means that there are things taught in seed form in the Old Testament that are progressively unveiled and unfolded into the new. But what you see in the new has origins in the old, and indeed has origins before the fall itself. And so you go back through the doctrine, we see the doctrine of the church in the New Testament, and there is a clear line drawn through the people of God in Israel, right back to our first parents, when they were told to hallow and to set aside the Sabbath day as a day of sanctity and a day of worship, corporate worship, public worship. So we're seeing in this matter of the church, this place that is the institution of God for public worship. What does God expect His people to do in the modern age? Not forsake the assembling ourselves together, but rather come together, gather together to worship the Lord's name. And so those various lines, they imply the doctrine of the church as part of God's creation ordinance. I know it's not so much a church formed in the sense we may see it now, but there is the seed form of that thought right before the fall. The idea of people gathering together to worship God in congregations and community. It's part of God's purpose for mankind. As we saw last time, that purpose is true for all of mankind. The church, in one sense, is a provision for the entirety of humanity. not just for the people of God, although again when we see, we'll see very shortly, the church is made up of God's people, but it is a provision that is to be open for all of humanity, that people can come and gather with us as we worship the name of our God. But when you come to discuss the ethics of church life, the how to live in the church, you will see that many of those principles arise out of the very doctrines themselves of what the church is, how we understand church, what is it as taught in the Word of God. And so last time we thought a little bit about the words, some of the words that are used, the English word church. We saw the derivation of that going back into the Greek New Testament regarding the word for Lord himself, kurios, the church's Christ's house, Christ's people. So that idea involved an English word, but let me go back to the Greek word itself, ekklesia, the idea of a called out assembly. A separate assembly. We'll come to think of those things in future studies. The doctrines of ecclesiastical separation. We'll look at those things later on. But when you look at the church, and we did this last time, you see the words being used differently in different contexts. So one word ecclesia, one word church in the New Testament, but it's not always used the same way. Sometimes it refers to, again, the broad church, universal, invisible, those whom Christ loves. Christ loved the church, all of Christ's people under his blood. But other times it refers to a local gathering, a visible manifestation sometimes used in the plural. So last time we began to think of this matter of church, structure. Church structure. Here I want to emphasize more importantly, I'm going to look here particularly at the matter of local church structure. So last time perhaps some of the confusion may have been to do with using the term in a broad sense. So let me specify. I'm talking about local church structure here particularly. And the local church is made up of those who are saved sinners, among whom there will be deacons and elders, all within the sphere of the church. Now, we saw last time, and I'll just mention it again very briefly, we thought about what is the place for unsaved people in the church? Do they have a place in the structure of the church? Well, yes, there are several ways in which you may see people in the church, depending how you define the terms. They come as visitors. They're welcome to join the church in the sense of gathering with us. We see that in 1 Corinthians 14, the unlearned and unbelievers, they come into the church. They join the church in that sense of gathering together. But they're not part of the church. in the sense of being part of Christ's body at that time. But yes, in one sense, you could say they're in the church. And again, there are people who, again, this is maybe not so much the case here, but it's certainly the case in other parts, there are unsaved people who say, well, that's my church. That's why I'm a member of that church. They're not a member in the strictest sense of the term, we're gonna use it now, but they do see themselves as being part of the church. We also think of those who are hypocrites in the church, The wheat and the tares, they come together, they grow together. We see them in the church, they're hard to discern sometimes, and it's not the final day. What we see in the visible church will be true also and reflect the invisible church, all those who truly know the Lord. So there are hypocrites. We also recognized last time, I think it's important, that our own church standards recognize the place of unsaved children in the visible church. Now we're quite careful, it's in the section of Book of Church Order, under the Confession of Faith, chapter 28. There is an attempt to accommodate different views of church, yet still within our own confessional standards. Most of you are aware that in our church we allow for two different views regarding baptism. Are those who advocate the baptizing of children under the covenant, if you like, under the covenant part of the church in that sense? And the others who say, no, we would only baptize those who profess faith in Christ. So how do you get that into your ecclesiology? How do you square that up in your church standards? Well, there is the recognition of some who suggest that children, in one sense, how you define the term's important, but how you define church. In one sense, children, in connection with parents, are part of the visible church. And there are those who take that further and say, well, that's a covenantal arrangement. As the children are part of the covenant in the Old Testament, so children are part of the covenant in the New. But we make an important distinction. We make it clear that children only enter communicant membership in our church when they profess faith in Christ. And that's a Baptistic policy in many ways. You join the church in communicant membership when you profess faith in Christ, but it is a determination in our presbytery to make it clear that in another sense, the church is only for those who know Christ. So you see how the terms can be used differently? The church, the body of people meet together, unsaved are welcome to join in that sense. You take another idea, well the church is going to include unsaved children. Or you take the narrowest sense, the local church is a gathering of those who name the name of Christ. And it is that latter narrow sense that I'm going to defend and prove today in the Scriptures. that the church can be used in that narrow, restrictive sense as belonging only to those who name the name of Christ and those who are born again of the Spirit of God. If you go to 1 Thessalonians 5, we'll start there. 1 Thessalonians 5. I'm going to go backwards here through the New Testament. We're going to Thessalonians, then to Philippians, and then back into the book of Acts. So 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, remember here that Paul is writing to a church. And as he writes to the church, he says in verse number 12, And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you. He's writing to the church. Paul uses these terms, and there are some important terms. So if you were reading this in your devotions and you were thinking, so what does this teach about the church? What words and what terms will help you to really determine in your mind what the Bible teaches regarding the local church? Any terms? I'll open this up to you all. What are some of the terms in that verse, in that particular verse? Yeah, Christina. Brethren's a very important one, yep. It's a family term, isn't it? Brethren. Paul does use the term brethren in Romans to define those who are his countrymen. So he does use the term in a broad sense at times to define those who are part of the Jewish nation. They were his brothers ethnically. But generally it is used in this sense for those who with one voice can say Abba Father. Can the unsaved say, Abba, Father? Can they? No, because how do we say, Abba, Father? The Spirit of God that indwells us, whereby we say, Abba, Father. And so to be part of the family of God, you've got to be born again, indwelt by the Spirit of God, whereby the Spirit of God creates this burden within your heart. You say, the Lord is my Abba, Father. The communion we have with our Father through the work of the Spirit of God. Therefore, we're brethren. So he's immediately, he's addressing here a company who share the experience visibly of Abba Father. Does that mean there are no hypocrites? No, that's not the point. But he's saying in the identifiable church, there's the confession of a common faith. I have the Spirit of God and the Lord God is my heavenly Father, Abba Father. Okay, so what else? There's more in this verse than just that term. Yeah, Paul. Okay, so in the Lord, they're over you in the Lord. Again, this sense of union. Okay, go beyond that since that's another one. Yeah, there's more. Somebody else. Yeah. So who labors among you here? What do you think this term is, laboring among you in the Lord? Yeah, the over you refers to a sense of authority. It's a ruling term, the idea of authority over you. So it implies, it's a very important term, these brethren are part of an organized structure Among whom are those who have particular tasks of laboring and are over you. Now you work that through in various portions, you go to Timothy, you go to Acts, we'll see that, you get the sense. What here is, this is a term for eldership. It's a term for those who have the role over you in the Lord. So they themselves are saved men, and as saved men they labor among you, and they're over you in the Lord, and their duty is to admonish you. They have that task of spiritual admonishment, of pointing you in the direction, even at times giving words of rebuke and counsel for your spiritual well-being. Okay, so you get the implied structure of church in this important verse. Brethren, among whom there are those who have authority, and implied in that authority is what? A voluntary submission. It's not a coerced submission. Part of the church is a voluntary recognition that there are those who are over me in the Lord and I voluntarily submit to know them and to be under their care and their rule. It's all implied in this verse, very important verse in terms of the New Testament teaching of the church. And then go back to Philippians chapter one. Philippians chapter one. Verse number one, Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus, which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons. It's another important text. It gives us some implied information regarding the doctrine of the church. So what does this teach? What are some things this teaches regarding the church in this text? The same general idea. Any thoughts? What are the words, what are the important words in this one? Okay, saints is there. Okay, so this is a very important word. You know how the word has been misused by the Roman Catholic Church over the years and it's caused some confusion. It refers to those holy ones, those who are set apart. It's a term for those who again know the Spirit of God, this common experience of the Spirit of God whereby they cry, Abba, Father, and they know this in their hearts. They're the saints. They're in Christ Jesus. They're at Philippi. These are terms. What are you? I'm a saint. I'm in union with Christ. I'm in Malvern. That's a term for the church. What do you mean by church? It's a gathering of people who've been spawned again by the Spirit of God, brought into union with Christ Jesus, and in so doing they gather in a local place, Philippi or Malvern or wherever. What else to say? What else? There's more. There's other things regarding the doctrine. Dan, I am leading you down that road with mouths of forethought. Absolutely, absolutely. You're absolutely right. And it is a deliberate thing, because I want you to see there's a consistency here. So this is Thessalonica and Philippi. And yeah, I want you to see that there's a structure assumed in the New Testament regarding church life. And it involves people. Saints here together, and they are in a place, but there are bishops, in that term, bishops, elders, pastors, these are their co-equal terms, I'm not proving that today, but they're co-equal terms, but there are those in the church, hence the picture on the screen, saved sinners, saints, along with bishops and elders, but in a circle of experience, they are at a certain place, a location. Philippi, or Malvern, or wherever. Okay, so that's that one, and then let's go back to the book of Acts. Okay, so does this, does the implication from the, and again, we could look at Corinthians, we could look at other verses as well, but I'm just conscious of time. You go back to the book of Acts, Acts chapter two, does what we see in the church epistles in Acts, does that, or in the New Testament, sorry, does that reflect what we see in the book of Acts? Well, of course it does. Acts chapter two and the verse 44, Here's the description of those who have been born again by the Spirit of God under the preaching of Peter and the Epiphanticos, verse 42, and they continued steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers. And then verse number 44, and all that believed were together and had all things common. Verse 47, praising God and having favored all the people, and the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved. The church is a group to which people can be added. And how are they added? What to say? How are they added? Through salvation, I hear people whispering, but through salvation. They're added through the work of God's grace, whereby they're saved, and in so doing, they are brought into the sphere of the church. That's the sphere, the picture here. So in a real sense, people are not born part of the church. There is a necessity of a supernatural experience of salvation to bring them into the church, to be saved. These are people, again, Jewish people who are part of the Old Covenant. So say they're part of the Old Covenant church, but yet they're added to the New Testament church through the experience of salvation. They are brought into the church through this experience of salvation. But it's a company that can be numbered. They give approximation numbers, 5,000, 3,000. That's not a point, they've numbered them individually, but the idea is, oh thereabouts, there's this approximate number of people who were converted at this point, and they've been added to the church. It's an identifiable company, a group of people. Look at chapter 4, verse 4. You'll see that. Chapter 4, verse 4. And the number of the men was about 5,000. And the important principle here is the 5,000 are defined as those who have believed the Word. These are believers who've been added and therefore they're part of this numbered company. An identifiable, countable group. Chapter 5, verse number 14. This is after the events of Ananias and Sapphira and the fear that comes living under the fear of God. Verse 11, and great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things, the reference of the church, and then verse 14, and believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women. See that term? Now that's a term that many who have a low view of the church are content with. I don't need to be part of a church I'm part of the Lord's church. I'm part of the Lord's body. I'm the Lord. It doesn't matter what church I'm part of. But, look at the previous verse. And without any distinction, there's a clear parallel between joining themselves to them, that is the church in Jerusalem, and those who are added to the Lord. The terms are used interchangeably. To be joined to the Lord is to join the church. And if people are part of the Lord and deliberately stay away from part of the church, they are living inconsistently in light of this testimony. The testimony is, you're part of the Lord, you're part of His body. Part of His body, you'll be part of a local manifestation of that body in a local New Testament church. Chapter 14. Chapter 14, the verse number 23, I'm just giving you a sample here. These are kind of historical principles we see in the foundational years of the New Testament Church, Acts 14. And the verse number 23, this is the return, the first missionary journey, they're returning back to Antioch. They've done their tour, they're on their way back again. And what do they do? And when they had ordained them elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord on whom they believed." And the language here, the sense of language is that they were ordaining elders out of these churches. There's a company that can be identified. You know, the apostles could go to a place and say, I can see the church right now. They can witness, they can identify. It's not this invisible company. It's a visible company that the apostles could stand before and say, right, we must appoint elders out of this company. And so they're appointed as elders out of the church. But notice again the corresponding language, on whom they believed. A group of saved sinners, out of whom come these men who are appointed as elders. Then chapter 14 and the verse number 27, now they're back in Antioch, they've done their tour, they've appointed elders in the other churches. And when they were come and had gathered the church together, this is Antioch. It was possible to go around the church directory and say, we're going to meet together now. They knew who to go to. Then you had to find them and say, right, you're part of the church. You're part of those who've been born again in the spirit of God. We're going to gather together. And they would know, I'm not going to miss this one or that one. I know who they are. And they come together and they're gathered together. And then this is the rehearsing of all that God had done for them in their missionary journey. And then chapter 15 and the verse number 22, this is a reference to the Jerusalem church now. So you know the story here, there's trouble, those of the circumcision are causing disputes among the churches regarding the necessity of circumcision. They come to a council in Jerusalem, we'll come back to this later on discussing church associations and presbyteries. But then you have here in verse number 22, then it pleased the apostles and elders with the whole church to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. You see the church again that can be identified. And the whole church were consenting to this decision to send Paul and Barnabas and to use them for the furtherance of the kingdom and for the smoothing of the waters with division and dispute amongst other churches. There's a company here, a company of people that can be identified. So keep that in mind. You think back to Philippians chapter one, How does the Terms of Philippians 1 make sense now? Saints with the bishops and deacons. At this point, it's not our remit right now to consider this, but you'll see an absence here of any reference to apostles or prophets. This is the established stable church going forward. It's even more clear when you get the first and second Timothy and the later letters of Paul regarding church conduct under pastoral oversight. So simply showing you that in Philippi or in Corinth or in Thessalonica, the church was not some vague undefinable group, but a numerically identifiable body of those who shared faith in Christ Jesus by the power of the spirit of God. Born again, come to believe in Christ, joining together under overseers, elders, alongside the helping office of the diaconate. Hope that carries your conscience, and that's part of the structure of the New Testament church. But that's not all, because in the New Testament, we see that these churches, there's more than one. So there are different churches. What you see in one place, you see echoed also. So what you see in Corinth, you see in Philippi, you see in Thessalonica, the same thing is repeated. And those churches, they are not strictly independent, but interdependent. The apostles can go from one to one, and their expectation is that the apostolic word received by one is received by the other. They share apostolic traditions. We saw the head covering. No other custom in any other churches. We share these things that mark our churches. There's interdependence. That they share in deliberations of false doctrine in Acts chapter 15. That they share in missionary endeavors. That they share financially. They share in the support of the Jerusalem churches. And people can go around and collect offerings from all of those churches. There's interdependence. along with a sense of independence. Those two things come together. In some circles, they overemphasize one of those. The interdependence can be overemphasized. And so you get like an Episcopalian model where you've one bishop overseeing multiple churches. Or you get a strict independent model where a church exists in an island without any interaction with any other church around them. Both of those do disservice to the Christian testimony. We are not isolated. We share fellowship and communion with other churches of like precious faith, but we also understand our own independence. We determine here to meet at a certain time on a certain Lord's Day. Those are things that we make independent decisions regarding without any influence from any higher body. And so over all of this, we see Christ as the head. That's the one I finished with this morning. It is the headship of Christ over each individual local church. Now, I understand this picture could be drawn differently. I could have Christ the head over all the churches, and I'm implying that. But we're looking at local church structure. And my argument is very simple. If Christ is the head of the church universal, then he is also the head of every local church. That's the argument. So accepting his universal headship over all of his church implies, to my mind, his headship over a local church fellowship. So let's think about this matter of Christ, the sole head of the church. I'm gonna be very quick here. Those of you who know your church history will understand this was a very important matter of controversy in the time of the Reformation. Who is the head of the church? And there's a clear division. There were divisions, of course, with the Reformation regarding many things. But the authority of the papacy was high up the list of those divisive issues. What role did the Pope have over the church? And it was the argument of the reformers, the Protestant reformers, that Christ is the sole head and king of the church. And there was the strong assertion by the Protestant Reformers that the Roman Catholic Church, in putting the Pope into his role, had usurped the place of Christ on this earth. I say, he's simply the vicar of Christ. He's doing Christ's role on the earth. But we affirm no other head but Christ over his church. No head but the Lord Jesus. And that itself helps us define the very nature of our oversight in the church. And the reference, of course, is Colossians chapter 1. We read together there. Colossians chapter 1 and the verse number 18. And he is the head of the body of the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence Now what you saw in the development of Roman Catholic theology was the Pope taking to himself powers on earth that belong to Christ alone. Powers of salvation. Powers of doctrine. Church traditions with equal authority to the scriptures. And so now it's not simply calling someone here, it's someone who's taking the role of Christ on the earth. Thus saith the Lord, pronouncements ex cathedra that could not be challenged. New doctrines being established under the guise of the papacy and its authority as Christ's vicar on earth. Well, rightly the reformer said, no, nay, never. We assert that Christ alone is the head of the church and therefore Christ must be the head of every local church body. That's the argument. But what sort of head is he? Well, he's a loving head. Our Savior is not a tyrant. He's a head that loves his church. Back to Ephesians chapter 5. You have the reference in Ephesians chapter 5 to Christ's headship over the church. Verse number 23. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church. And it's assumed that in the image of marriage and Christ's headship, that it's a loving matter. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church. And what does that love look like? Verse 29, no man ever yet hated his own flesh. What's love look like? But nourisheth and cherisheth it even as the Lord the church. He's a loving head. Again, we are very wrong if we present Christ's headship over the church, perhaps to our young people as one of a dictatorial reign. You've got to do what the Lord says. And we put it in such a way that it is of oppression and bondage and not freedom. The Lord's headship is a loving headship whereby we are nourished and cherished by Christ in His church. We're fed by Christ. We know His grace. He is a loving and a kind and a gentle head, meek and lowly in heart. He's also the leading head. The leading head, this implies direction. Headship does imply direction. That's the whole purpose. You take, again, Ephesians chapter five, in the verse number 22, wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands as unto the Lord. Submission implies authority, rightful authority, and therefore the rightful authority belongs to Christ and his church. The church is to submit to his direction and his headship. But how does he do this? How does the Lord lead his church? We've got a few minutes so quickly if you answer quickly. How does the Lord lead his church? Daniel. Yeah, he used the word. He used the word to direct our actions. You're dealing with church ethics? All ethics imply the headship of Christ. Church ethics no less. It's what Christ says regarding his church that matters. And he does so through under-shepherds. Christ, the good, the great, the chief shepherd. Pastors are under-shepherds. You see, when we understand Christ as the head of the church, That means that any authority invested in an accession, a teaching elder, a ruling elder, any authority possessed by those men is a delegated authority. And their task is to declare the word of Christ, not to rule according to their own preferences. And so you see, again, tragically, in the last number of years, we've seen many churches collapse and fall apart because of men who asserted their headship over their church, failing to remember that their headship is under Christ the head, and their task is simply to declare his will for the church, not their own will. Sometimes it's hard to distinguish. I think when I was younger, I thought it's easy. The older I get, the more stuck in my ways I get, the more clear I am I'm right in what I believe, and therefore I presume that everybody else should think the same way. I can see now in a way I couldn't have seen 15 years ago, I can see in a way now that perhaps in 20 years I could be a dangerous person, but by the grace of God. You need to watch yourselves at all times, as those who rule, as elders in this place, that we understand that our authority over the church, we are over people in the Lord, and our task is to declare Christ's will for the church. But He does use us. He used the teaching office of the church to lead and direct and to guide. It's a leading headship, it certainly is. It's also very finally and very quickly a life-giving headship. Ephesians chapter four and the verse 15, Ephesians 4 verse 15, But speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body fitly joined together. The body is joined together in a living organic unity. The head and the body and the headship of Christ is a life-giving spiritual headship. Christ is the vital energy. You know, we think today of, again, every Lord's Day, we think of Christ as the risen head of the church. You remember that in Colossians 1? He's the head of the body of the church, the firstborn from the dead. As the risen and exalted Christ, His headship is over the church, and that headship is a life-giving headship. We'll see it tonight, Lord willing. There is power that flows from our head to the body, enabling the body to live vitally as unto the Lord's. It's a life-giving headship. No pope can do that. Only Christ can give life to His church. Christ, the only soul, head, and King of the church, giving life to the body, enabling the fingers and the toes and the mouth to speak His words through the power of the Spirit of God. That is the glory of the church unto the risen and ascended Christ, the soul, head, and King of the church. Very important primary doctrine has such an impact upon the doctrine of church ethics. In turn, how do we live in the church? How does this foundational principle so impact our living in the church? Well, if this is true, the church will live in glad submission and happy dependence upon its head. We'll understand that it cannot live Without the living nature of Christ's headship and consecration to him, submission to him, these things flow out of that. We think of our headship, Christ our head, and therefore Christ the head of the body. It teaches the importance of church unity, church dependence upon one another, practical prayerful help. All these things, they flow out of the simple truth that we are part of one body under Christ our head. And again, I go back to the argument for today. That which we assert to be true universally is also therefore true locally here. One head, one body, several members living in cooperation and unity, one with the other for the good of the body, for the helping of all members, that in all things Christ may have the preeminence. And so from this starting point, It flows out many lines of thought regarding the matter of how we live in our church. That's right. Yeah, so Don's mentioning the nature of Christ's deity, and you look at the wholeness of Christ in the scriptures. As God, he has the right to declare the word. As Messiah, He's given the office to declare the Word. And as the risen Messiah, He's proven by the Father that the seal is upon Him. He's the Son of God with power, authority is given to Him as the risen and ascended Christ. And all of that comes, well, who else is going to rule the church? The one who is the Lord Jesus Christ, God, Savior, Messiah, and our friend. He's our head, and praise God for that. Yeah, so we will come, Reeves asking the question about, well, they added the church, did they keep records, and what happens to those who attend? I would say our view of local church polity in the modern age is far removed from the assumptions in New Testament Christianity. I don't think they would even have the thought or the concepts that we have regarding this matter. The concepts we have put in are necessary because of the declension regarding church understanding. Okay, so maybe to answer your questions then, did they keep records? I believe so, they could count them. They knew who was part of the church. They could gather the church together. They could call around, if you like, and say, you know, not literally, of course, no telephones, but you get the idea of calling around and saying, right, we're going to gather together. So they had identifiable records. And the only place we really see visitors coming to the church is 1 Corinthians 14. And they're unlearned and unbelievers. And so we will see, I don't know when we'll get to, we'll see when we come to church membership and the ethics of church membership, we will see that church membership is assumed, never commanded. There's no part of the scripture where I can turn to you and say, you must join a church. It is a necessary assumption from the doctrine of the church. That's why I started here. Because I can't turn you, I can't say, look, well, let's look up Maccabees chapter four and say, we'll see here, there's a text that refers to church membership. It's assumed that when people are saved, they join themselves to other believers under the authority of local church life. Now, there are particular complications regarding that in certain areas. And again, we can work through all of that going forward, but that is the basic assumption of New Testament scriptures. So we'll get there. So yes, they kept records and absolutely, it was assumed that if you're a believer, you're part of the church. All right, we better finish. Let's pray. Eternal God and our Father in heaven, we thank you again for your blessing upon us. We thank you for the Word of God that guides and directs our thoughts. We praise your name, O Lord, for the grace that has brought us together as a company of the redeemed in this place. We are the saints with the elders, the bishops and deacons in Melbourne. And we praise our blessed Redeemer, that they died and rose again, that this church could be brought into existence for our spiritual education and for the preeminence of the glory of Christ in this world. We pray this church will be vibrant and useful that we be faithful and sound and strong. And so grant us grace, bless the remainder of our services today. May they also hallow and glorify our Redeemer. We do pray in his precious name. Amen and amen.