But anyway, turn with me to 1 Peter chapter 2, and read a few verses of scripture before we pray. We missed out on our review week, which was what was scheduled for last week, and we're just going to go ahead and plow ahead because we need to keep moving to stay on schedule, and we'll just have to do an extra good review at the end of October, Lord willing. Actually, we'll do a review on October 23rd, and then October 30th, there'll be a week off. We'll still have church, but it won't be a week of advancing in the study. We'll have missions night. Since it's a fifth Wednesday, we don't have anything planned on the fifth Wednesday. So fifth Wednesday, we can do different things. And so this time we're going to do that. Anyway, 1 Peter chapter 2, a few verses from that second chapter, starting with verse 4, "...and coming to him as to a living stone, which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also as living stones are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." Skipping down to verse 9, But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. For once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. You had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our Father, we praise and honor you tonight and worship you. You're worthy of our adoration, our affection, our obedience, our lives. We thank you, Lord, that you reign over all, and so that even as we talk about and hear about so many people that are struggling and dealing with the after effects of the storm, people still missing, unaccounted for, we pray for those that are working to rescue, those who are working to provide necessary services, water, food to people that are in dire straits, bless them. We pray that in every circumstance, Lord, that you would be drawing people to yourself. As we see how frail life is, Lord, that's one of the ways you open up the heart to the gospel. Pray that many people would be saved and that others who know you would grow in faith and also be shining lights in this time. We pray you'd help us as life brings us unexpected things to be faithful, to fulfill our calling, to be a temple, spiritual temple, and also a people for your possession to proclaim your excellencies to a lost world. Be with us tonight as we study, as we continue to work out our studies, help us and help us to grow in our love for Jesus. We pray in his name, amen. Okay, so tonight we are, it's chapter three, section one, understanding biblical church leadership, the purpose of the church. And so just kind of keep, I want us to keep remembering the goals of the study. First goal, to help every person deepen his or her understanding of what it means to be a member of a local church. This is a key part of this study. What does it mean to be a member of the church? How's the church supposed to affect our lives? How are we as Christians to honor God in the church? Secondly, then to equip every person to be a more effective witness for Christ and also a builder of the church. As we, you know, to be more effective, by knowing the word, knowing theology, growing in godly character, then we can be more effective builders of the church and witnesses to the lost. Remember, this is the schedule, the first to third Wednesday, 60 minutes, large group Q&A, follows teaching, and the fourth Wednesday, mentor group, memory work. So we're on the first Wednesday, which means we're dealing with 60 minutes of teaching, 15 minutes of questions, but we're talking tonight about section one of the chapter. understanding biblical church leadership. So every month we start off looking at the church and church leadership. That's kind of that component of this study that really emphasizes the place of the church in our lives. Next week we'll look at deepening knowledge for church leadership, Bible survey. So there we go. So tonight, understanding biblical church leadership. And this is the third time we've looked at this, the church. We started off with the, you know, what is the church? And we looked at those six metaphors for the church. And then we looked at the head of the church last month and tonight, the purpose of the church or the purposes of the church. Pages 48, 53 in the men's book and 52 to 57, I think in the women's, So, the key questions that he asks at the beginning of this chapter is, why has God established the church? Why is Jesus building the church? What is his purpose for the church? Another way of asking is, why has he left his redeemed on earth? Once we come to know him, wouldn't it be better for us by far to go on and be with him? Paul says that. It'd be better by far to go on and be with Christ. Why does he leave us here? That's a good question to wrestle with that. And so that's what we're looking at. Why are we here? Why is the church here? And what I want to suggest, he gives three purposes for the church in the chapter, which I think are really good, and I think you want to memorize these, but I think A way to maybe pull them all together is something he does in the introduction, but I do it a little more emphatically, to say that the purpose of the church, the one purpose of the church is to glorify God, and these three purposes are ways we glorify God. So glorifying God, I think, is like a unifying principle that brings all three of the points of the chapter. Remember what he's gonna say is that the purposes of the church can be thought of, and I think it's really helpful, upwardly, what's the purpose of the church, inwardly, and then outwardly, right? Three purposes. Upwardly, it's worship. Inwardly, it's edification. Outwardly, it's evangelism. But what I would suggest to you is that each of those actually, when you distill it down to its essence, is still glorifying God. And we're gonna explain what glorifying God is. There's one of those words we can use. A lot of times we use words and we use them so much, but we're not really so clear on what they actually mean. If somebody asks you to define it, you know, and you're like, I know, but I don't know. And you kind of, you know, you try to your best to talk around, find myself, I've had that happen to me, you know, and I know the answer, but anyway. So what does glorify God mean? We're going to talk about that. But I think what you'll see is that, think about the upward purpose of the church, glorifying God is worship. We worship inwardly, that is not inwardly individually, inwardly as a body, we edify one another. How do you edify one another? Really what everybody needs, every other Christian, every other person needs their greatest need at any moment. And we have lots of needs. Sometimes the need, you need food, you're hungry, you need water, you're thirsty. And John makes clear in his letter that if we say be warmed and filled and we don't minister to people's practical needs, our religion is vain. So we need to meet people's practical needs. But what is their ultimate need in any moment? And what I would suggest to you, it is to see God as he is and worship him where they are. That's their ultimate need. And so if they're struggling with sin, they need to see God as he is so that they can let go of sin. To see that he's much more wonderful than sin, to see that obedience to him is true freedom. So the problem with the sinner, when we're sinners and we're sinning, is we're not seeing God as totally valuable and worthy as He is. So if you think about that, when you're trying to help someone maybe battling a sin problem, you're really trying to help them see God more wonderfully, truly. And that will help them, that will edify them the most, that will build them up. to see God rightly. Evangelism. What is evangelism? You're trying to tell people who believe God is not good, because that's the lie. You're trying to tell them that He is. You see, you're glorifying God. You're helping them have a proper estimate of God. In fact, the Greek word for glorify, I don't have it in the notes here. I'm going to show you the Hebrew word here in a second. Well, the Hebrew word for glory is kabod. But the Greek word for glory is doxa, D-O-X-A. And so doxology, word of glory, word of praise, you see. So doxa is the Greek word for glory, and it's helpful. in helping us flesh out what glory means, because it comes from a verb, which, dikeo, which means to think, to appraise, to seem. And the idea is, you look at something and you make an appraisal of it in your mind, and you value it accordingly. So that's what dekeo means, to look at something and attach appropriate value to it. Doxa then means that you look at God and you see him as he is and attach appropriate value to him. You see, you value God rightly. That's to glorify God. Well, the Hebrew word I think is helpful as well. The Hebrew word for glory is the word kibod, which means in its essence, heaviness, weightiness, impressiveness. So when the Bible talks about the glory of God, it's talking about the heaviness, the weightiness, the impressiveness of God. Strictly speaking, glory is not an attribute of God. An attribute is a characteristic or character quality of God. Something that's intrinsic to His nature. You know, things like holiness, power, majesty, wrath, goodness, love, all these are attributes of God. Omniscience, omnipotence, right? But glory is not an attribute of God. Glory is the impact that the attributes of God make when they're revealed. Glory is what happens when God makes himself known. That's glory. And the idea is that when he makes himself known, And what you see in the Bible, at least 45 times, glory is used to speak of visible manifestation of the presence and power and majesty of God, visible manifestation, where Shekinah glory is one of the words used to speak of that visible manifestation. So what happens is the invisible God becomes visible, and that's glory. The invisible God becomes manifest to us, and the impact of that, the weight of that, the impression that that leaves, that's glory. So to glorify God means to see God as He is, and to respond appropriately to his greatness, his majesty. Does that make sense? So to glorify him is to respond appropriately, to see his glory, to see him as he is and respond appropriately. So that's what it means to glorify God. So then think of then again, so worship, when we come together to worship, We gather together as a body of believers and our focus and heart should be, Lord, we want to know you. We want to see you today. And we're gonna see God in the various ways and come to know him in various ways through the service as we pray, as we sing, and supremely as we hear his word taught. Because if glory is God making himself known, where does he make himself known most in the worship service? It's in the preaching. This is why it's a misnomer, as he points out, to call worship the singing portion of the service. You know, I don't, I like the worship, I don't really care for the preaching. Or they'll say, I like the preaching, I don't care for the worship. Well, that's really not an appropriate distinction. What they mean is, I like the singing, I don't like the preaching, or I like the preaching, I don't like the singing, right? That's the music. It's not worship. All of it is worship. The whole service. And in reality, in general, the greatest worship should be happening as the word is expounded in preaching. Because that's when God is being made known. That's when the invisible God is being made visible through his written word, expounded. Does that make sense? So then as his people are hearing his word, we're getting an adjustment in our minds about his worthiness, his weightiness, his value. And then as our hearts respond to him, as we hear his word taught, this also happens in singing. Great. That's the one thing about great hymns, right? You have hymns that have so much content in them that you find yourself knowing God more as you sing. And I like what he has, he has a quote by St. Clair Ferguson says, worship is not ultimately emotional. The foundation of worship is not emotional. The foundation of worship is theological. Now worship can be emotional. In fact, it should be at some level emotional. our affections should be caught up in worship, right? But it doesn't start with the emotions. It's not that you manipulate the emotions. A lot of people, that's really a major philosophy of worship in evangelicalism is tied to a lot of manipulative, musical, uh, well, musical manipulation of emotions, trying to get people to work up a feeling, which you can do, but that's not worship. Worship is to see God as He is and to respond accordingly. So that said now, I've already kind of got ahead a little bit here. So we see Him as He is, respond appropriately, that is we value Him more. We love Him, we adore Him and we obey Him as we see Him. That's what it means to glorify God. We're still unpacking glorify God and I've jumped ahead a little bit to worship. So the purpose of the church then, is to glorify God, to see Him as He truly is and respond accordingly, and we glorify God upwardly, and I just went ahead, he uses this word too, I kind of like doing the three E's, upwardly in exaltation, inwardly in edification and outwardly in evangelism. There's supposed to be an L-Y right there. So, upwardly in exaltation, worship, which we'll use the word worship from here on. If I was preaching, I would use that though. That's a good outline. Upwardly in exaltation, inwardly in edification, outwardly in evangelism. In all three, what we're doing is we're trying to see God rightly. We're trying to help others see God rightly. and respond appropriately. And this is the purpose of the church. It's the truth about God. This is why our mission statement is at Providence, Providence Church, the purpose of the church is to know, to live and proclaim his truth in the world. To know God truly, to live accordingly. That is, you know him and you're living this way and you're making him known. Anyway, this is, I think, a great summary. Now, what does it mean to glorify God upwardly in worship? As I said, to glorify God requires that we see Him as He truly is and respond accordingly. And a great passage he encourages us to look at in the chapter is Romans 11, 33 to 36, and moving into chapter 12, verse 1. To glorify God requires we see Him as He truly is. What's interesting here in Romans 11 is Paul has been wrestling in these last three chapters of Romans with an issue that really distressed him. In fact, in chapter 9 and verse One, he said, in verse two, he says, I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart for his brethren, the Jews who have rejected Christ. And he goes on to say, I would have myself accursed if they could be saved. I have such grief in my heart. And he's wrestling with how is it that the Jewish people that had all the prophecies, the law, the temple, all of these pictures, the festivals that were telling them Christ is coming, Christ is coming, Christ is coming. How could they miss Christ when he came? He's wrestling with that. And he's thinking about his family members, his friends that he grew up with as a young Jewish boy, went to rabbi school with, and they're unbelievers. And so he's burdened and he's wrestling with this, and he's thinking about the promise of God. And what he points out right up front in chapter nine is, it's not as though the word of God has failed. God's purposes stand. God has not failed in the fact that the Jews have largely rejected him. His word is still fulfilled, and he works out the purposes of God, and you end up moving from chapter 9, verse 2, where he says, I just have unceasing sorrow in my heart, to chapter 11, 33 to 36, where he says, O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable his ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord or who became his counselor? Or who has first given to him that it might be paid back to him again? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen. You see, it turns into doxology. And we talked about this a while back. Perplexity gives way to doxology. We're going to see this in Habakkuk, too. Perplexity, confusion, can give way to doxology if you stay looking at God and His Word. So Paul does that, but then look at chapter 12, verse 1. In light of all that God has done and all that I've just said about Him, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice to acceptable God, which is your spiritual service of worship. really your reasonable, your logical service of worship. I think it's a better translation. The word logic costs here. It's that which is reasonable. It's your only reasonable service of worship is to offer your bodies a living sacrifice. In light of all that God has done, the only response is to just worship God by giving him all of our life in obedience. Not to earn anything, but because he's given us everything. It's in gratitude. So, here again, worship flows from seeing God more clearly. Paul was struggling, now he comes to see God more clearly. He is caught up in worship himself in the doxology, and then he makes this powerful declaration, Christians need to live like priests. That is the same way a priest devoted himself from sunrise to sundown to worship, we should devote ourselves from sunrise to sundown to worship. And what it looks like is dying to self. Obedience is the best worship. To obey is better than sacrifice, right? So worship flows from seeing God more clearly. Continuing to look at this, what does that continue to mean? Praising God, glorifying God, uprooting worship, worship exaltation. We come to see him as he truly is. The primary impetus for true worship is seeing God more clearly. This happens in the singing of Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, prayers, ordinances, and the preaching of the word. It happens in all those ways. In fact, That's what the scripture commands us to do those things in worship. So I want to talk a moment about that. To glorify God here requires that we see God as he truly is and respond accordingly. That is that we worship him as he directs us to worship him. This is the concept of the regulative principle. which he hints at in the chapter, he doesn't use that phrase, but he hints at in the chapter when he asked the question on page 50, let's see. Yeah, page 49 in the men's book would be 54, I guess, in the ladies book. Right before the bullet that says, what is Christ's command in the following verses for the church to do when gathered, Colossians 3, 16, et cetera. The worship of faithful, the last sentence there, the worship of faithful churches will rightly be centered around that which God commands. This is the regulative principle. Right worship is centered around that which God commands us to do. And the regulative principle, the regulative principle is the idea that scripture regulates worship. I talked about this a little bit already when we were working through Exodus and Leviticus. And I mentioned that when you read these things, it's just clear that God tells us how to worship him. We don't come up with our own ideas. In fact, you'll see this, if you read through 1 and 2 Kings this week, one of the key refrains in the book of 1 and 2 Kings, there's two kind of major themes. One is they'll compare a king to David, king of Judah. He was like his father, David. He saw God with his heart, from the heart. Or it'll say, he was like Jeroboam. And he committed the sins of Jeroboam. And the sins of Jeroboam are like the other extreme. David is the hero. Jeroboam is the nemesis. And Jeroboam's the one who led the people of the northern kingdom to build two temples of their own and golden calves. and worshiped Yahweh in these places Yahweh had said not to worship. And there's only one place, Jerusalem. And so he did what was in his own heart. He thought, this is a good idea. I'll help my people worship Yahweh and I'll do it this way. And God hated that. God hates that kind of creativity when it's us inventing how to worship. And you read 1st, 2nd Kings, you see how the Lord detested that. It's not up to us to determine how to worship. We saw that back with Cain and Abel, that sole issue between Cain and Abel. Cain wanted to worship his way. God said, you worship my way. Abel came my way, you come my way. Okay, well Exodus 39 and 40, I'll just mention this and you can look at it sometime. This is where the glory of the Lord is going to appear and it appears after Moses does it exactly as the Lord commanded. Eight times in chapter 39, eight times, or maybe eight times in chapter 42, let me see. You have, let's just look at that for a second, it's worth looking at for a minute. Exodus 39 and 40. What actually happens in both chapters is like eight times in all chapters. Go to chapter 40 though, for the sake of time. And on verse one, the Lord spoke to Moses, on the first day of the first month, you shall set up the tabernacle of the tent of meeting. And he gives him instructions. And then it says in verse 16, thus Moses did according to all the Lord had commanded him, so he did. That's 40, 16. Look down at verse 19. He spread the tent over the tabernacle and put the covering of the tent on top of it just as the Lord had commanded Moses. Now down to verse 21. He brought the ark into the tabernacle and set up a veil for the screen and screened off the ark of the testimony just as the Lord had commanded Moses. Verse 23, he set the arrangement of bread and order on it before the Lord, just as the Lord had commanded Moses. Verse 25, he lighted the lamps before the Lord, just as the Lord had commanded Moses. Verse 27, he burned fragrant incense on it, just as the Lord had commanded Moses. Verse 29, he set the altar of burnt offering before the doorway of the tabernacle of the tent of meeting, and offered on it the burnt offering and the meal offering, just as the Lord had commanded Moses. Verse 32, when they entered the tent of meeting, when they had approached the altar, they washed just as the Lord commanded Moses. And then verse 33, the last verse, thus Moses finished the work. Look what happens next. Verse 34, Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. That is, the visible manifestation of the majesty of God is there. The cloud comes down upon the tabernacle. And the glory of the Lord is so great that no one can go in. It settles on the tabernacle, the cloud of glory. So when we do it according to just as the Lord commands, we can expect that the Lord will bless our worship. But if we do it our own way, we're not gonna have that. So rightly worshiping God means seeing him as he is, and we see him as he is in the ways he has told us, which goes back to this. These were the verses here that we were looking up. Colossians 3, 16, you were asked to look at what all these things say. They basically say, you know, teach and admonish, pray without wrath and dissension, Devote yourself to public reading of scripture, preaching, exhortation, you know, preach the word, reprove, rebuke, exhort. That's what's supposed to happen in worship. God says that's what's supposed to happen in worship. So anyway, that's what it means to glorify God upwardly in worship. Now, we already went over this slide. Here we go. What does it mean to glorify God inwardly in edification? In edification, which means to build someone up, to edify, and think about this, the way that the metaphors for the church, remember the church is a temple. And so when you build up another believer, you're building the temple. You minister another believer, you're building the temple. You see that? You're building up the temple. Or you minister another believer, now change the metaphor to the body. You're helping the body grow. You see? You're growing the body. You're building the temple. That's the work we're called to do. Edification is helping others grow. It's building others. Back to our passage that we started at the very beginning, 1 Peter 2, you are living stones being built into a temple, a spiritual house for worship. So we're helping each other. We're shaping each other as stones. We're building each other. That's what we're called to do. What does that look like? What does it mean to build one another up? What does it mean to help one another grow? Ephesians 4, 11-16 is the passage where we talk about the leadership in the church, how Christ has given the gifts to the church of apostles and prophets, pastors and teachers, evangelists, pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ, And what happens is we build one another up, as each one of us does our part, we come together, we speak the truth in love. We teach, we admonish, we encourage, we edify. We do all the one another's that we saw there. We grant one another more honor. We esteem one another. We look out for the needs of one another. We do all of these things. We're building one another up. But what we're really doing, in essence, is the most building thing you can do in someone's life is to help them see God in their moment where they are. For them to see the Lord and what he's doing and to get on board with what God is doing and praising God in the moment, that is edification. So you have a brother that's struggling, lost a job, you know, is discouraged, wrestling with what the Lord is, why is the Lord doing this? And you're there, you know, listening, hurting with him, caring about him. And then as you're able to over, as you talk about it, what do you think the Lord's doing in this? How have you seen God at work? You're asking him to think about that. You maybe share some scripture. And then the Lord shows him his hand. And he gets a sense that even in this, God is at work. What you've done is you've built him up by helping him see God in the moment. And when we do that, that's earth moving kind of ministry happening. And this is what we're called to do. But it's really, it's again, if worship, personal worship is seeing God rightly and responding accordingly, edification is helping our brothers and sisters, helping one another see God rightly. And isn't it amazing how when you edify your brother or sister, you find out that you're the one that's more edified than they were? Haven't you had that happen a lot? You're talking to somebody, they have a need, and the Lord just, you're thinking, Lord, how can I help them? How can I encourage them? I don't feel like I have anything to give right now. Help me understand what would help serve this brother or sister. And you end up talking to them, and you're pointing to the Lord, and you feel like, man, I needed to hear this more than they did. And I'm so encouraged by what we've talked about. And you go home and you've been built up. And what's happened is you see God more clearly. So it's always about knowing more of who God is and honoring him accordingly. That's edifying. And that's what the one and others are all about. This outwardly and evangelism, excuse me, We're here, I mean, he points out in the book that in heaven we can worship God more perfectly, right? We'll see him with unveiled face. We can worship God without disharmony among the body. Won't be any issues between us in heaven, right? No sin. So if it's just the purity of worship, let's go on to heaven. That makes sense, right? And why would we stay here? Well, we stay here because God wants us to glorify Him here and now in this world. not just for the evangelism of believers, but just for His glory to be made known. Even when unbelievers don't become saved, if we honor Him, His glory is made known. Even if people don't respond to it rightly, we can't control their response. But when we make a proper estimate of God, when we tell others who God is, He's glorified. And we have the opportunity to do that here in shining light in a dark place, and particularly for the benefit of those who are perishing. This is something we won't be able to do in heaven. There'll be no evangelism in heaven. Everybody's already saved, right? So this is a unique opportunity we have in this world. And it goes back to what we read at the beginning. You're a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. So we're supposed to proclaim the excellency, the wonder, the goodness, the greatness, the majesty of God, who has called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. That's essentially what our mission is. And we do it to other believers, it's edification, we do it to unbelievers, it's evangelism. But it's essentially the same thing, we're telling people who God truly is. Through his word, sharing his word, sharing our testimony, You know, our lives, holy lives are powerful witness. That's why we have to know, live and proclaim. You know, when our life matches up with what we're saying, it does something powerful to people. I mean, so often people that get saved, they've been impacted greatly by watching someone's life. I mean, watch it for a long time before they're saved. It's like it's sowing, it's preparing the ground. Doesn't mean that we don't talk to them. You're supposed to tell them, we need to live and proclaim. Do both. But we don't need to just proclaim, we need to proclaim and live. If we don't show with our lives holiness and righteousness, it's undercutting our message. The message is still in the Word of Christ, and so there's power in the message. But when the message is accompanied by a life that's transformed, It's like Titus says when he talks about servants, you know, obey your masters. When Titus talks about this, he says, let's look at that. I'm trying to remember exactly how he says it, but he talks about adorning the doctrine of God. Titus 2.9, urge bond slaves to be subject to their own masters in everything, to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that they will adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in every respect. So they're to live before their masters in such a way that they're trying to be pleasing, not argumentative, not trying to be backtalking, not looking out for or stealing, pilfering from their master, taking advantage, no. Doing the very best they can to bless their unbelieving master so that in doing so, they adorn the doctrine of God. The gospel doesn't, you wouldn't think needs any adorning, does it? Isn't the gospel just wonderful? It's the most wonderful news in the world. But he says we're supposed to adorn it. And the word for adorn is the word cosmeo. We get our English word cosmetic from that. And it means to make attractive. You know, to accentuate the beauty of something. Not to make something it's not, but to accentuate the beauty that's there. And so our lives do accentuate the beauty of the gospel. And the way we respond, particularly when we are in positions where we may be being mistreated, real opportunity to adorn the gospel of God. So our lives have the opportunity to do that. And in evangelism, what is the great need of the unbeliever They really believe that God is not good. They're still caught up in the lie. They have some sense in which God's out, you know, he's a cosmic killjoy. If I give my life to God, they're believing what Satan said, what Satan said to Eve. Hasn't God told you you can't eat from any tree of the garden? It'd be like him to do that. It'd be like God to put you in a garden full of all these fruit trees and say, you can't eat of any of them. That's what God's like. That's what he was saying to her. And she said, oh no, he didn't say that. He said, we can't eat from the one tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but she planted a seed. And then, because in the day we eat of it or touch it, we will surely die. You will not surely die. God knows in the day you eat of it, you will become like God. He's saying, God's told you not to eat of it to protect you. He acted like he's protecting you, but in reality, he's holding you back. And that is the lie. That's the essence of sin. And that's the essence of the unbelieving heart. That's what we all came to this world with was a deep distrust of God. The lie is just instilled in our fallenness, in our fallen nature. And then the world system, think about that, the world system everywhere saying, do as you will, not do as God wills, do as you will. So you got the flesh, the world, and the devil, and Satan himself deceiving, and distorting, and murdering, and lying, and killing continually. All this is happening, and we're trying to rescue people out of that darkness. How can that happen? Well, it's the gospel. And the gospel is essentially, like what John, actually John Piper said this, God is the gospel. And there's a sense where that's true. The gospel itself is really who God is, is the good news. The good news is, look what God is like. Now the gospel itself, of course, is not strictly speaking, that's not how we normally think of it. We think of it as the message of salvation, the good news of what Jesus Christ has done. A good outline of the gospel is God, man, Christ, and response. Four points. This is pretty straightforward. You start with who God is. But the problem is people don't know who God is, and so you start there. And then you tell them God is holy, God is good, but he must punish sin. Our problem, man, we're sinners, everything that's wrong with the world is us. We are all separated from God. We've dishonored Him. He's just and right to punish us. Yet the good news is Jesus Christ has come into the world to take away our sins. By His death on the cross, His perfect life, He takes our sins out of the way. He gives us His righteousness. He died on Friday, rose again on the third day. He lives forever. He's a mighty Savior. He'll save any who come to Him. Why would you turn away from a God like that? God is good. So in essence, the whole message is, look what God is like, look what God has done. So that's the gospel. And the gospel is basically telling people, you are so wrong about how you see God. God is everything that you desire and you need. You're made for God. You need to see him as he is and love him for who he is. In the areas that you have doubts about God, you need to put those in light of the cross and understand that if God did not withhold his own son, you can trust him. So that's the, again, so what we're doing in every situation is we're saying, see God as he is and respond accordingly. That is, give glory to God. See him as he truly is and respond accordingly. In worship, we do that. In edification, we do that. In evangelism, we do that. It's all about seeing God as who he is. That's the material I have, so I left some extra time so we could talk about any other questions over the last section too, since we didn't have last week as well. So any questions tonight about this section though first, and then if you wanna ask, or you can ask questions about anything up to this point as well. We have a microphone? Okay, good, Thomas has got one. Not everybody at once, let's form a line. Paul. When proclaiming the gospel, we want to make sure that people know who God is. I think the things that we miss a lot of times is to make sure they understand who man is and what sin is. We use the word sin all the time, but not everybody understands what a sin is. A sin is disobeying God. Well, what does that mean? And that's why we like to go back and use the Ten Commandments to show people where they've sinned, where they've fallen short, and then they see themselves in relation to God as Him being holy. Explain what a lie is, what a murder of the heart. If you look with lust, you've committed adultery of the heart. Blasphemy, blasphemies, well, that's all over the place. And then they can see, they may not respond, well, they'll respond if the Holy Spirit is working in them, Then they have a clearer. That's not really a question, but if you wanna comment on that. That's good, that's very good, thank you. Yeah, I mean, I think the part of a really good gospel presentation is to use the law appropriately. And one of the things I think people really need is to understand who God is. And one of the ways you show them that is through the law. The law, we need to have a better biblical view of God's law. And God's law, the 10 commandments are the essence of it, which can be summarized in the two commandments, but the 10 commandments are essentially a reflection of who God is himself. God is good. God is holy. God only does good to others. And so the law shows us who God is, and if we, one of the things you were getting at, Paul, and it's really important is a lot of times we think of, or sinners naturally think this way, of sin only as outward transactions, outward actions. And what Jesus does in the Sermon on the Mount is make clear that the law, the law not only regulates your actions, the law of God regulates every intention or thought of your heart. and that the extent of the law and its claims on man is that if you really wanted to fulfill the law, you wouldn't just not ever murder or ever lie or ever commit adultery. You would never be angry in your heart. You would never have a lustful thought. You would never have a covetous inclination. And so the law, actually, when you show people that, that, hey, God requires perfection all the way down to the heart. It's not just our actions, because very few people have really murdered someone, right? That's very few people that have done that, praise the Lord. But how many people have never murdered someone in their heart? How many people have never called someone a fool or in their heart thought, you idiot? You know, I mean, and that is a heinous and evil crime against God and it's against another human being made in the image of God. It's an attack on God. So I think it's really important if you want to help someone get, we need to do pre-evangelism, is really working the law on somebody and helping them, you know, you gotta graciously help them get to where they are open to hearing that and thinking about that. And I know you've listened a lot to Ray Comfort, who does a good job of using the law, like, you know, have you ever stolen anything? And they say, usually people have. I know I have. Have you ever stolen anything? Most of you probably would say, yes, you've stolen something. When I was a kid, I did something stupid. I remember, you know, at a convenience store. So have you ever stolen something? Have you ever lied? Who hasn't lied? Have you ever, and then he goes, have you ever had a lustful thought? Well, Jesus said, if you have lustful thoughts, you're an adulterer. You've committed adultery. Have you ever been about anger? You know, if you ever had been angry with somebody's heart, people say, of course. Jesus says, well, if you've ever been angry in your heart, you've murdered someone. So what does the Bible call someone? What do you think we should call someone who lies? A liar. What do you call someone who steals? A thief. What do you call someone who murders? A murderer. What do you call someone who commits adultery? An adulterer. So you're a lying thief, murderer, murderous adulterer. You know, you show someone how they violated the law, and now suddenly it's not like they, because what people tend to think, I'm better than, I'm good enough to get in, God grades on the curve, and I think I'm going to make it into heaven. That's not the God of the Bible. He requires perfection. So the law really is something that's important for us to learn. I'm actually reading a book called A Treatise on the Law and the Gospel right now. It's one of these books that's, it's a difficult read, but it's so valuable. And this, he was talking about this issue and he's talking about how all of scripture is either law or gospel. Every passage. And the law has a function to the unbeliever and it has a function to the believer. And we need to constantly be moving between law and gospel. So we need to do that, especially in evangelism. You need the law as you evangelize. So great point, Paul. Yes, Nia's got a question. with the regulatory, regulative principle and the normative principle. Say that again. The regulative principle and the normative principle of worship. So I've heard that, so I've heard that the regulative principle is just for the church service, but I don't know if that's right. And then, um, but my question is if that is true, if regulative principle is, I guess that's how God commands us to worship him in church. Why does it not, I guess, flow into our normal daily lives? Because I've heard people say you can listen to music that's more contemporary, like outside of church. a sound doctrine, the sound doctrine outside of church, but if God has a way that he commands us to worship him, why is it not like in our entire life, like in and out of church? That's a really good question. That's a really good question. Everybody was able to hear that, right, with the microphone. First of all, let's clarify regulative and normative, because I think we could do a better job, and you helped illustrate that point. So the normative principle is the idea that anything that is not forbidden by Scripture is allowable. Does that make sense? If the Bible doesn't say it's bad, you can do it. in worship. The regular principle says that only that which is commanded either in direct statement or precept or indirectly in principle from the scripture can be used in worship. So worship is regulated by scripture. It must be in a sense commanded either directly or indirectly in the Bible. And so Nia's question is, if the regular principle is good enough for church, is it not good enough for our lives, right? Essentially, like particularly about music, if you should listen to the right kind of music in worship, does it make sense to personally worship God with music that might not be so good? I think that's a really great question. And I think in general, the answer we should be leaning toward, well, why would I do something that I wouldn't do on Sunday morning? in worshiping. But I think that there is some room for people to bring up different opinions about exactly where you draw lines. In fact, I think music's an area I'd like to do a lot more study in. In fact, some of you need to do study in this, that know music better. But I think one of the things that needs to be thought through a little more is the way that melody, harmony, and rhythm work together to affect our soul and our body. And it seems that, like, rhythm and harmony, when they're not regulated appropriately by melody can start affecting the body and coming at the soul from that angle, through the flesh. This is actually, I think, what happens in charismatic worship. I read a book, actually Todd gave me a copy of a book called Strange Liar. It's a play on words of strange fire, L-Y-R-E, the instrument, you know, strange music. And the thesis of this book by these two guys in South Africa is that Evangelical worship, Reformed worship even, is solid in so many ways, but where we see inroads sometimes is in music. And there you have, he points out, charismatic music coming into the church. Not that everything, you know, in any circle is bad, but he points out that what he's talking about charismatic music is music that is aimed at kind of creating a physical, emotional experience. And so that you have a message and primacy of preaching that says, it starts here, seeing God, the mind leads the heart. The mind leads the affections, leads the will. You see, you work from mind, affections, will. How are you transformed? by the renewing of your mind, right? So you start with the mind, goes to the affections, goes to the will. This music, and music should still do that in some sense, it hits the various parts at the same time, but there should still be a sense in which mind is still leading in some way, not the flesh, not the physical feelings, physical moving into emotional. So, I'm saying this, I don't know, I don't understand music very well at all. I mean, I can, you know, I listen to it, I love it, but I don't speak the language of music. It's a foreign language to me that seems inaccessible. But some of you really understand it and know it. And we need to do more research on this, I think. But I think it's a great question, Nia. If it's If I think it would not be healthy in worship on Sunday, how's it affecting me on Tuesday or Thursday? It's definitely a question. This is the kind of thing I think we should love each other enough to have these kinds of conversations and be patient with each other. Sometimes folks are gonna listen to stuff and we're like, eh, I wouldn't listen to that. But you have a conversation about it and then maybe a year from now, they're not listening to it either. Or maybe you were too, or I was too bent out of shape on something and later I'm like, ah, that really wasn't that bad, I was overreacting. But I think iron sharpens iron. Other questions? Yeah, Scott. This is actually a little related to that. I have a hard, I don't have any problem with sin. Wow, fantastic. Unlike Paul, I don't have any problem with sin. But what I do have is a hard time understanding how we could possibly worship and glorify God being who he is, obviously who he is. And so, I wonder how we reconcile our inadequacies in doing that. Anyway, that's, I ponder that all the time. I wonder whether I'm worshiping in an effective way as a person. That's a really profound question. You know, I think that it's good for us to have, to continually see the awesomeness of what's happening. Like you said, we're sinners. I mean, we're a passing vapor. We know nothing. And we're talking to the infinite God. who dwells in light, unapproachable light, that if we saw him, he'd kill us. I mean, it was just that we couldn't handle that. The angels have to, holy angels have to cover their eyes. They have never sinned and they cover their eyes. And so in one sense, all of that should always be something we kind of come back to. It's like one of the stars we navigate by. Remember, wow, what an awesome thing. It's the majesty of God. But on the other hand, you have, even like in that passage in Isaiah 6, where he sees the Lord, And he sees that scene, Seraphim flying, and two wings, two wings that cover their eyes, two wings that cover their feet, two wings, they fly. And they're crying out, holy, holy, holy. It's a cacophony, continual, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. And Isaiah sees it. He's undone. Literally, he's coming apart at the seams. He feels like he's personally just like disintegrating. Almost his soul is being, the word he's used is I'm undone. It's like, I can't, I don't know how I'm even alive right now. And he thinks he's gonna die, but the Lord takes, has one of the, a seraphim take the tongs of the altar, bring a coal and touch his lips. I'm a man of unclean lips. And he cleanses his lips. And then he says, who's gonna go forth? And he sends him. And so what you have is this unapproachable God makes himself approachable. And he's infinite, we are finite, we can't know anything, and yet he makes himself known to us. He somehow makes us able to know him. Truly, not comprehensively, never comprehensively, we won't ever know him comprehensively ever, because we'd have to be God to do that. So it's like the transcendence and the eminence of God. He's transcendent and yet he makes himself near. And then you look at the scriptures and you see the various ways he reveals himself. I'm just thinking about Ruth, the near kinsman. You know, he paints that story, it's a literal historical event, but he orchestrates history in such a way that you have this beautiful story of what happened to Naomi and her daughter-in-law, and this whole idea of the kinsmen, and the kinsmen redeemer brings David, and you're like, he's saying to us in that, you know, to move from emptiness and bitterness to fullness in life, You must have a near kinsman come and redeem you. And then God becomes our near kinsman. He takes flesh to himself. He enters into our humanity. He becomes a baby. I mean, you think about it too. He becomes an embryo. He was placed in the womb of Mary. He didn't come as a grown man. He came as an embryo, had to be nurtured in her womb, enter the world through the birth canal, come into this world as a little baby, grow up, learn to walk, learn to talk. Calvin talks about that if you, You need to understand God's meekness and gentleness. Look at the nativity. Look at his approachable, how approachable he is, that he would come that near to us and say, you know, I've come to bring you home to my father. come this close. And so I think it's these tensions of the, you know, this, the transcendent majesty ought always to just make a stand at all. And yet then this amazing condescension and kindness and tenderness of God to reach down and lift us up and enable us to. I remember thinking about this too, you know, the old illustration of, Somebody said this one time, it cracked me up when I read it, I forgot who wrote it. But like he said, people sometimes will take what you're, you weren't saying this at all, but the argument of the agnostic is like, oh, well, God's so high and so exalted that even if he exists, there's no way we could ever understand anything about him. You know, there's just no way. And logically, that kind of makes sense. How could we, who know nothing, relate to Him who knows everything? How can that be? And the illustration was of these two little kids in the nursery at church, and they're talking among themselves. They're like, you know, 18 months old or whatever. I guess they're talking, and they're having a pretty impressive conversation for 18-month-olds, because they say something like this. You know, Johnny says to Jimmy, Jimmy, it must be really tough in your family because your daddy is a rocket scientist. And he knows, I mean, he knows astrophysics. I bet you he can't, you can't have any relationship with him. He knows so much. and you know so little, it's gotta be where you just have no ability to communicate. I'm sorry for that. My dad, he has a different kind of job and we can communicate, but I'm sorry about you and your dad. Well, that's absurd, right? Because even the rocket scientist can come down and baby talk with his child. he can learn to speak in terms that really communicate. And though this little child knows so little and this man knows so much, he can still teach this child, if you have two apples and you get two more apples, how many apples do you have? Jimmy, you got four apples. So it's just, that's a picture of what it's like with God. God, and the amazing thing is that he cares enough to condescend and to speak to us and to love us. And that should always keep us in awe. So that's a great point to bring that up. Thank you, Scott. Any other questions? I was going to say, first off, thanks to Scott for that question. It was great. It reminds me of what you said, Ty, of everything you compared to the cross. Our sin's big. the cross is big and bigger. But I just, that's a great question. One thing that you mentioned earlier, Ty, that I really liked was we often realize that the upward is praise, the outward is evangelism, but we do forget that inward part. We forget that edifying the body, is glorifying God. It is a big deal for the body to edify one another, to lift up one another, to bear one another's burdens, to be our brother's keeper. It is huge. And so that is also equally important in our upward praise, our outward evangelism is strengthening the body. So I just thank you for bringing that up too. That's all. Well, next week, we have Section 2 Bible Survey, and so we'll be doing 1 Kings, 1 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. So seven books to cover. Think of it like five books. First and Second Kings is one book. First and Second Chronicles is one book. In fact, I would outline them myself differently that way, because I like just to think of them that way. It makes it easier for me. But anyway, the themes are still good, the themes of each book, because they are The reason we divided them in our English Bible is because it really is that that talks about, you know, Solomon and the division of the kingdom and then the destruction of the kingdom, second Kings and Chronicles the same way. One thing to think about as you read them or as you work through it that I'll just mention. First and second Chronicles are actually one of the last books written in the Old Testament, possibly the last. Many people think Ezra was probably the finisher of Chronicles. So that if you think about it, 1st and 2nd Kings was probably composed along during some of the reigns of the kings and then finished after the exile, shortly after the exile. So Babylonian exile happens 586. So 1st and 2nd Kings was more like right after the exile explaining to the people why the exile happened. 1st and 2nd Chronicles is happening well after they come back from the exile. Remember they come back from the exile first under Zerubbabel and then you have the returns of under Ezra, remember? And then under Nehemiah in 445 BC. So you're now 140 years out from the exile when Nehemiah's ministry happens, they rebuild the walls. And then probably 30 or 40 years after that, 1st and 2nd Chronicles is written. So the purpose of it, this is where thinking about when something's written in the original audience is helpful. 1 and 2 Kings original audience was the people who are wondering, why did this happen? The people in 1 and 2 Chronicles are wondering, why isn't the glory back? I thought when we came back from the, you know, when God gathered us back, we would now have a king again. You see, so they're wondering, what do we do now? I mean, they're still under Persian hegemony rule, right? So think about that as you look at that too. I think that's helpful. Maybe it will help you glean more out of it as you look at the themes and think about those books. And we'll talk about that next time. Okay, thank you guys. Let's close in prayer. Father, we thank you for this time. Lord, we thank you for just the glory of what you're doing in our lives. You're so kind. Your loving kindness is over all your works. Lord, as we discussed tonight, your greatness is unsearchable. Your majesty, your power, your righteousness and holiness. and we worship you for who you are and we acknowledge, Lord, we are like Isaiah, we're people of unclean lips. We are undone, but we do thank you for the cross. The glory of what you did in the cross, the condescension of Jesus to come into the world and then to go all the way to the cross for us to make us right with you. We praise you, we worship you, we pray you'd help us to be more faithful followers of Christ, that we build your church, that we would be faithful worshipers, we'd be faithful in edifying one another, serving one another, we'll be faithful in evangelizing the lost. And we pray this all in Jesus' name, amen.