So let's pray as we get ready to start our next inquirer's class together. As I mentioned, kind of looking at the DNA of Christ Church, Presbyterian. Let's go to the Lord. Dear Heavenly Father, we're thankful for our opportunity to gather for corporate worship this morning. We're thankful for this day you've given to us, the Lord's Day. What a blessing it is. One day out of seven that we are able to rest and your goodness and your grace and arrest physically. Lord, we're thankful for your means of grace, and we pray you'd be with us as we head into another inquires class. There's so much to cover. We're gonna be doing it so quickly, but we do pray that it would be a good opportunity to give an overview. that we might be able to stir more conversations, and we might see you working amongst us in the gathering of the saints. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right, so this is our second time together, as I mentioned in the Inquirer's class. Last time we looked at the membership vows in the PCA, the Presbyterian Church in America. We went over those. And as I mentioned today, we're going to look at kind of like the DNA, you know, what type of church is Christ Church? And we're going to hit a few things. So we are a Christian and Protestant church. We are a Reformed and Covenantal church. We are a Presbyterian church and an ordinary means of grace church. And as I mentioned, if you have any thoughts or questions, just jot them down and I'm happy to stick around and talk as long as anybody needs or tonight over dinner after evening worship, or I can set up a time that we can meet to talk as we move through. The Inquirer's class is an informational class explaining more about membership at Christ Church. We're not covering everything here at Christ Church. Every one of our neighbors is invited to be our guest, but anyone desiring membership must make a credible profession of faith in Jesus Christ and take the membership vows. That is what's required. And then all officers of the church, elders and deacons, They must first meet the biblical qualifications of those offices that are laid out in the scriptures and our Book of Church Order notes and explains. And the officers of the church must be willing to hold to the Westminster standards, the Westminster Confession of Faith, and the shorter, larger catechisms. As a denomination, we believe they are a faithful summary of what the Bible teaches. So that when we ask a question, We might be able to, instead of flipping all over the Bible, we can go to the Confession of the Catechisms and get a summary where it pulls together all the parts of Scripture to teach the different aspects of the faith. As I mentioned last time, there are recordings available at Sermon Audio on our website. that have been done regarding Christchurch purpose, Christchurch mission, Christchurch vision, and Christchurch's values. And there will be more membership classes that I'm going to be offering, I'm putting together now. Some of those may even just be like podcast type classes that you can listen to as you're going about your day, wherever it may be. And that's going to help flesh out a lot of this things about the Christian life and more in-depth look at membership vows, Presbyterianism, the doctrines of grace, et cetera, things like that. So as I mentioned, we're going to be, you're flying into the airport and you look down And you can see itty bitty little houses like that's kind of overview we're going to do today. We're not going to be walking through the neighborhood and pointing out all the nice flowers in the bed in front of the porch of each house. All right. So let's start off looking at we are a Christian and Protestant church. We as a Christian church, we believe in the Bible. We believe it is God's Word, the Bible. The Word of God is written by men under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. There's 66 books in the Bible. They come together to make the scriptures, the one Bible. The scriptures were written over 1500 years. The Lord works in the midst of that and over that time and all the different authors of the Lord still as you work your way through and read it, you see the consistent theme that works its way through the scriptures. That's God's promise. I will be your God. You will be my people and I will dwell amongst you forever. That covenantal theme that goes throughout the scriptures we see going from Genesis all the way to Revelation that is working there. The scriptures are divided. into the Old Testament, New Testament, the Old Testament is 39 books, New Testament is 27 books, Psalm 19 and in Romans 1, those passages tell us that creation testifies to the reality that God exists, but it is, we refer to that as general revelation, so that we look at the reality of the world and it's clear, we look up at the stars, the way that God has put things in order, even our very own bodies, how they work. And we say, it's clear God exists as general revelation, but it is special revelation. God's spoken God's word that he's given to us. That is how we understand who God is exactly. The gospel of the things he wants us to know. Second Timothy 3, 16, 17, we read, all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. So that's just a brief overview of the scriptures. We love the Bible. We're a means of grace folks. Word, prayer, sacraments. Bible's important to us. We're thankful for that, that God has given it to us. The Presbyterian Church in America, Though we are, in numbers, the second largest Presbyterian denomination, we are the largest Bible-believing Presbyterian denomination in the country. We love the Scriptures. So we're a Christian church. We love the Lord. We love our Triune God, Father, Son, and Spirit. I did a series on the Trinity that you can go back and listen to if you want to get in-depth about the Trinity, our Triune God. The Bible doesn't begin trying to prove God. When you read the scriptures in Genesis 1-1, it doesn't start off with an apologetic of how we're to figure out and determine that there is a God. Instead, God just declares himself. He just says, hey, my creatures, I exist, I created everything. And that's where the scriptures start with that proclamation of his existence. We are able to read through the scriptures and pick up and learn that God is triune, one God and three persons, father, son, spirit. Again, if you listen to the series I did, um, it helps break down that understanding, uh, one God so that, uh, we have the being of God and then there's three persons, the three persons of the Godhead. And we could spend the rest of our time and several weeks and probably lifetime working through all that. So I'll just, I encourage you to go listen to those sermons and you can get a little bit more there. But we do believe that. We see in several places in scriptures that give us that. Just a couple of them you could go to. It would be 2 Corinthians 13, 14, John 1. You could go to Ephesians 1, 1 Peter 1, Genesis 1. It's all through the scriptures. Matthew 28, 19 though, we will read. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations. Jesus is telling his disciples this. After his resurrection, he says, go forth making disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. A few things about God. God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. That comes from Westminster Shorter Catechism, question four, which is drawing out of the scriptures and understanding of who God is. God is infinite. To be infinite is to be without bounds or limits, either actual or possible. God is eternal, to have no beginning or end. God gives his name, reveals it as I am. God's infinite respecting time. God is unchangeable. God is immutable. He does not change. God is all the omnis. He's all knowing. He's everywhere present. He's all powerful. We see that in Psalm 135, Psalm 139. Again, I did another series recently in the evenings that goes through the attributes of God. So I encourage you, you can find those online if you want to go a little bit more in depth. And then particularly, Just take a moment to talk about Jesus Christ, since there is some confusion, and if someone does not believe in the Trinity, if someone does not believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the God-man, the promised Messiah, if that is something that they don't believe, then they would not be able to make a credible profession of faith, because we believe the Scriptures clearly teach these things. So as we look at the scriptures, Jesus Christ, we see he's the eternal God, the son who took on flesh and became man. He lived a perfect life here on earth and did not sin. And he went to the cross and the sins of his people were put upon him. He died paying the penalty for those sins that his righteousness might be placed upon us so that when we stand before God, God does not see our sinfulness, but he sees the perfect righteousness. of the Lord Jesus Christ that we might then be reconciled, adopted, and brought into relationship with God. When God the Son became man, he did not stop being God. Jesus is the God-man with a divine nature and a human nature. The big technical term for that is the hypostatic union that we can talk about more if you would like to. Matthew chapter 1, verse 20-25, we see a picture of this of what God tells us. This is Joseph as he's learned that Mary is with child. He's a little concerned because he knows it's not his child and he's wondering what's going on. And the angel Gabriel comes to him and says, but as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, Joseph, Son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. That's a quote from Isaiah. When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. He took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name, Jesus. We see a lot there, who Jesus is, the God man, why he's coming. He's the Messiah. He's the Christ. And he's coming to save his people from their sins. That's the purpose. of why God the Son came and took on flesh. We believe the gospel, the gospel is the good news, that there is salvation through Jesus Christ. We read in 1 Corinthians 15, 1-5, Now I remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preach to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved. If you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believe in vain, for I delivered to you as a first importance, what I also received that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. And then he appeared to Cephas and then to the 12. We read in Ephesians 2, 8, 9, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. We can summarize the gospel with a few sentences here. The gospel is not God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Christianity is not I try to be a good person and live as God wants me to. The gospel is, You were dead spiritually, condemned eternally because of your sins, but God has made a way for you to be forgiven and pardoned through faith in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, as your substitute, and His death in your place. Repent of your sins and believe on Christ. Receive Him as Savior and King. That gives you kind of an overview of what we believe about the Bible, what we believe about God, what we believe about the gospel, our DNA, our roots that we have there. A few things mentioned about the fact that we're a Protestant church. The early church grew. It was not, as you might read of some who might claim, particularly in the Roman Catholic tradition, that they would say Peter was the first Pope and from then the great Roman Catholic Church began and it moved from there. There is nothing in history that even remotely provides that reality to happen. In fact, there are two main streams of the church that did grow, but there were always other groups within the church in the sense that there were other pockets of Christians outside these two big groups. That's the East and the West. The Eastern Church is what we today mainly know as the Orthodox Church. And they did eventually have their own, for lack of a better term, supreme ruler or the one bishop to rule them all. And that was their patriarch. And in the West, you saw the head main one bishop became known as the Pope. Now, we don't believe that the scriptures show anywhere that there is to be bishops. in the sense that that means one elders over other elders. The scriptures, we'll get to here in a minute, but that the scriptures teach that the elders, there's a plurality of elders, that they are on the same level as servants of Christ, underservants, and only the Lord Jesus Christ is head of the church and he alone. So these are the two main groups that are kind of going, and then about a thousand AD they split. And so you have a great division between the East and the West. It's very sad. You can read of the history and many ways that the Eastern and Western Church did things to undermine one another and caused great schism, pain and troubles. There was movements within the Western church that began to grow into what we know as the Protestant Reformation. There were folks within the church that were calling the church back, saying, we have moved to a place where there is a lot of syncretism, like we've expanded, but as we've expanded, we've like We've just kind of swallowed up all these pagan beliefs in these areas and brought them in. And we're really adopting a lot. We're doing some things that we don't see anywhere in the scriptures. A lot of tradition, a lot of created pomp and circumstance. Let's get back to the gospel. Let's get back to worship. Let's get back to these things as the Bible teaches them. And that led us to the Protestant Reformation. Now, there's much, much more we can talk about in regards to the Reformation, how that worked out. Just know that it happened. And in about the 1600s would be your time frame that we see the beginning of the big Reformation movement of separating from the Western Church. That's when there was, it was clear the reforms aren't coming. There aren't interested in going back to the scriptures. So we have no option but to leave. And then they were also kind of encouraged because the folks who were holding to the reformed understanding of let's go back to the scriptures, uh, we're being persecuted pretty heavily. So many, many things happen. We can talk about that in a later time, uh, dealing with, uh, the reformation, but just to give you an idea, we come from that. continuing branch of the church coming out of the Protestant Reformation and then particularly, as we'll get to in a minute, Presbyterians coming out of Scotland in the Reformation, John Knox being one of the main reformers the Lord uses to establish the Presbyterian Church as they seek to look back to the scriptures. So we started off there and we hit on The fact that we are a Christian and Protestant church, and now we'll hit push, look at a few things. We are a Reformed and Covenantal church. Reformed. Now Reformed comes from the Protestant Reformation, as I mentioned, began in the 16th century in Western European church. There was an inspiration that began really heavily. There were others, but it was Martin Luther and his labors bringing about Lutheranism that began a lot of the Reformation. But those who consider themselves reformed, they continued. So the Lutheran church stopped and they moved a little bit away and they were primarily focused on we've got to get the doctrine of justification by faith alone correct. We can't do you're saved by grace plus a bunch of stuff you do. And there was kind of a mixture of the gospel that was prevalent at that time. Well, the other reformers coming off that said, well, why stop there? And they just opened the Bible and they started looking at everything. And they said, what does the Bible teach about? Not just the gospel, but what does the Bible teach about how we're to worship? What does the Bible teach about how the church should be ordered and structured? What does the Bible teach about how we should live our lives? And they went ad fontas, back to the source, opened the scriptures up, and began to pursue biblical Christianity to the best of their ability by God's grace. And they had the call Semper Reformanda, that they were looking to reform the church back to what the Bible teaches. John Calvin's one of the prominent reformed theologians. He was a French theologian who ministered in Geneva, Switzerland. The Lord used him in mighty ways along with many others. As I mentioned, reformers argued the church must be totally reformed after the pattern of the apostles reconstituted the scriptures right. It was not enough merely to remove the syncretistic aspects of the Roman church as the Lutherans did. Anything not arising from the scriptural principles had to be removed. So the Reformed applied the principle of sola scriptura broadly to all matters of faith, worship, piety, and life. Now this may, when I say it, sound strange for someone new to like a Reformed understanding of worship, but Reformed worship is very simple worship. very biblical worship, so that we look to the scriptures and we say, what does the Bible tell us how we're to worship? And it's simple in the sense that you probably need to go to a mass or see a mass or see the way the Orthodox Church worships. But you even can go today, there's, without getting too far off, even outside when you go to non-denominational churches, there's even an adoption of medieval Roman Catholicism in the practices of worship. that many don't even pick up on that happen. Like one simple thing is the medieval look, there was a movement in the cathedrals and even later in the Anglican church to make it very dark because they wanted the worship service to be mysterious. And so there was an aspect of the mysteries of Christ that were constantly being delved into during worship. And today, oftentimes you can go and you may go to worship and the space will be darkened Now, some may not realize that it's a throwback to that view of having a dark, mysterious worship style. Perhaps maybe there's a pragmatic reason, but that's why, for ourselves, we're thankful we have the space we can use, but we want to have as much light coming in, the light of the gospel. We want it simple. We don't want to be distracted by any extra stuff that's around us. We just want to look to the scriptures. What does the scriptures say? We'll have another class that works through worship and why we do what we do. But what I'll leave us with on worship is that we seek by God's grace to look to the scriptures. And that's how we build the worship service. And I'm happy to talk about anything that we do or why we do it with anyone who would like to, because worship is so important. You think about You know, our purpose in life is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. And one of the ways, primarily as God's people, we come together and glorify him is through corporate worship. And it is the purpose of the church is to glorify God. The purpose of the church is to worship. Its mission is to make disciples of Jesus. And we have the scriptures to look to. So we seek to do what God tells us. All right, I rabbit tread too much, slowed us down, I'm sorry. just love those things to get excited. Reformed churches focus on God's ordinary means of grace as revealed in his word, particularly we see in Acts 4, word, prayer, sacrament, and even we see there the gathered corporate fellowship of the saints. Reformed churches are governed by elders at the local level at the local church. Those are sessions. As churches come together, the elders gather. It's a presbytery. And then as all the churches come together, the elders from across a greater area for us, the whole country, and even a little bit into Canada as well. So that's our general assembly. You can see pictures of this happening in Acts as you read your way through there. All right, we're going to take a minute just to talk about the doctrines of grace and what is it that we understand theologically. The doctrines of grace, also commonly known as the five points of Calvinism, though John Calvin had zero interest in having his name attached to it. He would be against that. If you don't know anything about Calvin, he actually ordered that when he was buried, he didn't want a marker on his grave. He didn't want people to know where he was. He just wanted to go be in heaven with the Lord. He wasn't interested in monuments or pilgrims coming to him. He spent a life trying to stop all of that thinking. So doctrines of grace, we'll refer to them as what the scriptures teach regarding grace. They were formed as actually a response to Jacob Arminius, who was teaching what became Arminianism. So the Doctrines of Grace are a summary of what the scriptures teach regarding salvation. And they, as I said, like many of the creeds of the church, were a response to incorrect teaching that was taking hold. Doctrines of Grace are built upon biblical belief and trust in the sovereignty of God in all things. You may have heard of it described as tulip, as the acrostic. So the first thing is total depravity, radical pervasive depravity. Every part of our being is tainted and bent towards sin such that no one conceived and born in the normal way is capable of desiring to do what is pleasing in God's sight, much less actually doing it because she or he is dead and trespasses and sins. This is not saying that we are as bad as we could possibly be. We read Ephesians 2 to get a picture of this. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work, and the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. The second point in the Doctrines of Grace is unconditional election. God was pleased to choose whom he would save and redeem in Christ entirely based on grace, not because of any merit or potential for merit or foreknowledge in the elect. We read John chapter 6, verse 37-39. All that the Father gives me, this is Jesus speaking, all that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out, for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. Next is limited atonement. Another way we could say this is particular redemption. Christ did not die for all, men, but expressly to redeem his elect. And we see a picture of that in Ephesians chapter one, the bride, the gift that the father gives to the son that we just read about there in John six. Um, this is not to say that Christ's sacrifice has a limited value. Actually his death on the cross has an infinite value. You think about the fact that God, the son died on the cross, the perfect lamb of God, uh, that is of infinite value. His sacrifice, but his sacrifice was offered for and applied to those whom he particularly redeemed his sheep, not humanity generally. And then it goes even greater than that, which we don't have time to get into, but the fact that Christ's death is actually, uh, not only redeeming of his people, but it's also the work at he is redeeming and fixing the broken universe from the fall so that we'll see the full redemption. There's the, world even groans in anticipation of these things. But John chapter 10, 14 to 17, Christ says, I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me just as the father knows me and I know the father and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason, the father loves me because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. Come to our fourth point in the doctrine of grace, irresistible grace. God's grace is effective, powerful, sovereign to bring the elect to repentance and faith. The general call to repent and believe may not be heeded, but the particular call accompanied by the work of the Spirit will be heard and will be responded because the Spirit is working. 1 Peter 1, 3-4, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ according to his great mercy. He has caused us to be born again. to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you. And then the fifth, final one we're gonna look at is the perseverance of the saints. Not once saved, always saved. God's spirit is at work in the saints such that they will do increasingly that which is pleasing in his sight as they grow in holiness and die to sin, making use of the means of grace that God has provided. Romans 8, 29, 30. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined, he also called. And those whom he called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified." We believe in a covenantal understanding of scripture. So we, as a church, we hold to historical understanding that the church is not separated into two different classes. We have the Jewish people and the Gentile people, but we believe what we see in the scriptures, that God has one church and he has engrafted the Gentiles and is working. And we see this moving forward his covenantal promises his covenantal unfolding of the scriptures that when Christ came the Gentiles being brought in was not a Fourth down backing up and punting and starting over God didn't scramble wondering what happened my people rejected me But that was God's purpose was to then open the church up to go global so that we might see Jews and Gentiles being brought into the family of God. So covenantal understanding of scripture. Covenantal means a relationship God establishes with us and guarantees by his word. Reformed understanding of scripture is God's revelation and accomplishment of the salvation unfolded in terms of covenants. How is the scripture organized redemption unfolding? And we touched on this a little bit last time when we went over the vows. So I'm going to go too deep. And this is so rich and beautiful. It deserves its own studies. So I'm just going to throw out what these covenants are and we'll talk more about them in the future. But these key covenants, as we work through, The covenant of works, we read about that in Genesis chapter 2. Then we have Adam's covenant of grace we see there being made in Genesis 3. We have the Noahic covenant we see in Genesis 9. The Abrahamic Covenant in Genesis 17. The Mosaic Covenant we read of in Exodus. The Davidic Covenant that we read in Psalm 89. And then the New Covenant that we are enjoying now, we read in Jeremiah 31 and Luke 22. And there's many, many other places, but that gives you a couple points you could go at and you could read and see this covenantal unfolding as the covenant expands greater and greater and greater coming out to the New Covenant into the world. Along with that covenantal understanding of scripture, we have an understanding of biblical worldview. We do not believe in an idle theology. We don't believe that Christianity is something you do one hour a week or one day a month and you put it away in a little box and set it on the shelf, but that when God redeems you, he is at work in you. He's transforming you into his disciple, a new creature in Christ, and it changes everything. And part of that is giving you a biblical worldview. The Reformed system does not merely impact what we believe and know, but what we believe and know shapes the way we view the world and live in the world. It drives us to love the Lord, to worship him, and to serve him as salt and light, to love our neighbors. Reformed theology is not merely a philosophy, but a transforming world and life view that brings every aspect of life subject to the Lordship of Christ. And as such, there is a sense in which everything we do is worship, whether we're changing a baby's diaper, whether we're building a computer or a car, or preaching or sharing the gospel, in addition to the corporate act of worship on the Lord's Day. Again, biblical worldview. I'm looking forward to putting something big together that we can work through. Just give you an idea of where we're at there. So we, as I mentioned, we are a Christian Apostate Church, we are a Reforming Covenantal Church, and then finally, we'll spend the next few minutes quickly talking about we are a Presbyterian and an ordinary means of grace church. So church government, which just means the structure of the church. How does Christ want his church to be structured? He does tell us in the scriptures. So when we say church government, don't get weirded out. What do you mean government? There's only one government. We're actually on Wednesday nights talking about that. There's lots of different types of governments. Civil, ecclesiastical, personal, family, but anyways, again, rabbit trailing here. Church government. The Bible teaches that Christ has intended his church to be ruled and led by elders. The scriptural form of church government, again, is elders, the Greek presbyteros or presbyters. The word elder and overseer are used interchangeably. And we see this in, for example, Titus 1, 5 to 9. This is why, so Paul's writing to Titus, this is why I left you in Crete. so that you might put what remained into order and appoint elders there. It's Chris Buter Ross in every town. As I directed you, if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination, For an overseer, a pisacopicon, as God's steward must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant, or quick-tempered, or drunkard, or violent, or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction and sound doctrine, and also to rebuke those who contradict it. Now the overseer title here speaks to the function of the elder. The elder speaks, when it says elder, it's speaking to the dignity of the office. It's not a distinction between bishop and pastor. So you don't want to look here and go, oh, I see, we see in Titus that there really is supposed to be this distinction. There really is going to be a, an overseer that's above the other elders, but that's not what's happening. It's the different descriptions of the same office. So I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed. Shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, episkopontes, not under compulsion, but willingly as God would have you, not for shameful gain, but eagerly, not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. Elders are elected by the congregation to oversee that they will oversee. They shepherd the church by applying the gospel and equipping the saints and encouraging the use of their gifts and graces as members of the local body of Christ, the glory of Christ, who is the king and head of the church. We do see that there's two types of elders or classes of elders who are teaching and ruling, though they have plurality, they're on the same level, but they have distinction in what they're doing. And we see that in First Timothy 5.17, let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. So we look at 1 Timothy 5 and say, okay, not every single elder is specifically spending most of their time in the teaching aspect and the preaching aspect. So that's where we see the teaching elder. And then the ruling elder, we do see that there is that call there. Let all elders who rule well. Elders care for the spiritual needs of the saints. Deacons care for the physical needs. We see that in Acts 6 and other places. We won't get too much into deacons, but we do see their qualifications in the scriptures. We can turn to the pastoral epistles and we can read those. We'll cover that as we get closer and closer to electing our own elders and deacons and Christ Church being particularized. Church authority, ministerial and declarative. That's the authority the church has. Christ's church has the authority of ministerial and declarative. Church powers only to serve the saints and declare what Christ has said in his word. It has no power to invent new doctrines or compel people to do anything. So, as we'll talk about in our Wednesday night class, the church is different than the state. The church doesn't get to bring corporal punishment. Now, the keys of the kingdom have been given, so someone could be excommunicated or there could be different disciplines that would come, but it would all be spiritual and seeking the repentance and restoration of the sinner, whereas the state has the ability to put you in jail and ultimately has the sword and can execute you. So anytime the church has taken the power of the sword, it was unbiblical and wrong. That's not who the church is. Anytime the church has decided to create its own doctrines, it's wrong. It's only a mouthpiece of what Christ has said. So in one way, I try to do everything, whether it's teaching or preaching, everything is saying what's already been said, if that makes sense. I don't want to say anything that's never been said in the history of the church or can't be found in the scriptures. If I do, then as a pastor, as a teaching elder, I would be an error. I think I would be sinful. Christ has given me a great responsibility and so it's important by God's grace to fulfill that. So ministerial and declarative, that's the church's authority. Elders are to interpret the king's laws and apply his ordinances. Like an ambassador. We send an ambassador as our country, America. United States sends an ambassador to another country and that ambassador is told, hey, this is what we're doing from the White House. The president says, this is what I want you to do. And they get over there and they're like, whatever. This is what we're doing. And all of a sudden this ambassador is wheeling and dealing and things are going crazy. Like that ambassador needs to get yanked out, kicked out of service and dealt with. So it's the same thing. elders are to interpret the king's laws and to apply his ordinances and to say what Christ has proclaimed. Mission of the church, we've talked about this a little bit. I have a whole lesson you can listen to, uh, that I, that I did on the mission of the church, but the mission of the church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ, Matthew 28, 18, 20. And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven on earth and given to me, go therefore make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and the son of the Holy spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. That's the mission of the church. And it's a unique mission. No one else has been given that mission, but the church. It's the church and the church alone that has that mission. So no other institution is called or equipped by Christ to make disciples of him. As important as the family is, and as much as the family is involved in the rearing of godly children, you cannot make disciples of Christ in the family alone. You have to have the church, at least according to Christ and the scriptures. The family is important. We are not in any way want to go against the biblical family. But it is not enough. Not the schools, not the civil government. Those are not institutions that can come in and make disciples of Christ. We can't sit back and say, well I'm not going to worry about church, I'm not going to worry about rearing my children in the faith, I'm just going to send them to that school I think is pretty good and they're going to take care of it. That would be an incorrect view of making disciples of Christ. And of course the civil government. We don't want the civil government seeking to make disciples of Christ. That is not their calling or their job or their mission. If the church does not carry out her mission, who will do it? It's a very dangerous thing when the church becomes distracted by other things and does not focus in on the mission that Christ our King has given us. So that's why we talk a lot about making disciples. And it's the disciples who go out as salt and light everywhere they go every day. The New Testament pattern, church membership, it's in the context of the scriptures. It's to be expected. I'm actually writing something I'm going to send out to everybody that talks about church membership. But you can go to Acts 2, 1 Corinthians 12. There's some good places to start. And you see that Jesus expects his people, those whom he's redeemed, expects them to be part of a local church. And there's a greater context there that we see that's a reality. that membership is biblical. It's important. It's instituted by God for his church. Um, you read through the new Testament, let alone the old Testament, but you read through the new Testament. It is like impossible to see how you could function as a Christian and not be involved in a local church. Um, there are no Lone Ranger Christians wandering out there. It's just not the way God created it and wants us to live. There are benefits to church membership. Again, we could go into this, but just to hit bullet points, you get spiritual encouragement, read Galatians 6, Ephesians 6, spiritual accountability, Hebrews 13, Galatians 6, spiritual fellowship, Hebrews 10, Acts 4, physical support, Acts 6, Ephesians 4, obedience to Christ, John 15. And then we have the gospel reminders that come. The church is full of sinners. The church is going to at some point let you down. The church will hurt you because it's full of sinners. The church will disappoint you. In fact, elders, deacons, myself, we are not Jesus. We're going to mess up. We're going to make mistakes. We're going to have to come and ask forgiveness to one another and seek reconciliation in the work of the spirit and Christ. Those are things for us to keep in mind. Why the scriptures tell us how to do these things, how to remedy this when these things happen. But Life in the church provides you the opportunity to grow in grace, grow in Christ-likeness, to be encouraged by fellow believers, to be nourished by preaching, teaching, and the sacraments, to be forgiven by others, and to forgive in turn, because that is what Christ has done for you. And then again, we'll do a longer study of this, but as we look at the ordinary means of grace, word, prayer, and sacrament, word, we've already talked about what we believe about the Bible, so I'm gonna let that stand for that. Prayer, the scriptures are clear, huge aspect of our life as Christians as worship. We pray a lot during worship because we see that in the scriptures that call when we we hear God, when we read his word, we speak to God when we pray. And that's how we commune and fellowship. And that's how we have a conversation and dialogue with our God. And we enjoy that. And then we have the sacraments that have been given. Christ has given us the two sacraments of baptism and Lord's Supper. Baptism symbolizes the washing away of sin, union with Christ, death and rising with Christ, belonging to him. It's an engrafting into Christ, partaking of the benefits of the covenant of grace, our engagement to be the Lord's. Baptism is what brings us into membership in the church. Recipients, baptism is for believers and their children, as we see in the scriptures, the household application throughout. And definitely in the counterpart to baptism, which is circumcision in the Old Testament. But then in the New Testament, we see if you read through, you'll notice when someone comes to faith, they and their household get baptized. They receive this symbol. of membership in the church. Baptism replaces circumcision, marking out God's covenant people from the world. Circumcision was administered only to boys. And with the widening of the covenant of grace under the new covenant, believers and their children, both boys and girls, receive the sign and seal. Lord's Supper symbolizes the welcome of the gospel into God's family and table through the breaking of Christ's body and the pouring out of his blood in our place. It's a foretaste of the feast to come, a feast in which we anticipate his return as we will celebrate, testify, and proclaim our faith in his covenant word of promise. Recipients, believers in Christ who are members of his body, having been admitted to the table by the session or by elders of a local church. Noteworthy, the children of believers do not come to the table by virtue of their birth. That's the same as it was with the Passover in the Old Testament. You, whereas you did have circumcision being happening at eight days old for the children. Children did not come to the table for Passover until they were admitted into at 13 in adulthood there in the Old Covenant community. No, where the children of believers do not come to the table of virtue, their birth just as with Passover and in contrast with circumcision, communion requires spiritual understanding and discernment. We see that in first Corinthians 11. There's that call to come to the Lord's table worthily. I'll try to bring this up when we celebrate the Lord's Supper. You have to understand what's happening and that you can come in an unworthy manner and to come in an unworthy manner brings judgment upon yourself and Because elders would never want to purposely bring judgment upon ourselves, we're not going to give the elements to someone that we clearly know, because they're three years old, don't understand what's happening. They don't understand that the bread represents the body of Christ, and the wine represents his blood, and that there's the spiritual presence of Christ, and the difference, and it starts getting to a place where that's important to understand. But I understand baptism, Lord's Supper, the sacraments are things that there's Lots of discussion, disagreement amongst churches, and that's something we're going to teach more about, learn more about. Again, that's our quick overview. Homework for you is think about your testimony, how it's worked in your life. That's the conversation that I want to have with you soon. I want to hear about how the Lord's worked in your life, what he's done to bring you to salvation and then grow you in grace. And then, as I mentioned, coming, if you decide to come and become members of the church, you become members by meeting with the elders and making a credible profession of faith. And in that credible profession of faith, which is explaining what the Lord has done in your life and then seeing fruit in that, then you just be able to take the vows. You don't become a member, you don't have to believe all the things that I've covered in the sense that you don't have to say, well, I'm absolutely Presbyterians, they're right 1,000%. Oh man, I'm all about the doctrines of grace, everything, sign me up. That's for officers in the church have to believe those things. Membership in the PCA, the Presbyterian Church of America, membership of Christ Church Presbyterian is based on a credible profession of faith and the willingness to take vows before God and the church, the vows we went over last time. Hopefully that's clear. More than happy to talk in more depth about it if that is helpful. Just let me know. Let me pray and then I'll stay behind and talk if anyone has any questions right now today. Lord, we went over a lot. I mean, we flew through, I mean, years of study, just barely touched on stuff. Almost feels wrong to do such disservice to so many glorious things. But I ask and pray, we ask and pray that our short time together that you'll bring forth understanding and clarity of the DNA, who we are at Christ Church, that we can have more in-depth conversations and we can enjoy the fruit of future study. I pray that you will be at work amongst us and we might see the making of disciples, the disciples of Jesus, as you gather them and grow them here. In his name we pray. Amen.