there our series is what is a reformed Baptist and we are on week 10 and boy have we ran into a Each one of these, I'm like, it's going to take weeks. But I've been doing pretty good. I'm not taking a long time. But now we're talking about the church. And so it's at least going to take us two weeks. So we'll just see. But let me start out reading Ephesians 2. What a beautiful statement on the church here. Verse 19 through 22. Paul says, So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him, you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. Now don't miss how chapter 3 starts. For this reason, Paul a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles and then he's just gonna spill out and it's gonna you know how Paul does takes time but he's just overwhelmed by the mystery and the beauty and the glory of the church And so should we be how the Lord has called a people out of darkness and into light, not from one nationality, not from not from one socioeconomic status, not from Jews only or Gentiles only, but from the world, from the nations, from Jews and Gentiles, from the rich, from the poor, from the smart, from the dumb, not smart. From all, God has called a people to himself, united them into his Christ body, the church. I've got a four-part outline, and we're gonna cover one tonight. That's the danger, so I'm afraid each one of these could take one, and I don't know. But I'll give you those four, principle, polity, purpose, practice. We could spend weeks on each one. But what we want to do is give a general overview in these sessions of how a Reformed Baptist understands the church. And here's the problem about Reformed Baptists. We have similarities with other traditions, but our beliefs put a distinction between us and others in the Reformed camp, right? So we're like, we're Reformed Baptists, and the other Reformed churches are like, you know losers and then we okay so like okay we'll run over to our Baptist brethren you know and they're like but you got you know you guys have reformed soteriology so it's like we can kind of feel like we're on an island sometimes but that's okay I'm going to try to teach the biblical definition understanding of the church so one point tonight that is Principle. So principle, polity, purpose, practice. Tonight, principle. So principle, what is the fundamental truth of the church? How can we boil it down to understand exactly what the church is? You're probably familiar, some of you at least, are probably familiar with the Greek word for the church. Well, maybe you are, I don't know. Greek word for the church, do you know? Ecclesia. Some of you know a little bit of Spanish. You know the Spanish word for the church? Iglesia. You can see where that comes from, right? So we translate this word as church in the New Testament. Ekklesia, it's a compound word. It comes from two Greek words, the word for out and the word for call or from, out, and then the word for call. So a lot of people talk about how it has the connotation of the called out ones or assembly, congregation. You have to be careful. People try to do this, but just I'll give you an illustration. You have to be careful about compound words. Let me give you an English example. Butterfly, I said, now listen, butterfly comes from two English words, the word butter and the word fly. That really has not, that is not going to help you at all, is it? Okay. So you understand that you can't, that's a, that's kind of a fallacy to take a compound word and break it down. But for lack of, um, you know, just for sake of argument. Yes. Assembly congregation. That's, that's where we are. Ecclesia. This is where we get the word ecclesiology. So here's someone say ecclesiology. They're not trying to be fancy. That's the word for the study of the church. Okay. Our English word, church, however, does not come from Ecclesia, because you can hear how the Spanish word, Iglesia, Ecclesia, you got it. Our word, our English word for church, comes from the Greek word, well, it's actually A derivative of the word kurios, kurios is the Greek word for Lord, so it's the Greek word kuriakon, which just means like, it's showing ownership, so like, belonging to the Lord. It's used in places like, I've shared this before, like 1 Corinthians 11, Revelation 1, talking about the Lord's supper, the Lord's day, respectively. Kuriakon is why you have the Scottish word, some of you will know this, if you don't, it's no big deal, kirk, you've heard that maybe, kirk? In the Roman Empire, as missionaries came into contact with Germanic tribes, the word became, in the German tongue, Kyria or Kyria, which comes into Old English as Cherokee, Cherokee, I don't know if I'm even saying that right, I don't know Old English, but you can kind of see how that comes to church. But etymologically speaking, all I'm trying to make a point is this, the church is the Lord's. That's how we have the English word for church, okay? It is the Lord. This would be a good spot to remind us that Christ alone is the head of the church. Now, when we use the word church, we have two main senses as Reformed Baptists. They're on your sheet, but what are they? We talk about, number one, the universal church. Secondarily, the what? the local church, all right? Good. So first, the universal church. I'm just gonna steal right from our confession, because it gives a great, great definition here. So this is from chapter 26, paragraph 1. The Catholic, very important that it's lowercase c, right? Because the lowercase c, Catholic, means what? Universal. It says it there in the definition. The Catholic, that is universal, church, may be called invisible with respect to the internal work of the Spirit and truth of grace. It consists of the full number of the elect who have been, are, or will be gathered into one under Christ her head. The church is the spouse, the body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all." When we talk about the universal church, The universal church, we often use the word invisible, meaning not that you can't see, not that you can't see the people, right? But that you can't see the Holy Spirit's work. And you don't know, you don't know the full number of the church, right? You haven't seen them, okay? But Calvin makes a good point. He says it this way, the church is called Catholic or universal because there could not be two or three churches unless Christ be torn asunder, which cannot happen. But all the elect are so united in Christ that as they are dependent on one head, they also grow together into one body, being joined and knit. Together. James Renahan says this, though each local church is independent, they form one body. Are you getting the picture here? There is one holy Catholic church. I'm going to walk through those words just real quick. One holy Catholic church, meaning in heaven, you're not going to say, yes, where's the Methodist section? That's not how it works, right? You're in the new heavens and new earth. We are how many bodies? One body. And you'll find out probably there was a few things that you believed that you were wrong about. But it's one body. One, holy, meaning set apart, sanctified, called out of this world, into union with Christ. One, holy, Catholic, meaning universal. So not only spanning distance, but also what? Time, and not even only spanning time and distance, but in one sense, dimension. And what I mean by that is the church that is in glory now, those who have passed on and are now in the presence of Christ, they still make, like, where's that at? Well, I mean, I know you wanna point up heaven, but it's not like if you just take a rocket ship and just keep going up, you'll find heaven, right? I think it's even a different realm, if you will, but they still comprise the one church. So one holy Catholic church. A verse we used last week I'm going to use again. Ephesians 5, 25. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. the church, and gave Himself up for her." Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her. He's not saying Christ loved churches, though Christ does love churches, and gave Himself up for them. No, no. He's saying Christ loved the church, the one body, His bride. Dustin Bench put it this way, Christ has eyes only for his church. Song of Solomon 115, the groom, Solomon says to his bride, which this is a type of Christ to his church, behold, you are beautiful, my love. Behold, you are beautiful. Your eyes are doves. God loves the church. Christ loves His church. The Holy Spirit loves the church. The full number of all the elect of all time. Jesus Christ came from heaven. Not that His divinity left heaven. That's not what we're saying. He's omnipresent. But in the fullness of time, He took on human flesh with, not to be irreverent here, but to make a point, with one girl on His heart. This woman, she was a rebel, unfaithful, unworthy. But Jesus Christ came, taking on human flesh. He came for her anyway out of His eternal love. He obeyed and fulfilled the law in every jot and tittle for the glory of God and out of love for His bride. He won a righteousness in order to clothe her with. That way, He could take off her garments of putrid, rotten, filthy, stenchy, wicked sin and to give her the garments of purity. His own perfect and beautiful righteousness He laid down his life for her now. Listen to me in the garden, you know this in the garden God approaches Adam and Adam says to God don't blame me Blame my bride now. It's a paraphrase. It's but in essence, that's the response Not me. It's the woman you gave to be with me, right? He throws his wife if you will under the bus don't blame me and Blame my bride. Jesus Christ comes, the true and better Adam. And on the cross, in essence, we don't want to stretch it too far, but in essence, our Lord says, don't blame my bride. Blame me. He laid down his life for hers. He bore God's wrath due her upon himself. He paid for her sins. On the third day, he rose again in victory. He rose again from the dead, resurrected in victory over death and hell and the grave. He resurrected for his bride, for the glory of God, for his bride ascended into heaven. And he rules and he reigns now. as head of the church, as the God-man. Now, before we go on, I should mention this. You want this applied to your soul? You want this applied to your soul? You want the forgiveness of sins? You want your rotten corpse to be taken off of you as it were? Your putrid rags? You remember what Isaiah says? All our righteous deeds. By the way, all our righteous deeds. R.S. Filthy Rags. So just pause and think about that for a second. What are righteous deeds? The best, right? The best. Isaiah says, the best you have to offer God. Filthy rags. We're not even going to go into detail what is meant by those rags, but it's filthy, putrid garments. That's your best you can offer God. And Jesus Christ comes and says, I have garments to clothe you in. Garments of purity. Garments of righteousness. of the wedding garment to get you into the feast. I have it. You say, I want that. I want to be forgiven. I want to be clothed in the righteousness of Jesus. What must I do? It's one answer, right? It's faith. It's faith. You must believe. You must look to Christ. No, stop checking off the box in your head. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no, no, no. Run to Jesus. You understand your predicament apart from Christ? You stand condemned and clothed in your own. No one else gave you these rags. These are your own doing. But Jesus says, I'll take them and I'll replace it. Your sins are like scarlet. They'll be white as snow. You'll be white as snow. But you must believe. Repent from your sins and turn to Christ. Trust the gospel. Now, we're not done here with the universal church. We've seen that it's the body of Christ. We've seen that He alone is the Head. It is the Bride of Christ. He alone is the Bridegroom. We listen to no other voice, right? It's interesting. So in the Song of Solomon, of course, the bridegroom observes the beauty of his bride. But later on, the bride observes the beauty of the bridegroom. So Jesus loves the church, but the church now, because we've been regenerated and justified, and now we're adopted and being sanctified, now we look back to Jesus and we say what? You're all together lovely. I think that's 1 Song of Solomon 4 maybe. But there's another important thing to understand about the church. The church is the kingdom. Listen to this. Revelation 1, 5 and 6. To Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood and made us a kingdom. Priest to His God and Father. To Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. In all honesty here, we're bleeding the lines a bit between the local church and the universal church. That's okay, because in a way, we should do that, because the universal church finds its expression on earth in local, visible congregations. So people, if this is, there's lots of things people mess up on, and so I might be a bit hyperbolic here, but if I could just tell you the one thing that people in the Bible Belt are completely jacked up on, this whole idea of the church, this whole idea of like, well, it's just about a relationship with me and Jesus. It's just, you know, but it's simply, it is about a relationship with you and Jesus, but that ain't all, right? You can't just go around and say, well, I'm a member of the universal church, okay? Who's your pastor? Jesus is my pastor. Well, the Bible says that he has given pastors to local churches as gifts. That's Ephesians four, right? So it's a misunderstanding because the universal church has visible, tangible expression in local visible congregations. But I wanna show you something. The point is, again, what do we believe about the church? The church is the kingdom of Christ. And the reason I say that's important to mention tonight is because John quotes, by the way, especially Revelation. A lot of the New Testament, this is true, but especially Revelation. When you find verses in Revelation, they are often echoing either implicitly or explicitly verbatim Old Testament text. So listen to this. Exodus 19. Remember, they're both on your sheet, so you can look at both of them. But Exodus 19, 5-6 says this, Now therefore, this is the Lord talking to Israel before the giving of the law on Mount Sinai. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, you shall be My treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is Mine, and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. A kingdom of priests? What is that language? Wait, we just read that in Revelation. And that's what John says is the church. Why is that important? Because we're talking about what we believe about the church. And listen carefully on this. The New Testament understands the church as the fulfillment of Old Testament Israel. The church is, this isn't replacement theology, It's fulfillment theology. The church is true Israel. The church is eschatological Israel. Robert Mounts says this, the early church understood itself to be true Israel and the inheritors of all the blessings promised to their spiritual predecessors. Most, you have to understand this, most physical Israel, by the way, Say, this is crazy. Read the Old Testament. Most physical Israel was in lockstep with God or rejected God? Rejected God. Yeah, all of the ten tribes in the north, they bounced, right? And then even the remnant, there's a remnant within the remnant, so Paul says it like this in Romans 9, 6. But it is not as though the word of God has failed, for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel. So here's what for tonight what you need to know. There are not two peoples of God. We've studied that in eschatology. We've studied that in covenant theology. Here it comes again in ecclesiology as we talk about what is a Reformed Baptist. There are not two peoples of God. There's not Israel and the church. There is one body. One body. One church. all believers of all time, Jew, Gentile, forming true Israel, the true church, the fulfillment of all God's promises which find their yes in Jesus Christ. " Long quote from Louis Burkhoff, but it's important. He says, We should not close our eyes to the patent fact that the name Church, Hebrew, Kahal, rendered Ekklesia in the Septuagint. The Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Old Testament. That's important, but just listen. Should not close our eyes to the patent fact that the name church is applied to Israel in the Old Testament repeatedly. And then he gives some verses, you can look those up. The fact that in our translations of the Bible, the Old Testament rendering of the original is gathering, assembly, or congregation, while the New Testament rendering of it is church, may have given rise to misunderstanding on this point. But the fact remains that in the Old Testament as well as in the New, the original word denotes a congregation or an assembly of the people of God, and as such serves to designate the essence of the church. I'm going to illustrate this very simply. If that didn't make sense, let me illustrate it very simply. Look at your text. Look at your notes. Acts 7, 37, 38. This is Stephen is preaching. Not that Stephen, but Stephen the martyr. He says, this is the Moses who said to the Israelites, God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. Now verse 38 is where it's important. This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai and with our fathers. He received living oracles to give to us. Okay, what does all that mean? That's not the point. There is one point here. any guesses to the greek word translated there as congregation also translated as congregation the lsb just so you know alex any guesses as to what the greek word is there for congregation ecclesia so it's ecclesia but you don't recognize that in english that's kind of unfortunate actually it's disappointing i understand there could be some confusion there but let me just read it to you how it's normally translated other places this is the one this is the one who was in the church in the wilderness now I'm not trying to make too much out of that point I'm just simply saying this it is actually undeniable right I'm not saying the church had its fullest expression the Old Testament of course it did not that's Paul's whole point in Ephesians but the idea is there certainly is anticipation there And Stephen, as he's preaching, he calls it the ecclesia, right? So he has an idea there, an understanding in the New Testament that the church is present in the Old Testament, at least in partial present, and it's waiting for fulfillment of Christ's work and for the promised kingdom to arrive. Okay? It has arrived now. What is the kingdom of Christ? Now I understand some people say it's the whole world, the whole universe. Now I'd say this, all the universe is under the authority of Christ. Amen? Is there anywhere in the universe, could you find some little community on the backside of Pluto that's like, well, we're not under the authority of God here. It's like, no, right? No, the whole universe is under the authority of Christ. But the kingdom has a specific point where the reign of Christ is recognized and rejoiced in, and that finds expression in the church. So we are still in the already, not yet, aspect. We await the kingdom to encompass the whole earth when Jesus returns, even though there is partial expression of the kingdom now in the church. Anyway, I'll give a pause in just a second, but there's way more we could say. I could have spent all night just on this one. Jerusalem points to the church, right, the city. Why in Revelation do you notice I see the bride coming down as a city? That's a mixed metaphor, John, right? Is she a bride or is she a city? And most of our wives would not be very flattered if you called them a city, right? You're as big as a city. Don't do that. But it's a very important point that John is making. that in the Old Testament, Jerusalem is pointing forward to the church. The temple points forward to the church, the dwelling place of God, and on and on and on. So John Owen says the church is the house of Christ, His family, we didn't even really talk about that much, His kingdom. Now in order to finish point one tonight, we've got to now get to the second part. But quickly, if you want to ask a question, you can. got to be quicker than that. Okay, second point then, the local church. So we talk about the universal church, the local church, we're still under big point number one, the principle. What is the core truth of the church? We've seen universal, now local. Tom Hicks says this. Individual local churches are the only divinely authorized institutional expressions of the universal church. A local church is a covenanted assembly of credibly professing believers. In order for a local church to exist, its people must have mutually agreed to believe and obey the Word of God together. You cannot understand these aspects. We're splitting the church up to order to understand it. So you've got universal, you've got local. But the New Testament really doesn't divide it up so neatly. We divide it up just to help us understand. And the danger of dividing it up like that is if you think you can have one without the other. Okay, and people make mistake on both sides of this, right? So some people try to have a local church and say, well, there can be members of the local church who aren't actually members of the universal church, false. Or you have people who say, well, I'm just a member of the universal church, not a member of, no, no, no, they go together. The first, not the second, but the first London Baptist confession, article 33 puts it this way. Jesus Christ hath here on earth a spiritual kingdom, which is his church. whom he hath purchased and redeemed to himself as a peculiar inheritance, which church is a company of visible saints, called and separated from the world by the word and spirit of God, to the visible profession of faith of the gospel, being baptized in that faith, and joined to the Lord in each other by mutual agreement in the practical enjoyment of the ordinances commanded by Christ their head and king." All right, what's being said here? Listen. This is probably confusing. No, not confusing, but you've probably heard this error as well. A local church isn't just any gathering of Christians. How many of you have heard Matthew 18, you don't have to raise your hand, how many of you have heard Matthew 18 misquoted and say, well, two or three are gathered together there, Jesus is among them. So that's, you know, the guys out in the boat, bass fishing on Sunday, you know, it's like, yeah, one, two, there's two of us. This is the church, man. It's not. It's not the gathering at the college ministry when you have, by the way, I'm not against the gathering at on a college campus and hearing preaching, whatever. That's not the church. You have a Bible study tomorrow or tomorrow at work. You have a Bible study. Praise God. That's good. That's great. You're able to do that. Do that. That's not the church, though. Right. Understand that. Because The New Testament reality is that a definitional aspect of the church, a fundamental aspect, a core truth of the church is that it assembles. And you can't just say, well, I don't need the church, right? Because this is the reality. It gathers in covenantal agreement and membership under qualified leadership and observing biblical worship in the ordinances. That's the church. James Bannerman says, the term church is frequently employed in Scripture to denote the body of believers in any particular place associated together in the worship of God. So let me just give you some stats. You can look this up. 106 Bible verses in the English Standard Version that use the word church. Now, I'm being real, real conservative. At least 75 of those 106 can be given an address, a place with specific locality. It's actually probably more like 90, but the point is the overwhelming, 106 times the overwhelming majority with the word ekklesia means local churches. Furthermore, how many books in the New Testament? 27, Alex wins. Of those, nine are specifically addressed to local churches by name. So there's nine. Three more, so now we're up to 12, are referred to as the pastoral epistles. They are instruction for life and leadership in the local church. The book of Acts, so now we're at 13, is the story of the spread of the gospel, which is, as we're seeing, intricately and intrinsically connected to the local churches, where the gospel goes, churches pop up, right? Then it's easily seen that 1 Peter, so you put 1 and 2 Peter together, what's that bring us to? 15, writes to local churches in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia, that's right there in the text. Similar to the intention of James, where are we at now? 16, he mentions the local church specifically in James 5.14. John's second epistle, so like, what is that, 17 or something? It's called, it's written to the elect lady. Who does he mean by that? He means the church. Jude writes his letter to those who are called, that is klektois in the Greek, which is derived from the same word ekklesia. Moreover, the letter warns believers of false teachers who creep in to local churches. The book of Revelation, you say, well, that's just about the end times. Well, actually, It starts as a church, it's a letter to seven churches. It wins, right? It's got seven. And all, I think there are like 30 local churches mentioned by name in the New Testament. It's a book about the local church. I mean, that's a little bit, that's hyperbolic. I get it. What about Jesus? Well, of course, I mean, yes, of course. But what I'm saying is you don't understand the expression or the result of or the intent of the gospel. It is the blood flows from Christ at Calvary and it streams into Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the other most parts of the earth. And what crops up from that? Believers. comprised or making up local churches. Well, what about the universal church? Yes, the universal church is finding expression in these local, visible churches. This is the principle of the church. Now, oof, hammering on time, here we go. I need to define a local church and distinguish between true and false churches. Don't be worried. If the dissent feels fast, Just put your seatbelt on. All right. You need to understand that not every place that calls itself a church is a church. Not every place. that calls itself a church is a church. There was some sort of story about John MacArthur where they planted, his church is called Grace Community Church, and they planted some church close to it which is just nonsense, not a true church, and they called themselves Grace Church. And they said, Dr. MacArthur, do you have a problem that they put Grace in their name like yours? He said, no, I have a problem they put church in their name. Ugh. In Revelation 2.5, Jesus says to the local church in Ephesus, Remember therefore, from where you have fallen, repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. Listen, there are churches that started out as true churches. At some point in their history, there was a slide in doctrine, there was a slide in morality, ethics, whatever, at some point, and Jesus has removed their lampstand. They're no longer true churches. Revelation 2.9, Jesus says to the church at Smyrna, I know your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich. And the slander of those who say that they are Jews and are not, listen to this. You want to talk about being nice. This is what Jesus calls these people. A synagogue of Satan, right? Now you would not be looked upon very kindly if you called some place a synagogue of Satan. But Jesus calls these people who profess to be his people, but they're not. They are in fact a synagogue of Satan. That is, they've never been a true church. So you have some places, maybe they started off as a true church. Christ has removed their lampstand. That's the saddest thing. They should just call themselves Ichabod Church. The glory has departed. They're continuing to go. They're doing all their little stuff, and they're having all these warm fuzzies inside, and, oh, wasn't that great? They're not a true church. And there are other places they've never been a true church. Okay? So how do we know what a true church is? I need to say this very, very clearly. You need to hear this from me, and you need to write it down. borderline say you need to tattoo it on your shoulder but I'm not saying that reformed Baptists do not believe exclamation point asterisk quadruple underline reformed Baptists do not believe that we are the only true churches okay Please don't say that we believe that and please don't even try to believe that. We don't believe that. We don't believe that we're the only true churches. We 100% acknowledge non-reformed and even non-reformed Baptist churches still as true churches. Now, I have the Belgic Confession there of 1561. It's too long. I'm not going to read it. I'm going to summarize. I agree with what it says. I'm going to summarize. It gives three marks of what makes a church a church. So listen to this very carefully. Number one, a church is a true church. It has to have all three. So he's like, if I get two, I'm passing, right? That's 66.67%. that got me pat six seven i saw that i'm sorry i'm not up on the lingo my bad okay so whatever round it up to a c kermit passes uh but that's not right you have to have all three number one is the right preaching of the gospel if a church doesn't preach the gospel it's not a church Galatians 1 teaches us that if we get the Gospel wrong, we are anathema. So it's very simple. Rome, not a true church. They don't preach the Gospel. Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, they're not preaching the Gospel. Any place that gets the Trinity wrong, I mean, like, heretically wrong, there's no Gospel without the Trinity, so they're not a church. You add works to the Gospel, not a church. Okay? Right preaching of the Gospel, necessary. Number two, the right observation of the ordinances. Now, I want to be careful here. because some people baptize infants, and that is 100% wrong. But the way they baptize, they baptize as a sign of the Gospel. So those who are doing that, they're not baptizing as a means of regeneration or whatever, because that's not true anyway. We can still consider true church. They're still seeing the ordinances not as a means of regeneration, but as signs. and positive commands of the New Testament, okay? So, many Reformed Baptists, and I put myself in this camp, recognize faithful gospel-preaching pado-Baptist churches as true churches that have some serious issues, okay? Others say they're not true churches at all. You can work that out yourself. I just gave you my position. Overall, I would say this. We love our Pato Baptist brothers. We long for unity, and even if they would come around to the church, it's a very important error they have, and we should want to see reconciliation. Okay, so you have to have, how can a church be a true church? One, you have to have the right preaching of the gospel. Number two, you have to have the only two ordinances, and you cannot see them as a means of salvation, okay? So you got to be really careful, for example, about the Church of Christ, depending on what people say about baptism. And there's different positions on that. But if you try to make baptism a means by which you are regenerated, that's a problem. That's a serious error. that would put you outside the definition of a true church. And then thirdly, I wanna be careful here, we wanna be gracious, but let's be real, the practice of church discipline. Okay, we must acknowledge that Christ has removed the candlestick of churches over this issue. That's what he told Ephesus, repent, okay? So this is a serious issue. And at the same time, if a church is not presently practicing discipline, I'm not willing to say automatically they're not a true church. Okay, are they trying to move in that direction? Right? That can happen, right? Are they working toward that end? We can give grace, we can give patience, we can give mercy here. But listen very carefully. If they don't care at all about the purity of the church, They just let sin run rampant in the church without accountability, without correction, without discipline. They just toss this aside for decades or even a century. Well, it really could be that what they are doing is continuing to function like a church outwardly, but really they're no longer a true church. You understand? A true church confronts sin, guards the purity of the church, and if necessary, will be willing to remove someone from its membership for continued unrepentant sin because this is the way that God's Word instructs us to do. So, again, look at the tattoo. Get it backwards so you can read it in the mirror. We do not believe that only Reformed Baptists are true churches. It's just not true. But we do believe that the true church has three necessary marks, three necessary essentials. You might find the preaching is boring, and you might find that there might be a guy up there with a Hawaiian shirt and flip-flops, but is he preaching the gospel? If he's preaching the gospel, we can say, okay, there's some things we need to correct here, but you're preaching the gospel. Amen. Okay? They're taking the ordinances rightly. They're only seen as two ordinances. They're not seen as salvific in the sense of regeneration or justification. Okay, there may be some things we need to change, but you're still a true church. And they care about sin. The man in the Hawaiian shirts and flip-flops confronts the man in the church who has cheated on his wife, calls him to repent. There's some things that we want to change and some even important disagreements we may have, but guess what? You're doing those things, those are signs of a true church. You understand? It's very important that we get all that right. That is the principle of the church. Oof, that was a lot.