And the rest of us, please, could we turn in our Bibles to Matthew's Gospel and Chapter 16. There should be some Bibles around. If you can't see one, please reach across to somewhere and grab one. Certainly some in the pews in the middle here if anybody wants a Bible. Matthew chapter 16, and we're thinking we're gonna read again from verse 13. But this evening we're going, sorry, this morning we're gonna be thinking about verse 19. But I'll read from verse 13 to verse 19 again. Page 977, Matthew 16, verse 13. Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, who do people say that the Son of Man is? And they said, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. He said to them, But who do you say that I am?' Simon Peter replied, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered him, Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter. And on this rock, I will build my church. And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. And whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Well, let's pray now and ask God for his help. Please keep your Bible open because we will be referring to that passage. Let's pray. Almighty God, thank you so much for this opportunity to gather here this morning. And Lord, we want to pray that as we consider your word now, you will speak to all of our hearts. I do pray that you will Lord, anybody who needs to be encouraged, he or she will be encouraged. Anybody who needs to be rebuked or challenged, that person will be rebuked and challenged. We pray that your kingdom will grow among us. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, in our Sunday morning services, most weeks when I've been speaking, we've been thinking about the church. The church is not an institution, the church is the people of God. And the Bible understands the church in two senses, talks about, used the word church in two senses. First of all, the universal church, which is all people in all places and in all times, who ever have and ever will believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, And then there is the local church, which is those particular believers who happen to be alive now and happen to live and meet in a certain particular place. So you've got the whole church that Jesus died for, and then you've got the church in Corinth, the church in Philippi, the church in Rome, and today you've got Well, there's a church in Poplar, and there's another one in Bow, and there's other ones in Limehouse, and these local churches that God has established. And last week we were thinking about verse 18, which is a really important verse because here Jesus talks about how the church is built. Jesus said to Peter, I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell, or Hades, shall not prevail against it. And we were thinking about that last time. We were seeing about how Jesus says that the church is his church. I will build my church, he says. He says that the church is built by him. I will build my church. He uses people. but the church is built by the Lord Jesus Christ. We also saw that the church is built upon the foundation of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not built on a man, not built on Peter, the person. It's built upon the rock of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we also saw that the church is victorious and triumphant. The gates of hell, or more correctly translated, Hades, cannot stand as the church is marching forward, conquering new territory, place after place, soul after soul. The devil cannot stop this from happening. When God chooses to work in an individual's life, Hell has to surrender, Hades has to surrender its inhabitants to the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord calls this one, and that one, and that one, come out! And the devil cannot stop happening. The gates of Hades open and out come these people to become the children of God, to become part of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, Jesus then went on to speak these very remarkable words that we've got in verse 19, which speak about the authority of his church. That he has given tremendous power, in the spiritual area of course, to the church, to his church. to be able to discriminate and identify those who are the true believers, to welcome those who are true believers into its midst. and to exclude those who are not true believers or those who profess to be believers but live in a life which is inconsistent with that profession, to exclude them from that fellowship. And Jesus had given that power and authority to his church to do this thing. Now, I have to say this is not the easiest of verses in the Bible to understand, but I'm going to try to make it as simple for us as I possibly can, as I know how. And as I do this, I want to do so by asking and then answering two key questions. about the interpretation of this verse because everything hangs on the interpretation of these two verses, an answer of these two questions. First question is, who is the you? He says, I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. So who's the you there? Who's that talking about? And the second thing is when he talks about, I give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, whatever you loosen on earth will be loosened on earth. What is that authority? Does that mean that the church, giving away the first question, answer the first question there, well, does that mean that when the church says, okay, then God does what the church says? Can it mean that? First, I think that's what he's saying. Well, we'll come to it. I hope we'll give you the answer to those two questions, to that. But let's first of all start with this first question. To whom is that word you referring? He says, I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth, it is loosed in heaven. Who is that you? If you talk to a Roman Catholic priest who knows what his religion teaches, he will tell you, well, it's obvious. The you there is Peter. And Peter was the first pope, and then he passed down that authority to all the subsequent popes that had come down the line. That's called the apostolic succession, or the papal succession. That popacy has gone down through the ages. And so this is talking about the authority of the pope. It's obvious, let's say. And that is the teaching of the Roman Catholic religion. Is that the case? Is that what it's all about? That this is saying that the Pope has got the power, the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whoever the Pope says is in heaven, is in heaven. Whoever the Pope says is not in heaven, not in heaven. And whatever the Pope says, heaven says, well, rubber stamps. Okay, that's right. Whatever you say. Is that right? No. Well, we saw last time, there are problems with saying that, with identifying, first of all, the rock as the Pope, and then same thing here as well with the you. Because as we said last time, the rock, Jesus doesn't say to Peter, on you, I will build my church. He says, on the rock, I will build my church. Also, this idea that a man is the one who is effectively in charge of the church and can determine who could be part of the church, that sounds very similar, I said last time, to Thessalonians chapter two, verse three, which describes the Antichrist, the man of lawlessness, who opposes and exalts himself over every so-called God or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. But also, when you actually look at the way that Peter behaved in the book of Acts, and in Paul's letter to the Galatians, you find he doesn't behave like the Pope at all. Do you remember what happened when Cornelius was converted? The Gentile, Acts chapter 10, and And the elders back in Jerusalem were saying, what's this? Peter's gone into the house of a Gentile and he's eaten with them. What does he do? He doesn't go back and say, well, I'm the Pope, you know. I can do what I want because I'm the Pope. No, he says to them, well, he says to them, he gives an explanation. And he explains to them and persuades to them that this is the right thing. Well, what happens when there's the council in Jerusalem? There's this question again about Gentiles. Acts chapter 15, it's true, Peter contributed to the discussion, but who chaired the discussion? It was James. Who brought things to conclusion? It was James. Peter didn't say, well, I'm the Pope, I'm telling you what we must do, no. And then what about that conflict when Paul had to challenge Peter as recorded in Galatians chapter 2? You might know how Peter had gone, it's getting the issue of Gentiles again. Peter had gone to the church there, and he had, at the time, at first, been eating with Gentiles. And then some people who were very keen on Jewish Christians not meeting with Gentiles came into the church, and Peter then withdrew. And Paul had to confront him and say to him, you're acting inconsistently with the gospel that you proclaim. And Peter was rebuked and he had to acknowledge he'd done wrong. Did Peter say, oh, don't you know I'm the Pope? You can't talk to me like that. No, of course not. No, he was one of the apostles, one of the elders in the church, that was all. So then, who is the you here? If the you isn't Peter, who is the you? Who's that referring to? I think it's very clear if you read in its context, Jesus has just said, on this rock I will build my church. And the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it, against the church. So when he says, and I will give to you the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven, he's talking to the church. And, in case we've got any doubts about that, if we go over just two chapters, over to chapter 18, there's a very important principle interpreting scripture, which is this. If you're ever doubtful about how to interpret a verse, look for another place in the Bible where that same verse, or a very similar verse, or a similar idea is expressed. And that will often shed light on the verse that you're not sure about. So here in Matthew 18 and verse 18, he says, "'Truly I say to you,' it's almost exactly word for word, "'whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven, "'and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.'" But what's he just been talking about? Well, you go back to verse 15, he's talking about the church. Let's read from verse 15. If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault just between him and you alone. If he listens to you, you've gained your brother. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two, three witnesses. And if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and tax collector. Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Now I'll explain the meaning of that in a moment, but the point is this. That verse is talking about the authority of the church. So when Jesus says you, here he's using the term to talk about you the church. So we're seeing that the church's decisions have authority. Now, the next thing I want to talk about is the nature of that authority. Let's go back to chapter 16 again and read that verse again. Verse 19. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. So you've got two things there. You've got keys and binding and loosing. Let's think about those two things. First of all, keys. Now, immediately we think, this seems rather odd because how can the church, talk about the keys of the kingdom of heaven, how can the church have the key to the kingdom of heaven, because the church is made up of people. How can the church decide who's going to go to heaven and who's going to go to hell? That sounds extraordinary, especially when we read of what, well, in fact, even from its own context, because you remember last time we saw Jesus says, I will build my church. It's Jesus who built his church. Every person who's converted is a miracle done by the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not any man who causes somebody to be converted. It's not any man or woman who causes somebody to grow as a Christian. Every single time somebody grows as a believer, it's because Christ has worked by the Spirit. So how can you say to the church, I give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven? That sounds very odd. And especially when you think about Also, Jesus uses this very term to describe himself. In Revelation chapter 3 and verse 7, Jesus is recorded as having said this to the church in Philadelphia. He says the words of the one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one can shut, who shuts and no one can open. So it's Jesus who's got the key. Jesus who decides who's going to be saved and who's not going to be saved. It's Jesus who lets people into the kingdom of heaven. Of course it is. So how come here we've got Jesus saying to the church, I will give to you the key? That sounds odd. And I think the only way to understand it is by thinking, in fact, the church is carrying out the instructions of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me give you an illustration. You go to a jail. You'll find somebody there with a set of keys. The prison warder. And the prison warder takes somebody to his cell and puts him in the cell and locks the door with the key. He's got the key. But hang on a minute. Who made the decision that that person was going to go to jail? Was it the prison warder? No, no, no. It was the judge. The man goes before the court. The judge decides who goes to prison. And then he's sent to prison. And the prison warder uses the key to shut the door. Or take a bit more of a benign illustration. You've got a big, big house. Back in the days, you had these big, old big houses with the master of the house. And you'd have a steward of the house who'd have a set of keys. And the master would say to the steward, we've got a guest coming today, I want you to open up the door for him and let him sleep in that bedroom. So, ring the doorbell, steward answer the door, hello sir, good to have you with us sir. Yes, the master told me you were coming. Come this way please sir, he unlocks the door, takes him through, takes him to his room, unlocks his room, there's your room sir. He's got the key. But he didn't make decision as to who's gonna be the guest that day. The master of the household did. And the steward carries out the instructions of the master. And you see, this is the church. Jesus calls people into his church. Jesus saves people. And he makes it clear. This one's become a Christian. This one's been saved. I want you to baptize that one. And I want you to welcome that one into the membership of the church. You didn't save that person. I didn't save that person. Jesus did. But we've got the key. We've got the baptism. We've got the church membership. And we say, hey, welcome. Come on board. Come with us. And join the family. Come and be part of this church. And at the same time, if somebody says, somebody misbehaves, they say they're a Christian, but the person's not living as a Christian, There's clearly no evidence of the rebirth in his or her life. The church says, excuse me, there's the door. Not literally, but spiritually, locks the door, says, no, you're not part of this church. Sorry, because you're not a believer. So the church has the authority to, is given authority by Christ to say who are its members and who are not its members. It's got the power to do that. Now this is really, really important because there are lots of even Christians who'll say to you, no, no, no, you can't do that. You can't say who's a Christian, not a Christian. It's too difficult to tell who's a Christian. They'll say to you, no, we've got to welcome everybody. We've got to be, what's the buzzword, an inclusive church. Oh, they might be practicing homosexual. They might be living with his girlfriend. Boy, it doesn't matter. They might be taking drugs all the time, getting drunk all the time. Never mind. We include everybody in our church. Not if they're not converted, or not if there's not the evidence of conversion. Now, some very well-meaning good biblical Christians will point to the parable. Do you remember the parable of the wheat and the tares? Do you remember that parable? where the enemy comes in and he sows weeds among the wheat. And do you remember how the angel said, the servant said to the master, should we pull up the weeds so the wheat can grow better? And he said, no, let them grow together and only separate them at the end. And people say, oh, well, you can't decide who's a Christian and who's not a Christian in this life. You let them all grow up together in the church together, and then when it gets to the end, Jesus will sort it all out. Well, no, because do you remember the interpretation Jesus gave? What is the field? Is the field the church? No, the field is the world. The believers and the unbelievers are left in the world together. Not in the church together, in the world together. But the church is meant to be pure. The church is meant to be holy. The church is meant to be as close as possible a representation of those who really are the saints. That's why they're called the saints, because they're holy. They belong to Christ. They've been born again. So keys. This is a bit of an illustration here with Romans 13. You might want to just quickly turn over to Romans chapter 13. Now this is talking about human authorities, the human state. If you want to follow, it's page 1127. And Jesus says, let every person be subject to the governing authorities For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed. And those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval. Now, this is the thing. For he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, because he does not bear the sword in vain. Verse 4, for he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. The magistrate, in terms of civil authority, the magistrate, the government, however, you know, we might have, you know, we've just been praying about a terrible law that looks like it might become into operation. But, generally speaking, the government is doing God's work for him. The government is punishing wicked people for God. The authority that courts have is authority that's come from God. It's derived authority from God. God is angry with that wrongdoer, and he's got the powers that be, the courts, to carry out that punishment that that wrongdoer needs in this life for the wrong that he or she is doing. Now, carry that over to the church. The church doesn't have any authority in the civil sphere. And this has been a terrible mistake, another of the many mistakes of the Catholic religion, that it's mixed up spiritual power with civil power. So, you know, not only is somebody excommunicated by the Pope, but then that person's burnt alive. The state power of the state is used to kill that person off. Oh, it's all God's work, so we're told. No, because there should be a separation of spiritual and physical powers. So we don't have any power, but we can see the illustration just as the magistrate carves out God's judgment in the civil sphere, so the church carries out, even as you use that word, God's judgment, God's discipline in the spiritual realm. Now this leads us to the second thing, binding and loosing. Let's come back then to Matthew 16, and we see there, Jesus says, verse 19, according to our translation here, Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Now, it is widely agreed that for some reason, which we don't know quite why, all the way from the King James Version, many translations have mistranslated the Greek here. Because the Greek is actually the future perfect passive. Now that's a strange idea, future perfect, because future is the future, perfect is the past. But if you think about how we use it, this will have happened. Future perfect. It's already happened. So this will have happened. That has already happened. And in fact, the NIV, if you've got the NIV to hand, you might want to just look at the footnote there, because that has this actually more correct translation in the footnote. The NET Bible actually translates it this way, I give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven. In other words, It's not that the church says, okay, we're gonna bind this person, we're gonna not forgive this person for his sins, and then heaven says, okay, that's what the church says, we'll do that, no, no, no. Or the church says, we're gonna forgive this person his sins, and then heaven says, okay, because that church has made that decision, we'll forgive that person, no. What the church is doing when it does church discipline is it's saying, we determine, that this person has not been forgiven by God. It's clear that this person does not have salvation or if he does have salvation is not walking in line with that salvation. So we will treat this person as though he or she is not born again until there's evidence to the contrary. And then on the other hand, somebody who's been under discipline and they repent, they say, look, I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have behaved that way. The church then says, now they get together and they say, we can see the Lord's been at work in this person's life. This Lord's forgiven this person. The Lord's restored this person. We must restore this person to fellowship. So it's not that the church acts and then heaven catches up afterwards. It's rather heaven acts and then the church catches up. And the church discerns what are the instructions of God based upon the behavior of that individual, the proven behavior of that individual. That's why Jesus says, you first of all challenge the person privately, then you take two witnesses along so it's clear, you establish the evidence, and then if it's You then bring it to the church, and if you're not listening to the church, to the whole church, then you've got clear evidence this person's not walking with the Lord, this person's either not a true believer or is severely backslidden, and therefore you treat this person like a non-Christian. Now, that passage I read from 1 Corinthians It speaks in exactly the same terms. Just have a look, if you're with me, back to 1 Corinthians 5, which we read earlier in our service. If you want the page number, it's page 1134. Now Jesus, sorry, the Apostle Paul says, but this is a man who is in flagrant sin, he's sleeping with his father's wife, up to now the church has said, oh, it's wonderful, we're so tolerant, we think it's fantastic, we can tolerate such sins, we're so proud of ourselves for being so inclusive. And Paul says, you're completely wrong. And then he says to them, Verse four, when you're assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus, and my spirit is with you in person, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord. Now that sounds, is that black magic? Is that some sort of weird cultish type thing? No, basically what it's saying is, you put the man out of the church. You hand him over to this sphere of Satan. So that he can experience what it's like to be a non-Christian. He can experience what it's like to be removed from the privilege of being known as a Christian. In the hope that the flesh, and I think he means the spiritual nature turned to sin, will be destroyed and he'll be able to be saved. So it's a judicial act, a spiritual judicial act, whereby the church says this person is not walking as he or she should be walking. So we're going to put him out of the fellowship for the time being. Hopefully it'll be temporary. And from 2 Corinthians, it seems that this man did repent and he was able to be welcomed back into fellowship, which is wonderful. Now this judicious language continues. I'll read from verse 8 in 1 Corinthians 5. I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people, not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters, since then you would have to go out of the world. But now I'm writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of a brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality, or greed, or is an idolater, or reviler, drunkard, or swindler. Do not, not even to eat with such a one. Now, listen to this, verse 12. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? To judge! People say, oh, Jesus said don't judge. Don't be condemning, yeah, but the church does have to exercise judgment. Is this person really a Christian? Is this person walking as a believer? And take appropriate action if the answer to those questions is no. So what we've seen then, I hope you've managed to follow me as we've gone through this. Who is the you? These two questions, who is the you? The answer is the you is not Peter, or any man, or pope, or anybody else like that. The you is the church. Secondly, what is the authority that Jesus has given? It's a delegated authority. The church discerns what God's, as it were, sentences on a person, and then the church carries that out. Not that the church does a sentence and then God carries that, it's the other way around. God has determined whether this person's guilty or not of this particular thing, he's not repentant, and then the church discerns that and then carries out God's, as it were, sentence, if you can understand what I'm meaning. So, how should we apply this to ourselves? Well, first of all, if you're not yet a Christian, let me just say this to you first of all, if you're not yet a Christian, you need to understand that the church is something very important. The church is not just like a, you know, the world treats the church with utter contempt, doesn't it? you know, vicar jokes and all this sort of stuff. It's all just laughing stock. Well, there are false versions of the church out there, but the real Church of Jesus Christ is not something to be laughed about. The real Church of Jesus Christ has power, has authority, and should be treated with a great deal of respect. And if you're not yet a Christian, you need to be part of that church, and you can only be part of that church by being born again. You need to come to Christ and ask Jesus to save you. Now, what about if you are a Christian? You've been born again. You've trusted Jesus your Savior. What should be your attitude to the church? Well, surely you should be saying to a local church somewhere, here I am. Please would you recognize me as a Christian? You don't trust your own judgment, but you so go to the church and you say to the church, look, I think I've been saved. I believe I've been born again. If so, could you baptize me? If you agree with that, could you baptize me and could you welcome me into your church? So let me ask, is there anybody here, you genuinely believe you've been born again? You genuinely believe you've been saved? Have you been baptized yet? Well, the answer, no, I haven't. Well, why not? Why not? What's to stop you being baptized? Remember the Ethiopian who came to that oasis in the desert? He said, what's to stop me being baptized? What's to stop you being baptized? If you're a true Christian, truly born again, your life has changed, you're involved with the church in terms of attending, well, why don't you get baptized? Why not come to church and say, yes, I'd like to be, please will you accept me in your midst? Now, maybe, what about if you've been baptized already? You've been baptized elsewhere, maybe a few years ago, and then for some reason you've moved, and you've come to this sort of area, and you've started attending the church. Well, surely, You should say to the church, look, I'm a Christian. Please would you recognize me as a Christian? Please would you, I want to come under your authority. I want to come under your pastoral care. I want to be part of your fellowship. I want to be involved in your life. I want to be involved in your decision making. Please would you accept me as a fellow brother, sister in Christ? Surely that should be, you should respect the authority of the church. Now what about those of us who are members? Well, surely for those of us who are members, surely we need to take very seriously our responsibility. We read earlier that God has made his people to be a kingdom of priests to serve his God. Do you realize that? Paul says at one point, do you not realize you'll judge angels? Well, you have your part to play if you're a true believer and you're a member of the church, you have a part to play. when there's a church discipline case come up, because that passage of Matthew 18, which I hope to look at a bit more on a future occasion, says, if you want to listen, tell it to the church. The church has then got to make a judgment. Is this behavior right or wrong? If he doesn't listen to the church, the church has then got to make that decision to treat him as a pagan or a tax collector. So you need to be there. If you're a member of the church, you need to be at the members meeting. Now, thanks be to God, we haven't had a church discipline case for a while. But you can be pretty sure one will come up at some point. And you need to be there. So that you can say, well, no, yes, I agree with this. I agree that this behavior is wrong. And you put your name on the line and you say, yeah, I agree with all the other members. This is not right. Or for that matter, you might disagree. You might say, no, no, I think you're being too strict here. I don't think we should make this a matter of discipline. Well, you can say so. But we need to participate in the decision making life of the church. And listen, if Jesus has made us competent to judge who's a believer or not, are we not competent? Is the church not competent to decide what color to paint the walls? Is the church that lacking in wisdom or how to spend the money? If the biggest thing of all, the church has been qualified by Jesus to decide. This is why Baptists have traditionally believed in congregational government, because of this very passage. Because Jesus has given authority to his church to make decisions. Now, another thing, another application is this. If you are a member of the church, don't treat your church membership lightly. Now, I sadly have known sometimes for people who've been members of the church to just quietly walk away. They just stop attending. There's no explanation. They just disappear. You phone them up or leave a message, no reply. And you think, did his church membership or her church mean that little to him? There's not even an explanation. Surely, obviously sometimes a move of church membership is important, it needs to happen. Maybe you move location, maybe you've come to the conclusion there's something very seriously wrong with the church and you need to resign your membership, fair enough. But we need to treat the membership of the church as something with respect. We owe it to members of the church to give an account of ourselves if we feel it necessary to move membership. Now, this isn't a criticism of anybody who's moved recently because they've all been very good and written letters and talked to us and so on, but that's the general point. Now, another thing is this, another application is this. I hope this will never happen to any of us here, but it might happen to you. Maybe one of us might be overcome by a sin. And maybe one might backslide very badly and stop attending church and maybe start, or maybe not stop attending church meetings, but start behaving in a very, very wrong way as a Christian, a way that a Christian shouldn't behave. Now, if that should happen to you, God forbid, Make sure that you respond to that with humility. Make sure you respect, you know, there's such a difference in a human court, isn't there? A person who comes into court. Yes, Your Honour. No, Your Honour. Yes, Your Honour, I did commit that crime. I'm so sorry, Your Honour. I realise I'm going to need to be punished. Thank you, Your Honour. Oh, I think you've been very lenient to me, Your Honour, There's that, or there's a person who says, I don't recognize this court. We should have respect for the church. I can think of somebody who has had a big ministry in another country, was a member of a church, and that church felt it necessary to rebuke this person for being deceptive. And he says, I don't recognize your authority. I don't, I don't, I don't, I'm not gonna take any notice of what you say. And he carries on his ministry. That should not happen. If a church says, you've not been treating, listening, treating, behaving right, you should listen. It's not just the pastor saying it, it's the whole 30 members or however many it is. They're all saying it. You need to listen carefully and treat that with respect. Another application is this. If you are part of a church, suppose there's a decision. Somebody comes before the church. The church collectively decides, we're going to do this church discipline. We've got to do this church discipline. Now maybe you didn't like it. Maybe you didn't agree with it. Maybe you thought they're being a bit harsh. And so you say to yourself, well, I'm not going to go along with that. I'm still going to have dinner with so-and-so. I'm still going to treat him as, I'm going to call him brother so-and-so. Even the church says, that's wrong because you're undermining the church. If the church collectively has made that decision, you need to stand by that, even if privately you weren't too happy with that decision. Another application is this, churches need to respect the decisions of other churches. Now this case that I mentioned just now, the insult or injury was added to insult because this person went, this person then complained to other churches. And those other churches said, without properly investigating the first church, oh, that church was wrong. And they publicly said, oh, that church was wrong to discipline our brother. Be very careful. The church has been given authority by God himself to make decisions. Be very careful about undermining the authority of other churches. Well, I hope and pray that as we have thought about this subject of the authority of the church, I hope and pray that if you're a Christian, you're encouraged. Maybe you might be challenged, I don't know, in some way, shape, or form. But let us remember, of course, that it's Jesus, the authority that the church has is Jesus' authority. Jesus is the king of his church. As we said last week, I will build my church, it's his church, and we submit to his authority. Well, we're gonna sing our final hymn. I know it's one we've sung lots of times in this series, but it is a wonderful hymn. Glorious things of you are spoken, 570. And notice it says this, Savior, since of Zion's city, I, through grace, a member am. What a privilege it is to be part of the universal church of God. But also, if you're a member of a local church, what a privilege. By grace, I'm a member. of a local church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Consider how privileged you are. 570 in the blue book. Let's stand. Those who are able, let's stand and sing.