Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this opportunity to look into your word, to try to set the foundation, lay a foundation for the entire conference on the visible church and its means of grace. Bless the word as I try to explain it. And as Ron does in his sessions, we ask in Jesus name. Amen. I haven't spoken to Ron in any length or depth on this issue in terms of how we're going to approach this. We've had some emails and conversations, but I won't be beating you over the head saying you need to read your Bible more. You need to go to church more to listen to preaching, which are things I think you should do. You need to take the Lord's Supper more and you need to mean it more. And I won't say you need to get baptized more. I think you should just get baptized once. OK, so what I'm going to try to do, and I think this is what Ron is going to try to do, is we're going to try to explain, at least I am, especially in today's sermon, Explain the mechanics of the means of grace. I'll define means of grace for you and then we'll tease that out a little bit. How does the Bible become a means of grace for us? That's a good idea. What does God do with the word of God? How does it become encouragement to us, a source of spiritual nourishment and nutrition? How does the Lord's Supper become that to us? How does prayer alter, not God, but alter and change us? And what's the theology behind it? What's going on there? That's more of what I'm after in my sessions. And tonight I've been asked to address you on the issue of the definition and importance of the means of grace. That was a title given to me. OK, so you can't say, wow, he came up with the puritanical titles. Somebody else did and they and they gave it to me. I think it is a good and appropriate title and subject to consider because we're going to Assume this in the other messages, a working definition, we have to know what we're talking about. There are some people here that they know what the phrase means of grace means or they have a good notion. Others might have never heard it before. For some people, it's new terminology. So I want to make sure everybody's on the same page. And so I'll have a lengthy definition that we're going to work through. But before I do that, what I want to do is. I want to read a bunch of texts from the New Testament. I could have read some from the Old Testament, Old Testament, but I'm just going to read some from the New Testament. I figured they're more familiar with you. And what these do is these give you give you the Bible's language in relation to the Bible itself, the word of God and prayer. Those are the two types of texts I'm going to look at. As the word of God and as prayer are means of grace or change agents, OK, ordained by God to be a conduit through which he changes us. So listen to these texts. Listen to the text first. I'll try not to make too many comments on these texts. And then I'm going to give you this definition that we're going to use as our regulating definition for the entire week. And so if you have a Bible, you can turn to John, chapter 17, verse 17. A lot of these texts are very familiar. You remember the Lord Jesus in his in his in this passage? saying, sanctify, he's praying now to his father. He's on the earth. This is before his death, before his resurrection, before his ascension. He's praying for his own. He says, sanctify them in the truth. And he says, your word is truth. Sanctify them, make them holy, change them. How does God do that? Well, Lord Jesus is praying that he would do that through his word. I think both prayer and the word are viewed as means of grace there. But let's just keep going to get more of a flavor of the New Testament. Acts chapter 20, verse 32. I think this is one of the verses that was on some of the material I saw connected to the conference. Acts 20, 32. And now this is Paul. Now, I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. The word of God's grace is able to build you up. It's able to alter you, change you. And we might say, make you better than you were. Ephesians, chapter six, verse seventeen, and I'm skipping over many, many texts, but Ephesians, chapter six, verse seventeen, and take the helmet of salvation and then the last part of it, especially and the sword of the spirit. What is the sword of the spirit? The sword of the spirit is the word of God. So there's a relationship between the written word of God and the spirit of God using the written word of God. The analogy here is as a sword, as a tool to do something. And we fill in the gap to sanctify God's people. The spirit takes the word and blesses it. Somebody actually prayed some. I think Pastor Drizzo prayed something like that. today that the words we speak would come from heaven. I mean, you meant by that that they would reflect God's word that's already come from heaven and God would bless them by the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 6, 17, 1 Peter 2, 2 is another text that's probably familiar to some. Like newborn babes long for the pure milk of the word, So that by it you may grow in respect to salvation. OK, we know from Ephesians 617 that the spirit has a unique ministry in conjunction with the word. So it's not just reading the word and you automatically grow. A lot of people can read the Bible and it doesn't change, doesn't do anything to them. The Spirit of God takes the Word of God and makes it effectual to the changing of our minds and hearts and very souls. 2 Peter 3.18 but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and the day of eternity. Amen. Growth in grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. You can't grow in grace without knowing things. And how do you know things? You know things from the Word of God. Jude 20-21 But you, beloved, in verse 20, building yourselves up on your most holy faith. By the way, if your translation doesn't say building and it doesn't say praying and it doesn't say waiting. I think it's wrong. But if it says keep, it's right. See verse 21, keep yourselves in the love of God. That's the that's the command. Keep ourselves where we love God the most. How do you do that? Number one, verse 20, by building yourselves up on your most holy faith. I think that's the word of God. How do we keep ourselves? We love God the most by praying in the Holy Spirit and by having this anxious longing, this eschatological look toward more mercy that's coming from Christ when he comes again and gives us the final deposit of eternal life. So those are some texts in the New Testament that give us a look at primarily the word as a means of altering our souls, a means of Grace, but there are some texts as well that do the same thing for prayer. But because I want to save enough time to get through the entire lecture notes, I'll just leave that for for Ron, because he's preaching a sermon on prayers and means of grace. But there are texts in the New Testament. Just you don't have to go to the New Testament. Why do you pray? Let's say you had somebody that lost in your life. Your wife is lost and you want to pray. How are you going to pray for your lost wife? You're going to pray. You're on earth. You're going to pray to God who is in heaven. Christ is at the right hand of the Father. And you say, Triune God, save my wife. What does that imply? That you believe that the Bible teaches that as a believer, you can you can request that the triune God does something to alter souls for eternity on the earth. You're praying that God would do something to somebody else's soul. would bring power, would bring saving grace, would bring the benefits of Christ's redemptive work to the soul of your wife. You believe if you pray that way, you think prayers, a means of grace, prayers, a means whereby God brings things from Christ to souls. So I don't want to preach your sermon, so I'll stop. I did. We did talk about this because we were going to we were going to jockey it around. I was going to give him one of the sermons that I was given and then he was going to give me one or we were going to probably flip coins on it. I wanted the one on prayer. So if you don't say what I think you should say. Walden, I'll take you in the back and talk to you. Could you see Walden coming up to me, Richard? Oh, my, that message by Ron was really. What are we going to do? So just by looking at those texts and reading them and a little explanation, I think you can start to get a feel for for the Bible on the on the word and especially the word. But prayer as well. These texts were only a sample of many others from Old and New Testament that could have been used that indicate that grace. And what I mean by grace here is unmerited favor from God, specifically as it comes to us because of the work of Christ. OK, so the benefits of Christ's redemptive work for us come to us through means they come to us through the word of God, they come to us through prayer as blessed by the spirit. Now, what I want to do next is I want to give you a definition of the means of grace. And it's long, you know, it's it's a it's a big paragraph. And this week I worked on shortening it. And I did, because it was a lot longer. But I think it's very important. And I think I sent this to Ron a few weeks ago. And I know before I even sent it to him, I knew we were on the same page on this. But let me qualify my definition before I state it. Or in the language of one of last year's speakers, before I state it, I will qualify it. So here's my qualification. You need to realize that my working or our working definition of means of grace assumes a lot of exegetical and theological work that cannot be shown adequately in three, four or five messages. In other words, I'm going to read this definition. You're going to go. That's a lot. Well, listen, the means of grace isn't just pastors beating their people over the head saying, you need to read your Bible more. That's not what I'm not here for that. I don't think Ron is either. I want you to understand, by the way, the purpose statement of this conference is for young people who desire to learn more about the importance of the local church. So if you don't want to learn. Don't leave during my sermon. I assumed you wanted to learn, OK, and this isn't a 14 or 15 or 18 year old conference. You guys are competent adults, so we're going to try to help you learn. So this definition assumes a lot of theology. And I'm going to try to connect some of the theological dots for you. And I'm sure Ron will as well. But just know that we just we don't have enough time to do justice to everything. And after I read the definition. You'll, I think, agree with me, wow. And then I'm gonna try to connect some dots for you, okay? Because it's one thing just to blow out this definition, but it's another thing to try to connect some things. And I think, hopefully it'll help. And then if I have time, I wanna go back and read the text I already read. Because I think it'll help. And hopefully you'll go, yeah, I see it better now. I understand that more. Because my goal is to help you understand. So here's the definition. I define means of grace as the delivery systems that God has instituted to bring to bring grace to souls on the earth, a delivery systems God has instituted to bring grace to souls on the earth. What I mean by grace, and I already said this, I'll say it again, sovereign and unmerited favor. It comes sovereignly and its favor from God that we don't merit. OK, somebody else merited it for us. The Lord Jesus Christ. Or we could say grace in this sense would be spiritual change, spiritual benefits, spiritual power, spiritual help, spiritual fortitude, spiritual blessings. Grace then comes from our father through the son, who is the mediator between God and man by the delivering ministry of the Holy Spirit, ordinarily in conjunction with the ordained means. I'm not finished, by the way. If you're going, OK, that's enough, stop. By the way, I wouldn't sit there and try to get all these words in. The first thing is delivery systems ordained by God. OK. To do what? To bring grace. What's grace? Unmerited favor. Who earned, merited that favor for us? The Lord Jesus Christ did. The older theologians. The benefits of redemption. What are the benefits of redemption? They are justification and adoption and sanctification and glorification, eternal life. All those things are the benefits of redemption. How did the benefits of redemption get from an exalted mediator at the right hand of the Father to elect souls on the earth? They get there through the ordained means. The means God has ordained, or we could say the means of grace are those conduits through which Christ alters, modifies, adjusts, changes, transforms and develops, elects, elect souls on the earth. Let me quote 19th century. A Dutch reformed theologian, Herman Bovee, listen what he says. He says, Christ is and remains the acquisitor as well as the distributor of grace. He acquired grace for us. He distributes grace to us. In order to get acquired grace to us or in us, God has ordained means through which it is distributed. The means of grace, then, are God's delivery systems through which that which was acquired for us gets distributed or delivered to or in us. And we're going to be looking at working with this assumption. And we'll attempt to prove it along the way that the word of God Prayer and the church sacraments or ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper are the primary or ordinary means through which grace from heaven comes to souls on the earth. So that's my definition. There won't be a quiz on it. I think I see in my notes three things I darkened delivery systems, conduits and then delivery systems as well. If you can get that kind of in your mind, that God has ordained delivery systems whereby grace from heaven gets to my shriveled up, sin sick soul, then you're getting there. OK, then you're going to start to understand what means of grace are and how important. They are not only on the individual, but on the corporate level. Now, what I want to do is I want to connect some theological dots here, because I said, although the doctrine of the means of grace is a very practical, very practical, and I think Ron has some very practical stuff on baptism, right? We're going to get to. It's a very practical doctrine. It's a very theological doctrine as well. And my definition probably started opening up some vistas of thought in some of your minds, and I've chosen to try to connect a few dots here under three headings in this definition. First of all, we can see how redemption accomplished becomes redemption applied. OK, what's redemption accomplished? Well, it's the son of God becoming one of us for us and for our salvation, everything he did for us. His life unto death obedience rewarded with the resurrection. From the dead. He accomplished eternal life, he won redemption for us and all the benefits of it. That's redemption accomplished. And so here's this here's the mediator between God and man being rewarded for his obedience. He's exalted by his father. He's raised from the dead. He's ascends into heaven. Everything's put under his feet. He has all this all this plenitude of mediatorial blessings up there. How does it get from him to us? How does it become redemption applied? Now, we know from the Bible, as I just said, that our blessed mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ, accomplished redemption for us. I think I've said this before. I'll say it again. That is, he purchased all the benefits of redemption, justification, adoption, sanctification, growth in holiness, growth and grace, glorification, eternal life. Redemption has been won. Redemption has been accomplished. There's nothing else more to do as far as the accomplishment of redemption. Eternal life has already been won. And the Lord Jesus is the first one, first citizen of the eternal state in his glorified humanity in heaven. He's the first fruits of a great harvest of resurrection to come. So that's done. OK, we don't contribute to the purchase of redemption, the accomplishment of redemption. We receive the benefits of redemption. Redemption has been won. Eternal life has been gained. Redemption in all of its facets has been accomplished through the life and the death obedience of Christ, along with the reward of his resurrection. And all that he did for us. The son of God became one of us for us and for us and for our salvation, the doctrine of the means of grace. Explains how accomplished redemption becomes applied redemption. It tells us or explains to us how acquired grace becomes distributed grace, which is actually possessed and personally enjoyed by sinners on the earth. Or we could put it this way. The means of grace are the conduits through which redemption accomplished becomes redemption applied. OK, so here you are struggling to grow in grace, to be a good witness for Christ with your lost family or whatever it is, and you need help. And so one of the things you do is hopefully pray. And why do you pray? Because whether you stated it this way or not, you believe that prayers are means through which redemptive benefits come from the right hand of the Father, earned for us by the Son of God, who became incarnate, who became one of us for us and for our salvation, was rewarded for his life and death obedience by the resurrection and has a plenitude of messianic blessings to give to all of his people. And the prayers are means through which the Holy Spirit takes those blessings and brings them special delivery to souls. You believe that? Maybe you didn't state it that way. Hopefully you will now. That's what prayer assumes, because the Bible says that prayer is a soul altering means. So this definition, trying to connect some dots, we see how redemption accomplished becomes redemption applied. It's through means the gospel was preached and souls were saved. Acts chapter two, we read part of that. The Word of God was proclaimed and blessed by the Spirit of God, and souls were turned inside out by the power of God, the same power that God exerted when he raised his son from the dead. Some more connections of these dots from that definition. Here's a second one. We're reminded of the ministry of the Holy Spirit in relation to our exalted Redeemer. When we talk about the doctrine of the means of grace, helping us understand how redemption accomplished in space and time by Christ becomes a redemption applied. It's very important that in one sense, the mediator between God and man is the man, Christ Jesus, and the mediator between the exalted redeemer and elect centers on the earth is the Holy Spirit. A means are only means they have to be blessed by God in order to become effectual. The doctrine of the means of grace also reminds us of the relationship between our exalted redeemer and the Holy Spirit in relation to accomplished redemption. We will argue, and I think I already have, that grace comes from Christ who is in heaven through ordained means utilized on the earth. But we'll also argue and sometimes assume and argue and assume that purchased grace becomes experienced grace by virtue of what the Holy Spirit does with or through the means of grace. The Spirit of God takes the blessings procured by the incarnate Son of God, who is now exalted at the right hand of the Father. He brings those blessings special delivery to our souls through means means are pretty important, aren't they? Ordinarily, as our confession says, this is the way God works. Has God ever worked outside of the ordinary means? I'm sure he has. And there might be some testimonies about that. But we don't go based on the extraordinary. We go based on what is ordinarily what does God do? God tinkers with souls through means. God affects, God changes souls through the word of God proclaimed. God changes souls through prayer. God changes souls. God nourishes souls through the church sacrament of the Lord's Lord's Supper. In other words, the means of grace. Do not work on their own. They do not have effective power in themselves. When you read your Bibles, you usually pray first. Preachers quite often at some point before their sermon, there's prayer and public worship services. God bless the service. God bless your word. God, you know, things like that. Why? Because whether we, you know. Recognized it or not. We believe that God must bless the means in order for them to become effectual unto salvation and bless God. He does that. The means must be blessed by God in order to be effectual, in order to actually and really convey grace to our souls. And God does that. And you've all experienced that at various times, if you're a converted person. If you've come to Christ, there are times when the pastor is preaching, when you just keep doing this, checking the time. I know because I preach and I check the time my own sermon sometimes going, when are you going to finish? There are other times when you don't want him to finish. And you know what the person right next to you might be checking their clock, checking their When's this dude gonna finish? And you're sitting there thinking, Pastor, don't stop. I'll double my time this month or this week if you keep going. God is sovereignly blessing the word to your soul in one way and sovereignly not blessing it to another person's soul in the same way. And he and he does that. OK, we've all experienced things like that. It's God blessing the means of grace to our souls. It is the office, then, of the Holy Spirit. to bring the things won for us by Christ to our souls through means as he pleases. OK, that's my second attempt at connecting dots. Excuse me. This is not good to eat dinner and then preach. Here's the third thing, and it's short, but it's very important with this working definition of the means of grace, reminded that all of this comes to us in the context of a robust doctrine of the blessed Trinity. In action here, we see God, the Father, God, the Son and God, the Holy Spirit in action pursuing the redemption of sinners. The father chooses and sends the son. The son assumes human nature. He was born of a woman. The son assumes human duties. He was born under the law. He lives. He suffers. He dies under the wrath of God as a curse. He's rewarded for his obedience. He is catapulted. Out of the grave, he wins redemption. He's he's not merely our example. He's our hero because he conquered all of our enemies and the last enemy was death. And he is exalted. He's raised into heaven. He's got this plenitude of messianic grace to dispense. And it is the office of the blessed third person of the Godhead to bring to to bring redemption accomplished. and turn it into a redemption applied to bring it with effective power to the souls of men. So we see the doctrine of the Trinity in action in pursuit of the salvation of the elect. And I think it is appropriate to say, praise God, from whom all blessings flow. Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. I said this is a theological subject. It is, isn't it? And you know, it should remind you every time you go to church, We should be thinking theologically and in a trinitarian type of fashion that the father has orchestrated this wonderful plan of redemption and the son has pursued it even to the point of becoming one of his enemy. He became a man. He became a Christian. The Lord of creation became a part of creation, assuming human nature. It's a staggering condescension by the Son of God to become one of us. There's nothing like it. There's no created analogies that can compare. Even close to the Incarnation, the Son becomes one of us. And then the Spirit brings the redemption that the Son wins for us. He brings the fruits of that redemption as God. Only God can change the souls of men. And He does that effectually and deposits life, eternal life, infuses life into dead souls. This is what's happening at church and and then not just life into dead souls, but more life and health and power and strength in already living souls. OK, saints, we should think this way about church and the and the means of grace when we utilize them. It's eight twenty two. I have plenty of time, I think, to do what I said I was going to do. I wanted to read some of those texts again. That I read already. And just to see if it causes bells, maybe the ring in a little different direction or a louder direction in your mind. Listen to Jesus in His prayer. Father, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. Then we read, secondly, Acts 20, 32. Acts 20, 32. And now I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up. And to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. And then we read Ephesians 6, 17. Ephesians 6, 17. and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God." 1 Peter 2.2 is, long for the pure milk of the Word and grow thereby. 2 Peter 3.18, grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jude 20 and 21, but you, beloved, building yourselves up on the faith that is most holy, that is the Christian faith. Praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God. But notice in Ephesians, here's one text I didn't read. Ron, if you're going to use this text and preach it, I'm sorry, I'm just going to read it. But look at Ephesians 3 in verse 14. Paul says, For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father. He's praying, OK? before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He, the Father, would grant you, the Ephesians, according to the riches of His glory, He wants you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man. This is prayer. So here's Paul praying to the Father, do something to these souls on the earth According to the riches of your glory. OK, you've got a storehouse that you're able to utilize whatever is in that storehouse and send it by the spirit to these people, they need spiritual invigoration, they need their souls changed, they need to be strengthened. Here's prayer as a means of Grace, I think, very, very clearly. There are many other texts like that. Well, before I come to the final heading of my sermon, which is the importance of the doctrine of the means of grace, I want to read a brief section in the confession of faith. Very important section. This is in Chapter 14 of Saving Faith, paragraph one. I'll just read this first paragraph. The grace of faith. grace, faith, unmerited favor, grace, faith is something given, whereby the elect are enabled to believe to the saving of their souls, is the work of the Spirit of Christ in their hearts, and is ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the Word, by which, ministry of the Word also, and by the administration of baptism in the Lord's Supper, prayer, and other means appointed of God, it is increased and strengthened. So so it's one thing to have initial or saving faith. OK, that is a gift of God. But they're talking about, OK, people are already have saving faith. They were already converted. They already repented and believed in the gospel. They still have saving faith. OK. But now this faith is strengthened through means. If it is strengthened through means, that means that it needs to be strengthened. How many super faith people do we have here? I don't need means of grace. I don't need to be strengthened. I'm strong. Take heed, because you're going to fall as soon as you think you're strong. The older I get, now that I'm 41, I feel weaker and I think of myself more and more as a pitiful Christian, not as a superhero Christian at all. I think I read it, 29 years I've been a believer and 24 of those I've been a pastor. You'd think people would call me Saint Rich or something by now, but nobody does for good reason. People know me. And if you know yourself, honestly. You need to be strengthened that time, right? You need spiritual nourishment, you need spiritual food. And how do you get it? You get it through the means of grace, the conduits, the delivery systems that God himself has instituted for your sin sick, shriveled up, needy, weak soul. I'll beat you over the head with that. That's the truth. We're weak and feeble. And how do we gain strength and nourishment and nutrition from from from that which Christ has done for us? We get it by the word. We get it through prayer. We get it through the other means, blessed by the spirit of God to the well-being and strengthening and benefit of our souls. So with that, I have. In closing here, I have three. Points under the importance of the doctrine of the means of grace, and I think I should finish in plenty of time, isn't it great when the guy preaches short because not short like as in five as in five foot five and a half, I just went to the doctor. I was like five, seven and a half when I got married. Not shortened statute, but shortened duration, because if it's not any good, you're happy if it's good, you want more. But if it's dark and everyone's tired, it's always best to preach shorter. So I should finish before the allotted time ends. But three closing things on why is this important? Somebody gave me this title, and I think this is very appropriate to discuss on the first night. At least three reasons. The importance of the doctrine of the means of grace. And I'm concentrating now on this definition that we gave, because I was very careful. Delivery systems, God has ordained. First of all, it guards us from identifying things as means of grace that are not means of grace and looking to those wrong things for spiritual health. It guards us from creating. More means of grace that aren't means of grace. And then going to those things and expecting to get grace. For example, now be very careful here. Don't answer it. I'll answer it for you. Is singing a means of grace? All the musicians are going. Is singing a means of grace? I didn't say is Christian when Christians sing spiritual truths from the word of God in the congregation, is that a means of grace? I didn't say that. I'm just saying this is singing a means of grace. If we are down and the what's that baseball team in Phoenix, what do they call the Diamondbacks? We're down a Diamondbacks game. They say everybody stand. We don't have a special singer. Everybody's going to sing the national anthem. OK, and then we're all there, we start singing suddenly. Does grace come from the mediator by the ministry of the Holy Spirit to everybody that's singing there? No. So, you know, you're at a concert. We, by the way, on one of the good things about driving six hours is I got to catch up on a lot of classic rock. OK, so I and I did some singing. None of it was any good. But it wasn't a means of grace. It was entertainment. Some of the lyrics, I asked my wife to change the song because I heard the lyrics. So singing, just singing as an institution for man's enjoyment, isn't a means of grace. What happens as churches, and I was taking note of this, we were singing songs that were reflecting God's word. OK, so to the degree that our song, our lyrics reflect God's word to that degree, by the blessing of the Spirit of God, that can become a means of grace for us simply because we're singing the word of God, which is a means of grace. But singing in and of itself is obviously not a means of grace. Is marriage a means of grace? Do people get married? Does grace come from the mediator sent special delivery by the Holy Spirit through the covenant of marriage to both people, irrespective of the state of their souls? No. Marriage isn't a means of grace in that sense. How about this one? Is singlehood a means of grace? You look at the single people who are going, if it is, I'm in trouble. Are movies a means of grace? Is tweeting a means of grace? Is Facebook a means of grace? Now, here's what can happen on Facebook. Somebody can say, hey, brother, I'm praying for you and quote a text of scripture and that you read that text of scripture on Facebook and it reminds you of something that you forgot. And God blesses the word to your soul. So the word that occurred on Facebook became a means of grace. But Facebook itself. It's not a means of grace. Is a conference. A means of grace. Now, look at the conference that has in its schedule the utilization of the means of grace, but it's got other things, like eating. I know some people say, oh yeah, eating's a means of grace. Eating is a very natural thing, okay? Pagans, Islamists, Buddhists, they all eat, but they don't get grace from the mediator sent special delivery to their soul by the Holy Spirit simply because they eat. So, conferences, in and out of the chairs, you know, chairs aren't a means of grace. Well, it's a means of grace because it keeps me from falling. So you see how I tried to get technical on the definition for a reason. So we understand what these means are. Second reason why the important the doctrine of the means of grace is importance is important is this. It teaches us how grace gets from our exalted redeemer to elect souls on the earth. It makes us better theologians. What the father purposed, the eternal salvation of the elect, the son accomplished And the Holy Spirit applies to souls through means, through conduits, through delivery systems. It explains to us how grace gets how unmerited favor in the person of the mediator gets from heaven to earth through means delivered. by the Holy Spirit. It helps us to understand the doctrine of salvation accomplished and applied in a more Trinitarian way. It makes us better theologians. And the better theologian we are, the more worshipful, the more service oriented, at least we ought to be. If we're not, then we're tweaked up somehow, some way, and we need to repent. The last thing is it reminds us of the importance of church worship for sanctification. Some of you have heard this illustration before, but my friend, Pastor Jim Butler up in Canada, had a single guy that was coming to his church for about six or eight months. He had only been converted for about a year before he had gone to this Christian college. And then he started going to Pastor Butler's Reformed Baptist Church. And he loved it. He went and heard him preach once and he loved it. So he came back in the evening service. The next week he came back for prayer meeting, Sunday school morning and evening service, went to the pastor's house a lot, went to the brothers and sisters house a lot. And in six months, grew like a weed. And I forgot what they call him, but became a dorm manager or whatever. Faster than anybody there had in a long time. And so people that have been raised in Christian homes and really should have been more mature in the faith were gravitating toward this guy and asking him theological questions. And somebody asked him once, I said, dude, you've been saved like a year and a half and and and you're like, you like know everything. You're like John Calvin on campus. How do you do it? He says, I go to church. I go, I go, I go to all the services. And I think there's something important there. How could a guy like that grow? Not everybody grows like that. Some people grow like that. I can tell you this, you're not going to grow like that without going to church. There's something that God promises when the people of God gather in the name of Christ as a constituted church. There's an ecclesiastical presence of Christ, of the triune God promised in the Bible that's unique to to temple worship. And that's what the church is, a temple in the temple is the new covenant temple is the church, which is the special dwelling place of God among men on the earth. That's what local congregations are. And then the church utilizes what the church's means of grace, the proclamation of the word. And there is the spirit of God using that sword and bringing comfort and bringing conviction and bringing new life. And and here you are as a shriveled up raisin of a soul and and the Spirit of God takes the word of God and opens up something in it and reminds you of another passage or whatever. And the preacher is preaching and, you know, stuff happening that men can't create. Only God can do this. But he does it at his temple. He does it with an ordained speaker, the minister of the word. And he does it with the priesthood, the men and the women, the males and the females. They're offering up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ as blessed by the spirit of God. So when the church gathers there, the spirit of the Lord is OK. And here is the church as this new covenant temple of God on the earth. It's the place where God manifests himself in a peculiar and unique way among men and women on the earth. It's extremely important. Matter of fact, you can't do without a church, can't do without it if you're a Christian. Like you, 20 and 21, keep yourselves in the love of God, which I think means keep yourselves where you love God the most. We're already where God loves us the most. We're in Christ. But we can certainly love God more. Our love waxes and wanes. I think what he's telling the church there is, here's how you do it. Build yourselves up on the word, pray in the Holy Spirit, have an eschatological mindset about the future of Christ coming back again. Now, if you're in the first century and your pastor gets a copy of this letter, they got copies of the New Testament epistles and make copies and make copies and make copies. And as more archaeology comes in, we realize that there were these scriptoriums. These libraries where Christians had copies and scribes were copying. And anyway, there's a lot of that stuff going on in the first century. Your pastor would have got a copy of this and he would have read it to you. And he would have said, here's how you keep yourself, you love God the most. Be around the word of God and prayer and have a mindset of. Longing for more of Christ when he comes again. You couldn't go home and say, you know what, I resolved to read the Gospel of Matthew this week. They didn't have New Testament. OK, you couldn't even go home unless you were very rich and resolved to read any part of the Hebrew Old Testament. They didn't have that. OK, so for them, what it would have primarily meant was I can't wait until Sunday comes back again to sit under the public means of grace, not to demean, diminish or extinguish private means of grace at all. But there is something unique about the church's worship that cannot be reduplicated at a camp. Around a fire tossing. Whether they could toss in their pine cones in making resolves and all that stuff, the church in its public assemblies, a gathering as the corporate body, local body of Christ. With the special ecclesiastical presence of the triune God. With the church's means of grace. Being utilized, blessed by the spirit of God, with the people of God is the closest thing to the intermediate state and the eternal state that will experience on the earth. So I think this definition. Helps us or reminds us The church life is very important. You don't grow properly without it. Some people say, well, you know, I tried the church thing, but there's a lot of people, it's hard to get along with them. And so they give up on the church. Well, that's just unbiblical. Read the New Testament epistles. There's a lot of people that are hard to get along with, you know. Paul found It's hard to get along with one of his comrades, but he didn't give neither of them, as far as we know, give up on the church. We need the means of grace that the church has at its disposal. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Please help us to rightly divide it this week, to cut it straight, to show it clear. And we pray that the spirit of God would bless it. and give us understanding and growth in grace. We ask in Jesus' name, Amen.