Our New Testament passage is from Acts chapter 20. We're reading verses 28 through 32. Acts 20, 28 through 32. This is God's word. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you not sparing the flock, and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears, 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. Let's pray and ask God's blessing on the reading of his word. Father, we do thank you for your word. We thank you that it is food for us, that spiritually it gives us nourishment, that spiritually it gives us life. We pray now, Lord, that as the word of God has been read before us, that it would penetrate our hearts, that it would do the work that you have deemed it necessary to do, that it would accomplish its purpose, and that your Holy Spirit would work through that very word. We pray, Father, that as the word is proclaimed this morning, that you would be glorified in it. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen. Back on April 6th, 1980, a group of people gathered for the first time. They had been gathering for a few months in what they called prayer and praise fellowship. That is that on Friday nights they were gathering together. They were eating a lot. praying a lot and singing a lot as well. That group of people then that Mel met on April 6, 1980, which was Easter Sunday, the Resurrection Sunday that year, those people eventually came together to form the Berean Bible Church. They were headed by Kahutam Kalili, who had himself already founded one church in Alabama and had been an assistant to his brother, David Ka'apu, over at Haile Church for a number of years. And through a series of circumstances, this group of people, and Kahutam as well, found themselves without a home, without a church. And so they came together and unified together to form Berean Bible Church. It's not real clear as far as when they considered their beginning. When I first came to Berean Bible Church 24 years ago, They didn't really celebrate any anniversary. We still kind of haven't really celebrated. We celebrated one anniversary on the 30th anniversary back when we were still in the hotel. But other than that, they didn't really celebrate. And so they didn't know what was a good time to celebrate. So someone remembered, I think it was Earl Nakasato remembered that they had filed for Articles of Incorporation in August of 1980. And I know, I know, a lot of people have a problem with churches filing articles of incorporation, whatever. Don't make that the point right now. The point is that when we were going to celebrate an anniversary, we realized that we wanted other churches to celebrate with us, and it was going to be difficult for other churches to celebrate with us if we had our anniversary on Easter Sunday. And so we just arbitrarily then, at that time, back when we, I guess that's what, 13 years ago, when we celebrated the 30th anniversary, we chose the first week of August kind of as the anniversary of Berean Bible Church. And from then, we didn't ever have another anniversary celebration. It just never stuck. Every time we would try, it would kind of fizzle out before we ever got to it. I just wanted you to understand a little bit about where we came from as a church. And I'll be mentioning a little bit more of the history. Normally, we're so grateful that Jen Tresham has been playing the piano and filling in, but when she's not, it's Pat Kalili who has been playing, and it was her husband that founded the church. I think right now, this morning, There's only one original person in here. And I think maybe at the time, were you in college at the time, Miles? So he wasn't actually here, but he was here in spirit back, what is that, 43 years ago. I'll mention a little bit more as we go along the real title of today's Message I said the title was who are we and then I had to subtitle it just the ramblings of kahoot Because it's just gonna be a lot of stuff that I think maybe we should know how many of you have been at Berean Six months or less raise your hand How many of you a year or less keep your hands up everyone keep your hands up a year or less two years or less three years or less Four years or less? Five years or less? How about 10 years or less? Yeah, that's most of us here. When I came to Berean Bible Church in 1999, I was 27 years old. I know, I know, I don't look it, I don't look like I could have been, I'm that old, but I am. I was 27 years old and the average age, we figured the average age in the church at the time and it was around 60. Now I want you to think, those of you who are in your 60s right now and in your 70s right now, try and fathom coming to church and having a pastor that is 27 years old. I tell you what, before I came to Berean, they had an interim that was here for two years, a guy named Mike Inouye. And Mike Inouye, I think he is in Tennessee now. Is that where he moved to, Tennessee? But for two years he was here, but he didn't live here. For the first, I think, six months, he lived on Oahu. He was on Oahu, he was flying out here, and he was preaching on Sundays, and meeting with the elders, and having other Bible studies on Sundays, and kind of giving the church direction. And then he would fly back because he had another job on Oahu. I think for a while, at least, he was working with Good News Jail and Prison Ministry there. and just gave incredible wisdom to the church at that time, really helped them to avoid some pitfalls. And one of the things he did, and this is a story that didn't come from him, this came from other people in the congregation, that when I came in 1990, I came and I preached, I think it was, It was June 26th of 1990. It was either that or July 4th. I always forget which one was that. Which one? 99. What did I say, 90? Ooh, now I'm not that old. But in 99 I came. I think it was June 26th or July 4th. I don't remember which one of those it was. But I came and I preached. And I preached a few times. And then sometime towards the end of July, They decided they were going to vote on whether I should be the pastor or not. And Kahu Mike was still giving wisdom to the church. And I welcome that as a candidate. that the church understood. There was some concern that because if everybody showed up on the same Sunday, there were about 40 people, and like I said, the average age was 60, and usually there was only about 25, 20, somewhere between 20 and 30 people on a Sunday. Like I said, if everybody showed up, there'd be about 40. And there was some concern because there wasn't a younger generation in the church at the time, but the church was really on a course to just simply die. And that was one of the thoughts is that the church should just, we should all just go find someplace else to go. And I'm glad they didn't choose that. Who knows where I'd be right now. But one of the pieces of advice that Mike Enoi gave to them, and it was brilliant, it was genius, and he said to this group of older folks that was in this business meeting right before they voted on whether or not I could be the pastor, somebody came up and raised the question, we understand that this young fellow might be good with words, and he might actually know the Bible, But 27 is 27. And isn't he a little too young? Mike Inouye acknowledged that. Yes, Daniel, this young man who has come, is fairly young. But I love the way he put it. This is how everyone tells the story exactly the same, that he said to them, I know you as a congregation. And if anyone can help this young man through these years, you can. So it wasn't a matter of, he has so much wisdom to teach you, he has so much from his life experience to teach you, or even he's such a biblical scholar that he knows, or a theological scholar that he knows how, you guys just need to listen to him. He couched it as this, you are the ones that are helping him. and he wasn't wrong. I can't imagine, I can't imagine what I would be as a preacher, as a pastor, were it not for those people taking me under their wing 24 years ago, and just saying, basically, we know you're gonna make a lot of mistakes, but we're gonna hang on, and we're gonna hang on together, And thankfully, you're the beneficiaries of that. Wait, Keha, were you here? Also, Keha was here as well. So I didn't see you. I snuck in on the side. You are the beneficiaries of that. I am so grateful to God for those people who were here in those years who were able to be kind and who were able sometimes in my haste and youthful exuberance were able to look past my lack of wisdom to the wisdom of the Word of God and were able to help guide in that way. Now, I wasn't nothing in that. I did teach the Word of God, and I did do stuff. But it was really funny, because we met in the hotel. And one of the first Sundays, I think it was sometime in September. So it was one of the first Sundays after I became, like, they accepted me as the pastor, and I was ordained, and all of that kind of stuff. I went to grab a stack of chairs, and Sam Baldato came up to me, who I don't know how old he would have been in that time, in his 60s or in his early 70s, something like that. So he would have been in his 60s, and I went to grab this stack of chairs and to put them on a hand truck, and he said, he goes, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh. You take care of word, we take care of this stuff. And so from then on, If I was going to help with anything physical, I had to move from place to place so that it didn't look like I was too physically invested in one thing. Otherwise, it would look like I was physically working and I was going to get scoldings for that. So I did not help, but I just made sure to spread my help out around so that I didn't get in trouble again. But that was one of the things, and they made it very clear that my ministry was a ministry of the word, and it wasn't the ministry of moving chairs or at that time moving, I don't know, about 30 palms. In fact, the palm that's growing back there in the back corner that's kind of in a random spot. You probably noticed when we first came into this building, that was one of the plants that Sam would set up at the hotel and then bring back to their house every Sunday. And when we were here, he just put it there. And it grew roots through the plastic container that it was in, and it just, it's just there now. It just took root, kind of like the church did. So, I wanted to answer the question this morning a little bit, who are we as a church? I know that some of you, you've come into this new church setting. We don't always do things the way other churches do things. One of the things that we are is a Bible church, and I'll talk about that a little bit more, which makes us independent. We are an independent church. We're not actually in any formal fellowship of churches or in any formal denomination or anything like that. And that's a good thing and it's a bad thing all at the same time, and I'll mention a little bit about that later. But we are an independent church, which means that our culture can develop a little bit independent of what's going on in more mainline denominations. We don't have a lot of top-down stuff. We don't have a presbytery. We don't have a council or anything like that that is kind of dictating how the culture within the church develops. The elders here, as elders of an independent church, are free to make decisions as we see fit. And that makes us a little different sometimes. I don't know if you've noticed. We're a little different. But that said, you're a little different too. Years ago, I told the elders, before the current elders were here, I told them, I don't think God's given us a normal person yet. And I've reiterated that to this board of elders many times. I don't think any one of you is normal. And I don't know if that's a good thing. Don't take it as any disrespect at all. I think you know you're not normal. But who are we as a church? One of the reasons that I wanted Mark or Aaron to read the New Testament reading this morning, because I wanted it to be one of the elders, so you could understand the seriousness with which we take the task of eldering or shepherding. We're not glib. We're not lighthearted. We're not following a program. We're very much serious about this and the reason for that is the exact thing that we find in Acts 20 when Paul is talking to the elders of the church in Ephesus. What he says to them is to pay careful attention to yourselves. and to all the flock. That's the task. The task for the elders is to watch over ourselves, and then also to watch over the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you, you know, episkopos, overseers, to care for the church of God. This is the church of God, and God has made us overseers over this congregation, which he obtained with his blood, Then he says, I know that my departure, that after my departure, now please listen to this. And if you're following along in Acts 20, this is verse 29. I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. So we take your care and our guidance over this congregation seriously. Not because it reflects on us personally. Not because people will look at this elder board and say, oh man, the church was so good and then these guys came along and everything just went haywire. Not because people will look at us and say, oh, that's a great church. Or people look at us and say that's a bad church. What was that? Was it Hilo that you guys were mentioning? Hilo what? Hilo happenings. Apparently somebody on Hilo happenings last week said they were looking for a good church. And some people mentioned Berean Bible Church right on. But I don't. We don't do what we do so that we'll have a good rating on Hilo Happiness. People will say, this is a five-star church. And somebody else will pipe in, yeah, out of 20 stars. That's not why we do what we do. You know why we do what we do? And the reason that we take it so seriously is because there are ravenous wolves. That is, people whose faulty doctrine would seek to eat you up. They seek not to just influence you, they seek to devour you. And we know that. Not because we can see that, right? Not because I look around and I'm like, oh, there's a wolf, there's a wolf, there's a wolf, there's a wolf. Because sometimes those wolves are couched very cleverly in sheep's clothing. But we know, we know that they're there. And even if we can't see them, you need to be prepared for that fight. And from among your own selves, verse 30 says, will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them. And so people will come along, and people are going to come along, and their idea is that they're going to win men to themselves. I was not long ago in Home Depot, and I bumped into a guy there, and he says, hey, you're the pastor of Berean Bible Church, aren't you? And I don't remember ever seeing this guy before, and I simply told him, I don't know, what did the pastor of Berean Bible Church do? I might be him, but unless he owes you money or something. I've never met the man. and got the talking and he's the leader of some group and he's trying to draw people away. It became very evident within the first, I don't know, two minutes of talking to him. I think Kekoa, you were with me, right? Kekoa was with me at the time and I could see Kekoa getting all, dad, you're getting a little jazzed here, just calm down. And by the time we were done, I had all but called him a heretic to his face in front of one of his followers that was there. The only reason I did it because he had a follower with him. And I was like, at one point I was talking to him, but I was looking at him and I was saying, you need to be careful of what you say to people because you are a false prophet who is... And he was like, well, I don't see it that way. I said, what false prophet sees that they're a false prophet? I may not have said false prophet. I may have said false teaching or something like that. Whatever it was, it sounded a little bit nicer, but it had a little bite to it. And I know they're there. And he's not the only one. And so we take this very seriously and that's why we are who we are. That's why we do what we do. Well, who are we? Well, first of all, we're an evangelical church. We're an evangelical church. We're a New Testament church. We're a family church. And we're a Bible church. This isn't all that we are, but this kind of encompassed some of the things that people had questions about. Why do you do this this way? Or why do we do this this way? And these four categories kind of encompassed the questions that came in. And so I want to start with the fact that we are an evangelical church. Now the word evangelical, you can trace the word evangelical all the way back to the time of the Reformation. In fact, the title evangelical kind of runs parallel throughout the Reformation with the word Protestant. And so you have Protestant and evangelical, though it was in German, kind of running along the same patterns. But the reason that evangelical became one of the titles that Protestant Christianity was known by was because their emphasis on evangelism or their emphasis on the evangelion or the euangelion, the gospel. It's the Greek word for the good news, the good word, the good message. And in that sense, we are definitely an evangelical church. You see, the Roman Catholic Church, during the Middle Ages, the way you became a Roman Catholic back then, during those Middle Ages times, is that you were born. and you were born in a specific parish. And if you were born in that parish, you were a member of the church because along with being born, you were baptized and all of the other things that went on with that. And just by virtue of being born in the parish, things like that, you were a part of the church. By the way, this is one of the reasons that to this day, when you talk about the size of the Roman Catholic Church, the numbers are always a little bit inflated. Because in the United States, the Roman Catholic Church counts those people who align themselves with the Roman Catholic Church. However, when they count their numbers in other places, in cultures that are predominantly Catholic, like Latin America or or Italy or Spain or something like that, you are automatically Catholic by virtue of being born in a Catholic parish, in a Catholic area. And so you may not even know the word God from whatever, but being born there, you are automatically counted into their thing. And so what ended up happening in the Middle Ages is there was a group of people who said, wait a minute, You are not a Christian and you are not a part of the church by virtue of your birth. Isn't that exactly what Jesus was talking about in John 3? When he talked to a man who by virtue of his birth thought he had a part in the kingdom of heaven. Remember that? Nicodemus on the rooftop was a man who thought that his Jewishness was going to get him into the eternal kingdom. And Jesus says to him, what? Unless you are born of water and the Spirit, you're not going to be a part of the kingdom. And then he uses that phrase that we're so fond of. He says, unless you are born, what? Again. And so the evangelicals during the time of the Protestant Reformation were those who understood that to be born within a Catholic parish was not enough to make you a part of the church, was not enough to make you a part of the kingdom of God. You needed to be born spiritually. And so they wouldn't just assume that everyone was a Christian. they would actually proclaim the Evangelion, the Euangelion, the good news. That's why they were called evangelicals. They were preachers of good news. And we are certainly in that tradition and in that heritage. We are preachers of the gospel. We're proclaimers of the gospel. And this is part of the Great Commission, isn't it? Turn over to Matthew chapter 28. We'll turn in a few different places as we go through. By the way, if you guys think you've heard me ramble in the past and go too long, I deliberately planned to ramble this morning. So I hope you didn't leave a roast slow cooking somewhere or your dinner might be jerky. no i'll be good all right i'll be good Matthew 28, 19, the Great Commission. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Where is it that we are going to? I want you to notice that in Matthew 28, 19, it says, go therefore. Most Greek scholars would agree that it's not a command to go there, but it's an assumption of going, that as you are going, You're making disciples. And so what is the venue in which evangelism is done? What is the venue in which you are to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ? Well, it's just as you are going. As you're going, as you're going along your way. Going where? He doesn't specify, does he? It's just as you're going, wherever you're going. In fact, when you turn to the book of Acts and see how this actually works out, you remember that commission in Acts is that you'll be my witnesses, Acts 1.8, in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth. But then the book starts to unfold, and where do we find the gospel being proclaimed? Well, we find the gospel, the good news, being preached in synagogues. But not just in synagogues, we find the good news being preached in homes. We find the good news being preached in the temple. We find the good news being preached in idolatrous temples. We find the good news being proclaimed in palaces. We find it being proclaimed in the desert. We find it being proclaimed in the middle of a shipwreck. On a deserted island, we find it being proclaimed in jail. So what is the proper place then for the gospel as evangelicals to be proclaimed? And the answer to that is just as you're going. As you're going. Well, where are you going? Well, wherever you're going, that's where the gospel needs to be proclaimed. And so we are an evangelical church, and we understand that the gospel needs to be proclaimed everywhere. Okay, now this comes to one of the questions that's asked, and that is, Kahu, why don't you preach consistently gospel messages that call people to repentance and are just focused on the gospel? And the reason for that is, and I think, to be fair, those of you who've been here for more than six months know that I do preach the gospel, and I preach it frequently when it comes up as articulated in the text. But the reason, like, some churches will have, like, a gospel service where that's exactly what's being preached. It's just the gospel, and you're supposed to bring your friends to that. And when you bring your friends to that, the idea is they'll hear the truth of the gospel, and they'll get saved at that moment. and whatever. Well, why don't we do that here? Well, we don't necessarily not want to do that, or it's not that we can't do that or believe that that's wrong in any way, but we also want you to understand clearly that we gather as a church to worship and we scatter as we are going to make disciples, okay? The gathering of the church is predominantly for worship and edification, and it's from there that we go and enter the mission field. There used to be signs that people would have over the doorways of churches that were on the inside looking out, and it said, you are now entering the mission field. And I like that sentiment because we're a biblically evangelical church, which means that every single one of us has the responsibility to take the gospel to those around us. I don't ever mind when somebody calls me up on the phone and says, Kahu, can you come talk to my friend and give him the gospel? I don't mind that at all. But I tell you this, if you can articulate the gospel, what it is, and how it's affected you, it's much more effective that you do it than for me to be trotted around like the official spokesperson for God. Because that's not how the New Testament lays it out. I'll do it. I don't mind being God's spokesperson. We're all God's spokespeople. But evangelism happens as you're going, wherever you go. Just to illustrate that, within the first four years that we were here, actually before I was even the pastor here, Edith Crabb asked us to lunch. Yeah, how many of you know who Edith Crabb is? You guys know who Edith Crabb is? Okay, good. Wonderful lady, she moved away. She's probably watching right now. She abandoned us. No, no, just kidding, Edith. She said, I think it was one of the first times that we got together with her and we were having lunch, and she said, I have three friends, and I want my three friends to know the gospel. Can we pray for them? And is there something we can do about that? And I said, sure. And we actually, at that meal that day, prayed for her three friends. Well, each one of those friends, over the next five, 10 years, made some kind of profession of faith or at least a rededication of their life to serving the Lord and to being faithful to the Lord. And that was amazing to see. Here's the problem. When I would read church growth books, I read the church growth books, and all the statistics said this. If you're gonna have a healthy church, you need to have people down the strata of the church, right? That means you need to have older people, and you need to have babies, and you need to have everybody in between. Otherwise, demographically, you're not a very healthy church. And I remember reading that and being so offended Because right around the time where I read one of those books, we literally had taken a woman who did not know Christ, and she was in her 60s, and she became a Christian, and she came to know Christ, and within two years, she had gone on home to be with the Lord. And I'm saying, that's not healthy. Our church was growing, but it was old people, and it grew to be more old people. And demographically, they would say, oh, that's a terrible thing. You shouldn't have this old people church. And my protest to that was, well, if old people are witnessing to people, who are they going to be witnessing to? They're going to be witnessing to the old people that they hang out with. You're not often going to find an old person, you know, some guy in his 60s walking over to the park and accosting children and saying, hey, I want to tell you about the Lord. I mean, not anymore. Not in this day and age. And so we were growing as a church. We were growing in a strange way because we're not normal, right? We already established that. And we were growing in a not normal way, but it was in, I think, a godly way and a healthy way. And I know that that's not our problem now. We, I think, have a healthy supply of children in here. And we have a healthy supply of old people. and young people, and then we have that ubiquitous middle that doesn't want to admit, but you know who you are, and you know where you belong. And so we're an evangelical church, not necessarily in the sense of pledging our loyalty to an evangelical movement, but in the historic sense that we believe that anyone who is going to be a part of the kingdom of God must be born again. And how do we proclaim that message? We proclaim it as we are going. Okay? The second thing I want us to note is that we're a New Testament church, and the New Testament church was characterized by its worship. Acts chapter 2. Verse 41 through 42 said, so those who received his word were baptized. They were added to them that day about 3,000 souls. By the way, that's one of the reasons that we maintain a membership role, is because we understand that they kept track of those who became Christians, and we want to do the same thing. It's not a sacrament. It's not an ordinance. In fact, the church has always had a membership role, but just as the elders, we thought that was one of the best ways to be able to do that and to really kind of harness the idea of accountability in all of that. But once again, like we say, it's not an ordinance of the church. It's just something that really, really helps. But look at verse 42, it says, and they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship and the breaking of bread and the prayers. So the apostles' teaching, that was the body of doctrine. Actually at this time in Acts 2, it was literally the apostles' teaching. But the pattern that was left for us then was that idea that what the apostles taught concerning the Old Testament scriptures, concerning Jesus, and concerning the implications of that in the New Testament are all things that we do in our service time and fellowship and breaking of bread. Breaking of bread probably here It includes the Lord's Supper, but might even include more than that. Might include having a common meal together, just sitting and eating, and that's what they were doing. And then to prayer. And I want us to understand this, that one of the primary functions of the church, and we take this very seriously, is to worship. And one of the tragedies, and is a leftover of the 20th century, and it's been dragged over into the 21st century, is the fact that we refer to singing music as worship. And we'll often hear people, and we try to avoid saying it here, and that is when we're about to sing, and just say, let's worship. Because worship is not just singing, right? Worship is reading the Word of God. Worship is fellowship. Worship is prayer. Worship is giving. Worship is all of these things. And so when we have the formal service of worship, and you can worship in many ways out there as well, but when we have the formal worship service today, each element that we engage in is something that is directly worship. It's one of the reasons that when we, years ago, we were doing announcements, and it just kind of was an epiphany that someone had, that here we are directing our attention to God, and then we stop, to do some you know, just some secretarial work right in the middle of informing everybody about stuff. Now that is worshipful, and that can be done to the glory of God and wonderful, but it took away from the flow of how everything that we were trying to do, whether we were calling the church to worship by reading a song, or we were reading an Old Testament passage, reading a New Testament passage, giving, praying, everything that we did from the beginning of the service to the end of the service, was clearly and distinctly aimed at honoring the Lord. And so what we ended up doing is taking that announcement time and putting it way up front at the beginning. It also is a very practical way to punish people for coming late. That didn't weigh into anything, but it just so happens to be that. And so understanding that we are a church that has as a priority worship, not just in singing songs, not just in singing hymns, not just in singing whatever, but worship in that everything we do is worship. And that brings me to a question that people ask about music. Do we have a certain standard of music? We notice that Breanne always sings hymns, always does this. We try not to always do anything. But we just use whatever talent God has given to us. And if somebody has a talent to lead music in a different way and they're able to do that, then we welcome that kind of thing. If someone has a talent to administrate a music program, Then we welcome that so far. Nobody wants to take the helm of that. So we just use what God has given to us. Are we opposed to having a praise band? No. Are we opposed to having a praise band? No. We could ask the same thing about having a pipe organ. I'm not opposed to that either. I'm not opposed to anything like that. Drums? No, as Aaron said, about 10-ish weeks. Am I opposed to drums? No-ish. Formally, I'm not opposed to drums, but... I just, I also think that, I think that the architecture of a church should signify something. And that's why we have the pulpit in the middle. Did you know that before, I think it was Baptist churches and Puritan churches before them, but even Presbyterian churches always have the pulpit to the side. Have you ever noticed that if you're in a, if you're in a, Presbyterian Church, I think some Lutheran churches do that as well. And the reason for that is because they literally have the altar in the front, right? So the center of the service in the Roman Catholic Church is that moment during the mass where the priest breaks the bread, or doesn't break the bread, and takes the wafers out, and he pronounces the Corpus Christi, whatever he says over it. And then it turns those elements into the body and blood of Christ, right? And that all happens, and that's the central part of their worship. The Puritans and then the Baptists after them understood that the central part of our worship isn't an altar where we transform the substance of communion into the body and blood of Christ, that the center of our worship is actually preaching. and the Word of God. And so what they did is they actually took the lectern and moved it into the middle of the building so that it would signify that preaching is central to what we do here. And so I think that ought to mean something. And that's one reason I don't like drums, because they just stay up there like this. craggly thing of stuff. I don't know, maybe it's just my upbringing. That's why I can't say too much about it. It's just, you know, then that guy, you know, I don't know, whatever. Maybe we'll have drums someday, I don't know. It's not that important to me. But in our musical time, we use whatever we have. And maybe if all we have is drums, then we would use drums. or I would learn how to play the guitar really well. Here's another thing that I want you to understand, and this is for everyone. When you come to John chapter four, we have this wonderful story where Jesus is talking to the woman at the well. You all know the story. And she's a Samaritan woman. Samaritans and Jews don't have anything to do with each other. They even fight about where God's holy mountain is. Is it here or is it there? Is it in Jerusalem or is it in Shechem? Where is it? And Jesus says, God is a spirit. John 4, 24, God is a spirit and those that worship him must worship him how? In spirit and in truth. Now I'm afraid that what some people have gotten from that is the Gnostic idea then that whatever you do with your body doesn't matter because God wants to be worshipped in spirit. And I want you to understand that that's not true. Remember that John records that story in John 4, 24. But then John, after he writes the gospel of John, goes on to write three epistles. The first epistle is to combat that very idea that what you do in your body doesn't matter because God is spirit. So we don't need to be concerned at all with what our bodies do. So when you come to 1 John, we have verses like this that say 1 John 2, verse 3. And by this, we know that we have come to know Him if we keep His commandments. The commandments, not necessarily the 10 commandments, but the commandments of Christ. What does that mean? That means that we're doing what Christ commands us to do. Doing what? How are you following the commands of Christ? With your body. John here is literally calling you to physically do what Christ commands you to do. The same thing in chapter three, beginning in verse seven, he says, little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous as he is righteous. Now, why does he write that? Because some of the Gnostics had come into the church and said, listen, you can be spiritually righteous without ever doing anything righteous outwardly. Because your spirituality, God is spirit, and those that worship him worship him in spirit, so whatever your body does doesn't matter. And you don't have to do and be righteous. God doesn't need your body for worship. Is that what Jesus was saying to the woman at the well? That what your body does doesn't matter? No, because he immediately calls her to repentance, right? You were married this many times, the guy you're with right now isn't your husband. And so we know that he wasn't saying, purporting this Gnostic idea that because we worship in spirit, it doesn't matter what our bodies do. Verse 8 in chapter 3 says, whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil, the actual things that are done. Verse 9, no one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this it is evident, verse 10, by this it is evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God. Do you see that? Because the spiritual reality that the seed of God is in you because you're one of His, that should affect you to the extent that that spiritual reality pushes your body to act righteously. And that's the connection that John is making between the spirit and the body. That the spirit that is transformed, that is truly transformed, that is truly worshiping God is the spirit that is going to drive the body to righteousness and to worship God. There were literal Gnostics, there were literal Gnostics who said, number one, some Gnostics said, whatever you do in your body doesn't count because God only is worried about the spiritual. So you can go and fornicate as much as you want, and God won't care. Because that's done in the body, not in the spirit. There are other people who said, you know what, because God is spirit, then we just worship him in spirit and we sit here in silence and contemplate and never interact with the world around us because we just need to be spiritual. And John is to that idea of Gnosticism that gives rise to those two branches, he says to both of them, you're wrong. Those who have been transformed spiritually inside need to be transformed physically outside as well to do righteousness. Think about it this way. What happens, folks, if you say to somebody, I'm going to make you a promise? It can be to one of your parents. and say, I'm going to do this, or I'm going to do that, or I'm going to sort of keep this, I'm going to keep this, and I'm going to keep that. Or maybe to your spouse, you say, I promise, we have a problem in our house with propane. We have lost the ability to predict when propane tanks are going to run out. And so there's a clear way of knowing when a propane tank runs out, and that is when my wife is in the shower and you hear, ah! and it gets all cold, and then I know I'm in trouble. Husbands, if you were to tell your wife, I promise you I'm going to change the propane on time, all the time, and you hear the scream, and she comes out, and you're sitting down, not bothered by it at all, and you're just sitting in the lounge chair, maybe reading a book, and she says, what about the propane? And he says, hey, listen. I obeyed that promise. I fulfilled that promise in my heart. I fulfilled that promise in my heart. Now, folks, you tell me, did you fulfill that promise? By the way, that's why you don't make those kinds of promises, because you can't fulfill them. You say, I'm going to try to remember. Dear, I love you so much, and you're such a wonderful mother to my children and all that. and you say it and you mean it. My point is, is that if you just simply say, I'm just gonna worship the Lord in my heart, and you don't do what is physically required of you, namely to be here in the worship, in the collective worship of the body, then you are not obeying the Lord. We just pause there. The next thing that Berean Bible Church is, is we're a family church. We're a family church. People have asked, how come you don't have a nursery or something like that? Well, that's a long story. But guess what? You're in luck because I'm giving out long stories today. It's not a conviction of ours not to have a nursery or to have a children's thing or whatever. It came out of really practical necessity and partly common sense, I guess. For a while, my wife was teaching a children's church. And the children really benefited from having this taught to them on their level and being able to do that. And there were kids here also who maybe their parents didn't come to church, and she did that. And then I noticed, wow, my wife hasn't been in church for a year. And that's not good. And so we divided it up, and other people would help her now and then, and she would be here for two weeks, and then someone would take over for two weeks, and she'd do it for three months, and other people would do it for three months, and it was back and forth. And no matter how we cut the pie up, she was always out of church for six months of the year. And I said, you know what? I got a responsibility to my family first. And so if somebody else wants to do this, they can try to do that. But then also, I thought, well, that's not fair for anybody else either. Yeah, my wife isn't going to be out of the service for six months, but yours is. And so we just kind of did away with it. And we just gave the word out to anybody that, you know, Have the kids come in, teach them to sit, teach them to be quiet. And if they're not going to be quiet, so what? And you know, I even mentioned one time, if your child makes noise and somebody looks at you sideways, just follow them to the parking lot and take their license plate number down. We'll make sure there's no place for them to park. No, it's not like that. It's just, you know, let's just all be here as much as we can. Kids are remarkably resilient, you know. If you put them in front of a mind-numbing cartoon for two hours, they'll sit there. They'll sit there and stare. And you think they're not even listening, right? Because they're just... you know, slack-jawed and out of it. And you'll say, do you know just what happened? And they'll, like, recite to you, like, the last five minutes of the cartoon, right? They can learn. You know, some will learn faster than others. And maybe some won't learn, but so what? So what? Is it a distraction to people around? Yeah, but most of the people around who get distracted are adults. And they need to behave like adults and act like adults. And if something goes on around you, they're not going to collapse. They're not going to, oh, you know, I'm going to hell because a child screamed in church. No, no. And so. We started a nursery at one time. And then we were going to try and formalize a little bit. And that was going to include us having all of the aunties who watch kids. They were all going to have to go through an FBI screening. And it was just so crass. And I just, I don't know. So what we decided was, and we don't announce this all the time, but this is the way we decided. And you can renew this if you want. And that is this. If you as parents, moms and dads, take turns, if maybe you just think, I cannot have a child in here, and I understand that. Even if nobody else is distracted by your child, I know what it's like to be someplace with rotten kids, and your kids are just behaving so poorly, and you just think, oh man, I just can't. My kids were all there, even though they're looking at me like, never father. They were all there. They made noise when they shouldn't make noise and, you know, fell to the ground and whatever at times. Well, once. They would do it once. No, I'm just kidding. Whatever. You know, whatever. You know, it just... We decided that if you wanted to make a deal with some other parents and say, OK, I'll watch your kids, and then you can watch our kids. I just didn't like the idea of us as the elders saying, we know because this person's been FBI certified that they're safe with your kids. Because the fact of the matter is we all deal with our kids differently, right? I deal with my kids individually differently. I don't treat any one of them the same as I treat the other three. You know? My kids sometimes say, Dad, you have a double standard. I say, no, there's no double standard. There's actually two different standards. Because you're two different people. And so, too bad. And so, you know, so you don't treat your kids the same. But maybe if you want to go in with other parents and say, I'll watch your kids so you can watch mine. It just doesn't, you know, whatever. I didn't want to make it a big thing. The fact of the matter though is we do want you to have, we do want to minister and build up and strengthen families. And remember this, that the world will tell you what you need is a peaceful family, or a happy family, or the world will tell you that you need a prosperous family, or even you need to be as a Christian. Maybe Christians will do this more than the world does. They'll say, you need to be a model family. I don't want you to be any of that. You might be, you might not be, whatever. I would prefer happy over sad, but that's not the goal. You know what the goal is? That you would be a godly family. That you would be a family where the children can walk behind you and follow you because you're directing their attention to Jesus Christ. In fact, in that classic passage in Ephesians 5 where it talks about the responsibilities within the families, it says, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as to the Lord. Husbands, love your wives as Christ. Children, obey your parents in the Lord. By the way, that answers the question. Every Sunday school kid in the history of the world has posed the question. When you say you have to obey your parents, immediately the hands go up. Teacher, what if my parents ask me to kill somebody? No, then don't kill them. In the Lord. You obey them in the Lord. The point is, to be a godly family, the family has to start not with a good dad or a good mom or whatever. The family has to start with a good God. And you want to direct their hearts to God. Think about the people in the Old Testament. Think about Moses. Moses refused to have his children circumcised and it nearly cost the entire nation, nearly cost him his kids. Think about Abraham. Abraham who lied about who his wife was. Hey, you know, this guy's gonna, this king in this town's gonna wanna sleep with you, so just tell him you're my sister. Really? How about Noah? Was he a good dad? I think we know too much about him. Here's the thing. Each one of these men are not ideal. David, David, a man after God's own heart, who was an adulterer and a murderer. Not ideal, was he? Not actually a good dad at all. But you know what they did do? They took their dirty, filthy hands. Dads. These dads took their dirty, filthy, flawed hands and they directed everyone, all of their children to the coming Messiah. And essentially, listen, children, you guys need a Messiah and it's not me, it's Him. Take your dirty hands and direct them to your Lord. Final thing is that we are a Bible church. We're a Bible church. And we're a Bible church deliberately. Because there was what was called the Bible church movement, and the founding of Berean Bible church kind of corresponds with that movement. Just a little history behind all of it. 150 years ago, Christians, when they would take vacation a lot of times, they wouldn't just go and have fun someplace. They would actually go to a conference center or a camp center, and the whole family would go through Bible conferences for a week. And yeah, they would do camp stuff, but the parents would learn how to teach and all this kind of stuff. And that time in American church history was known as the Bible Conference Movement. And these Bible Conference essentially bolstered these people. A lot of them were coming from liberal churches who didn't believe in the word of God. They were coming from mainline denomination churches who had long abandoned the Word of God as a standard of practice in their churches. And so the Bible Church movement came along and began to teach people what the Word of God really says. Well, these people would go home to their churches and realize our churches are teaching this. And so the Bible conference movement, what the Bible conferences did is they coalesced and they formed Bible institutes all over North America, mostly. How many of you have heard of Prairie Bible Institute? Have you heard of Moody Bible Institute? How many of you have heard of Bible Institute of Los Angeles? No? Have you heard of Biola University? Biola University actually stands for Bible Institute of Los Angeles, so that's where it comes from. There was Dallas Bible Institute, which became Dallas Theological Seminary. There was Columbia Bible Institute, which now in South Carolina is Columbia International University, I think. And all of these Bible institutes popped up in order to train pastors so that they could go back into these mainline denomination churches and actually start to teach the Bible. Problem was that when they went back into these churches to teach the Bible, the people liked it, the higher-ups didn't within the denomination. It was confusing. People teaching that the Bible is the final authority when the higher-ups didn't actually believe that, and so churches were splitting. And so the Bible Institute Movement, so you had the Bible Conference Movement which gave rise to the Bible Institute Movement. The Bible Institute Movement started a church planting campaign and started what was known as the Bible Church Movement. And the Bible Church Movement then had men like Theodore Epp who were a big part of that. I don't know if you guys know who J. Vernon McGee is, he just threw the Bible on the radio in five years. But J. Vernon McGee was an ordained minister in a mainline denomination until he had to leave and became a big part of the Bible Institute movement. years, many moons ago. One of the, I don't know whether it was a Kalili or a Kaapu, was hiking in the back valley of Haleiwa there. And they ran into this old southern gentleman who got lost in the valley. And they helped him to come out and they talked with each other. And this person said, oh, yeah, my brothers are all studying at Wheaton. Some are studying at Wheaton, at Moody, and then one at Bob Jones University. And asked this gentleman what he did. And this gentleman said, well, I actually teach in a Bible Institute. And I have a radio Bible program. And the guy that that person bumped into, it was one of Kahu Tom's brothers, I think, that bumped into J. Verney McGee. And so the Kalili family struck up a relationship with J. Vernon McGee, and then when Kahutam moved to the Big Island, he would bring J. Vernon McGee over to speak first at Haile, and then I think when Berean was first started here. I think that McGee died in 88. Also, men like Arnold Fruchtenbaum, who was part of that Bible church movement, who we still have a relationship with to this day. And so they're a Bible church, and what was the center? What was the center of the Bible church movement? As you would understand, it's the Bible. Why? Because Roman 1 tells us that we're not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it's the power of God and the salvation. It's the gospel that's the power of God. It's the word of God that is the power of God. We believe what Hebrews 4 says, that the word of God is alive, it's living, it's active, it's sharper than any two-edged sword. This is one of the reasons, by the way, for another question, why we don't market the church heavily. Like we could go out and have campaigns of marketing. I did a sabbatical 10 years ago where I went to different churches, and I tried to see what was important to each of these churches. Listen to this, folks. I literally went to a church that, as far as I could tell, they teach the Bible. The pastor was spending up to 20 hours a week making advertisements for the church. banners, thinking of promotions. They had a Sunday where they gave away a free skateboard. All kinds of strange things. They just, one after another, and we just don't do that, why? Because the power of the gospel is not in the slickness of our presentation. We can be slick if we want to be slick. I would hate myself. But we could be slick if we wanted to be slick. But what is the power? The power of God unto salvation is the pure gospel. And we need to keep that in mind and understand that the word of God is alive, it's active, it's sharp, it does the work of God. 1 Corinthians chapter 2 verses 13 and 14, and we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. What does this passage tell us? It tells us that the things that Paul is writing, the truths that Paul is writing, have to be mediated through the power of the Holy Spirit. It's through the power of the Holy Spirit. And why do I bring that up? I bring that up because there are tons of ways that you can move a crowd. You can make a crowd feel something. You can use the right tone of music and make them feel bad about something. But the power of the gospel and the power to salvation doesn't come from how you feel. It comes by the Spirit working with the Word of God, exactly what 1 Corinthians 3 says. And so we proclaim the Word of God, hopefully not in a bland way, though I know some of you struggle in here sometimes. I see it. I see you working, trying to stay awake sometimes. Hopefully not in a bland way. Hopefully not in an irrelevant way. but in a way that puts forth in the front of all we do the power of the Word of God before the power of the presentation. It doesn't matter that much if I'm boring. It matters a little bit, but not that much. What matters is that whoever stands behind this pulpit is faithful to the Word of God. People talk a lot about how the Spirit of God moves them to this and moves them to that, and I don't know if the Spirit of God is moving you to that, and you don't know that. Even if you think you know that, you don't know that. But what we do know is that The Word of God promises that the Spirit of God will work through the Word of God. So any transformation that comes through the Word of God we know is an act of the Spirit and not an act of manipulation. Whereas you can play the right tune and say, do you hear, do you feel the Spirit of God moving this morning? And you know what? Somebody sitting in the audience who maybe is naive and simple-minded might sit there and go, my goodness, I do feel something. You know, that was just a, it might not be the Spirit, it might be a beautiful chord. It might be the resolution of a chord. What is important? What's important isn't that you feel the Spirit moving. What's important is that you know the Spirit is moving because your life and this church is saturated with Bible after Bible after Bible after Bible. In the Assemblies of God, on their website, they have 16 fundamental principles. One of the fundamental principles of the Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal group, is that the only physical, real manifestation of the Holy Spirit is speaking in tongues. It says that. The only way you can know and have any physical confirmation that you've been filled with the Holy Spirit is because you speak in tongues. Absolutely not. And I have gotten phone call after phone call through the years where people from Assemblies of God or other Pentecostal denominations call and say, hey, but your church doesn't believe in the Holy Spirit, do you? Now folks, that saddens me. That saddens me not because of our reputation. I don't care about our reputation. I mean, I care a little bit, but I don't care that much about our reputation. What saddens me is that these people are in churches where they're being fundamentally misinformed about what the Holy Spirit does and who the Holy Spirit is. It's a tragedy. And the fact of the matter is the Pentecostals are not the only ones doing it. The Spirit of God will move through the Word of God and that is why we proclaim and proclaim and proclaim. Bible after Bible after Bible after Bible. This is who we are. And what motivates us, what motivates us I have here is the love of God and the love of others. It's Christ's commandment to his disciples, love God and love others. This is who we are. This is who we are as a church. I hope this helps you to understand us better and I hope it directs your heart beyond Berean Bible Church and directs your heart back to the foundation of everything. And that is God. We don't want anything in this church to be about anything other than Him. He's the foundation. He's the reason. He's everything. And how do we get to Him? Through whom? Jesus Christ. Through Jesus Christ. So this is who we are. This is where we've come from. We are now a 43 year old church. We're middle aged. Is that when middle age? I think 43 you're in middle age already. And if you say no, it's probably because you're 43. But I don't know. I don't know. I don't know where we're going. I don't know where the church is going. I have no idea. I do know how we're going to get there though. And that is by the constant proclamation of this book. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we do thank you for your love. We do thank you that you brought us to this place. And I pray, Father, that as we celebrate and enjoy the comforts left to us by a previous generation who was so committed to standing on the Word of God without apology, that we would follow in their train, make us people of the word, make us committed to knowing and understanding this book and proclaiming the good news of the gospel that's found in it to all those who will hear. May the truth of the word of God penetrate our hearts. May it transform us from grace to grace and from glory to glory. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.