You're listening to audio from Red Rocks Baptist Church. For more information about our church, visit our website at redrocksbaptist.org or follow us on Instagram at redrocksbaptist. Well, there are certain topics in the local church and in churches that could be considered hot button issues, and one of them certainly is church governance. How should the church be organized? We here at Red Rocks believe scripture teaches a pastor-led, deacon-served, congregationally governed model for a local church. Well, that's a mouthful, so let's break that down for a moment because we've really spent the last six sermons and acts focused on this statement. The last three weeks, we have looked at and studied the pastor's role. what pastors are called to do, their qualifications, who and who is not eligible for the office of pastor, and what their burdens and responsibilities are. And to summarize, God calls pastors to preach the word, to shepherd the flock, and equip the saints. They are the ones with the authority to oversee the ministry, and we could summarize their role In this way, they serve by leading and caring for the flock. So they serve the church by leading the church. We've also studied the deacon's role and qualifications. They spot and meet tangible needs, they protect and promote church unity, and they serve and support the ministry of the elders, as we see here in Acts chapter six. Deacons facilitate the ministry. So just as pastors served in the church by leading, deacons lead by serving. They're model servants and examples of the flock. Well, that leaves one more group. The congregation. And perhaps you've thought something to the effect in the last few weeks of, what about us? So I've entitled our sermon today, What About Us? The Role of the Congregation. What is the congregation's role? What responsibilities do we as a local church have? And I say we because even if we have a leadership office, as a deacon or a pastor, all of us are part of the local church. So this question affects us all. And the stakes are high. If we fail to see or refuse to accept the role of the local church, the role the Bible gives to the congregation, if we fail to see that, if we refuse to accept that, there will be no way that we can have a healthy, unified church. There'll be no way that verse seven here will take place where the word of God spreads and the disciples multiply greatly and there's unity. So we have to understand and accept and participate in our role as the congregation. And so today I'd like to give four scriptural points about the congregation's role. It'll be loosely out of Acts 6. We'll come back to this passage sort of halfway through. But ultimately there's gonna be four points that we need to see from scripture. The first is that the local church governs itself. The congregation governs itself. For a local church to stand on its own two feet, it has to be able to do some things for itself. And I've got three things down here. First, it has to support itself financially. Now, there are times in a church's life cycle where they may need financial support or ministry support from other churches or other parachurch ministries. But the goal for every local church is that they would become self-supporting. Well, what does that mean? What does that entail? If we use Acts 1.8 as a principle, we see the priority financially for the local church. Well, what does Acts 1.8 say? Jesus called us as his people to be witnesses of him first in Jerusalem, then in Judea and Samaria, then to the outermost parts of the earth. And if we take that principle, that means we start where we are in our local context. Then we expand from there, reaching to the ends of the earth, financially then. The local church's priorities should be to pay her pastors, maintain her facility and property, and have some ministry in her immediate Jerusalem, and then expand out from there. Then look to support citywide, statewide, national outreaches, global missions. That's the priority according to Acts 1.8. So a church needs to be able to support itself financially. Second, a church governs itself by dealing with its own matters. It handles things in-house. It handles its own affairs. Things like organizing itself and electing its own leaders. Creating its own budget. These are things that require us to deal with ourselves. And this is not a new expectation. This is the Apostle Paul's expectation in the New Testament that he placed on all the churches that he planted. Give you a couple examples. When he rebuked the Corinthian church about a flagrantly immoral situation going on, who did he call upon to deal with the matter? Did he call on the Pope or the local bishop? Now, there was no such thing. He called upon the whole church, not just the elders of the church, he called on the whole church to deal with the matter. 1 Corinthians 5, 4 and 5 says this, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, when you, and that's a plural you, when you all are gathered together along with my spirit, with the power of the Lord Jesus Christ, you all deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. It was the whole church's responsibility to carry out this command, to deal with the unrepentant, flagrantly sinning brother. When the Galatians were in danger of abandoning the gospel in Galatians chapter one, Paul confronted the whole church. He doesn't say now, I know you all are going astray, but your pastor really needs to stop and stem the tide. He called on the whole church to hold fast to the true gospel, to stand firm in the faith. So the congregation governing itself means that there's a financial independence. It supports itself. It deals with its own matters. It's not reliant on a denomination ahead of them or other people around them to come in and handle things for them. We handle our own business. But that doesn't mean exclusive. Independence does not mean exclusivity. Self-governing does not mean solo church or silo church. It can and should work with other churches. So I wanna put that point in to make sure that we have a balanced approach. Local churches can and should work with other churches. The New Testament shows us this. There were several churches that shared and came together with an offering for another region. 1 Corinthians 16, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9. Paul encouraged the Corinthians and the other churches in that region. of Greece to take up a collection to bring back to the poor saints of Jerusalem. There's a partnership in the gospel. Another example, in Colossians chapter four, Paul asked a Colossian church to share the letter that he wrote to them, the biblical letter of Colossians, to share that letter with the church at Laodicea. There's an intermingling of ministry going on. And so at the very least, working with other churches happens as we pray for them. That's why we pray for other churches in our pastoral prayer. We partner with other churches. But it can also take place through tangible actions. Let me give you a couple ways that this could happen. It could result in partnering together for a common ministry objective. This past summer, our teenagers and youth group, under the direction of Pastor Addison, went one state over to Utah, where they partnered with a church there to run a soccer camp to reach the local community for the gospel. That's ministry partnership. Two churches coming together to do something that one on its own would have struggled to do. Church planting is another way churches work together. Like a mother who gives birth to a newborn, a mature church can participate in planting new churches so that new communities are formed for the gospel. There are still other times where a church will need to give assistance or can give assistance or receive assistance from other ministries. For example, after a natural disaster, it's appropriate for churches to take a collection and send it to sister churches. If a church has declined, they're about to close the doors and there's 15 people left, they need revitalization. It's appropriate for a healthy gospel preaching church to come alongside that church, to partner with them so that they can help them. So just because a congregation governs itself does not mean that it never talks with or interacts with other churches. Now, for a congregation to be truly self-governing, it has to have some authority, right? It has to be able to oversee its own matters, which means there has to be some authority. And I just want to acknowledge at this point that there are a ton of opinions about how much authority the congregation should have. I don't have time today to give you examples of poor exercise of authority in local churches. But I want us all to take a deep breath and to remember that sometimes our opinions can be more informed by our politics than our scriptures. So let's see what the Bible says. Let's go back to scripture and remember what God does about authority and see what God does about authority in the local church. Now, as we saw last week, God entrusts authority to the pastors to oversee the flock. In fact, he calls them bishops or overseers for that reason. We have oversight authority of the ministry. Scripture, as we saw last week, commands the church to submit to her pastors, not because we're power-hungry egomaniacs, but because we have a responsibility before God to give an account. There's a burden to that authority. Pastoral authority we could summarize as a leadership authority. The congregation's authority comes in another area. It's in the area of doctrine. The congregation exercises doctrinal authority. What do I mean by that? The whole church must hold fast to sound doctrine, right? Galatians chapter one, the whole church was responsible to resist abandoning the gospel. So how does the congregation exercise doctrinal authority? Well, there are two ways it does this. The first is by overseeing membership decisions. The second is by calling her pastors. So I'm gonna walk through these one at a time. The congregation exercises doctrinal authority by overseeing membership decisions. To see this, we have to go back to the book of Matthew. the book of Matthew. Two times in the Gospels, Jesus talked about the church. Both of those occasions happen in the book of Matthew. One in Matthew 16, the other in Matthew 18. In fact, both passages are fairly well known because as we see them, you probably will say, oh yeah, I remember that passage. Jesus gave two mentions of the church and gave authority to the church over membership, and that comes on both the front end of membership and the back end of membership, bringing people into the body in church membership and removing people from the body in church discipline. Where do we see the church's authority? It's pictured by the expression, the keys of the kingdom. Now, unfortunately, I don't have time to go into all of the exegetical details of these two passages, so I'm gonna have to summarize here. Maybe down the road we can dig in a little bit more. Jesus twice mentions the keys of the kingdom, and keys are a symbol of authority. Whoever has keys has the power to bind or restrict, to open or to close. That's why Jesus has the keys to the kingdom of heaven and hell. He has the power to open the doors to heaven. Matthew 16, 19 says, this is Jesus speaking, and I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whoever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whoever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. And there are a lot of views about these words, so I'm gonna summarize the interpretation that I think is correct. And it's that Jesus gave these keys to the church. Now it doesn't mean that the church has authority to restrict people from heaven or send them to hell. We don't have that type of authority, only Jesus does. But the church has the authority to permit or restrict people from becoming part of the church. And on earth, the local church is the visible gathering of God's people. So again, hang with me, think with me. If a person gathers with the church, they are identifying with who? They're identifying with Jesus Christ. Therefore, the local church has the authority to affirm a member's confession. So in Matthew 16, this is the passage where Peter confesses Jesus as the Messiah. You are the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus says, I'm gonna build my church and the gates of hell will not stand against it. And there are several views on what Jesus is going to build his church. It seems that Jesus gave the keys of the kingdom to Peter as a representative of the apostles, not because Peter would go found a church and be the first pope. But as Ephesians 2.20 says, the apostles are the foundation of the church. They're the ones, as we've seen in Acts, who have preached the gospel and led to the planting and the foundation of the church. And so the keys here over the confession of the church come to the local church, the authority to affirm. And this really is consistent with what church membership is. Church membership is not joining a country club. It's not saying, I'm a perfect person, look at me. Church membership is a local church marking out a person as a believer in Jesus. It's saying this person is part of our community. They believe what we believe because of their confession of faith. Obviously, we can't know their hearts, but we can inspect their confession, which is the basis for receiving a person into the church. Let me try to clear it up and just show you how we have practiced this principle in our church. Here's how we handle it. When someone comes and says they want to join our church, they want to become a member of our church, we encourage that here. One of the pastors will then sit down and meet with them and discuss their salvation testimony. We ask them, how do you know that you're saved? What is the gospel? And if there's a vague answer, if there's an instability to that, We then invite them to study with us. We study a Bible study called The Exchange, or we go through the Gospel of Mark. I've invited people to do that before. Or I tell them, hey, if it's a teenager or child, hey, study these things with your parents, then come on back to us. So we want to make sure that someone who joins our church knows what they believe. That's important to us. If they do confess Christ by faith and they have a clear testimony of faith, we then bring them in front of the church. And that's not just a figurative thing where they stand down here, we read about them. That is an important step. We are putting them in front of you knowing that you have trusted us to examine them and that we will not put in front of you people that we're unsure about. The whole church then votes to officially bring them into the church. The whole church takes responsibility for affirming one's confession of the gospel, so that the people who gather here as members are those who stand firm and say, Jesus is my Lord and Savior. The congregation has authority to affirm a member's confession. On the back end of membership, that's really a sad situation, is they have authority over a member in discipline or in correction. Matthew 18 deals with the church's authority and discipline. Again, for time's sake, I'll summarize here. If a fellow believer is involved in a flagrant sin that's damaging his reputation, destroying the image of the church, leading to disunity, That believer needs to be confronted. And so one person goes and confronts them. If they won't listen to them, Jesus says, bring two or three others. And then if they refuse to listen to them, Jesus says to tell it to the church. But if he refuses to hear even the church, let him be to you as a heathen and a tax collector. So telling the offense in a church discipline situation, telling that to the church is not just a formal step of hey, we checked that off, we're gonna go on our way now. It's an important action because we have just intensified the loving rebuke on this member. If they won't listen to one person and they won't listen to three people, maybe they'll listen to 250 people. And the church's responsibility here is to bring loving rebuke and a loving appeal on this person to repent. And then, if the person refuses to hear the multiplicity of voices, they say no to those who care about them in the church, then the whole church has to discipline them out of the church. They excommunicate them. But this doesn't mean we execute them. This doesn't mean we treat them as dead to us. We treat them as a heathen. Well, we know how to treat heathens. We know how to treat unsaved people. What do we do with those who are unsaved? We give them something. We give them the gospel. So if someone has a confession of faith, and then flagrantly sins, and refuses to repent, and we put them out of the church, we still minister to them as best as we can, but that ministry starts by giving them the gospel, because that's what they need to have. That's what they need to receive. By what authority can the church do this? The very next verse in Matthew 18, Jesus says this. Assuredly, I say to you, whoever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whoever you lose on earth will be loosed in heaven. It's the same exact words he used in Matthew 16. So to keep an unrepentant, blatantly sinning brother in the church not only damages the reputation of the church, but it communicates that this person is a follower of Jesus even if their lifestyle does not match their confession. That's a big problem. Frankly, to not follow church discipline, as hard as it is, and as ugly as it is, to not follow church discipline is unloving to everyone involved. It's unloving to the church because confusion follows if there's a public sinful thing going on in the church and nobody does anything about it. Oh, I guess it's okay then. It's not okay. That's why we have to address it. It's unloving to that person because the message being sent to them is nothing's wrong here, no problem. But there's a big problem. Scripture gives the whole church the authority to bring confessors into the church and putting unrepentant sinners out of the church so that the lines are clear who is part of Christ's body and who needs to receive the saving gospel of Jesus. The second area of congregational authority, doctrinal authority, is seen by calling pastors to proclaim sound doctrine. So let's shift gears for a moment now. When a local church is formed, they declare the doctrine they believe. That's part of the planting or the founding of a church, is they have to agree on something. They have to have some doctrine that they are going to agree to. Well, what do they do next? Oftentimes in that group, there is a pastor leading them, but as time goes along, they need pastors to oversee them. They need an overseer. They need a shepherd. They need someone to preach the word to them. And so it is essential for the church and for the church's ongoing existence to call men to shepherd them who align with their doctrinal convictions. That's the whole church's responsibility. Pastors lead the flock and they will preach authoritatively as they declare the word, which has a cyclical effect. As they do this, it clarifies the doctrinal convictions of the church. Now in the New Testament era, how were pastors selected? Well the Apostle Paul and Timothy appointed elders in churches. We don't have the Apostle Paul here today. No matter how much the health and wealth gospel says that there are apostles running around, there are not. Nobody has seen Jesus and ministered with him. That was one of the qualifications. And so the responsibility then to call pastors falls on the local church. Now the local church can find their pastors one of two ways. They can develop them from within. or they can call them from without. It's my burden that we develop pastors from within, that we have a ministry that is known for raising up men who will faithfully proclaim the word of God. Now when a church calls a man to be one of their pastors, they then do something very unusual in the world's eyes. They invite a man to minister among them and then what do they do? They submit to him. They follow his leadership. And this, again, as I said last week, is in a plurality context. There are several pastors working together. But this is the beauty of God's process. There's humility for the pastor to receive the call and to say, I'm gonna go there. I'm gonna preach the word there. And there's humility from the congregation to follow his leadership. But the responsibility of the congregation isn't done at this point. Because there are situations where pastors fail to proclaim sound doctrine. They start preaching heresy. They become disqualified through sin. And it's the church's responsibility to remove any pastors who are not qualified, who don't preach sound doctrine. Now again, with all of these things, there's a way that you can fall off the trail. This responsibility can be abused, and this is the horror stories that we hear about, right? A few disgruntled members or a few scheming deacons push a man out of the pastorate. That's not what's in view. That's evil, and it's ungodly, and God will punish it justly. 1 Timothy 5 gives instructions about rebuking an elder. First Timothy 5.19, don't receive an accusation against an elder except from two or three witnesses. So there's not a personal ax to grind. There has to be multiple people who have witnessed the sin or the offense. Then Paul continues, those who are sinning rebuke in the presence of all so that the rest may fear. So it's the congregation's responsibility to maintain sound doctrine. Why? Well, there's another reason because the pastor is not the church. The church outlives the pastor. When Jerry and Addison and I are long gone, some of you will join us in heaven, but some of you will be here still. And it's your responsibility to take the word and call the next generation of pastors so that you can continue to make Christ known in the generation that you live. That's why it's the church's responsibility. If the church does due diligence in the process of calling a man to lead them, many problems down the road would just frankly be avoided. If there's a high bar and a high standard, you're gonna screen out a lot of people who aren't qualified. Now, with this on the table, we need to remember that the church is not an American democracy in the sense of the word in an American way. This is not rule by a crowd, or worse, rule by a mob. God has given the local church clear lines of authority. He's given the church elders who will lead the church according to the doctrine that the local church has set. The local church then maintains its membership who confess to that doctrine. And we have to keep these realms of authority in mind. The congregation's authority does not extend to the day-to-day details of the church or every matter within the church. There's no church vote required for matters of oversight because that's the pastor's responsibility. Plus, it'd be a little cumbersome to run every detail past the membership. Hey, we need another 300 coffee cups. Can we get a congregational vote? That would really slow things down. Overseer means that we maintain the rhythm of the ministry. Now pastors don't do and shouldn't do everything themselves. That's not a healthy church if the only people doing ministry are the pastors. They delegate practical and ministry matters to deacons and they invite members of the congregation to help. We want every member serving and contributing to the needs of the body. It also means that pastors listen to the congregation. It doesn't mean that we get to do whatever we want to do and you have to live with it. That's an unhealthy mixture as well. Jesus said that Gentiles exercise authority in domineering ways, but not so among you. 1 Peter 5, exercising your authority, not as lords over the flock, not domineering those under your care. Shepherding well requires leaders to be in touch with people. To hear them, as a shepherd after all, sheep are fragile. I know, I'm fragile. Sheep are fragile, and so we have to work together. And so this relationship between pastors and congregation really depends on trust, on humility, on transparency. And that trust will be built as we work together, which is necessary for role number three, that teamwork, because the congregation we see in scripture participates in missional decisions. So hear me well, just because the congregation's authority is in matters of doctrine does not mean the congregation has no role in ministry decisions. The congregation participates. How do they participate? I think there are two ways. First, they partner with leadership to meet ministry needs. And this is what Acts 6 teaches. If we view this text from the lens of the congregation, from the role of the whole church, what happened? Well, the congregation became aware that there was a need. They became aware of it before the apostles did. But they didn't form protest groups to talk about how terrible the apostles were. They didn't sign a petition asking the apostles to step down. They didn't blame the apostles for the lack of ministry. They didn't grumble against them. They didn't assume ill motives of them that the apostles are holding out on us. That's how we treat our political leaders? That's not the way we ought to interact in the church. What did the church do? They communicated the need to leadership, and leadership then worked to solve the problem as leaders are supposed to do. And frankly, in a growing church, this is going to happen. If God blesses us with more people being saved and baptized and added to the faith, there's gonna be new needs for opportunities in ministry. That's a good thing. And so as you start seeing gaps in ministry, as our resources get stretched thin or there's something new that needs to happen, it's okay that you see those things first. Frankly, you're going to see a lot of those things first because there are three of us and 250 of you. Just math that works. The mathematics, I'm a homeschooled dad, okay, the math works here, trust me. So when you see a need, talk to a deacon. Come talk to a pastor. We're more than happy to talk. But remember, a lot of ministry needs you can handle yourself. You don't need to have a conversation with me to bring a meal to a sick friend. You don't need to go talk to Pastor Jerry to see if you can go pray with a hurting member. There's a lot that you can just go do. But if something is too big for you, if you don't know what to do, then bring those things to us. Seek pastoral guidance. That's what we're here for. We love to work with you. Now notice the congregation in Acts 6 didn't just bring up the complaint and then cross their arms and tell the leaders they had to fix it this way. This happens, unfortunately, a lot. Thankfully not in our church, but I've seen it in other churches where pastors are talking about, I just have two or three people that just harp on me every week that I've gotta do this or do that and they're unhappy. A member has a complaint, they bring it to the pastors, and then they expect the pastors to drop everything that they're doing to do what I wanted you to do. That's not what happened here. There was a serious threat to church unity, but after they made the need known, they followed the leadership of the apostles. And the apostles lead well. They included the congregation in the solution. So what ends up happening is the whole church works together to meet the need. That's beautiful. That's the way it's supposed to be. So the congregation participates in missional decisions partnering with leadership to meet ministry needs. Second, the congregation confirms pastoral leading in matters of direction. This is in Acts chapter 15, and at the pace I'm going in Acts, maybe we'll get to this by 2030. But Acts chapter 15, and this is what some writers have called the veto ability of the church. So here's what's going on. Pastors should see clearly and patiently they should direct the flock with the goal of the congregation coming to agreement and unity and supporting the process and the direction and the vision. And if the process is done right and there's transparency and there's patience, then the congregation can raise legitimate concerns which the pastor should listen to. So Acts 15 is an illustration of this. I'm gonna again summarize to kind of give you the sketch of what's going on. Paul and Barnabas have just finished their first missionary journey. They've planted churches in modern day Turkey. They've come back to Antioch, which is in Syria, on the Mediterranean coast, which was their sending church. And while they're there, this controversy bubbled over and broke out. A dispute arose regarding salvation. Do Gentiles have to obey the Mosaic law to be saved, or is salvation apart from doing the law? And the book of Galatians is very clear. Justification is not by works of righteousness. It's not by the keeping of the law. It's by faith in Jesus Christ. But this is a massive conversation in the first century. So what happened next? The local church at Antioch sent Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem to work through the issue with the apostles. When Paul and Barnabas arrived in Jerusalem, the text says they were received by the church and the apostles and elders. It's interesting that Luke says that the whole church received them before he mentions the apostles and the pastors of that church. Paul and Barnabas then put the disagreement on the table, and then the apostles and elders came together to consider the matter. That's why this text is called the Jerusalem Council. Notice, who are the ones that are leading this, that are sorting these things out? It's the apostles and the pastors of the church. But as we read through the passage, we learn that the whole church was present, listening to the discussion. And that's significant. The elders, the pastors of the church, didn't go into this little room in the back, and then send out a smoke signal when they had the answer, and then come back out to a balcony and tell people. They had a conversation where the whole church could listen to, it was out in the open. And what was the conclusion here? The answer to the debate was that the Gentiles do not need to observe the law, they just need to trust Christ by faith. And then there was a little bit of pastoral counsel, don't needlessly offend your Jewish brothers and sisters. And what ends up happening then is that the entire church affirmed the decision. The whole church agreed with the Holy Spirit and the apostles. and they wrote a letter to the churches in Gentile lands, and the letter began this way. The apostles, the elders, and the brethren, to the brethren who are of the Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Colicchia, greetings. The whole church was involved in affirming the direction being sent. The leaders led, the people affirmed, the whole church came together to make the decision jointly. So though the congregation's authority deals with matters of doctrine, it's both wise and an extension of this principle that larger decisions should be brought to the congregation. So what's a large decision? Large decisions would be things that affect the church's direction, things that affect the church's ability to do ministry in the future. I'll give you a couple of examples. Approving the budget. That's something the whole church should do. That's a ministry direction. The pastors lead that process, the stewardship team helps, the deacons minister and they chime in, and then we put the whole thing in front of the congregation. We say this is the direction we believe God wants us to go. Large things that affect the church's ability to do ministry in the future would be like making a major purchase or a major sale of property or of equipment here. at our facility, like of land or something like that. And then even supporting or dropping missionaries. That's a directional thing. There are a lot of people who are taking the gospel, so we have to select a few to support. But it's not something that the pastors just do and handle again in a closed room. It's we do the process of leading and vetting, the missions team helps us, and then we put the people in front of you and say we want to commend these missionaries to you because we think they're worthy of support. And then the church votes. So when only 50 people out of 250 members come to a church business meeting to vote, you're not really taking advantage of the opportunities that you have to participate in the ministry. Maybe it's because you just trust us to do what's right. I'm appreciative of that. I don't wanna violate your trust. But I would encourage you to think about like in two weeks when we have our annual business meeting. I know coming back on a Sunday night is just so hard. I wanna encourage you, come on back. There'll even be food there. Now one principle that I try to practice is transparency and patience. Early on, three years ago, early on, after I became the lead pastor, our pastoral team decided that we don't want to spring things on the congregation unless it's an emergency. I am not gonna stand up in front of you and say we need to vote on something and we need to vote right now and you're not gonna have time to think about it and work through it. That's just not what we're gonna do. We're gonna give you time to think and to process because we want your feedback The feedback the congregation gives us helps us to hone what we're doing and sharpen it so that the product, the end result, is much better than what we did on our own. So we want to practice transparency in a pace of leadership that is methodical and purposeful. Why? So that we can stay united. And unity is so important in the New Testament. It's kind of underrated in our world today, but unity is so important because of the fourth rule. Role number four, the congregation does the work of the ministry. That's why unity is so important. We are all working together to do what God called us to do. Ephesians 4.12, we examined it a few weeks ago when it comes to the pastors of the church, but God gave pastors and teachers to the church, why? For the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. While pastors oversee the ministry and deacons facilitate the ministry, the engine that does the ministry is the congregation. Why is the whole congregation responsible to do the work of the ministry? Because the local church is God's chosen institution for our age. It's the local church. The universal church, capital U, universal, consists of every believer who has ever lived, regardless of time or location. Local churches are the visible expressions of Christ's body. They're fixed in time and set in location. The local church is the focal point of the biblical narrative. The vast majority of references to the ecclesia, to the church in the New Testament, refer to local churches. Many of the New Testament epistles carry the name of the church that they were written to. The book of Acts traces the growth of the universal church through the establishment of local churches all over the world. And what's amazing is that the local church is the physical, visible representation of Jesus Christ. How does the world see Jesus? It's by looking at his body. It's by looking at his church. How does the local church grow in depth, in unity, in number? It's as the word goes out, as every member engages in Great Commission work. From a mathematical standpoint, which of these approaches will be faster? Which will be more effective? Three pastors doing all the word ministry in the church, or three pastors leading and equipping 250 growing disciples to do word ministry with one another? Three pastors doing all the evangelism, so if there's a gospel opportunity, you have to bring them to us, sharing the gospel with unbelievers. Or three pastors modeling and encouraging 250 disciples to share the gospel with the people God's placed in your life. Which is gonna be more effective? Now this isn't just pragmatism. It's theology, actually. Ephesians 4.12, the work of the ministry belongs to the whole church. The Great Commission commands all of us to make disciples of every nation. When the church scattered in Acts 8.4, all the disciples proclaimed the word. We are all ambassadors for Jesus Christ, God making his appeal through us all, 2 Corinthians 5. The Thessalonian church, led by example, 1 Thessalonians 1.8, for from you the word of the Lord has sounded forth, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place. The word of the Lord sounded forth from that church into the whole region. I would encourage you to think about speaking the word to others and participating in Great Commission work, not as a job only for the pastors, but for all of us. Yes, that's uncomfortable. Yes, there may be some fear and anxiety about how do I do that? I can't talk. I don't get paid to speak. How do I do that? If Jesus called you to do it, he will give you the grace to accomplish it. He promises you his presence. He gives you the Holy Spirit to have strength. When scripture is communicated to another believer, the kingdom advances because God, in his abundant kindness, invites all of his body to share in the work. Think of God's, think of the word of God, the growth of the gospel. Think of it as a light, and every time you share it, every time you speak the word, every time you talk about Jesus, whether to a believer or an unbeliever, the light gets a few lumens brighter. So how does our church light get lighter and brighter and stronger? It's by more and more of us engaging in conversation about the word to others. So to draw everything together in conclusion, I think we can summarize the congregation's four roles in this way. As the body of Christ, the role of the congregation is to hold forth the glorious gospel of Jesus in both word and practice. Our identity determines how we live. That's the way it is in all of life. We are, as a local church, we are the body of Christ. We're the focal point of God's work in the world. Our role then, as his body, is to represent him, is to share him with others. It's to show the light of the gospel and to shine it brightly, which means that we use our words to communicate the gospel. We build one another up through edification, through words, but the way we live as a church also matters. The way we conduct ourselves in our gatherings, the way we handle business, the way we work together in ministry will either strengthen or hinder our witness. Our testimony for Christ will be greatly limited if we don't govern ourselves well, if there's disorder and chaos in our organization. Our ability to reach people with the gospel will be severely crippled if there's infighting and power plays and criticism. But if we embrace the role God has called us to and a culture of grace flourishes here, there will be a beauty and attractiveness to our gatherings as we display the gospel of grace together. That's our prayer and desire, is it not? And so we ask that God would grant this to us. Let's pray together. Father, you've blessed the local church with the joy of ministry, and I pray that we as a collective body would take advantage of that opportunity, that we would say, yes, Lord, I'm afraid, I don't know what to do, but I want to participate in your work in the world. I want to embrace my role as part of the local church. We pray that others that maybe have been sitting on the fence or content just to come and never really commit to us would say, I need to become a member. I need to be baptized. I need to become a member and give my confession so that everyone knows that I'm a follower of Jesus. Pray that you'd work in people's hearts this fall to this end. And may in all things that we say and do, may we exalt Jesus and model the gospel of Jesus in all that we say, in all that we act, in all that we do. In Christ's name we pray, amen. Thanks for listening to audio from Red Rocks Baptist Church. If you enjoyed this content, please consider sharing it with others. Our mission at Red Rocks Baptist Church is to know Christ and to make Him known. May God bless you as you follow Him.