We do. I keep trying to figure out how I'm going to put two of these together, and I didn't do it today, so I don't know when we'll make it to the last week and have to just cram the last two together, but we'll see. What did we talk about last week, right? What is this acronym? Baptist. What does it mean to be a Baptist? Biblical authority, autonomy of the local church, priesthood of the believer, two ordinances, individual soul liberty, saved church membership, two offices, separation of churches. Alright, that's where we're going over these next, I guess I have five weeks after tonight, so that's where we're going to get all the way through somehow. Last week we talked about biblical authority. This is from Abstract and Principal. The scriptures of the Old and New Testament are given by inspiration of God and are the only sufficient, certain, an authoritative rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience. The Bible is the standard. If that's not true, then some of the rest of these won't make sense at all. That's where we start. That's kind of always the foundation of where we start. Tonight, we want to talk about autonomy of the local church. It's a big word. Got to figure out what that word means exactly. Definition, let's just start there. Autonomy is self-rule or self-governance. What does that mean? That's what this evening's about. What does that mean? That the local church is autonomous. All human authority for the doctrine and practice of the local church lies within the local church itself. I'm going to come back to this again later, but what What other ideas about autonomy are there in, quote unquote, the churches across America? Just for, what are the other ways that churches that aren't this way? Okay, so that form of church government is called an Episcopal form, that's what the Catholics are. The authority comes, ultimately, you get back up to the Pope, and then it comes down and through. So a bishop controls, an archbishop controls a lot of churches, and the bishop is the one that controls the church. All the authority is rested in them. They govern, and then they're governed by others above them, and so there's a hierarchy. Okay, what's, there's really only one other one besides ours? What's the Presbyterians? What are they? So that's the second one, right? That's ruled by a presbytery, which just means a group of guys, right? There's a group of guys that decide what the church is under their control to do. It's sort of like the Episcopal one, but there's a committee not quite so far away, and they don't go any further than that. There's no pope that's telling them guys what to tell the churches to do. There's just a group of men that are elected by the churches, and they're sent to be a part of the presbytery. which is the group of rulers, ruling elders is what they're called, and they tell the church, this is how you have to structure, this is how you have to do this. Methodists run the same way. Do Methodists have that kind of same way? I know there's so many different sides to the world. I started saying pastors were sent out from a group. Yeah, I do know you're right that Methodists, you don't get any vote here, pastor, they just say whatever you want. Yeah, so because there's somebody in control that's making all those decisions, right? So that's, we probably can't figure, so what is our form of then church government called? Self-government, yes. Congregationalism, right? Who decides what New Covenant Church is going to do? New Covenant Church. The congregation by New Covenant Church. Ultimately, ultimately, right? The authority in the church rests in the congregation. Ultimately, it doesn't, well, obviously it's Jesus, but the congregation, why does the authority in the church ultimately rest inside the congregation? Who chooses the pastor? The congregation chooses the pastor, right? And so the authority in a congregational form of church government is in the membership. That's, and, In fact, I don't think you can have an autonomous local church if you don't have a congregational church where the authority is resting in the congregation. Everything else, there's outside authorities influencing what the church does. So in another way, the local church is completely self-governing and not subject to any external control even choosing the level of external influence to which it will expose itself. Now, does that mean that we can't associate or have some kind of connection to other churches? Of course not. But who chooses that? We do, right? In fact, I was reading through our Constitution. We're actually not allowed as a church to give any kind of decision-making authority to any other group. It's only in our church. We can't enter into any kind of association, cooperation, where we lose the authority to make decisions. It must stay inside the congregation. This is a common form. Autonomy of the local church is, Baptists are not the only ones who have this distinctive, but all Baptists have this. In fact, if you don't have this, it's hard to call yourself Baptist. any of these things are. So, biblical support, right? Most important thing, right? Last week, biblical authority, then we want to get this week to use that to then lift up local church autonomy. The local church has both the authority and ability to solve the problems of its own members. Matthew 18. Somebody, we know this, but somebody look up Matthew 18, 15, 17. Raise your hand. Dennis is going to read it. Somebody get ahead and do the first grant against Juan. Dennis, go ahead and read it when you get there, and then Lucinda's going to do that. 1815? 27. If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell him to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Who said that? Huh? That's not a fair question. It's a Sunday School answer. Jesus said that, right? Jesus is giving direction to He's already calling, recognizing that there's a group of people called the church, ecclesia, the called out ones. He's already recognizing that this is going to be in the kingdom, right? In the kingdom, there's going to be churches, groups of people. I find that interesting there that he's doing that. But what does he say? Discipline, arguments, conflict in the church. Who's supposed to handle that? The church. The church. There's no, there's nothing else. You know what gets to the church? Guess what's after that? Nothing. Right? There's no, there's no other place to go other than the church. All right? 1 Corinthians 6, 1 through 8, that's a little bit longer. When one of you has a business against another, does it dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this lie? So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers? A brother goes to law against a brother. Is that before unbelievers? So, verse four. Why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church. And he comes back and says, surely there's someone in the church who can help you get this work done. Go to the church. If you have conflict and the ability to resolve those, you go to the church. You do it inside the church. The local church has the authority and responsibility to appoint its own leadership. This involves, at least, right, very basic, pastors and deacons. So Acts 6, 1 through 7. This is a good reminder that what, why were these men appointed? Somebody read that? Faithfully, Carol? And the 12th summoned the full number of his disciples and said, Pick out from among you seven men good, acute, acute, full of the Spirit, and of wisdom. And they will point to this day, when we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Lord. And what they said before the gathering they chose The Apostles held in verse 3 You pick out some men among you. Pick out, in fact it said seven. Pick out seven men. Good rebuke for that. The church used to do it. In verse six it says that's what they did. Then they said before the apostles, and they prayed and they laid their hands on them. Right? So the church elected the deacons, appointed the deacons, picked them out, right? So the authority to elect, not elect, whatever, rests in the church. The group of believers, they're the ones that, that's just on deacons, but it actually, it's clear from the rest of scripture that it was appointed the pastor, right? Number three, the local church has the authority and responsibility to commission and to send out missionaries, choosing those whom it desires to support. All right, Acts 13, one through three. All right, let's cut that up again. Acts 14, 26 to 27. All right, thank you. Go ahead, we're in the church, okay? At Antioch, prophets, teachers, Barnabas, Simeon, who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, and Anne, a lifelong friend of Harry, the tetrarch, and Saul. While they were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for work, which I will call them. Have hope. Then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off. All right. Who said to do this? The Lord said to do this, right? Set these men apart, all right? Set apart for me Barnabas, Saul, for the work. But who actually did, who was commanded to actually do the commissioning? Fast and pray over them? The church, right? The church was to send these men off that God had appointed and brought up to them to be their missionaries. All right, 14, 26 and 27. And from there, they sailed to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had fulfilled. And when they arrived and gathered the church together, they declared all that God had done with them and how he had opened the door of faith to each of us. OK. So they're coming back to Antioch. And what do the missionaries do? They give a report. They give a report to who? The church, the missionaries, gave a report to the church, because the church is the one who commissioned them and sent them out. So the missionaries were responsible to who? The churches. The churches who sent them out and are supporting them, the missionaries were under them. That's one of the church's responsibilities. This is a really good one, important one. The local church has the authority and obligation to regulate its own membership. Okay, first group is five, one through five, and 12 through 13, same person can do that one, and then second group is two, five, and seven. Julia's got it. It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among them, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, where a man has his father's wife. And you are arrogant. Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be bereaved for a moment. For though absent in body, I am present in spirit. And as a present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus, and my spirit is present with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to safety from the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord. 12 and 13. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. Purge the evil person from among you. Alright, so Paul, speaking to the church of Corinth, is he committing the church of Corinth? No. He's like, what are you doing? You know better than this. Why are you allowing this to happen? He's saying, it's your job. to put a stop to this. Don't act like you're being all loving and kind, because you don't want to be judgmental. That's not what he's saying. He's saying, get him out. Don't leave him in the church. They're blatantly disobeying the Word of God and the teachings of Scripture. Get rid of him. We know Paul doesn't mean like as What's the purpose of church discipline? To restore them. But if you allow them to continue in sin, then there's no evidence for them to be restored, because they don't think they're doing anything wrong. You've got to make it clear what the truth is. And the church is supposed to stand for the truth. And we're supposed to police each other. I hope that's the best word. But we're supposed to regulate each other. That's a better word. When we see somebody in sin in the church, We're supposed to handle it, internally. Right? That's the part of it. 2 Corinthians 2, 5-7. Thank you. Go ahead, Aaron. He who has prepared us for this very thing as God, has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body, we are waiting for the Word. For we walk by faith, not by sin. Secondary. Did we get that right? Oh, I'm a gentleman. Oh, good word, though. Yeah, exactly. I like that. Now, if anyone has caused pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure, not to put it too severely, to all of you. For such a one, this punishment by majority is enough. So you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, for he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. All right, again. Somebody's causing pain in the church. It's the church's responsibility to keep him in the center of right behavior. We're supposed to hold each other accountable. That's not fun. This isn't fun. We don't all get excited when we have to do this type of thing, but it's our responsibility as a church to do it. And nobody can come and from the outside and tell us how to handle it, right? We're supposed to do that as a church. An autonomous local church determines the extent of its own membership by both admitting and dismissing individuals, right? There's requirements for membership. You can't just walk in off the street and say, I want to be a member of your church, right? We set, as a church, what those requirements are. We'll get to that when we talk about the two orifices. We'll talk more about that when we talk about the orifices. The local church is responsible to give an account to God and may do as it sees fit, so long as it doesn't violate the scripture. We're not going to look up Revelations 2 and 3. That's where the seven churches are. And he's talking about all the things They're supposed to be, what should they be doing to stay committed to God? But the idea is those churches were all doing different things. That's OK. But they got to stay within the scripture. And they decided what's appropriate for them to do. That's for the local church to decide. Practically, right? This is small, I'm sorry. I'll, yeah, I should have made these bigger. But the church determines what our doctrines that we're going to hold are. That's decided by the church. What things are we going to hold too tightly? What are we going to hold less firmly, right? Within the guidelines of biblical authority, right? The Bible is determining what positions we're going to hold, but that's, it's the, the church decides. The church sets its own priorities in regards to ministry, right? Some churches have a bus ministry. Some churches have a meal every week on Wednesday night. Some churches have sports things that they do. Fine. If that church decides that's part of their ministry, that's for that church to decide. We decide at New Covenant Church what are the things that we think are most important and that we're going to put our effort and our energy into. that we decided. We're not told. Somebody didn't come in and say, you have to do a Y. No, we don't. Right? I mean, that's not, nobody needs to come in and say, no, they can come in and encourage, hey, it'd be good if you did this. But nobody comes in and tells us how we want to do, do very related, establish and operate its own programs. The church decides what things we're going to be involved in, what we're going to do. We decide what we're going to teach. The church decides what's going to be taught in Sunday school, what we're going to teach in this adult Bible study. In this case, the deacons and the pastor, we decide, we tell them, hey, I think I'm going to do this for M4C. And they're like, OK, that's a good idea. But the church decides what's going to be taught. Again, the composition and qualifications for its own membership, as well as What has to happen for a person to be removed from membership? Select its own leaders? I know we've talked about that before, but this is just, this is the absolute practical of how we do it. The church is responsible to license and ordain men for gospel ministry. Not a bishop, somewhere up above. Not a group of presbyters or elders. The church is the one who licenses and ordains ministers. No one else. It is a group, a local church, licenses a man to preach and then ordains him into the ministry. That's just what we believe, right? I mean, that's what the Bible teaches. It's the church's responsibility to govern that. A church can establish and support schools of all kinds and on all levels. We actually do that here as a church, right? It's one of the things we've decided is really important, education, free from the constraints and the influence of the world, right? We think that's important enough that we donate space, right, for a school to be involved. We do more than donate space, but ultimately that's, you know, that's, we choose to do that as a church. That's our choice. Nobody came in and told us we had to do that. We get to choose our style of worship. We get to choose what we do in the service, how we structure our service, There's no outside liturgy that comes in and tells us, you've got to do this, and you've got to do this, and you've got to do this, right? We decide that, right? This is the fifth week. These are the verses you use. Right, right, which, yeah, we won't get into discussion about that. But nobody tells us what to do, right? The Anglicans have the Book of Common Prayer, right, that determines most of what they do. Catholics have a very determined liturgy that comes from above. what they're supposed to read, when they're supposed to read it, right? Nobody tells us that. Nobody directs us. We do within the constraints of what the Holy Spirit tells us to do. We choose those things. We get to conduct our own business in our own business meetings. Nobody can come in and tell us how we spend our money, how we determine, you know, whatever we do with our money, how much we give commissions, who we give it to, That's all our choice, right? That's the church decides that, right? We're getting ready to do that, right? In a couple weeks, October 5th. The church is going to decide for the next fiscal year, how are we going to allocate the money that comes in? What are we going to do? That's our decision. Join an association. So sometimes people, and there are some churches who believe We're not joining up with any other group. It's our church and nobody else. We're the only true church. And this church is going to evangelize the world. OK. OK. Good for you. That's fine if you want to do that. But we do have opportunity to be in an association. We are actually in an association. We're in the ILMO. GARP. GA, General Association of Regular Baptists. We have no authority to tell us what to do. We still do what we decide is best. But why do we join with them? Because we're, our doctrine's pretty close. They structure their churches the same way we do, right? There's a lot in common, and so we can find areas of agreement, things to do together, right? We have sent people up to Bunker Hill to Christchurch because we were, We believe that if they go up there, they're going to be in the same kind of environment they did if they did something here. We choose to do that. The church chooses to do that. Nobody has come in and said, hey, you need to go do this. The church has the right to set expectations for its members and people who work for the church. Pastors, whoever works for the church. The church can say, well, this is what we expect. That's from the church. Own standards of behavior, music, what we'll tolerate in terms of dress, etc. A church can decide if they want to do those things or not. Where do you want to draw lines in all of those areas? The church decides. Are there any constraints on the economy of the local church? Are there things that limit what the church can do? I think there, in our case, I'd say there are three, right? The scriptures, going back to last week, we're limited what we do as a church by what the scripture has commanded us to do. We do what the scriptures command us to do. That's our goal at New Covenant Church. We want to do what the scripture says to do. The local church cannot go beyond or stop short of the teaching of the Word of God and still rightfully claim to be a legitimate New Testament church. Think about that. Can't go beyond or stop short of the teaching of the Word of God and still call yourself a church. Right? If that's a requirement, which I think it is, right? The Bible is our authority. So we're going to stay in that control area, that box. The box of the scriptures constrains us. And I think for us, as Baptists, we are a Baptist church, right? A Baptist church in the Reformed tradition, but we're a Baptist church. So if you want to call yourself a Baptist, then you've got to believe what Baptists believe. It's not really ethical to say you're Baptist and then not believe in baptism by immersion. Right? Are you really Baptist if you allow, if you sprinkle or you allow people in who've been sprinkled? Right? As an infant? If we allow people in, are we really Baptist? We don't have to think we are. But we believe baptism is only by immersion. Talk about that more. But if we want to be a Baptist, which is what we're talking about, we've got to believe what Baptists believe, which is what this acronym is all about. And finally, we're accountable to Christ, ultimately. Christ is the head of the church. The local church is always subject to the Lord and the head of the church, to whom the leaders of the church will ultimately give account. Pastors are a very important role, but it says pastors have a higher standard. They're going to be called and given account for how they led in the church. They have, but because they're ultimately accountable to Christ. And the church is accountable to Christ for how you treat your pastor, for how you support your pastor. The church is responsible, nobody else. We talked about this before. Autonomy requires some form of congregational power. Because the congregation is the final rule in the church. Because you choose your leaders. You choose the associations. All these things, how we spend our money, the church does that. Nobody, bishop system, presbytery system. You can't really have autonomy And a lot of those churches, those individual churches, don't even own their property. Right? If they decide, hey, we think the scripture actually teaches this, and we want to believe that. In these other systems, the people up above can come and say, well, you can't keep, in our building, right? Because you don't own your building. Which is, we would say, this. So how's that? If somebody came in and said, you can't use your church this way if you don't do it. No. This is God's church, but it's also OK for you to say, this is my church. This is our church. When we say that, we're not taking anything away from it being Christ's church. So when you say, I'm going to my church this Sunday, that doesn't mean you're Christ here. In how we govern things here on the earth under Christ, we do. We do. All of us together. The Lord is the head of the church. The pastor leads the church, the deacons assist the pastor, and the congregation affirms the leadership of the pastor. Let the pastor lead, the deacons assist him, and the congregation affirm him. That's the role. And we put them in that order because the congregation is the final authority. If you talk to Pastor Bob, he'll tell you. He says, if the church says I can't do something, I'm not going to do it. Right? The church has that authority because the church is the ultimate and final authority in this situation. Right? Two acronyms in. I'm glad I didn't try to do another one in ten minutes because I never would have been able to do it. I don't know how I'm going to do it. I have six more in five weeks. I don't know how I'm going to do it. We'll figure it out. or at least 35 or 40 minutes. So we'll see. You can pray that I figure out how to get there. Yeah, thank you. That's right. The congregation will just fire you. Well, if the congregation wants somebody else to come to teach and who can get it all in better, then that's OK. No, but next week, we're talking about the priesthood of the believer. Oh, I like this one a lot. I like this one a lot. So I'm going to give you a few extra minutes tonight, but I probably won't get them next week. We'll probably go all the way to 630 next week. Because priesthood of the believer is just so much. It's such an important distinction, especially from Catholicism and some of the other churches. But priesthood of the believer is just so important. All right, we have a little bit of time, so quickly this, do we have any prayer requests? We prayed for a bunch of different things this morning. I don't understand. I just, I don't know if any of you spent time watching the Charlie Kirk Memorial Services happening. Huh? Listen to it. I pray, and I want us to pray right here, that the millions of people who are watching this hear and understand the gospel. Because the gospel has been woven all the way through. The music, and some of the testimonies of the guys, and I haven't watched all of it yet, but I was just sitting there struck as like, How many people are going to hear the gospel because of what happened to Charlie? And I, let's just pray that that will have a benefit that we won't know the impact of for years to come. All right, let's pray. Father, we thank you, Father, for making us fabulous. We are people of the Word, that is where we stand, and we believe firmly that the Scriptures have taught us, that we see in the Scriptures, that this is how we're to believe, this is how we're to structure ourselves. And Father, I pray that as a congregation, we will exercise the right authority in everything that we do. And Father, we pray that as we continue to go through this study, stir our hearts, that you'll make us glad to be back, make us happy, that that is where you've put us. And Father, we thank you that today, maybe on a scale that has never happened before, that there'll be millions and millions of people who are going to hear the Gospel today because of the memorial service for Charlie. I pray that the gospel would accomplish that, which you said it will do. The gospel doesn't go out. The word of God doesn't go out and not accomplish its mission. And so we pray that many would be saved. Father, that you would hear the gospel, that you would give them a heart of stone, or take out their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh, so that they could hear and believe the gospel. And Father, we pray that even Some of our old politicians who aren't Christians, maybe some of our politicians would be impacted in such a way to get saved and they'd start living their lives for the Gospel, for Jesus Christ. Father, I pray that each one of us as we go out this week, we would live our life in such a way that we would be a witness for Jesus Christ. Father, may we be people who are known for being courageous for our faith as we live out in the world. Give us grace to do that. Give us strength to do that. Give us boldness to do that in everything we do. In Jesus' name we pray.