So this evening we're going to continue on in our study of Acts in Acts chapter 5. I forgot to take my Bible out of its nice little box this evening. So if you would open your Bibles up to the book of Acts and turn to the fifth chapter, I'm going to begin reading with verse number 12. Once I get there, and I'll read to the end of the chapter, and we're going to spend our next two times together studying this part of the book of Acts. Acts chapter 5, and we want to begin reading here in verse number 12. So, if you're there with me, follow along. Acts 5, verse 12, but none of the rest dared associate with them. However, the people held them in high esteem. And all the more believers in the Lord, multitudes of men and women were constantly added to their number, to such an extent that they even carried the sick out into the streets and laid them on cots and pellets, so that when Peter came by, at least his shadow might fall on any one of them. Also, the people from the cities, in the vicinity of Jerusalem were coming together and bringing people who were sick or afflicted with unclean spirits and they were all being healed. But the high priest rose up along with all of his associates, that is the sect of the Sadducees, and they were filled with jealousy. They laid hands on the apostles and put them in public jail. but during the night an angel of the lord opened the gates of the prison and taking them out he said go stand and speak to the people in the temple the whole message of this life upon hearing this they entered into the temple about daybreak and began to teach now when the high priest and his associates came they called the council together even all the senate of the sons of israel and sent orders to the prison house for them to be brought. But the officers who came did not find them in the prison, and they returned and reported back, saying, We found the prison house locked quite securely and the guards standing at the doors, but when we had opened up, we found no one inside. Now when the captain of the temple guard and the chief priest heard these words, they were greatly perplexed about them as to what would come of this. But someone came and reported to them, the men whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people. Then the captain, along with the officers, proceeded to bring them back without violence, for they were afraid of the people that they might be stoned. When they had brought them, they stood them before the council, and the high priest questioned them, saying, We gave you strict orders not to continue teaching in this name, yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and intend to bring this man's blood upon us. Peter and the apostles answered, We must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you had put to death by hanging him on the cross. He is the one whom God exalted to his right hand as a prince and a savior to grant repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses of these things. So is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him. But when they heard this, they were cut to the quick and intended to kill them. But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, respected by all the people, stood up in the council and gave orders to put the men outside for a short time. And he said to them, Men of Israel, take care what you purpose to do with these men. For some time ago, Thutis rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a group of about 400 men joined with him. But he was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing. After this man, Judas of Galilee rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him. He too perished, and all those who followed him were scattered. So in the present case, I say to you, stay away from these men and let them alone. For if this plan or action is of men, it will be overthrown. But if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them, or else you may be found fighting against God. They took his advice, and after calling the apostles in, they flogged them and ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus and then released them. So they went on their way from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for his name. And every day in the temple, from house to house, they kept right on teaching and preaching Jesus Christ, Jesus as the Christ. The title of the message tonight is going to be the mission of the church, the mission of the church. Let's pray and ask God to bless our time together in his word. Again, great almighty God, we do recognize you as the eternal self-existent one, self-sufficient one. We recognize you as one who needs nothing. We recognize you as one who is complete in and of himself, the triune Godhead. But yet we also recognize that you desire us to study your word and you desire us to grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Father, we understand that by understanding more of Jesus Christ, we will understand more of you. Because only your Son, Jesus Christ, truly knows you. And the only way for us to understand more about you is to listen to Him, to grow in our knowledge of Him. So as we study your Word tonight, and as we study the mission of the Church, the Church which your Son, Jesus Christ, promises to build, and promises that even the gates of Hades will not prevail against it, I pray, Father, that we would find ourselves even more eager and more motivated to be used by Jesus Christ for the building of His church. Help us, Lord, to understand tonight what our mission as a church is, and help us, Lord, to begin to understand tonight what are some of the key essentials to carrying out this mission. Father, we long to live our lives with purpose, and we cannot find any greater purpose than accomplishing the mission for which you have established us to accomplish. Help us tonight, we pray, Heavenly Father. It's in your Son's most precious and holy name. Amen. As I said, the title of the message tonight is The Mission of the Church. Lately we have looked at the persecution of the church and we've looked at sin within the church. Now tonight we're going to begin to look at the mission of the church. And I have several passages here that I want to read as an introductory for us to understand what our mission is. Why do we exist? Why are we still here? Why hasn't God taken us home? Why hasn't He taken us up in heaven? Why isn't He just moving right on to the creation of the new heavens and the new earth? Why continue to allow the church to exist? And we have many passages to look at when we want to understand that mission. The first passage that I would like us to consider tonight is 1 Peter 2 9-10. I'm sorry, I've got all these passages written out in my notes, so you're not going to have much time to turn to them. But let's do this. I won't read it from my notes. Let's look in our own Bibles. Let's turn to 1 Peter 2, verse 9. I could have cut out a lot of pages had I just written the scripture references down there. But let's do this. Let's turn to 1 Peter 2, verse 9, because I want you to read this in your own Bibles. 1 Peter 2, verse 9. Peter here talking to the church, and we've looked at this passage many other times, it's one of the primary passages to go to to understand our purpose, our mission as a church. But you are a chosen race, so understand that. We are a chosen race, we are a chosen group of people. We are a royal priesthood. A priesthood is someone or something, a group of people that communicate God to the people and take the people's concerns to God. We are to be a priesthood to communicate to the world who God is. We are a royal priesthood, Peter says. And not only that, we are a holy nation. We are a nation. We are set apart. We are different than all the other world, everybody else around us. We are a holy nation, a people for God's own possession. We have been redeemed in order to be a people for God's own possession. We are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. We are a people for God's own possession. We belong to God. He purchased us with his blood. Why? So that we may proclaim the excellencies of him who's called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. This is our mission. Our mission is to proclaim the excellencies of God who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. We are to live our lives in such a way that we proclaim the excellencies of who God is. We are to speak, to talk, to preach. All of our ministries are meant to proclaim the excellencies of who God is. That is why, as we've been studying in the men's Bible study, and as the ladies are going to study in the women's Bible study, when it comes to asking Jesus how to pray, And I believe Lloyd-Jones is right here. When the disciples are asking Jesus this question, they see this man, Jesus, go out and pray all night. They see him being able to just pray and pray and pray. Lord, teach us to pray like that. We want to be able to pray like that. And the first thing that Jesus says is when you pray, you recognize that God is your father, our father who art in heaven. So you recognize God as your heavenly father. And the next thing that Jesus says is, Hallowed be thy name. That's the first petition. We want God's name to be hallowed. We want God's name to be set apart. And we want his name to be set apart, first of all, in our own lives. We want to live as if we are his possession, and we want to live our lives in such a way that we proclaim him, that he is set apart. People don't see us, they see him. And we want his name hallowed in all the world, in all the culture, throughout Tucson, throughout Arizona. throughout the United States, throughout the world. This is what we want. We want to see God's name high and lifted up. The way we do that is to proclaim the excellencies of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. Now look at verse 10. For you were once not a people, but now you are the people of God. You had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. We haven't always been a chosen race. We haven't always been a royal priesthood. We haven't always been a holy nation. We have not always been a people for God's own possession. But because of the mercy of God, we are now a holy people. We are now a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a people for God's own possession. We were evangelized, and as an evangelized group of humanity, we are transformed and redeemed for the glory of God. We once were not a people of God. We once were not a holy nation. We were once not a royal priesthood. We once did not belong to God, but now we do. We've been evangelized. We've been transformed by the word of God. We've recognized Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. The Holy Spirit has given us the grace to trust in Christ for our salvation. And now we proclaim the excellencies of the glory of God. We live for the glory of God. Consider Matthew 28, verse 19. Let me read this one. It's just very short. Matthew 28, verse 19. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you. And lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age." Now generally we recognize this is the Great Commission. This is the commission to the church. This is the mission of the church and we tend to stop at evangelism. But there's much more than evangelism in this commission. There's much more than evangelism in this mission that the church is to carry out. We are to go forth and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you, and lo, I'm with you always, even to the ends of the age. Evangelism that results in true spiritual growth is measured by obedience. True evangelism, true success in evangelism is not measured by the number of people that today confess Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. True evangelism is measured by the demonstration of that faith, a demonstration of that faith that is demonstrated by obedience to all that Jesus commanded. So the mission of the church is to go out and evangelize the lost. The mission of the church is to take the truth to the lost, but the mission of the church is to do that in such a way that those lost become obedient followers of Jesus Christ, and that those lost begin to understand that they too are a holy nation. They, too, are a royal priesthood. They, too, are a people for God's own possession, and that they, too, are to proclaim the excellencies of God. Again, the ultimate mission of the church is to grow in such a way that the church more and more proclaims the excellencies of God, glorifies God. Now, turn in your Bibles with you to Ephesians 4. Ephesians 4. I've often looked at these verses to understand what the philosophy of a church should be. We talk about the doctrine of a church. The doctrine of a church, the doctrinal statement of the church, that tells you what a church believes. The philosophy of the church tells you how a church goes about teaching what it believes. The philosophy of the church tells you how the church goes about accomplishing its ministry, accomplishing its mission. The philosophy of the church is just as important as the doctrine of the church. And here's a biblical philosophy of the church. This is why the church exists. This is how the church is supposed to operate. This is how the church is supposed to carry out its ministries. This is how the church is supposed to accomplish its mission. Look what Paul says here in Ephesians 4, verse 11, and he gave some as apostles and some as prophets. He's talking about gifts that he's given to the church. And when Paul says he gave some as apostles and some as prophets, he's talking about the Word of God. The greatest gift that God has left the church, the greatest gift that has been given to the church is the Word of God. We have the very Word of God, and that is a gift to the church. And it is a gift that the church needs to cherish and to honor. And then he goes on and he talks about some other gifts that he's given to the church. It's not so much people. He's not talking about people here. He's talking about gifts. He gave some as apostles and prophets and some as evangelists and some as pastors and teachers, literally as pastor-teachers. He's given the church evangelists, He's given the church pastor-teachers, and those evangelists and those pastor-teachers are supposed to take the gift of the Word of God and use it in such a way that it accomplishes the ministries of the church in a way that glorifies God, that it accomplishes the mission of the church in a way that glorifies God. Now as Paul goes on, he tells us how the evangelists and the pastor teachers are to use the Word of God to accomplish its ministries and to accomplish its missions. He says in verse 12, Here's what they're to do, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ. The church is to take, the pastor teachers and the evangelists are to take and to preach and to teach the word of God in such a way that it equips the saints to do the work of the service to the building up of the body of Christ. That's what we're all about, building up the body of Christ. seeing Christ's church become more and more of a manifestation of the body of Christ. And the way that we do that is we take the word of God, we equip the people in the church to do the work of the service, to building up the body of Christ. And now in verse 12, rather verse 13, he says, until we attain the unity of faith. This is how long we're supposed to do that. Just how long are the evangelist and pastor teachers supposed to take the word of God and equip the saints to do the work of the ministry and build up the body of Christ? How long are we to do that? He says in verse 13, until we all attain to the unity of faith. Until we're all unified in faith. Until all of the church is unified in faith. Until every single person that is truly added to the church is unified in faith. And not only that, and of the knowledge of the Son of God. To where everybody is unified in the knowledge of the Son of God. What does that faith and that knowledge of the Son of God looks like? He says there in the next phrase, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. The church is to take the Word of God and use it to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry, and they're to do that until they all have a united understanding of the faith and a united understanding of the knowledge of God, and that is measured by maturity, by the stature of Jesus Christ. We are to do this until we become just like Jesus Christ. When does that happen? That happens when we're taking the glory. So this this methodology to accomplish our mission and to to accomplish our ministries in a way that glorifies God is to never be abandoned, is to never be forsaken. This is the way that we always are to do it. And he goes on here in verse 14, and he gives us the result. This is what the church looks like when the church follows the biblical philosophy of ministry. This is what the church looks like when the church follows the Bible's way of doing ministry. As a result, we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, and by craftiness and deceitful scheming. Basically, we become discerning. We become discerning. The church is discerning. The church is able to discern truth from error. The church is able to discern deceit from truth. The church is able to discern the trickeries and the schemings of men from the true works of God. If there's one thing that today's church lacks, it lacks that discernment. And if you trace it back, the reason the church lacks that discernment is because they have abandoned the evangelist pastor-teachers taking the Word of God and using it in such a way to equip the people of the church to do the work of the ministry into the unified in faith, unified in the knowledge of God that is measured by the stature of Jesus Christ. The church has abandoned that. And when you abandon that, one of the first consequences is you become a church that cannot discern. An error comes in, and you're tossed to and fro. And so this is very important as we look to accomplish our mission that we understand the biblical philosophy. And it's not just discernment that is gained by following the biblical philosophy of ministry. Look what else we see here in verse 15. But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is at head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love." If you follow this biblical philosophy of ministry, you will speak the truth in love. And as you speak the truth in love, not only are you discerning, but as you speak the truth in love, the body of Christ is growing. It's growing spiritually. It's growing in maturity. But not only that, it's growing numerically. If you follow the biblical philosophy of ministry, you will obtain the mission of the church. What is the mission of the church? The mission of the church is to grow numerically. The mission of the church is that Jesus Christ would receive the just rewards for which he has died, that the land would receive his just rewards. All those whom Jesus Christ has died will come to saving faith and be brought into the bride of Christ, brought into the church. That is the mission of the church. It's to grow numerically, but not just numerically. We are also to grow spiritually. That is the mission of the church. Now, I want to have one other passage I want to look at here, and that's John chapter 17, verse four. Let's turn there. John chapter 17, verse four. John 17, verse four. Again, this is Jesus Christ. High priestly prayer is the prayer that he is praying just before he is going to be arrested, tried, convicted and crucified just hours before his crucifixion. He's alone talking with his heavenly father. And this is what he has to say to his heavenly father. He says, I have glorified you on the earth. Jesus saying to the father, I've glorified you, glorified you on the earth, having accomplished the work which you have given me to do. Now, Father, glorify me together with yourself with the glory which I had with you before the world was. I have manifested your name to men whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Here we see that Jesus Christ, for his obedience to the point of death, even on the cross, was promised a certain number of humanity. His reward are those for whom he died for. And here you see Jesus Christ nearing the end of his life. He knows crucifixion is coming. He's talking about how he glorified his father. And he's praying now that his father would glorify him, that his father would glorify him by allowing him to receive his just rewards. The ultimate end of the mission of the church is to ensure that Jesus Christ receives his just rewards. His just rewards are people that have a true confession of sin, a true repentance, and a true confession of faith in Jesus Christ that is demonstrated by an obedience to Jesus Christ, that is demonstrated by a growth in spirituality, a growth in sanctification. That is the mission of the church. We are doing this for the Lord Jesus Christ, that He might receive His just rewards. It reminds me of something that two missionaries once said as they headed off to the mission field. They were headed off to the mission field, and they knew it very well might result in their never seeing their families and their friends again. They're heading off into a foreign mission field. They're heading off to an island where the owner of that island absolutely hated Christians. And the owner of that island owned thousands of slaves in the only way that these missionaries were allowed to go to that island is they sold themselves into slavery. They sold themselves into slavery on this island for the main purpose of going there and evangelizing those on that island who had no opportunity to hear the truth. And their family members, their wives, their children, their brothers, their sisters, all their families are watching them embark on a boat going to this island. And they're weeping and they're crying. And one of them's response was, Shall not the Lamb of God receive his just reward? See, they understood their mission is that the Lamb of God might receive their just reward. This is the mission of the church, making sure to be used of God in such a manner that Christ receives his just reward. We see the reason for this mission in John 17, verses 21 through 26. Let's look there. John 17, verse 21 through 26. I'm gonna begin in verse 22. The glory which you have given me, I've given to them, that they may be one just as we are one. I in them and you in me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the whole world would know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, be with me where I am, so that they may see my glory which you have given me, for you loved me before the foundation of the world. Oh, righteous father, although the world has not known you, yet I have known you and these have known that you sent me and I've made your name known to them and will make it known to them so that the love with which you love me may be in them and I in them. The ultimate goal is for us to experience the love of God as the father, as the son experienced the love of God. How did the love of God affect the son? The love of God, the love that the father, the love of the father for his son affected the son in such a way that he was willing to see his father be glorified at any expense. No expense was too much for the son to bring glory to the father. He was obedient to the point of death. He lived for the glory of his father. He understood the love that the Father had for him and it moved him to want to glorify his Father. Our mission as a church is to teach, to live in such a way that each and every one of us individually is growing in our understanding of God as our Father. And only Jesus can reveal that to us. Only He can show us who the Father is, to reveal to us an understanding of the Father that moves us to want to glorify Him no matter what, and then to be able to be used of God to teach others to do the same. That is the ultimate end of the church. Now, when we go back here to Acts 5, what we're going to see is some key elements in a church that is able to accomplish its purposes in that way. The first element that we see in Acts 5, verse 12, the second part of verse 12, is the church is pure. We cannot bring glory to God. We cannot demonstrate our love to God by glorifying God unless we are pure. And we're going to talk about mainly here the purity of the whole church. But the purity of the whole church can only be measured by the purity of each and every individual within the church. We have to strive for purity in our own lives that the church might be pure, that we as a church might be able to accomplish our ministry and our purposes, our mission of seeing God glorified and seeing the church growing in a God glorifying manner. But look here with me in verse 12, I'm going to begin the first part, but it's the second part that I really want to pay attention to. And all the more believers in the Lord and multitudes of men and women were constantly added to their number. Notice here in verse 12 what we see. They were all with one accord in Solomon's portico. Everybody is united. They're united in their understanding of their mission. They're united in their understanding of their purpose. They're united in the way that they live. The believers are all united. And let's remember that Luke is writing this just after he's told us about how God cleansed the sin in the church. We began to see sin in the church at the end of chapter 4 and we saw it blatantly in chapter 5 where we see the sin of Ananias and Sapphira. Ananias and Sapphira lied against the Holy Spirit, lied against God. They sinned, and what did God do? He cleansed the church of the sin by taking their lives. God showed that He does not take sin lightly. He does not take the purity of the church lightly. If you're going to say that you are a believer in Jesus Christ, if you're going to say that you follow Jesus Christ, if you're going to say that you surrender all to Jesus Christ, God takes that very seriously, and He will not allow you to be a hypocrite. That's what's just happened. Now that this has happened, the church is all unified. They're all together. And you see there in verse 14, and all the more believers in the Lord, I'm sorry, verse 13, but none of the rest dare associate with them. Who are the rest? The unbelievers, those who are not true believers. They would not associate with these true believers. There are no word of mouth only believers. There are no lukewarm believers that are associating with them. Nobody that is not truly a believer. Now, you could say you confess in Jesus Christ, but that's not a true believer. All those who are not true believers, they are not associating with them. They're not associating with them even though they hold them in high esteem. Even though they recognize, man, this group of people over here You know, I really esteemed them. I can't say exactly how they held them in high esteem, but certainly it was the way that they cared for one another. Certainly it was their understanding and their devotion. There was something about the church that was very, very drawing to the unbeliever. But the unbeliever didn't want to have anything to do with that. Why? Because they knew that if they became a part of that group, and they weren't truly converted, and they weren't truly seeking purity and holiness, they might lose their lives. This is the way that God purifies the church. It's one of the first things we see about a church, one of the key elements of a church, if we are going to accomplish our purposes, our ministries, our mission, if we're going to accomplish the mission of evangelizing the lost in such a way that they become God-honoring, God-glorifying saints that are added to the church and help the church grow, if we're going to do that, we have to be pure. and God will not allow impurity to remain within the church. And sometimes God will go to great extents to expose that impurity, to be sure that that impurity is not within the church. That's why we have Matthew 18, where church discipline is established. Church discipline begins out with the main concern for the one that's living in sin. You don't want one who claims to be your brother and sister in Christ. You don't want them living in sin. You love them far too much, and you want them to repent, and you want them to have a restored relationship with the Lord. But there comes to a point where their continual repentance, or unrepentance, their continual living in sin, their continual rebellion, begins to hurt the church. And then you become more and more concerned with the church and you begin to talk to that person about, you know, you're not going to be allowed in here again. You can't be a part of this church. If you're going to live in sin and claim to be a Christian, you can't be a part of our church because that affects the purity and the holiness of the church. So you see, purity is something that is very, very important to God when it comes to His church fulfilling its ministry. Jesus Christ desires and demands a pure, undefiled, unwavering commitment to Him above all else. If you're going to live a pure life, you must be committed to Jesus Christ above all else. And there are many passages in the Gospels where Jesus talks about the cost of following Him. What it takes to follow Him, what you need to be willing to give up to follow Jesus Christ, what must be given up in order to have a pure, undefiled commitment to Jesus Christ that has no room for unrepentant sin. There's two passages I want to look at. The first one is in Luke 9, verse 57. Luke 9, verse 57. Let's look there. Luke 9, verse 57. This is the type of commitment that is needed if we're going to live pure lives. Luke 9, verse 57. We talked this morning about how difficult it is, in our quote, how difficult it is to take up your cross and follow the Lord if you have a love for the world, if you have a longing for the world. If the world and the things of the world have a hold on you, it's going to be very difficult to take up your cross and follow Jesus Christ. If you have a longing and a love for the world, it's going to be very difficult to abandon your sin, because your sin is going to look too attractive to you. So in order to be a committed follower of Jesus Christ, you have to let go of the things of the world. You have to be 100% committed to Jesus Christ. Look what Jesus is quoted as saying here in Luke 9, verse 57. As they were going along the road, someone said to him, I will follow you wherever you go. Here I am, Jesus. I'll follow you wherever I go. I'm giving it all up to you. I'm going to follow you, Jesus. I'm 100 percent with you, Lord. I'm with you. Verse 58, Jesus seeing the heart says, Jesus said to him, The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. He said, will you really follow me? You may end up living a life of destitute. You may not have any place even to lay your head. Are you really sure you want to follow me? Are you really committed? And he said to another, follow me. But he said, Lord, permit me to first go and bury my father. He wants to go and bury his father because he knows when he buries his father, there's going to be an inheritance. Certainly the Lord wouldn't have a problem with him going and honoring his father's death. So what's the problem here with this man who says, I'll follow you, Lord, but let me first attend my father's funeral. What he's saying here is the father hasn't even died yet. What he's saying is, I want to be there when my father dies because I want the inheritance. And so, again, this person who's called to follow Jesus Christ won't follow Jesus Christ because they don't have a wholehearted desire to be committed to Christ. They're committed to other things. You see in verse 60 where Jesus says, but he said to him, allow the dead to bury their own dead, but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God. Verse 61. Another also said to him, I will follow you, Lord, but first permit me to say goodbye to those at home. But Jesus said to him, no one after putting his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. When you're called to follow Jesus Christ, you can't keep looking back at the ones that you need to forsake to follow Jesus Christ. You can't keep looking back at the relationships that you can no longer have. because you're called to follow Jesus Christ. If you're gonna follow Jesus Christ and keep looking back and say, well, you know, I wish I could still do this, I wish I could still be with my family, I wish I could still, if you're gonna do that, you're gonna make a crooked mess out of following the Lord. The analogy that he looks at, I could really relate to this analogy. No one after putting his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. I remember so definitely and exactly what it was like to strike out a plow furrow across the field. And you want to strike that plow furrow just as straight as you can, because you're going to follow that plow furrow. And if you're off just a little bit when you first start out, it's just going to get further off, further off, further off, and you make a complete mess of it. And so when I was really young, if I wanted to strike out a perfect plow furrow, I would go to the fence line, I would measure in so many paces, 100 paces in. on one end of the field, put a stake. Go down a little bit further, halfway across the field, measure in 100 paces, put in a stake. Go to the end of the field, measure in 100 paces, put in a stake. Now I have a straight line. All I have to do is keep my eye on that line. Don't be worried about what the plow is doing for this first time, Dale. Just plow straight, keep your eye, and I couldn't do it. I kept, well, is the plow plugged up? Is something broke? And I kept turning back and turning back, and I get all done, and there my furrow is, looking like that. And it makes a mess out of the whole thing. The same is true with furthering the kingdom of God. If God asked you to follow Him, and you decide, I'm gonna forsake certain things to follow the Lord, and then you get to following Him, you get to, well, you know, I'm not sure I'm gonna forsake those things. You keep looking back, you make a mess out of what it takes to further the kingdom of God. You have to be 100% totally committed to Jesus Christ in order to follow the Lord. Look, one more passage here, Luke chapter 14, verse 25, a passage that we look at very often, Luke chapter 14, verse number 25. I like how John MacArthur introduces this portion of scripture. Now large crowds are going along with him and he turned and said to them, he says, this is what you say when you have a whole coliseum of people following you. And we know who he's talking about. When years ago John MacArthur would say, if you have a whole coliseum of people following you, this is what you want to say. If you have multitudes, tens of thousands of people that are following you, this is what you want to say to them. He turned and said to them, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his whole life, he cannot be my disciple. Not that he won't be a good disciple. He cannot be my disciple. You can't let any earthly love come between you and your love for the Father. If a multitude of people say they're following Jesus Christ, very simple way to decide who the true followers are, are you willing to forsake all other earthly loves for the sake of following Christ? If an earthly love pulls on your heart in such a way that makes it difficult for you to follow Jesus Christ, who are you going to give into? Your desire to follow Jesus Christ or your desire for the earthly love? You see, you cannot live a pure life if you are not willing to sacrifice every other relationship for the sake of following Christ. He goes on here, he says, Again, he's not saying you won't make a good disciple. You can't be. This is black and white. If you're not willing to take up your cross and follow Jesus Christ, you cannot be his disciple. Now, what did it mean to the first century person to take up their cross and follow Jesus Christ? Everybody knew what it meant to take up your cross. When you walk out the door of your house and you take up a cross, you know you're not coming back. If you take up that cross, you know you are going to be crucified, you are going to die. And to be a follower of Jesus Christ, to be one who follows Jesus Christ at all costs, and here we're looking at the particular cross of saying no to sin, the particular cross of being pure in heart. If you are not willing to die for the sake of following Christ, if you are not willing to die for the sake of purity, you cannot be His disciple. If we as individuals and we as a church are not willing to make whatever sacrifice we have to make to maintain the purity of this church, we cannot accomplish our mission. We cannot fulfill our mission of evangelizing the lost in such a way that our church grows not just in number, but also in spiritual maturity, and we bring glory to God. And we proclaim his excellency. The first thing we have to do is we have to be committed to purity. We have to be committed to following Jesus Christ and we have to be committed to living constant repentant lives. That's the purity. Now, the second element is power. There has to be power within the church. Let's go back to Acts 5, verse 12. We'll look at the first part now. This section that I just read, the second part of verse 12 through verse 14, it's really kind of a parentheses. Because if you read the first part of verse 12 and jump right down to verse 15, it kind of flows right together. So Luke starts to write about the power, but no sooner does he start to write about the power, he turns and he talks about the purity. He realizes that power without purity is not a good thing. It's not going to help you. You have to have the purity. So even before he can get done talking about the power and complete his thoughts on the power, he talks about the purity. The purity is the utmost. We must have the purity. But with that purity, there also has to be a demonstration of the power of God. A church has to be able to demonstrate the power of God. And what we're going to see in this passage is just one manifestation of the power of God. There are other manifestations of the power of God than what we see here in this passage. But this is a demonstration, a manifestation of the power of God. So let's look at the first part of verse 12. At the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were taking place among the people. Now skip down with me to verse 15. To such an extent that even they even carried the sick out into the streets and laid them on cots and pallets so that when Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on any one of them. Also the people from the cities in the vicinity of Jerusalem were coming together bringing people who were sick or afflicted with unclean spirits and they were all being healed. There were great miraculous healings taking place. God was demonstrating His power through these men in a very miraculous way in a way that showed to be signs and wonders. And this was important to the early church because Peter is bringing a message to the Jewish people that is totally different than anything they had heard before. They don't have any pure, pure clear written word to follow the words that Peter is saying. He's saying things that they've never heard before. He's teaching things that they never heard before. So God allowed Peter and the other apostles to demonstrate these great, powerful, miraculous signs to show that these men are speaking the word of God. These are the words of God. And God did that to the point where even the written word of these men became accepted as the word of God. These miraculous healings and these miraculous cures that were taking place The miraculous events of the First Century Church were meant to validate that these men were true messengers of God, and they were meant to validate that the words which they write are the true words of God. Once that was established, that the words that they write are the true words of God, now we have the Holy Spirit to take those words, and the Holy Spirit to convict our hearts that those words are the true words of God. Now we're back to the gift of the apostles and the prophets, the Word of God. A true church, a powerful church, is a church that will demonstrate the power of the Word of God. What is the power of the Word of God? The power of the Word of God It was to penetrate a hard heart, to penetrate the one who was rebellious, and to penetrate that one in such a way that they repent of their sins and they confess Jesus Christ as their Savior. The Word of God is what makes a hard heart, a heart that is not moldable like flesh, and you can mold it. How do you mold it? You mold it according to the teaching of the Word of God. You mold it according to the truth that's in the word of God. That is the power of the church today. We must be a pure church, but we must be a pure church that has power, has the power of God. And what is the power of God? The power of God is God's word. This is where our power lies. The power is the gospel. The power is the truth of God's word. And this morning we talked a little bit of adding on a new ministry, maybe adding on a ministry of Sunday School. We are not in this church because of who the elders are in this church, and because of the hearts of the deacons that we want to bring on. We are not, as a church, ever going to abandon The Word of God. We are never going to place any ministry over the Word of God. The Word of God will always be first and foremost. It will be paramount. And every other ministry must come through the Word of God. The Word of God is going to be the sieve that we measure everything that we do. Why? Because if we ever abandon the Word of God, we abandon our power. And no matter what happens externally, it won't be of God. And we will begin to lose our ability to be discerning. And it won't be too long, it won't be in too many generations that this church will be wishy-washy and all over the place, just like so many other churches. We must maintain our understanding of the power that we have in the Word of God. And far too many people, the power of the Word of God produces a hunger and a thirst for truth. And far too many people in this church, not in this church, but in the church today, in Christianity today, because they have not been taught the truth of signs and wonders and miracles, they'll look to the signs and the wonders and miracles, and all they care about is the signs and wonders and miracles. They don't care about the signs and the wonders and miracles that are supposed to cause them to hunger and thirst for truth. They have no desire for truth. They don't want to hear truth. They want to rely on their experience. What is happening? They're relying on external things and they're not relying on the power of God's Word. So we have to be a church that is not only pure, but we have to also be a church that is relying on the power of God. I've already skipped over some of the introduction thoughts I wanted