I got some feedback last time, which was I apologize too much. So I'm sorry. So we're going to talk about the doctrine of the church. And I was talking to a friend at a wedding last night. And he said, oh, you're talking about the doctrine of your church. And in one sense, he was correct. We are talking about the doctrine of our church. But what's meant by these words is we're talking about the teaching about the church, about the universal church. Now, it is true that this is going to be in line with what our church, our particular denomination, and even our particular congregation, believes about the church. But the meaning of these words, the doctrine of the church, is really emphasizing the teaching of that area of theology or that area of study called the church. And the focus today is the members of the church. members of the church. And we've already covered what is the church, was lesson one, and we covered Christ, king, and head of the church, and so today is members of the church. And there's 13 lessons, and they're all very interesting, and they all go into different aspects of the church. What happened to my... I guess I lost it. I'm not sure. Yeah, we'll get to that. Rita said I should bring bacon and I'd be the favorite teacher. I thought I made a slide and maybe it's towards the end, but I'm curious what you think. So the topic is members of the church. What kinds of mistakes do Christians make when they think about members of the church or church membership? And you don't have to just think about our congregation. You might think of Christians you know, people that claim to be Christians. What mistakes do you think they make? And I've thought of four, and we're going to strongly cover three of them in the lesson, or deal with those three areas. But what kind of mistakes do people make? If you're a member of the church, you're automatically mistaken. OK. I have that one, one of my four. Very good. And that's the one I'm not going to emphasize today. Suzanne? Suzanne? OK. OK. I don't have that one, but that's good. Anything else? Mistakes? Yes? Okay, members are to be entertained, good. Don't have that one either, but that's a good one. Anything else? Yeah, Jim. Okay, I just realized I have to be, since I have the mic, Actually, this will be a great opportunity. Here's the thing. If you get the mic, you have to pass it to the next person that wants to talk. And I have to turn mine off and this one on at the same time. Do I have to say that again? Okay. Test one, two. I say we sometimes mistake the administrative process with becoming a member of one denomination and one congregation with the concept of being a member of God's church. And one does not follow from the other necessarily. Okay, so Chris says when you have the mic, you have to put it right up to your mouth and talk into it. Okay, so let me tell you the things that, three of these four mistakes I think I'll cover. One is to de-emphasize the visible church, to think that the visible church does not matter. And therefore, there's a couple of things that that manifests itself in. One, the extreme would be you don't even go to church. You don't show up to a place where Christians get together to worship God. But a less extreme case is you won't join a church. You won't treat church membership as a very important thing because the visible church just doesn't matter to you. So that's mistake number one, and we will talk about that one. Mistake number two, is what Mike was saying, you assume, you kind of overemphasize the visible church, you assume, oh, I'm a member of the church, I'm going to heaven. And so you ignore the fact that you personally, member or non-member, must put your faith in Jesus Christ and what he did for you and trust him and repent of your sins and trust him and follow him. So that's another mistake. A third mistake that we make is to think that we can be part of a church, we can be members of a church, we can come to church on Sunday and we can worship God and yet hold non-loving thoughts in our heart and have non-loving actions toward the other members there. And we cannot, that's a mistake. So being a member of a church means that you must love the other members of the church. So that's mistake number three is to think, oh, I'm a member and I believe in Jesus. I'm gonna come here and worship, but I'm not gonna necessarily do anything to love those other members. And then a fourth one, and I'm really excited about this one because I get to use a big word. The fourth one is when you assume an ontological difference. Yeah. Assume an ontological difference when there isn't one. And ontology is the branch of metaphysics that deals with being, and it puts things into categories of being. And the first time you'll typically hear that word is when someone talks about the Trinity. And they say that the Son and the Father and the Holy Spirit are ontologically the same. They are the same in substance. They're the same stuff. They're the same essence. So they're ontologically the same. Human beings are ontologically the same. So Kay and I are the same. Now would you guys agree that we're the same? Kind of depends, right? Depends on what you mean by that. I will kill a cricket. Kay will not kill a cricket. I'm a man. Kay's a woman. There's lots of differences, but yet we are the same in essence. In ontological categories, we'd be put into the same bucket, the same group. I'm going to give you an example, a completely different example, and you guys will probably all see it very clearly, of where People make the mistake of assuming an ontological difference when there is none. And that would be in the area of pro-abortion. And I'm not going to say pro-choice, I'm going to say pro-abortion. So I'm going to tip my hand on which side of the deal I'm on. But they see an ontological difference between the fertilized egg of a human, a human fertilized egg, and a 10-year-old human. They see those as different. One can be destroyed, one cannot. One has rights, one does not. And so, but, ontologically they're the same. The fertilized egg, the baby, the 10-year-old, the 50-year-old, if they're all human, they all go into the same ontological category. They're all human. Well, Christians, when it comes to membership, make a mistake and they treat communicant members and non-communicant members as if they are different ontologically, as if they belong in different categories of being. But they don't. They are all members. That's the key. Just like we're all humans, whether we're born or unborn, we're all members, whether we're communicant members or non-communicant members. So there's no difference. You don't become more of a member, like you don't, when you're born, you don't become more human all of a sudden. And when you confess Christ in front of the church and become a communicant member, you don't become more of a member when that happens. You're a member before, you're a member after. That doesn't mean things won't change, but once you're baptized, you are a member until, and only in rare cases this happens, you're excommunicated. Any time in there, you're a member. And so being, your essence is the same throughout. So those, three of those things I think we'll address in this lesson. And one, the one that we won't is the fact that when we think about church membership, we don't think, oh, that's it. I sign the card, I'm in. I don't have to do anything else to get to heaven when that's not actually true. Okay, so here's the topics that we'll try to cover in the next 45 minutes. We'll talk about eggs and omelets. I try to get everyone to come based on that right there. We'll talk about wheat and tares, visible and invisible, to join or not to join, no second class, and what we are called to do. So first, we'll talk about eggs and omelets. And the first thing we should know is we are all eggs. We are eggs. We are individuals who must respond individually to Jesus Christ. We are individuals, and that is a true statement. We are all individuals And the scripture that I would put out there to think about, and there's probably two million that we could do, but the Lord is my shepherd, the 23rd Psalm. The 23rd Psalm uses a individual response to God. It uses words that show our individual relationship. We have an individual union with Christ. The Lord is my shepherd. So the Lord is my shepherd. So we are eggs. We are individually united with Christ as individuals. And we are an omelet. And this is where some Christians get a little mixed up as they think, well, that one-on-one relationship is the only one that matters. But another scripture, which is very common, most of us could recite it, would be the Lord's Prayer. which uses a different way of relating to God. It says, our Father who is in heaven, our. So it uses our and a corporate way of looking at things. So it's really important that we recognize this. And so I have a trick question. You have a relationship with Christ which is personal. you have a relationship with Christ which comes when you get together and worship him in a group, a group of Christians, a body. Which of those is more important? It's a trick question. Yes. Yeah, they're both. There is no one is more important than the other. They're both important and they're both what we are. But it's really important to know that You know, the Bible teaches that we are the bride of Christ, and that's true. But I am not the bride of Christ. And Kay is not the bride of Christ. And Mike is not the bride of Christ. We, so there are many senses in which we only have certain aspects of our relationship with Jesus as a body, so as an omelet. And I actually had that up there. So we've talked about eggs and omelets. We're all individually, the union with Christ, our relationship with Christ is important individually, but it's also important corporately. Wheat and tares is the next subject. We'll be looking at that parable. We'll read it in a second. I'm just going to point out a few things to look for. One is the idea of true Christians. And that is, there are true Christians. There are also false Christians. So there are people who say they're Christians and are not, and never will be. And then there are true Christians. Another interesting character in this story we're going to be looking at is Satan. And the last is another big word, eschatology, which is the study of the end times. So let's read this passage. This is from Matthew chapter 13, verses 24 through 30. Matthew 13, 24 through 30. And this is in a series of parables about the kingdom of God, or sometimes the kingdom of heaven. Another parable he put forth to them, saying, the kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. So the servants of the owner came and said to him, sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares? He said to them, an enemy has done this. The servant said to him, do you want us then to go and gather them up? But he said, no, lest while you gather up the tares, you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, first gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn. So we'll start, I said we were going to talk about true Christians, false Christians, Satan, and eschatology. There will be a day when all this stuff will end, all the stuff that you see today. And Jesus will separate the false Christians out of His church. He will send them to hell. And so that's the end time thing. The true Christians are the seed that Jesus planter, the owner of the field in the story, he planted the good seed, and that's the Christians. And the false Christians are the true Christians, and the false Christians were planted by who? By Satan, that's right. Satan has a vested interest in making the church less true. He has a vested interest in having someone here. His favorite is to have a pastor, right? Isn't that great? If Satan can just get a pastor who's not a true Christian, that'd be great. So Satan wants to mess up the church. He wants there to be false churches and he wants there to be false Christians in the church. And so let's just get rid of them, right? That's what we should do. What do you think the parable says? Should we get rid of those false Christians? Not by and large. Now, that's not to say that there's not a process where we do find someone that's so obviously not a true Christian. But we don't go down and try to examine Mike's heart and say, Mike, are you really a Christian? Should we really have you here? Because you might be a false Christian, and he might, and I might be. You don't know because you can't see what's in my heart. And so, except for the extreme cases where we do make that person leave. It's called excommunication. Jesus is saying here, don't try to get rid of the false Christians. It will hurt. It will destroy the church. It will ruin the Christians to do that. It will ruin the Christians if you go around trying to root out all the false Christians based on some knowledge of what's in their heart, whether they're true or false. So in other words, behavior by itself is not enough, because there's all shades of behavior, and we're all sinners anyway. So if we're all going to be based on perfect behavior, then no one will be left, right? And that's not what Jesus wants. I'm going to stop for questions, knowing, if you don't know this already, Jim will hand you the mic, and you'll speak into the mic if you have any questions. All right, no questions? Darn. And if you, okay, Jim, Kareem, Kareem, wait. Is it working? Okay, okay, okay. Oh gosh, now I've gotten so nervous about this. I totally forgot the question. This is unbelievable. Okay. Is there a thought with this too that maybe the people that are in the church that are non-believers may come to repentance? I mean isn't that the idea also? Okay, yeah, certainly unbelief gathered together in the church can have a change of heart. But I don't think that's the emphasis of this parable. But you're right. If I try to drive you away before you accept Christ in truth, then you won't be able to be around to hear the gospel and accept Christ. So that's another way we could destroy the wheat. The idea is that the wheat is tender. And we don't want to be manhandling it in our desire for a pure church. I think that's the emphasis of this. The main thing I want to get across, though, is that there are false Christians in the church. Okay, so that leads into visible and invisible, and we're gonna have to pick up the pace, unfortunately. So here's the things I wanna cover in this section. One is that there's one church. There aren't two, even though we talk about a visible church and an invisible church. That's just ways of talking, that's not defining the church. It's really talking about different aspects of the church. And a good, yeah, we'll get to it in a sec, sorry. Then we'll talk about the definition, show some diagrams, put up some analogies, sorry. Thank you, Mike. Analogies and diagrams. We'll talk about the fact that the visible church has visible rights. And then we'll talk about churches outside the pale, which is a little bit beyond talking about members of the church and whether you can have a false Christian and a true Christian. But there's also churches we have to think about in the same terms. So this is a passage from Matthew 16. And this is emphasizing that there's one church, Matthew 16, verses 17 through 19. Jesus answered and said to him, blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven, which is the fact that Jesus is the Christ, Jesus is the Messiah. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. So the interpretation that I've heard as far as what he will build his church on, he will build his church on the foundation of the acknowledgement that he's the Christ. And there's one church here. There's only one church that he's speaking of, but it's a church that has an earthly power that is reflected in the heavenly realms. So visible and invisible are both brought together here when you see this, what is on earth and what is in heaven. So here's some questions and answers from the larger catechism that emphasize the idea of the visible and the invisible and kind of define it for us. There's a number of places you can get a definition. One is the larger catechism, another is the confession. So question number 61, are all they saved who hear the gospel and live in the church? The answer is, all that hear the gospel and live in the visible church are not saved, but they only who are true members of the church invisible. What is the visible church? The visible church is a society made up of all such as in all ages and places of the world do profess the true religion and of their children. So here's one thing that you should really recognize about the words used to describe these two aspects of the church, visible and invisible. Can you see right now all, can you see the visible church right now based on this definition? all ages. So that would be people that aren't born yet, people that died 2,000 years ago or 1,000 years ago. So we can't really see the visible church. It's visible because human beings on earth can distinguish between someone who's a member of the visible church and someone who is not a member of the visible church. It's visible to us to say, yes, I saw Mike get baptized. He's a member of the visible church. And I know from church records that we haven't excommunicated him yet. So just kidding, Mike. No, he's a member of the church. It's visible. You could have a court case about it. But it's not visible in the sense that you can see us all, because you can't. The point I'm making is these words are just words, they're ways of looking at things, but you can't stretch them too far. All right, the invisible church, question 64, what is the invisible church? The invisible church is the whole number of the elect that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one under Christ the head. So, The invisible church is everyone who will someday put their faith in Christ, or I guess die in infancy before they're able to, but have been elect. So that's the invisible church. So some analogies and diagrams. The first is that Mr. Smith has an invisible aspect and, oops, I should say visible. He has an invisible aspect and a visible aspect. And we don't say that there are two Mr. Smiths. And we also don't say that we can ignore one of those aspects because it's completely unimportant. For example, Shannon, you take him as an example, he has an invisible aspect. his spirit, his emotions, how he loves his wife. All those things are invisible. We can't see them. We can't even measure them. We can't do anything with them. Then he has that visible aspect, that handsome face, all that, his big, strong biceps. Is the physical aspect unimportant? If you ever got to that point, and let's say I love the invisible part of him, but I hate the visible part, and I go up and shoot him. Some of his invisible part will continue on. But I can't say I love him and just love his invisible parts. If I love him, I've got to love both. And so that's what you have to realize when you think about the visible church, Don't say that the invisible church is the true church. Like saying the invisible Shannon is the true Shannon. Because he is visible and invisible, the church is visible and invisible, and the church matters. So here's a diagram that should completely confuse everyone. That's my goal. So here's the invisible church. It's a whole bunch of people you throw in that circle. And who's in that circle? The elect, thank you. And here's the visible church, which is another circle, and you'll notice that some people are in both circles, some people are in one and not the other. So what's the visible church? Okay, the visible church is all those who profess the true religion, which is that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that you can only come to salvation through Him, and their children. So that's the visible church. So we have some people who have done that, or their children, who are not elect. That's these guys over here. They've professed, but they're not elect. They're false Christians. Then you got these folks over here, who are elect, but they are not visibly, they haven't been baptized yet. They're not, they haven't made a profession of faith yet. So that could be someone that's not saved yet, but is an elect. That's why we go out and evangelize. Our brothers and sisters are out there. They just don't know it yet. They don't know that they're our brothers and sisters. You could also have a falsely excommunicated elect Christian in this group. So if he's here and I kick him out, but I'm wrong, which I can be, We can all be wrong. He's still elect, but he's out here. Who's out here? Is anybody out there? Yeah, if you don't profess Christ. So if you say, I don't believe in Jesus Christ, and you're not elect, you're out here. So hopefully I've confused everyone. All right. So there's a visible right that that goes along with the visible church. There's something that happens that puts you in the church. And a good chapter to read about, or to read and to give a historical context to this is Exodus 24, which we won't read today. But that is where the people, the Old Testament people became the people of God in Exodus 24. And the visible right that they had in the Old Testament was circumcision. That was how you became a member of the church in the Old Testament is you, if you were a boy, if you're male, you were circumcised. In the New Testament, it's baptism. So what is baptism? Baptism is a sacrament wherein the washing with water in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost does signify and seal our engrafting into Christ and partaking of the benefits of the covenant of grace and our engagement to be the Lord's. To whom is baptism to be administered? Baptism is not to be administered to any that are out of the visible church till they profess their faith in Christ and obedience to him, but the infants of such as are members of the visible church are to be baptized. So there's a visible rite that makes you part of the visible church. So just for a moment, I want to quit talking about eggs and start talking about omelets. So we have omelets. We're all part of the visible church, which is a very big omelet. But there's also individual omelets. individual churches. And there are some churches that we have to say they are outside the pale. And I've always thought that was an interesting phrase. What is a pale? You've got to think of the word being impaled to get an idea of what pale means. So if you ever saw a movie about the old frontier days when they would make a fort and they would sharpen all the all the logs that made the wall, they'd make them real sharp, well those are pails. So when you're inside the pail, you're inside some fence. So we drew some circles a little while ago. We talked about ontological categories. All those are pales. All those are boundaries. But there is a boundary in which you could say a church is no longer inside of the churches of God. And so I just want to briefly touch on that, because I think it relates to our overall subject, but it's a little bit I guess you can have, the key thing is you can have an individual who's a member of a church outside the pale that is still a true Christian. But first of all, other religions are outside. They're outside the boundary. Buddhists, Hindus, they're just outside. No other way to say it. Cults are outside. Now a cult would be like the Jehovah's Witness or the Mormons. They have a messed up view of the Trinity. That's almost 100% one way to distinguish it. They say a lot of Christian things or biblical things, So that's why they're a cult and not another religion. That's why we have Buddhists in the bottom and then we have cults. They're different, but they're both outside the pale. Then there's apostate churches. So they would have a good view of the Trinity, for example, but they deny the gospel. They officially deny that the way to heaven is faith in Christ. And the Roman Catholic Church fits into that. So it's wrong to say they're not a church, but it's also wrong to say that they're a true church. So a true church is this boundary that we've drawn. And within the true church is a healthy church. And we don't want to draw the true church boundary too small. We don't want to say, well, you know, if you don't believe in predestination, you're not the true church. Or we don't want to say, oh, if you don't have a healthy view of inerrancy, you're not the true church. You know, we don't want to draw this line here so exclusively that it just fits our congregation. But to be a healthy church, and we'll talk about the marks of a church, you need to have a strong view of the gospel. You need to have a view that sinners can be saved. by the work of Christ alone and not by anything that they do. So that's kind of the distinguishing factor here in the true church is that they may have watered down the Bible, they may have some messy views about scripture, they may ordain women, whatever you happen to believe is not biblical, They may do that, but if they preach the gospel, they're still in this area, and then the healthy church is going to have a high view of scripture. One thing to note, though, is that you can be in this church and still be in the invisible church. You can still be elect. You can probably still be elect. You know, it's hard to be elect down here, I imagine. Well, that's not true. You can be elect, but have not been converted yet, of course. But if you stay there, it's questionable, I would say. All right. Yeah, the mic's good, man. No questions. We're just moving right along. I'm going to stop for questions. And I will repeat the question, since we discombobulated Corrine so much by giving her the mic. So are there any questions or comments? And I won't make you use the mic. I'll repeat it. Yes, Corrine? OK, I'm ready. All right. Yes, so this convicts us all to keep good relationships within the church. And I'm going to summarize, but that's, she said a little more, but that's what she said. Anything else? And Mickey says that you have to love everyone, not just those in the church, and how else are you going to spread the gospel? And I agree with that. All right, so to join or not to join? So within this topic, so this of course is church membership, and I don't think most of you are struggling with that decision, but there are people that you will meet who question whether it's a good idea. And I'll move quickly through this, but this is one of the mistakes I was talking about where you view the invisible church as the important one and the visible church as unimportant. And so the extreme is you don't even show up at all around other Christians. I'm a believer, I don't need those other people. That would be one extreme, but another mistake that goes along with it, or another thing that falls into that, would be not to join a church, not to join a local church. And again, I don't think, I'm preaching to the choir here, but I'll go ahead and go through this quickly, but I think it's important and relates to our subject. So, there's visible rights. So there's a visible church, in other words, what I'm trying to do here is focus mostly on scripture, scriptural reasons why we should join a church, why we should join a local church. And one is visible rights, another is authority and protection. you're under authority, and you're protected from false authority. There's a definite flock, so this is from in terms of the pastor, and the elders, they know who their flock is. There's a concept of church discipline, and there's a concept of church government. All of these things are in scripture. All of them imply the need to be members of a local church. There are many other passages that you could say, I can take that as I should belong to a local church, but they're not as strong. So the idea that we should love one another, and this distinguishes between what Corinne says and what Mickey said. Scripture tells us to love our enemies, right? Which would be in line with what Mickey said. Mickey included enemies. But it over and over and over and over and over again tells us to love one another. So there is a distinction there. And you could use all of those to say, well, you need to be a member of the local church. To me, that's not as strong of an argument as these that I'll show. But nothing in the Bible says don't. join a local church. So just to kind of put the categories together, I don't think there's any scripture verses that say, hey, don't join a local church. There's a whole bunch that, yeah, maybe they make the case, maybe they don't, and then these that definitely make the case. So this is Acts 2, 41. Then those who gladly received his word were baptized, and that day about 3,000 souls were added to them." So here we have a visible rite that tells us that there is such a thing as a visible church. There are members of a church. This next one refers to authority and protection. So, obey those who rule over you and be submissive for they watch out for your souls as those who must give account. This is Hebrews 13, 17. Let them do so with joy and not with grief for that would be unprofitable for you. What I want to bring out of this is simply who are you supposed to be submissive to? You know, there's a church not very far from here Should we be submissive to that pastor or that elder? This says be submissive to those who rule over you. It says be submissive, but you can't be submissive to generally people. And so this is a reason to think about church membership. Related to that is this, Ephesians 5. Verse 22, wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. One thing it doesn't say, the Bible never says, and it's very important, women submit to men. Does it say that anywhere in Scripture? Christians, submit to pastors. Does it say that anywhere in Scripture? No. The idea here is, A wife submits to her husband, and that's actually a protection for her, but she doesn't have to submit to any other man in that way. She only submits to her husband, who's made a vow to love and protect and sacrifice himself for her. So the idea of authority and protection assume a local church membership. They assume a pastor Who cares about you before you submit to that person? You don't submit generally to the authority of the church, to a pastor, to pastors in general. If some pastor walks down the road and says, you need to do this, you're not called to submit to that person in the same way as if your pastor comes and says, you need to do this. All right, related to a definite flock, flipping this around for the pastor. This is what the pastor's told to do. Therefore, take heed to yourself and to all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the church of God which he purchased with his own blood. So again, how do I distinguish if I'm a pastor who is my flock? And it assumes the idea of a local church membership. This is Matthew 18, verse 17, the part about, you know, if something happens and you go to your brother, he won't listen and so forth. Eventually it says, and if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church, but if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. This is a verse about, that really supplies the, the justification for excommunication. This verse tells us that eventually you have to take someone who's unrepentant and say, you're no longer part of the church. But to do that, you have to have, you have to be a member of the church for this to happen. Yeah, Fritz. Does that include the IRS as well? Fritz said, does that include the IRS And that's, I'm gonna leave it there. So church government, so when they had appointed elders in every church and prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed, Acts 14.23. So everything about a church assumes, everything about, you read in scripture about having elders and having pastors who are elected assumes a church membership, assumes that you have members as distinguished from someone that just shows up and says, I want to vote. So these are scriptures that back up the idea of church membership. And again, I'm preaching to the choir, so I think you're all members. If not, well, we can talk. If you don't think Christians should be members. All right. So we talked about several mistakes that people make about church membership. One of them is, yes, Mike. Real quick comment. OK. There's a real importance to attending service and being a member because I know a couple of people who they felt that they're their own Sunday morning coffee discussions were more beneficial than worshiping at a local church. And the risk there is heretical thoughts. So that's why this is a very critical point. OK. I wish I would have given you the mic. But I didn't, so I will try to repeat that. Okay. Don't be shy. Right into it. All right, so what I was saying is that this component is actually very critical because I know of a couple of people who feel that their Sunday morning coffee discussions, as opposed to going to church and being under the leadership of a local church, has been more beneficial to them. And the risk that you incur when you have that kind of opinion is heretical thought, where you become, where you have error. So not being under a leader or elders can really be detrimental. Well said. You have to give it to Fritz now. When you do like Mike said and just have your own devotional at home or something like that, it's just real easy to get in the trap of the autonomy of man rather than the autonomy of the Word of God that you do here during a church service and the preaching of the Word. Is it off? Is it all? Can't find one of them. And it says in the old and the King James to forsake not the assembly. And then in Proverbs 27, 17, this is as iron sharpens iron. So one man sharpens another. Thank you. Her Hebrews 10, 25. Very good. All right, so now we're going to move on to one of the things we talked about. Is it off? Yours is off, mine is on, okay. We use the word ontological, which I'm really excited to say. And that, I'm going to go ahead and just briefly state it again since there's so many people here that weren't here when I first talked about it. Ontological relates to the idea that there are different kinds of beings, different ways we can group fundamentally the same things, things that are at essence the same. And the first place you hear about that if you're studying theology is the study of the Trinity. And the idea is that the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit are ontologically the same. The Shorter Catechism says they're the same in substance. So the essence of Jesus the Son is the same essence as God the Father. They are divine. They have a divine essence. They are ontologically the same. Human beings are ontologically the same, whether they are a fertilized egg, human fertilized egg, or a five-year-old child, or a 20-year-old man, or a 90-year-old man. They are all ontologically the same. They all belong in the same group when you group things by essence. And so that's why it's wrong to kill old people just because they're old and unborn people just because they're unborn. It's wrong to do that because it's wrong to kill humans. You can say humans are humans, no matter how small, and so you don't mess with them. Well, in membership, we can get into a bad habit of viewing non-communicate members as if they're not members. But they're members. As soon as they're baptized, they are members. They don't ever change that status, that essence, unless they get excommunicated, then they're not members anymore. But other than that, if they profess Christ and make a credible profession of faith and start taking communion and they're communicate members, they're still members. They don't change from, they change the kind of member they are, but they're still members. When we elect that person as a deacon, He's still a member. An elder is still a member. He becomes a pastor. He's still a member. There's no sense in which that changes ever. So we have to make sure we don't think of a five-year-old child as somehow not a member of Christ's body, not a member of the visible church. So we'll talk about that, and first I'd like to, we'll look at a scripture that says that non-communicant members are holy, and that word there is they're set apart. They're set apart in a special place, like all members are. We'll throw out some analogies, because we love to do that. Talk about non-communicant members are members, and they never become more so, which I think I've already said. So the scripture I want to look at is Acts 2 and then one other. Repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and to your children and all who are far off as many as the Lord our God will call. So the promise, the covenant promise, the idea of being part of Christ's church is for you, the person who repents and believes, and your children. This is from 1 Corinthians 7 verse 14, and it's talking about what to do if you find yourself in a marriage and you've come to Christ in that marriage. So you're married, you become a Christian, and oh, that other guy I'm married to is not a Christian, what should I do? And Paul talks about it, and he basically says stay together. But then he says this for the unbelieving husband is sanctified made holy By the wife and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean But now they are holy so children of believers are holy meaning they are set apart. They are members, they belong to the Church of God. You should not look at them differently than you look at an adult here who's professed already. They are all members. So some analogies, citizenship is a good example. Someday my daughter will be able to vote. She can't right now, OK? Yay, Kareem. I'll send her over to your house for a two-day indoctrination on who to vote for. But anywho, is she a citizen of the United States even now? She can't vote. Is she a citizen? Raise your hand if you think no. OK, she's a citizen. And before she professed Christ, up here and took her vow, she was a member and not to be treated any differently as a member. Another, sorry about that, another is a family member. A family member is a member. No matter what role they have in the church, they're always a family member. And then the other example we've been talking about is a human being. A human being is a human being no matter how small. There are two kinds of members though. This is from our form of government, chapter 13, the local church in its session. And article number one says, the membership of a local congregation consists of communicant and non-communicant members, all of whom have the privilege of pastoral oversight, instruction, and government by the church. And then also in that same section, communicant members are those who have been baptized, have made a credible profession of faith in Christ, and have been enrolled and admitted to all the rights of church membership by the session. Non-communicant members are the baptized children of communicant members. So the things I'd like to point out here are that When you look at someone who's made a credible profession of faith, you can't look at that person and go, okay, we have on the one hand a noncommunicant member, not saved. We have on the other hand a professing communicant member, saved. You can't make that distinction, because number one, you certainly shouldn't look at that noncommunicant member and go, that person's not saved. You have to treat them the same. Number two, Because someone says they're a Christian doesn't mean they're a Christian. That's the wheat and the tares. We talked about that. So the Bible clearly says there are plenty of people who say, I believe in Jesus, who don't. So we can't distinguish between how we treat people because they've made a credible profession or haven't made a credible profession. Baptized members are members and they need to be treated the same. And one of the ways we treat members the same is we discipline them. A non-communicant member who never once agreed to be under the submission of the church, do something that deserves discipline, we discipline that person. We don't go, oh, he didn't agree to that, so we're gonna treat him differently. So in other words, if you're 20 years old and you have not made a credible profession, and you do something that's clearly outside of Christian boundaries, and you're a member of this church, you will be treated the same as if you were a professing member of this church. Professing does not put you in a different category when it comes to discipline. It doesn't put you in a different category in many ways. So we gotta, there are differences, obviously. You take communion, don't take communion is one. But we can't get confused and extend those differences. All right. I'm really running out of time. I'm totally out of time. But we'll cover one more topic, which is what are we called to do? And this should cover one of the problems I think we have with church membership, which is to have the idea that we can come to church and be a member, but yet have feelings in our heart that are uncharitable towards our brothers and sisters here. In other words, you can't do that. You make a mistake if you do that. We're members of the church, and that is a visible thing. That is a thing you can check off, so to speak. But it doesn't change the fact of what you are called to do. So what are we called to do? Number one, we're called to worship together. So being a member of a church in and of itself is not enough. You want to come to church on Sunday and worship God as a body. And I'm preaching the choir here because you guys usually come. But the other thing you're called to do, and here I think we can all work on this, is we're called to love one another. And this is not a, this is a special love. It goes beyond love your enemies. It's more intense, let's say. It's more constant. You've gotta put your first love here. And it's gotta be pure. And so this is where I want you to think about this. I'm gonna be looking at scripture verses. But I'm not going to quote them or anything. All this is from scripture. So this is what we're called to do. Obviously, we're called to love one another. We're called to be at peace with one another. We're called to wash one another's feet. We're called to give preference to one another. After you, you have to That's a hard one for me. OK, they're all hard. Have the same mind toward one another. Build up one another. Do not judge one another. Accept one another. Admonish one another. Greet one another. How are we supposed to greet them? Does anybody know? With a holy kiss. That's right. I didn't put that in here. I don't want to give anybody ideas. Wait for one another. Serve one another. Do not envy one another. Bear one another's burdens. Show tolerance for one another. Speak truth to one another. Be kind to one another. Be subject to one another. Do not lie to one another. Forgive one another. Encourage one another. Seek that which is good for one another. Stimulate one another to love and good deeds. Confess our sins to one another. Do not complain against one another. Fervently love one another from the heart. Be hospitable to one another. Exercise your spiritual gifts for one another. Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another. have fellowship with one another, love one another. So our calling, what we are called to do as members of Christ's church is to gather on Sunday and worship together and then to love one another. And that love has gotta be, you know, scripture's pretty clear that it has to be pretty comprehensive. that if you're not loving someone in this congregation, for example, if you're holding bitterness towards them, then you're not doing what God wants you to do. He wants you to love one another. All right, we'll close in prayer. Thank you, Gracious Heavenly Father, for the church. Thank you for our membership in the church. Thank you for this Sunday school class and thinking about what it means to be a member. And I pray that you would help us to love one another. I pray that your Holy Spirit would be in us. You would convict our hearts of any thoughts or bitterness that we have towards our brothers and sisters, and that you would help us to love one another. In Jesus' name, amen.