The Importance of the Local Church with Steve Ham

Andrew Rappaport's Rapp Report

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One, two, three. Welcome to The Wrap Report with your host, Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application.

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This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

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All right, well, welcome to The Wrap Report. I'm your host, Andrew Rappaport, and I am joined by none other than Bud the

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Wiser. How are you, Bud? Greetings, Andrew. I'm great. How you doing, brother? So today's shirt is not about you partying, which by partying you mean study theology.

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Today is by what standard? Yeah, this is Tom Askle's thing, Founders Ministries. Good, so that's today's t -shirt.

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This is the next thing in the stack, so I had to yank this one out, and that was it. So, Bud, last week when we recorded, now this is the episode from two weeks ago, we dealt with the

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Biden administration's national strategy on basically countering domestic terrorism, which by that we explained that he means

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Christians. And we said how he was going to be working with private sector and that they would identify people who are dangerous and whatnot.

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Well, in one of our groups, a group that I manage called the Reformed Christian Thinking, we have this.

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This got flagged under hate speech for violating their community standards, and this is what it says.

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So this is a person who's responding to someone and giving the definition of what it means to be a respecter of persons.

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Now, I'm going to read this, but hold onto your seat, because this may sound very violent, because the actual language that they said it was, dangerous individuals or organizations.

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So this is going to sound dangerous to you. You ready? All right. A respecter of persons, meaning no one earns

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God's favor for salvation. All men are desperately wicked. God calls who he wills without respect of persons.

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Read Romans 9. Read the whole chapter so you don't miss anything. Great read. I mean, that sounded very dangerous.

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I mean, that's a direct attack on my autonomous free will. Yeah. Now, you and I started to look into their community standards, and we decided,

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I think, next week, we're probably going to do a whole show just on their community standards for what they consider violence and incitement, and then this one, dangerous individuals.

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But, folks, what we said in that episode on the national strategy countering domestic terrorism,

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I'm just going to read their first paragraph, because there's no way we can get into this whole thing.

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But it says, in an effort to prevent and disrupt. Now, remember what we said on that episode. You'll hear us talk about that they want to disrupt.

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So they want to prevent and disrupt real world harm. We will not allow organizations or individuals to proclaim a violent mission or are engaged in violence to have a presence on Facebook.

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We assess these entities based on their behavior, both online and offline. Offline? How does

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Facebook do that? How do they know what you're doing offline? Most significantly, there are tiers of violence.

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Okay. And so they go through tiers, and we're going to probably have to go through each of those tiers. But it is interesting that they're saying they're just like we said, what the

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Biden administration was wanting to do. They want to prevent people before they get violent to disrupt them.

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And I find it really interesting because they want to do it both online, offline. And here's the thing that I found interesting, bud.

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If we remember from that episode we did, the government considers a domestic terrorist, anyone that wants to get off a platform like Facebook, to go to something that's end -to -end encrypted.

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In other words, if you don't want the government spying on you, you're a terrorist. So if you go on Facebook and you say, hey, folks, come follow me on Gab or on Signal or anything else that's end -to -end encrypted and not

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Facebook or Twitter that's working with the government. That, I guess, is the offline behavior that identifies you as a dangerous individual.

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I wonder if the person who posted that on our group must have done that. He must have accidentally said, hey, follow me on Gab. I don't know.

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I mean, this is seriously scary stuff. Obviously, they've got either a microphone or a camera in your show fart back there behind you.

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How are they doing this? Well, they're doing this like we talked about last week by profiling. So if you're in a particular group that violates the narrative that the culture that the government is fomenting, you're profiled into that group.

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So obviously, you have this tendency. Scary stuff. It is. We need to be aware of it.

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We need to use discernment not only about what's coming out of the pulpit towards us, but we need to use discernment when we're walking down the street.

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Well, see, everyone's carrying that microphone right here, but it's called a phone. All those smartphones that everyone has.

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But Babylon Bee, being Babylon Bee, decided they would jump on this. Facebook has been putting these posts out, warning people about extremists that they've gotten to know.

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Facebook, to warn people, to warn you when you've been exposed to heretical content. So the photo is a picture of someone that's on Joel Osteen's page, and it says,

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Phil, you may have been exposed to harmful heretical content recently. False teachers try to take passages from the

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Bible out of context to trick you. You can take action now to protect yourself and others.

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And the action is, read the Bible. Oh, I love that.

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All right. So also in the news, you and I had talked about this, that this is for folks who think that there's not an agenda in this country.

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When we sit there and we're told that conversion therapy is wrong, and somehow you can't tell someone that practices homosexuality that they shouldn't practice it, or to have the conspiracy theory to think that there's a movement of homosexuals to silence

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Christians. Well, let me just read this. The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus has released, and then deplatformed, a new video with a threat to many

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American parents. Well, what is it? Here are the lyrics. You think we're sinful.

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You fight against our right. You say we all lead lives you can't respect, but you're just frightened.

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You think we're corrupt. You think we'll corrupt your kids if our agenda goes unchecked.

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Fine. Just this once, you're correct. We'll convert your children. Happens bit by bit, quietly and subtly, and you will barely notice it.

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You can keep them from disco. Warn them about San Francisco.

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Make them wear pleated pants. We don't care. We're coming for them. We're coming for your children.

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We're coming for them. We're coming for them. We're coming for your children. So now

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I guess it's not a conspiracy theory. They're the ones saying it, and they're talking about conversion therapy there. So I guess that's now, in that direction, it's perfectly fine, huh?

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Well, you know, Roman's one kind of context to this. Certainly, if you're given over to that kind of behavior, that sort of sin, that's an abomination, one of the corresponding things that it obviously leads to, according to Scripture, is a debased mind.

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You're incapable of thinking. So you can't recognize your own hypocrisy. You become enveloped in this, and that's what's going on.

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You know, Christians, we understand this, and we always knew this was the agenda.

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So, you know, what's the response to that? The response to it is truth. It's gospel, and the

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Lord will do with it as he wills. And then one last thing that we had in the news that I just think shows what we have in our culture going on, folks, is, you know, there's been this battle for folks.

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I don't really follow a lot with this Britney Spears. The only thing I find interesting about it is the fact that she's like a 34 -year -old woman, a mother of two, and yet she's not allowed to control her own money that she makes.

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Her father controls it. And so I kind of do see it as kind of an interesting legal thing. But what is very interesting was that what came out in the news was that they're trying to say that proof that she has a mental illness is she— they put out that said that she took nude photos of herself in a bathroom, nude selfies.

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The interesting thing is that when I read the article, it said that the picture that was released was a picture of her backside.

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Now I stop and think about that and go, I don't know how physically— I mean, she must be really flexible to take a picture from behind her back.

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I don't know how someone does that. But I look at this and go, now, when we had

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Anthony Weiner, who was doing more graphic pictures, we were told that's not a big deal.

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All the kids are doing it. This is supposed to be normal behavior. And now all of a sudden we're being told when it fits their narrative, we're being told this is mental illness.

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I mean, I'm glad that they finally have caught up to what Christians have been saying for a long time, that this behavior is a mental illness, but it needs to be dealt with as an act of sin.

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But it shows this—really what we had said in a previous episode, narrative matters.

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That's the theory over the culture today. Narrative matters. It doesn't matter what is right and wrong anymore.

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It matters what fits the narrative. So if some people want to promote getting children to put nude photos of themselves online, that's supposed to be praised.

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But if Britney Spears does it, that's supposed to be mental illness. Well, if it's mental illness in one, it's got to be it in both.

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And this is why I think Christians have such a problem in our culture nowadays, because we want to use critical thinking.

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We want to have absolute values. We have an absolute morality that is based in the nature of God.

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And therefore, our standard doesn't change. And we live in a culture that is constantly trying to say, well, we could just make it up as we go along.

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Everything could be whatever we want it to be. And this is no different. Now, I appreciate you saying that particularly, and I don't want to belabor the point.

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Genuine Christians do understand the importance of thinking. Ours is a propositional faith.

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It is built on objective propositional truth that we think through. We apprehend.

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Now, that's not as far as it goes, but you have to apprehend the truth.

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And that's why we understand the notion that orthodoxy dictates orthoproxy, what you believe is going to dictate how you behave, which means you've had to think through it.

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You've had to apprehend it mentally, intellectually. But so much of the visible church today, which

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I know is going to be the topic we discuss, so much of it is not driven by logic and thinking and reason.

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It is driven by, you know, emotionalism. And that's exactly the point that I was going to make, is the fact that when we transition into our topic today, the importance of the church, is so many people have given into the cultural view of the church, thinking that, well, hey,

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I can do church at home. And, you know, you really can't. And we're going to discuss that. Now, I will let folks know, we have a guest on today, but if people need translation, would you be able to help him?

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He has this, it must be like an Ohioan or Kentuckian accent. I'm not quite sure.

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He has that weird kind of accent. I'm not sure if I could place it, but Pastor Steve… He's from around here.

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Yeah, yeah. This is Pastor Steve Hamm, pastor of Hyde Park Baptist Church, and he's also well -known for his work there at Answers in Genesis with his brother

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Ken Hamm. So, Steve, welcome to the program. I don't know whether to use this accent now.

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How can you not? It would be funny if he came with a big, like, southern drawl. Yeah, I just love the smell of burning rubber.

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Yeah. Well, Steve, welcome.

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Introduce yourself to folks, and I guess now you have to explain where your accent's from. Okay, yeah.

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Well, it is a southern accent, actually, but it's just very, very southern, from Australia, down under.

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And I've been in America for about 12, 13 years. Actually, I'm a citizen of America now, and very thankful for that.

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And, yeah, Baptist pastor in Cincinnati, Hyde Park Baptist Church, yeah.

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Came originally to work with Answers in Genesis, was doing some work with Ken, running the international part of that ministry, but heavy call on my life to shepherd the flock.

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And that was the one reason, as you and I talked, that I really wanted to have you on, because, folks, one of the things that I truly, truly appreciate with Pastor Steve is his love for the church.

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And there are, unfortunately, few men in ministry that have such a great love for the church.

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Men who, you know, like Steve, we've had Jim Osmond on here before, he's another, who both of these men could, if they want, have huge platforms speaking nationally or internationally.

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Both of them are excellent speakers and could have a huge platform. And there's so many people looking for that platform,

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Steve. There's so many people, unfortunately, nowadays looking for that. And I look at you as a guy who's saying, no, the importance is in the local church.

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This is what God has established here on earth for us now. He hasn't established a social media ministry for Christians.

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He established the church. That's what he left this earth for. And you have such a love for the church.

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This is the thing that has drawn me to you. In every conversation I've ever had with you,

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I just, I've been drawn in more and more in the fact of the view you have of the church, the love you have for the church.

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So let me start off by just asking you, you know, what is the church? So we could clearly define it.

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And then why is it so important, even in this day and age where we have so much opportunities to listen to people on radio, on social media, and get so many other pastors that we could listen to, why is it important to be part of a local church with a local pastor?

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Wow. That was kind of like spinning you up and letting you go. That's just like one question.

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That's the whole program. Yeah. Well, I mean, what is the church?

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The church is the regenerate people of God. Now, I want to say it that way.

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We could talk so much. We could define the church in so many different ways. The bride of Christ, the elect, and, you know, the elect sojourners in this world.

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We are the regenerate, the born -again people, the born -anew people of God.

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That regenerate aspect, I think, is very, very important. We don't always see people's hearts, do we?

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We don't see exactly where they are with the Lord Jesus. But that is actually who the church is.

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It is only going to be the regenerate, the elect in Christ, who are going to be in the new creation, glorified in all perfection in him.

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And so his church, his body, those who have come to true, saving faith in the

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Lord Jesus Christ by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. And so, you know, when

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I think of the church, because one of the reasons I want to say that is so many people just throw out this word, the church, the church, and say, so often

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I hear so much criticism about the church. That's not actually talking about the church. I wonder whether people, when they're actually talking about the church, are they really looking at the church when they're saying this?

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Is this really the church that they're talking about? Because that's not the regenerate people of God.

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Yes, we're messy. Yes, we are not perfect in this world. Yes, unfortunately, we still fall in sin along the way and do the things that we don't want to do and don't do the things that we want to do.

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And who will save us from this body of death? You know, thanks be to Jesus Christ. But we are saved from this body of death.

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We are not under condemnation because of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the first thing that I want to say about the church is the church is truly the regenerate people of God.

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That's not necessarily delineating from local versus universal or anything like that.

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We are regenerate. And so when we talk about the church, we should have that in mind because the regenerate people of God are saved by Christ.

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We are blood -bought. We are who we are because of the sacrifice of our

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Lord and Savior. And there's nothing more beautiful. Yeah, and that's important because that means that church is not designed for unbelievers.

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No, no. It's designed so that unbelievers would come into it through faith. Yeah, and that's very different,

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I think, than what we see in a lot of these big churches. The whole church growth movement has really been pushing for trying to appeal to the unbeliever.

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I think that's really what's hurt the church in a lot of ways because so much of the church has been focused on trying to get unbelievers into pews and get unbelievers to be sitting and listening to sermons.

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And so if you're going to tailor a sermon, and maybe let me ask this as a question, if you're going to tailor a sermon for an unbeliever, would it be different than tailoring a sermon for a believer?

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Most definitely. In some respects, yes.

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If I'm going to stand out on the street corner and preach, which, you know, folks like you do it fairly often.

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I haven't done it as often. I certainly will, you know, have a lot of conversations out in the street with people.

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But if I'm going to preach on a street corner, it's going to sound different, but it will be the same gospel, won't it?

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It'll be the same gospel that I'm preaching to my church congregation.

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But I do, when I am preparing a sermon from the

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Scripture, I am thinking of God's body of people who will be sitting in front of me hearing this admonishment or whatever it's going to be.

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Yeah. And so, you know, this ends up also making a difference, that if you're tailoring it to unbelievers, then everything's going to just be about gospel every week, versus getting into the whole council of God, because the unbeliever can't get there because they have a veil over their eyes.

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They can't even see that. Yeah, there's a difference between preaching a gospel -centered message to believers through the redemptive thread in the entire council of the

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Word of God than there is in just standing in front of somebody who doesn't understand a thing about the gospel and helping them to understand it from the beginning to end.

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Yes. Yeah, because I think that what ends up happening is that churches that focus on unbelievers focus on the gospel, and the congregation becomes very shallow because all they're getting is gospel, gospel, gospel every week.

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They're never getting any deeper because every message is tailored to the unbeliever, and then the believer doesn't grow.

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The believer doesn't hear the riches of the ramifications of the gospel in the entirety of the

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Scriptures. Yes, I hear that. And that's why I think it's such a big differentiation to understand who the church is for, and that's why

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I like your definition that it's for the regenerate people of God. What's the functioning then of the church?

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What do we do? What is the church's role in this world? Wow. Disciple.

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So let me preface this. The church's role comes on the back of Christ's role, comes on the back of God's purpose to glorify himself in this world.

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I mean, God is displaying his glory and beauty through primarily his son,

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Jesus, but he does that in glorifying and beautifying his church in the world as we spread his name in the

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Great Commission across the globe and have other people coming into it.

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So in that there is God is sanctifying his church, and in the church we are discipling each other to help sanctify each other.

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God chastises his church. We discipline each other. God is making his name known across this world through justifying sinners, and the church in its great role, as you know, is the

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Great Commission. We are spreading the praise of God. We praise

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God together corporately. We worship.

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And I want to say this, that I want to be careful about some of these statements because as I say these things, people might think, well, these are only the things that happen when the church gathers together.

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For instance, worship only happens when the church gathers together. No, the church worships, but we worship wherever we are and when we gather.

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We come together as worshippers in corporate worship. And so God is doing this.

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We see it visibly when we are gathered, when we are local.

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Yeah, but all of those things, discipleship, admonishment, and then we can just go into all of the one another's that are all through the

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New Testament and see all of these things are what the church does. We pray for each other. We care for each other.

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We love each other. We show who we are by our love for each other. We unite in Christ.

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Yeah, we can just go on and on. But can I do those things at home by myself with my television watching

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John MacArthur? You can do some of those things at home. You can't necessarily do one another at home.

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You can't necessarily do the ordinances at home that Christ has.

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You can't gather at home, and he's told us to gather. You can't.

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There's just so many things you can't do. You know, would you ever say to a husband and wife, get married and live in separate houses?

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My goodness. Yeah. Although Andrew does rebuke me on text messaging quite a bit.

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I don't know if that technically counts as a one another, but nevertheless, I just wanted to insert that.

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But, I mean, this has been one of the things I've said throughout this, you know, fake pandemic when people have said, well, the church just needs to stay home.

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The definition of church is to gather, right? I mean, a church is a gathering of people, right?

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You can't do church without gathering. And, you know, that time was a difficult time.

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We, like every other good, even strong biblical churches, we had a time where we were, you know, concerned for each other in community where there was a short period of time where we did not gather personally together.

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We were on Zoom for a little while. But we were urgent and concerned to be all together in person.

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And, again, you know, doing those things that you can only do together, particularly communion and things like that.

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So, yeah, it's – you don't – you can't have that fellowship and you can't have that unity in Christ when you are separated from each other.

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And we are the bride of Christ. We're a corporate bride of Christ.

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The bride adorning itself for that wonderful wedding banquet of the

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Lamb, it's not an individual person bride. It's a corporate bride adorning itself.

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And we are those people who are helping to beautify each other in the

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Lord Jesus Christ as we yearn and long to be standing before Him. So, you know, let me ask – it was one of the things

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I asked in the beginning, and I want to dig into it because this is the thing. You know, you're with Answers in Genesis.

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It's an international organization that has had an impact on people's lives throughout the world in helping people to understand the importance of Scripture.

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I think many people misunderstand what Answers in Genesis is about. Many people think that it's a ministry to try to do evidential apologetics and try to prove that, you know, prove

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God exists type of thing. And, you know, I remember listening to your brother Ken once say that Answers in Genesis is to give

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Christians support for the Bible. It's to help people realize that science doesn't have the answers and that the

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Bible has the answers, and with a culture that's trying to go up against that.

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And it's really funny. I was talking, and I think you know Dr. Anthony Silvestro, who's with Striving Fraternity. Sure. And he and I were just talking the other day, and he said, you know, the

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Answers in Genesis two -castle diagram has never been more right than today. You know, and for folks who know, if you've seen the diagram, you know exactly what

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I'm talking about. Because once you see it, you can't unsee it. It always fits.

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But the idea that here as Christians, we're always attacking ourselves. And maybe we're blowing up, you know, it's these two castles with balloons and with cannons, and you're shooting targets at each of the balloons have, on the cultural side, they have different things that Christians are attacking, the big things, you know, the symptoms of society, rather than deal with the real issues.

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And then you see some of the Christians are attacking themselves. They're attacking our own foundation. And then you have the world that's just attacking our foundation of the

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Bible nonstop. All their guns are aimed right at one thing. And, you know, nowadays we're seeing this more than ever before.

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And so you've been part of this international ministry where, you know, having heard you speak, if you wanted to, you would be able to have this huge international platform.

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And you turned from that to come to Hyde Park Baptist Church. Now, for many people, they would think that's strange, because you went from this large ministry to a small local church.

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Could you explain to folks why would you do such a thing? Because St. Puppet would say, well, you should be trying to get a big ministry.

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And I know you. You don't really promote too much. I mean, I'm promoting that you work with Ancestors in Justice, but, you know, many people know your last name.

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I've never once heard you explain like, oh, this is, I'm Ken's brother, you know. You're just Steve Hamm.

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Explain why you went from that big platform to the local church. Let me do it in two ways.

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I'm going to come back to the castle diagram in just a moment, because there's something in the castle diagram that helps me to explain that too.

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You know, you know the book of James in the Bible. Yes, you do. And, you know, the most consistent and just the basic understanding of who

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James is, is that it's most likely James the brother of Jesus, as the author of James.

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And James writes that he is James, a servant of God and of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. James's qualification in writing to the dispersion of whatever churches he's writing to, is not that he doesn't mention,

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I'm James the brother of Jesus. His qualification for talking to other

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Christians doesn't come from being Jesus' physical brother. It comes from being a follower of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, a slave of Christ, a slave of God through the

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Lord Jesus Christ. And so it's through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so James is,

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James, you know, he's obviously a leader in the church, but it's not just because of flesh and blood.

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It's because of the bought blood of, the shed blood of Jesus.

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And so, you know, I've always been very, very careful about that because I love the church, not because I'm Ken Ham's brother, but I love the church because I love

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Jesus. And it's Christ that has, the more I have, one of the most influential books in my life is

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The Glory of Christ by John Owen. One thing that Owen really, really did for me is just help me understand how important it is in my life to delight in Jesus Christ, to see his glory, and thus to understand the glory and beauty of God.

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And once I understood and started really, that started really impacting my life, how could I not love what he died for?

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How could I not love what he has, who he has bought and that he is his bride, even though it's messy, right?

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It's messy, but it's just something that's amazing. So you say that I could have this big ministry.

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I don't know. I'm no Ken, like I'm no Ken Ham, okay? The guy has some special skills that the

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Lord has given him that can be used to help and support and love the church in the time that we live.

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And I'm thankful for it because we need those scientists doing all of that good work.

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I'm thankful for it. But it's parachurch, isn't it? It's not church.

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It's parachurch. I'm thankful for parachurch ministries. Don't hear me saying negative things about parachurch ministries.

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I'm very thankful for many things that I've got from parachurch ministries, but parachurch ministries are not the church.

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And one of the things that I see, like the castle diagram shows the concentration of this particular parachurch ministry,

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Answers in Genesis. It's helping the church see the importance of upholding and defending the foundational history of the

33:04

Bible in Genesis. So that castle diagram turns around and the church starts firing at the foundations of, you know, the issues of upholding the authority and inerrancy of scripture from the very first verse.

33:18

And then you see people on the other castle start jumping off the other castle in the next frame of that castle diagram.

33:26

I actually would like to just draw one thing differently about that castle diagram. When we're doing that, instead of having those people jump off into the water hopelessly,

33:38

I want the church and the castle on the other side to throw a ladder over to that other castle and bring them over to know

33:45

Jesus Christ and be with us so that they would be on our castle. Those people who are singing that song about coming to get your children, they are not our enemy.

33:55

They're our mission ground. And so I want to be a part of the church because God has given to the church the mandate to bring people into his kingdom.

34:10

God has given to the church the mandate to disciple each other and to grow each other.

34:17

And as much as I see the importance of parachurch ministry in certain areas to help the church, the whole counsel of the word of God and the work of God is done through the church.

34:28

And the esteem and the love and the high view that I had for the church just went to the degree that I could not resist it any longer.

34:38

Yeah, and I mean I'm familiar a little with your church, with folks I know, people that attend your church.

34:45

They speak very highly of you as a pastor. So one of the things

34:51

I want to talk about is what the role a pastor serves in a local church because when we think about our current day and age, we have a lot of great men.

35:03

We've seen this transition when radio first came out. We had people who a lot of local pastors were on radio.

35:12

And then what ended up happening is a couple of men started bubbling to the top and getting syndicated, and then you had these bigger ministries.

35:18

So then there's people on all the radio stations. So you have these what are really kind of known as celebrity pastors that people look to.

35:29

And I admit as a pastor there's a frustration that you have when you have someone who listens to some guy on the radio five days a week, and they listen to you, and you've spent 40 hours of prep on a

35:42

Wednesday night, a Sunday school, a Sunday morning sermon, spending the time on, and they listen to you for maybe three hours if they listen to all that, right?

35:53

Mostly they listen to the one -hour sermon. So they get like 30 hours of your study, right, 20, 30 hours of your study.

36:01

So we see this dynamic that's been going on with the Internet, with radio, television, all of this, but there's a difference between a guy on a radio that you listen to and a guy that preaches at the pulpit that you're looking at.

36:18

And I know that we can get to know people that I happened to be somewhere last night, went to dinner to someone's house in our church, and they had some friends over, and they were telling me how they feel like they know

36:33

Ray Comfort because they've watched everything that he's put out. They watch everything he does. And they were asking me questions because one person said, so we feel like we really know

36:44

Ray Comfort, but you actually know Ray Comfort. And there's a difference there. People feel like they know a

36:52

John MacArthur or an R .C. Sproul, name whoever. They feel like they know him because they follow them so much.

36:59

But I think there's a difference between that and our local pastor who studies the Word of God to teach us each week.

37:06

Can you maybe talk about the importance of the local pastor? Yeah, I will. By the way,

37:12

I actually do know Ray Comfort. And the good thing about knowing the actual person rather than just knowing that guy who's on radio and all over the

37:26

Internet is that he's actually the real deal. Yes, he is. And I've seen him stand in hotel lobbies with me and see people sitting off to the side and without any cameras just go up to them and start talking to them about Jesus.

37:41

And I've been very, very encouraged by seeing that in that brother.

37:47

And you two have the exact same accent, correct? If you ever say that again, I will never talk to you.

37:56

So there's a little bit of a difference between Australia and New Zealand, huh? There is, yeah.

38:02

Australians use vowels. And they say six and seven.

38:08

There's no vowels in their language. Anyway, sorry if you're in New Zealand and you're watching this.

38:15

I love you. But that's okay because Ray would do the same thing. I always like watching

38:20

Ray when he gets someone from Australia. Because the joking around he does, people see him joke around.

38:26

That literally is the way he is. I will say this. If you ever get a chance to go to Living Waters and do a tour there, it's like a museum.

38:35

It really is. I think it's the funniest thing. He's got this picture of himself. It's really small. He puts it just on the floor.

38:42

And to look at the picture, there's wording under there. The only way you could read the wording is to get down on your hands and knees and look at the picture.

38:48

And you read the words and it says, Stand up, I'm just a man. The whole building is like that.

38:54

Justin Peters and I, we once went over there. There was no one there. He wanted to give Justin a tour of the building.

39:00

And he puts us right by the front door. There's a sliding glass door. And he goes, Justin, I'm going to go in and open the door.

39:07

But look, just look right up there. You see that red letter C? And we're looking and he goes, Just keep watching that.

39:13

So he runs inside through his side door, opens the sliding glass door, and he's standing right there.

39:18

He goes, Did you see the parting of the red C? That is who he is without a camera.

39:25

The whole building has got filled with stuff like that. It's very funny. Yes. I love that man.

39:32

He's a great brother. Okay, so here is what.

39:39

And let me also say in answering this question about the importance of pastors rather than having a celebrity pastor or whatever.

39:49

A couple of disclaimers. Some of these men are wonderful men. So I'm not saying anything against these men.

39:55

I love some of these men who have impacted my life and helped me in different areas, you know.

40:01

And you mentioned John McCarthy. He is one of them that has been helpful for me in my life in many different areas and other great guys like the, you know, the

40:10

Pipers and the Molars and others that I've been very thankful for. I do also want to say that I know we're talking about pastor, but our church actually is really strong on believing in a multiplicity of elders.

40:29

And I'm the, if you like, lead elder pastor in our church,

40:36

I suppose like a Timothy or someone like that. But I want to say that because here is what a celebrity pastor can't give you.

40:48

Hebrews 13, for instance, in verse 17 says, obey your elders, submit to them for they are keeping watch over your souls.

40:57

As those who will give an account, none of these people are going to give an account for you like your local pastor and elder.

41:05

They are the ones that are called in this work to do this.

41:11

And so I am deeply intimidated by my calling.

41:18

I feel the huge weight of responsibility. I'm very, very thankful, in fact, that God sent me to a little church, and it's growing, and I'm thankful for that.

41:34

You know, numbers and that sort of thing are happening, but I'm thankful because the responsibility in the weight that I feel, as I stand, sometimes

41:47

I'll stand in the pulpit and remind myself of this responsibility. I'm not just preaching here. This is not about whether people are just going to hear good dogma or theology.

41:55

I hope they do. But I'm looking at these people who God has put in front of me to love, to shepherd, to cherish under him, of course, to lead.

42:08

And sometimes I will stop before I even preach, and I will just look at them, just look at them in the eyes, five or six seconds or so, just to look and just to remind myself,

42:18

I love these people. I'm leading these people. I'm responsible to God for these folks.

42:24

And so, Lord, please help me to lead them in the right direction in your word. And I know that, you know,

42:32

MacArthur's et al are surely feeling that for their own congregations, but they can't feel that for the person who's sitting at home in a lounge room on the

42:42

Internet. They can't do it. They can't do it. They can't know you. They can't disciple you.

42:48

I do a lot of biblical counseling in my church. That's just, you know, a term for using the sufficiency of Scripture to disciple people with real problems.

42:57

And I have discipled so many people with particular issues in my church that when

43:04

I stand in the pulpit and I look at them, I know a lot of the intimate issues of people's lives when

43:12

I am standing before them. It helps me preach better. It helps me preach better. Of course, it doesn't change the good exegesis that comes from the word of God to what

43:25

I'm going to say to them through God's word. But it also helps me to do it with a level of compassion and understanding that I wouldn't have otherwise.

43:40

The elders are those who have got these qualifications, and those qualifications are because of the people that they're going to be leading and loving and standing in front of.

43:54

Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching, and that's 1

44:04

Timothy 5, to rule well. Rule who? We've got to know who we are leading and loving, and you can't do that electronically.

44:16

So I don't know. I hope that's a case for you. Yeah. But I'll probably remember who said this because I always forget, because I don't want to be accused of plagiarism and say that I said this.

44:28

I was going to ask, Pastor Steve, in the course of, say, a month, how many sermons do you actually plagiarize?

44:38

It sounds like you do your own thing. Wow. You mean you don't buy your sermons? I do.

44:45

I do do my own thing, but I am not the sharpest tool in the shed, bud, and I say this a lot to folks in front of me.

44:56

I do labor over the Scriptures. I do try to study as much from the original language and everything myself, but I can't just do it alone.

45:09

I'm often reading good commentaries and different things like that, and I will tell my folks, too. So often there are not too many original thoughts that come from Steve Hamm, but there is a difference between that and plagiarizing.

45:24

Sure. But you've never, like, taken a J .D. Greer sermon and just completely preached it for me? Well, hold on, bud.

45:30

The question there is, is it actually a J .D. Greer sermon, or did you get it from that sermon service you paid for and praised?

45:37

Go ahead. I'll tell you what I did do recently, just so that we can have full, you know, it's as if I'm confessing.

45:48

We've got transparency now. Right, right. Yeah. So, I mean, I'll tell you what I did do recently.

45:54

Between sections of Verse by Verse, which is our bread and butter teaching in the church,

45:59

Verse by Verse through the Scriptures, but every now and again I'll stop a section and do a topical series, and I recently did a topical series on the doctrine of beauty, the doctrine of aesthetics, because I think it's something the church is missing.

46:11

And so I went through that, and I used very, very extensively the work by a guy,

46:19

Dr Jonathan King, who wrote a book called The Beauty of the Lord, and it's a doctrine of aesthetics. But in using, it was just so well done,

46:28

I just thought there's no way that I'm going to better this, so I used that book extensively as I put together those sermons.

46:36

But I stood in front of my church and I said, look, I have gleaned so much out of this particular book from Dr Jonathan King.

46:43

So, you know, if you want to read more, get this. But so much of what I'm about to give to you, he has, you know, he has shown me in this book.

46:54

So, you know, I'll do things like that every now and again. Well, I think the attribution that you give distinguishes a great deal, that is not occurring in evangelicalism, certainly not as we know in the

47:04

SBC right now. But, Andrew, what was your... Well, yeah, I mean, the thing I was going to say is that, you know, there was someone who had said that, you know, when you listen to the guy on the radio, they actually aren't preparing that sermon for you on the radio, they're preparing it for their congregation.

47:20

And I think that's really what you were getting to is, as a pastor, when you're working through a text, the difference with preaching and teaching, right, the preaching, you're going to try to drive a point home.

47:30

You want to get some action. You're going to get to an application. And when you sit and work through a text, and you're working on the original languages, you're working through the context, you're doing everything that it takes to put a sermon together, and you start working toward the, how does this apply to us now, today, and you start thinking through having a week of praying for, well, maybe not every pastor does this, but praying for each member in the congregation through the week and just meditating on what they're going through.

48:05

That influences some of the ways you deliver that message.

48:12

And so I know for myself, I'm delivering the message for those I know are going to be hearing it on Sunday, not those that would be hearing it on the

48:19

Internet later. And I think that's important for you, because that's really what it sounds like for folks to hear you're describing.

48:26

But the one thing I think this does do is it probably helps you sleep better at night, huh? I sleep.

48:33

I told you, Pastor Steve, I told you. I sleep very well. I sleep very well.

48:39

It's funny, that previous conversation that we had, because I've never found that perfect pillow yet, but I sleep well.

48:46

I have that perfect pillow for you. It's called my pillow. Bud warned,

48:53

Pastor Steve, that somehow I was going to work this in. Bud's always wondering how I'm going to do this transition from a serious topic to our supporters at MyPillow.

49:01

But see, Pastor Steve, he hasn't had the perfect pillow because he hasn't tried a MyPillow yet. And he sleeps well.

49:09

He'd sleep even better if he got the mattress topper. I'm just saying you've got to try it out. I'm loving it.

49:16

People know I don't sleep much. I'm actually sleeping more. It could be the 60 miles a week of running I'm doing, but that may add to me sleeping more.

49:26

But no, I have been a user of the MyPillow products for years.

49:32

I've traveled literally the world with my pillow because I take it with me everywhere

49:37

I go when I travel and speak. And I absolutely love the products. I love their MyPillow.

49:42

I love their mattress topper even more. I've enjoyed that so much. And so if you want to get a better night's sleep, support a company that makes their products here in the

49:54

United States. And they've got a lot of products. I was blown away. I knew of the pillows, but then they've got their bed sheets and the towels and slippers.

50:04

They even have products to help if you're bleeding, to put something in to stop bleeding. They've got a whole lot of products, way more than I knew.

50:12

I got some hand sanitizer from them too. They have hand sanitizer. The neat thing about the hand sanitizer, it's not alcohol.

50:20

And so your hands don't dry up when using it. So I guess with COVID, they got creative masks and creating hand sanitizer.

50:27

But if you want to get some great products, get a better night's sleep, and at the same time support Striving for Eternity, just go to MyPillow .com,

50:35

click on the radio listener square, and use the promo code SFE, stands for Striving for Eternity.

50:41

Or you can call them at 1 -800 -873 -0176.

50:48

That's 1 -800 -873 -0176, and use promo code

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SFE to get your discount and also support Striving for Eternity. And so we're going to have to make sure that Steve gets a

50:59

MyPillow. They were on sale for just $30 for their premium pillows, with the promo code.

51:07

So we'll have to see that Steve gets one, so he can get a better night's sleep. But as we talk about the importance of the church, we've kind of spent some time defining it, what the role of the church is, the importance of a local pastor.

51:27

The thing that we see is that the church is a different organization than what we'd see in the world.

51:33

There's plenty of social clubs that people have, where people can get together and kind of have something that they have in common.

51:43

What would make the church different than, say, a social club? Why would the church be more important than just, hey,

51:49

I can get fellowship at the local tavern or something, or go to a sports event and have the guys that share in my favorite team?

51:59

What would make the church different than something like that? Yeah, wow. It's interesting, every one of your questions so far has been, why don't we just do this over a series of however many weeks and just take one at a time?

52:16

There's so much. Let me start here. The whole structure of the reason we're together is completely different.

52:27

We are not based on a consensus of ideas or desires. And so you go,

52:34

I mean, if you are unfortunate enough to follow the

52:40

Bengals in Cincinnati and you're losing a lot, I suppose, and you're there because you all just like the

52:48

Bengals, you've got this consensus, right? There's this consensus of ideas. But the fellowship around that, you're going to be all the same sort of desire in doing that.

53:02

The unity of the church is not something that you establish.

53:09

The fellowship that we have in the church is not something that we establish because we come together and we tend to agree on something or have the same desire or something like that.

53:20

It's not in us and it's not fickle that way. You can get upset about something or whatever and you're not there anymore.

53:28

The unity of the church is already there.

53:34

Jesus, when he was praying for the unity and fellowship of the church, he says, make them one as you and I are one in John 17, praying that the church will have the same sense of unity that there even is in the

53:50

Trinity. Now, okay, we're not perfected. We are messy. We don't have that same perfect unity.

53:57

But that's what Jesus prays for for us. But Paul says that our unity is in, and he says to maintain the unity, that word maintain is really important in Ephesians 4, maintain the unity in the bond of peace.

54:15

And he says there is one body and one faith, just as you are called to the one hope that is, you know, what you're called to.

54:21

There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father who is above all in all and through all, one, one, one, one, one.

54:29

So here's the difference. The church isn't something that comes together on fickle ideas or premises of fallible humans.

54:42

It is already united in the blood of Jesus Christ, and we are to maintain that on the basis of the oneness of truth and faith that we have in him.

54:56

That solidity, that unity, is greater than any other unity that you can find in any other organization in the entire world.

55:07

I would just augment that providentially. I was reading early this morning on a doctrine

55:13

I don't think we hear taught enough, which is the doctrine of the union of the believer in Christ.

55:19

I ran across this quote by John Murray from his magnum opus, you know, redemption accomplished and applied, and he said nothing is more central or basic than union and communion with Christ.

55:32

Union with Christ is really the central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation, not only in its application, which would be the external view that we have in the relationships and fellowship in the church, but it's the central truth of salvation, not only in its application, but also in its once -for -all accomplishment in the finished work of Christ.

55:50

That augments exactly what you said, in him. You know, this is the foundation of our unity.

55:56

It's not unity in diversity. You know, we don't accomplish unity through diversity, which is a narrative of the pop culture

56:04

Christianity that we see now. It is a vital and spiritual union with Christ by his spirit.

56:12

There's a oneness, and the oneness isn't in us, it's in Jesus. And so if you have that oneness that's in Jesus, it's his faith, you know, not his faith in God.

56:24

It's his faith. It's his truth, right, everything that we believe in. It's the faith.

56:31

It's his. It's his body. It's he is the one

56:38

Lord. It's his one baptism for us. And so we don't walk around having anything saying it's us, it's us, it's us.

56:49

You know, we are great. I'm really, really careful, by the way. You know, so many churches will stand up and this is a great church and we are a great church, and I really don't want to do that because it's not about us.

57:04

We have a great Lord. We have a great Saviour. We have a great King.

57:09

We are, you know, he is beautifying us. It's his glory in us. And so I just I don't

57:18

I think every other organization wants to say how good they are. We want to say how good Jesus is. There's a huge difference.

57:24

Yeah, I do find that interesting that so many churches I've gone to that where they say how spiritually mature this church is, and I look and go, wow, like they praise their own spiritual maturity and they just they're so good at praising their own spiritual maturity they don't know how far they have yet to grow.

57:44

There's a billboard down the street from the house I pass every day going to work and it's a local church promoting church the way you want it.

57:53

Wow, are you kidding me? That's the last thing we want. Please, no.

58:00

Yeah, because I mean I think church the way we want it. Wasn't there someone that went out and said, let's give people church the way they want it?

58:09

So they took a survey and said, let's get a survey together. Some Warren guy. Yeah.

58:16

Actually, it was Bill Hybels. Rick Warren. Well, Rick Warren, he kind of did this, but I remember

58:25

Dan Ankerberg and Bill Hybels were the ones that they built a survey to put out in the community.

58:32

We're going to do church the way you want. And so they said, okay, well, Sunday was all drama and entertainment for the lost person.

58:39

And Wednesday night was their big study night. And they realized the church was really immature because no one was coming to the

58:46

Wednesday night. It was just all just surface -level teaching all the time. And so they ended up trying to change that, and that caused all kinds of problems.

58:55

Well, you've got to have a church that does that at some point because, you know, after all, God has got your picture on his refrigerator in heaven.

59:05

Oh, bud, repent, repent. I don't endorse that. I'm just saying. Pastor Steve, do you see why?

59:12

I think a lot of times that when you have these strategies, it becomes unity on the basis of your preference. Yeah.

59:17

And that's just very, very dangerous for the church.

59:23

You know, one of the things I think a lot of people don't understand is that, you know, unity in the church is not going to be based on anything other than our theology, right?

59:35

People talk about how theology divides, and it does. It divides truth from error.

59:41

And the question is, at what level are you going to divide? I mean, here are all three of us, right?

59:46

We talked about this before we started recording. We have differing theological positions in different areas, but not on the core areas.

59:53

On the core, we all agree, and we have unity in that, even though on some things, you know, we have differing views.

01:00:01

And so with that, we can accept those differences because in the core things, we have unity in the essential things.

01:00:11

And a lot of people want to get unity. Really, what they mean by unity, I think, in a lot of churches is,

01:00:17

I want to feel good about what you're saying. Like, I want you to agree with me on things.

01:00:23

But what gives us the true unity is when we have a standard outside of ourselves, and we all agree on that, and that's where we're going to find unity.

01:00:31

And that's why I love the way you describe the church, the way that you've defined everything, because it's all about Christ.

01:00:37

That's the central thing. That's the thing that unites us all in the church and brings us together. I mean, just think, for those of you listening, especially those that attend a local church, look around your church.

01:00:52

I've done this throughout the years. Look around the church and ask yourself, if it wasn't for Christ, would

01:00:57

I be hanging out with these people? You know, we have a culture right now screaming for, hey, let's all get together and reconcile, but we have to do that, and you have to accept my oppression to do that.

01:01:10

The reality is the church is the place where that really genuinely happens, where we can have reconciliation with people of differing groups, where I can be as someone who is raised

01:01:20

Jewish, can sit there in a church with someone who grew up as a

01:01:27

Muslim, an Arab Muslim who was hating Jewish people, and we could get along. Why?

01:01:33

Because of Christ. This is where the reconciliation and the unity really happens. It's in the church.

01:01:39

As I just look around in a church, it's like you have people that have money, people that don't.

01:01:46

You have people that are educated and people that aren't. You have people that—I went to a church where we had not just a vegan, but one of these vegans that go out and do the protesting, right?

01:02:01

You sit there and go, okay. I mean, she was very actively—and it was interesting, because what she and I—one thing that we would always talk about is she's out there protesting and doing what we would think of as open air for veganism, and I'm doing it for Christ.

01:02:17

And we would talk about different things about just being out in public and talking to people, but what we shared in common was

01:02:25

Christ. Now, she wasn't obviously a vegan to the point where it was all the spiritual nonsense, but you can have—I mean, in any other setting,

01:02:34

I probably wouldn't have— if it wasn't for Christ, I probably would never talk to her, right?

01:02:41

But what brings us together is Christ saved us. I mean, both of us were enemies of God, wretches, and sorry,

01:02:49

Facebook, if that gets me flagged for saying this, that we're all wretches.

01:02:56

We're all degenerate. We all sin. We all break God's law.

01:03:02

But what brings us together is that Christ died on the cross for our sin, that we could be set free.

01:03:08

That what Christ did on the cross, the three of us here, those of you who are listening that know Christ, that have been converted to Christ, what you share in common with the three of us is that we'll spend eternity together worshiping

01:03:21

Christ. And all of our differences at that time are going to go away. They're going to be gone. I mean, Bud and Steve are both going to agree with my theology, and then it's going to be wonderful.

01:03:34

Steve is kind of—for those who can't see the video, Steve is just like—his eyes are tilted up.

01:03:41

I was waiting to see what the reaction would be for that. But, you know, let's see if we can even use that as an example.

01:03:48

Steve, you and I have—I'm more on the dispensational bent. You're more on the

01:03:54

New Covenant bent. We disagree on things, and yet we could joke about our disagreements.

01:04:00

We don't hold to it like we're going to—we've got to fight over this and convince you you have to believe what

01:04:05

I believe. One of the most important little books in my entire life, you know, when

01:04:12

I talk about these, of course, the Scriptures. But these are books that—these are men that glean from the

01:04:17

Scriptures for these things. But Dr. Martyn Lloyd -Jones wrote a book called What is an

01:04:22

Evangelical? It's only a little book. But he goes through six of the essential doctrines that we stand in for the sake of Christ.

01:04:39

You know, so he hits things like the authority of Scripture, creation, not evolution, sin and judgment, one way to salvation, you know, just doctrines like that, that are absolutely essential for church.

01:04:56

What is an evangelical? An evangelical is going to stand upon these essential doctrines. And I've held very, very tightly to Dr.

01:05:05

Lloyd -Jones' descriptions in that book because that is where, you know, we can say, you know, on those areas, if we don't have unity in other areas, it doesn't affect us from being able to call each other brother in Christ and love each other to have true unity.

01:05:32

These—the essential doctrines here are the essential doctrines that actually affect unity because if you take away this doctrine, then what you're doing is you're completely undermining the cross, right?

01:05:42

If there's not a creator, there's an undermining of the cross. If there's not an understanding of sin, there's an undermining of the cross.

01:05:50

And so you and I will have 100 % agreement in those areas.

01:05:58

Now, there are going to be some areas that are not necessarily going to strongly undermine the cross like that.

01:06:08

You'll still hold to the essential, you know, doctrine of soteriology without necessarily agreeing in some of those areas what's going to happen, you know, what's our understanding of the church in Israel, for instance.

01:06:23

Yes, no. I have people in my church who aren't in the same position there as I am.

01:06:30

But we love each other deeply and stand on those essentials. And that's where we get the unity.

01:06:37

And, you know, folks, this is what we want to help folks to recognize is that our unity is in Christ, not in our theology, not in our church denomination, right?

01:06:50

We all, all three of us at least, happen to be Baptistic, not necessarily Baptist, but, you know,

01:06:56

Bud tries to get as close to Presbyterian as he can, I think. It's just because I read the

01:07:03

Puritans, okay? Well, I do too, Bud. Yes, obviously.

01:07:09

See, and you can still be Baptist, Bud, because I've read the Puritans for years and they've, you know. Look, I'm just saying

01:07:15

I love the Presbyterians, but John was the Baptist, not the

01:07:20

Presbyterian. There you go. Hey, you know, I think it's important to say, well,

01:07:27

I at least want to say this. I want our Presbyterian brothers and sisters to hold their position on the basis of their conviction of the

01:07:37

Scriptures. Absolutely. I want them to do that. Now, if they are convicted that the

01:07:42

Scriptures are teaching them differently, as I am convicted that they are, well then, yeah, you're probably going to have trouble being in a

01:07:51

Presbyterian church. But if you're in a Presbyterian church and we are all holding those same essentials that we kind of talked about, but this on what

01:08:03

I would call a second -order issue, you're convicted by, well then, you know, it's pretty hard on the basis of just general ecclesiology to gather together on that.

01:08:17

But I still want to have unity in those essentials. Yeah, yeah. That's one point. Go ahead,

01:08:22

Bud. I always go to Paul in Colossians 1 where the focus, it's almost like his philosophy of ministry.

01:08:31

We proclaim him, you know, admonishing every man, teaching every man.

01:08:37

What's the purpose? So that we may present every man complete in Christ. We don't achieve that here.

01:08:43

We're a work in progress and sanctification moves us forward by the power of the Holy Spirit through the teaching of the word, through the admonishing of the word.

01:08:52

We can't lose that. So when we run across people like Andrew, who clearly just needs to be taught more.

01:09:01

And it'll come. We love him and it'll happen. Well, you know, there's always hope,

01:09:09

Bud. There's always hope. So Steve, let me,

01:09:16

I mean, as we wrap up, I just want to give you a chance to share anything that's on your heart, anything that you felt left unsaid, which might be a lot.

01:09:26

And, hey, we can go, you know, I've tried to do this thing where I spin you up and let you go, because when we're on the phone, that's what happens.

01:09:32

You know, you'll go for a long time. And you're not giving short answers here. I guess you're just trying.

01:09:40

I know what it is. He wants to come back and finish the conversation. That's what I think. That's funny.

01:09:47

Okay. Well, let me say that if people see

01:09:54

Christ as beautiful, they'll see his church as beautiful before they see their need to be a consumer of whatever it is.

01:10:03

You know, so if you see the beauty of Christ, if you see the glory of Christ and he is beautifying and glorifying his church through him, then there's a whole different way of viewing and even looking for a church.

01:10:19

I have seen people who have been consumers of all sorts of things looking for local churches.

01:10:25

And I'm just, I would just say I would want to encourage people, don't be a consumer.

01:10:33

Be someone who wants to be a family member. Truly being those who are being sanctified by Christ, discipling, being discipled, discipling others, loving others.

01:10:48

You can be a consumer of good expository teaching.

01:10:54

You can be a consumer of that. You know, most people say when you go to look for a church, you know, go and find the church that's going to give you the best.

01:11:01

And that's the problem. Give you the best, whatever it is, expository teaching or whatever it is.

01:11:06

It's not, it's not, yes, it's important. Don't hear me saying that expository teaching or, or, or, or good, good biblical teaching, good exegesis is, is not important.

01:11:20

It's important, but don't be a consumer of it. Don't because that's, that's what leads you to the, to be the consumer of, you know, that's when your pastor, he doesn't have the same communication skills as, as John MacArthur.

01:11:34

So you're a consumer of teaching. So then you, you become more of a follower of MacArthur. Then you do a church member that that's,

01:11:41

I mean, Paul preaches against that. And so we got to be really, really careful about that.

01:11:48

The church is a family. It's God's family. It's the priority family. Jesus turns to his, the people following him and says, who's my mother and my father and my brothers, sorry, my brothers and my sisters.

01:11:59

You know, it's those who follow me. It's, it's Jesus family. Let the dead bury the dead, right?

01:12:05

This is the family of God. Leave it and, and, and prioritize the family of God.

01:12:12

So many people aren't prioritizing the family of God. They're prioritizing their own lifestyle, their own family.

01:12:20

And the church, by the way, is not a family of families. It's a regenerate family. There are, there are people who meet in our church, little ones who are not yet regenerate.

01:12:30

They're not a part of the church yet. We want them to be, but they're not yet. And so, you know, this is the most wonderful, glorious family being beautified to be together for all of eternity.

01:12:45

And so you need to be in it. You need to be a member of it, be identified with it.

01:12:50

If the way that the church, that local church is doing, is understanding who is in the body, whether it's formal or informal, we do a formal membership.

01:13:02

We believe it's right to be very careful about knowing who is in to the best of our understanding and who is not.

01:13:09

And so we have a formal membership. It's important to be identified with the local church so that you know who you are.

01:13:17

If church discipline happens, how do you discipline somebody if you don't know who they are, if they're even a part of you?

01:13:23

And how do we, how do we have that? And so there's so many important things that I could go on about here, but if you have the right view of the church, you will eradicate consumeristic mentalities that make it all about you, and then you start being a family the way that Jesus wants you to be, and you start becoming a bride adorned for her husband on the final day.

01:13:48

Yeah, and that's some important stuff. You and I talked on the phone about the importance of church membership.

01:13:55

That's something that seems to be lacking in many churches, people that, and it is kind of with what we were saying earlier with Social Club, people just kind of show up.

01:14:02

They don't see it as something that is necessary for their spiritual growth as much as it is to be a member of a church.

01:14:11

And so the church knows who you are. There's accountability there. There's, you know, you don't, someone that's just not going to, you know,

01:14:21

I don't want to have a crude illustration, but, you know, people that want to attend church, be regular attenders, but not be a member, it's like, hey,

01:14:30

I want to live with a girl, but I don't want to marry her. I want all the benefits of marriage. I just don't want to actually have the marriage.

01:14:37

I don't want to have that commitment where I'm going to actually have to, you know, work at the relationship. I want to be able to just walk away anytime

01:14:44

I want. And that's unfortunately the way a lot of people view church. They just want, they want to sleep with the church. They don't want to be married to the church, you know.

01:14:51

And you can't do properly all the one -anothering that we need to do in the church, you know, without being a member.

01:14:59

Oh, yeah, you could do that. But when people know that you don't want to be a member, you want to have that exit door ready.

01:15:07

It's kind of like, you know, people that get into marriage, I remember someone giving me counsel when I got married, and I'm an unbeliever, and giving my wife and I counsel to make sure we always keep our own separate bank accounts.

01:15:17

And I was like, why? We're not getting divorced. You see, but when you walk into a marriage with the plan that I always want to be able to walk away easily, you have that plan.

01:15:27

Then you're not really committed to do everything you can to work out this relationship. And when people do that with the church, it's, hey, anytime something goes away,

01:15:37

I don't like it. I want to have the exit plan. I want to be ready to walk out that door, and I don't want to have any difficulties doing so.

01:15:42

Then you're not going to be as committed. You're not going to work through things. You're just going to have that exit door always in mind.

01:15:50

And that's – we could probably talk a whole hour just on the importance of church membership. Maybe we should sometime.

01:15:57

But Steve, it is always great talking with you, great having you on. How could folks get in touch with you if they have more questions, or if they're in the

01:16:06

Cincinnati area and want to find a good church? Folks, if you are in the area,

01:16:12

I highly recommend Hyde Park Baptist Church. I'll give a personal testimony.

01:16:18

I'm not going to give a name, but Pastor Steve will know who I'm referring to. I had a friend who used to work with our ministry that was up here in New York, moved out there, started to attend

01:16:30

Pastor Steve's church. And during the years, he was under – because he ended up moving afterwards, which in some ways was the right decision.

01:16:40

I think in others, maybe not. But while he was under Pastor Steve's care, the spiritual growth that I saw with him and family was amazing.

01:16:51

And it was just because he was plugged into the church and just watching and hearing how he would talk about how

01:16:56

Steve poured into him. And unfortunately, he moved and didn't have a pastor like Steve.

01:17:02

And there's a difference, I think, between a guy who gets up on Sunday morning and preaches a sermon versus a pastor, a shepherd.

01:17:11

I have people in my church that have told me – it boggled my mind, but they were like, you know, we've been in a lot of churches and we've had a lot of preachers, but you're our first pastor.

01:17:25

You're the first shepherd, the first person actually pouring into someone. And that's the type of man Pastor Steve is.

01:17:31

I know that from people who have attended his church. So if folks want to come to Hyde Park Baptist Church or get in touch with you, how's a good way for folks to do that?

01:17:44

Yeah. By the way, there's other people in our church who come along and disciple alongside others and that sort of thing too.

01:17:52

And so I don't want to – I'm thankful for what you say.

01:17:58

I pray that I'm being obedient to the Lord, but when you have a church that is hopefully trying at least, doing our best to obey the

01:18:10

Lord, then others come alongside others as well. It becomes a whole body thing. And so I just really do want to –

01:18:16

I do want to emphasize that. And when these people left our church, by the way,

01:18:21

Andrew, the ones that you were talking about, because they plug into the church and are identified as members, when they left, we gave them a letter to say, these are members in good standing.

01:18:34

Would you please love them? And, you know, that's the sort of thing that happens when they had to leave and go to another city.

01:18:42

And I should say they left because of a work situation, no problems. No, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

01:18:49

We were sorry to see them go. So H –

01:18:55

I'll say it the American way, H. We Aussies say H. We actually sound out the consonant.

01:19:05

Hpbaptist .org. Hpbaptist .org. That's all you need to know. All of the details are there.

01:19:11

Yeah, and I do have that linked in the show notes. So if you go to the show notes, you'll have that there. I encourage you guys, if you're in the area –

01:19:18

Hey, folks, if you happen to be doing a weekend trip to the Ark Encounter or the

01:19:25

Creation Museum and you want to stay over on a Sunday, you have a church that's right in the area that's a good church you know you could go to.

01:19:35

Because I think that you've had a few people do that, right, that are in the area and they come visit. Yeah, something to do with my last name.

01:19:43

But yeah, yeah. Hey, maybe they'll come and go, you know what, we're going to up and move because this is a solid church.

01:19:51

You know, I really appreciate people that do that. I have a friend of mine that moved to be closer to family and couldn't find a good church.

01:20:01

And they made the decision, you know what, we're going to go back to where we were in a different state so we can have a good church because that was more important and we'll just travel to visit family.

01:20:11

And so, you know, it's a question of how important is church for us. Church is where we're going to grow in our spiritual life.

01:20:19

For the Christian, this should be an essential part of our life, not something we just do on Sunday.

01:20:27

And so I want to encourage you guys, how important is the local church to you? How much does the local church impact your life?

01:20:34

You know, we have a gentleman in our church that every event we have, he wants to be there. If we had a

01:20:41

Bible study five days a week, he'd be there five days a week. And he says, because this is where I'm going to grow in my

01:20:48

Christianity with the saints. It's not just about who's doing the teaching, it's about all of us together.

01:20:55

And this is what church is. This is our lifeline, in a sense, to the fact of we sit and study together and do all the one -anothering together and learning together.

01:21:07

And so many Christians are out alone in the world trying to figure out why are things so hard.

01:21:14

One reason things are so hard is because you're doing it alone. For many, you're doing it alone. You're not part of a church where you can get fed, where you could feed others.

01:21:24

God gave you spiritual gifts to serve the church, not yourself. And you can't do that on your own.

01:21:30

And so many people aren't using their spiritual gifts. They're looking to get from church, not to give to church. And so all these things that God created us for, well, he created us so that we would be going to do these one -anothers with each other, to serve.

01:21:49

So my encouragement to you, if you're not a member of a good local church, now would be an excellent time to open the phone book.

01:21:57

What am I saying? There's no such thing anymore. Okay, just go do a DuckDuckGo search for churches in your area.

01:22:05

Find a good, solid local church. If you don't know of one, contact us at Striving Fraternity.

01:22:11

Info at strivingforeternity .org. Let us know where you live and that you need a good church.

01:22:17

We will try to find a good church for you. We'll try to help you find a solid church in your area so you have somewhere to go.

01:22:25

If you are a member of a local church, may I encourage you to pray for your pastors? May I encourage you to pray for each other?

01:22:33

May I encourage you to see what spiritual gifts you have that is needed in your local church to serve your church?

01:22:40

Consider doing that today, all right? And hey, bud, you know what? What's that? That's a wrap. This podcast is part of the

01:22:46

Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

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