Episode 91: What is the Church?

Welcome to the Ruled Church Podcast. This is my beloved son, with whom

I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas?

You see that one in Pechote, Mexico? Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres, down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it.

The church is not a democracy. It's a monarchy. Christ is king. You can't be

Christian without a local church. You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the

Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible -believing church, and spend your life serving

Jesus in a local, visible congregation. Well, you know, I got to say it, man. Say it. Three months.

Three months from today. From today. Now, it won't be but about two months when people hear this, probably.

Yeah. I told you before the show, I'm not exactly sure when this one is coming out. It will come out sometime in October.

I'm guessing it will come out around October 16th. So, by then, man, by then, we'll probably already know the

October surprise. That's right. I'm just, you know, bracing myself for whatever that may be.

Yeah. It could be anything. Right. I mean, in the world that we live in,

I mean, we are talking about other things, events going on in the evangelical world that we're not ready to discuss and walk through yet until more information is known.

But I'm about tighter surprises, honestly. That's right. I'm ready for some normal, regular life.

But that's not the way it is in this fallen world, brother. So, let's talk about the church.

Welcome to the Rural Church Podcast. I am your co -host. One of your, yeah.

What did I say? One of your co -hosts? I am a co -host? I am. It's been so long.

See, you know, you wanted to jump right in, but we probably do need a slight amount of banter. But go ahead and get us introduced, and then we'll banter for just a moment more.

Okay. I'm Allen Nelson, one of the pastors at Providence Baptist Church in Perryville, Arkansas.

And with me is? Eddie Ragsdale, the pastor at Marshall First Baptist Church.

Hopefully not always the only pastor, but currently the only pastor. So, what was the banter? Well, I was just going to say, our listeners may not realize because of the way we do things that, you know, there's been an episode coming out every week, praise the

Lord. But you and I actually haven't spoken for about a month. Has it been a month? It's been a month. I think it's been before the wagon races.

Boy, it has been a little bit. And so, me, you know, I took a week off, and me and my kids went and we rode at the wagon races.

You've been to Mexico. You've been traveling internationally. Yeah. And so, yeah.

It's a lot going on. We're committed. This is just extra. You and I enjoy this.

It gives us a chance to kind of talk. We hope the feedback I've received from people has been encouraging us enough to keep going.

We hope that these episodes are helpful to some people. I know we have church members that listen and pastors that listen and just been reached out with encouraging comments.

So, I'm grateful for that. But this is really a lower priority for us. Right, right.

So, kind of, too, as a way of us jumping off into our discussion of the church, maybe tell us a little bit about what you guys were doing in Mexico on this trip.

And I know that you guys were, that the church was really at the heart of what you guys were doing, what you guys were preaching on this trip.

Cristo es digno de la iglesia saludable. I think I said that right. Christ is worthy of a healthy church.

And that's what our theme was in Tuxla. So, we went to Tuxla. We preached 12 signs of a healthy church.

And I was responsible for preaching in Tuxla on the ordinances and also on qualified elders.

Then we did some Q &As. I actually had some Q &As on reading the Bible covenantally.

It's something I had mentioned in my sermon. So, we walked through that. And also some Q &A on the gifts of prophecy and tongues and such.

So, that was encouraging. And then we went to another church in Villa Hermosa, Tabasco.

And we met with them about ordaining a pastor. And just a dear brother hearing the story is really, really encouraging.

The whole trip was encouraging. And it was all centered around the church.

That's what we do. Our mission investment right now is building and investing in healthy churches.

And what that looks like is teaching pastors, training pastors. Today, on Wednesday, we'll have a

Zoom meeting with pastors, preaching, evangelism. One of the things we did there was we went to a place and did some evangelism.

One of the pastors with us is Pastor Randall Easter. So, right now, it's all around and centered in the local church.

And so, I mean, that's just a short version. You could, if anybody wanted to do this, you could find on our website, on Sunday night,

September 15th, the Sunday night service of September 15th. It'll be on our

YouTube channel. I gave more detailed report of the mission trip. So, if you're interested in that. Or if you listen to this, you might be interested in, say, hey, that's something

I'd like to invest in financially or pray for or even go. Well, you feel free to reach out.

So, that YouTube channel would be Providence Baptist Church. What's the

YouTube channel there? Bro, why you be asking me this stuff? I don't know. I'm trying to help you.

I'm trying to promote. All right, click on YouTube. And then it's at Providence Baptist AR, like Providence Baptist Arkansas.

So, it's whatever. Providence Baptist AR. That's our YouTube. So, that's what we've been doing.

And there's so much more we could talk about that. But I thought, just kind of fresh from my mind, we would talk about today, you know, what even is a church?

So, I don't know if you have any more questions about the trip or anything you want to say. No, no. I think that's good. I just thought that would be a good way for us to kind of get into the discussion.

So, one thing we do, I'll start with a very basic definition. One thing we do,

I'm grabbing it right now, our catechism. But one thing we do on Sunday mornings is we're going,

I know you can see this, our listeners can't, but this is from Chapel Library, Catechism for Boys and Girls.

And this week, so we do about four or five a week. Well, no. So, how we do it is we do about four or five and we make it last for two weeks.

Right now, we're on question 114. But within that, those sets of questions is question 116.

And the question is, what is a church? Answer, an assembly of believers met together under the preaching of the

Word of God. Now, I'm going to toss that over to you. I don't think that's a complete definition. But I do think we get a basic definition.

So, I'll read it again. What is a church? An assembly of believers met together under the preaching of the

Word of God. So, I toss that to you. Eddie, what do you think about that definition? Yeah, I think the implication, it's one of those kind of things where, of course, it doesn't say everything.

But a person reading it could, by implication, draw out many of the true things.

So, of course, like you said, one of the things that you taught on was in Mexico was qualified elders.

And so, we would want to say that a church needs to have pastors, right?

Needs to have elders, needs to have brothers that God has called and that are qualified to lead the church to teach

God's Word. And the importance of God's Word as the thing that defines all the things that we do as a church.

One of the things that is really evident when you look at almost all of the historic confessions of faith is they almost all start with a statement about the

Scriptures. Because the Scriptures are what define what a church is and what our faith is and what the gospel is and who our

God is so that we believe the right things, so that we can live righteously in community.

So, you know, it's an assembly of believers, and we're being taught to live righteously.

Yeah, that's good, brother. We could talk about, and we never did an appreciation episode.

We did an episode that came out, and we just mentioned that David Miller was sick.

And then he passed away, and we never really, you know, just the way we record and stuff.

And I am dearly grateful for such a beloved brother. And he preached here.

He's impacted my life, and praise God for men like David Miller. I wish more men would know him.

And I would even say this, I wish more men would finish well, like brother David finished. Brother David preached, you know, that message here.

You were here for that. Yeah, because you taught a breakout. He preached that message here in 2017 on the church.

And he really pushed back, which we probably maybe have a little disagreement with him maybe on this.

But, you know, he really pushed back the idea against the universal church in the sense of the invisible.

And so we would agree that there is a universal church, certainly, invisible.

But his point, really, you know, his point he's making is in the Scriptures.

And so we're really not going to talk about the universal church so much. That's not the point of the episode.

Because the focal point here is in the Scriptures on a local, visible congregation.

That's just a focus. I mean, there is some, you know, when Christ gave himself for the church, I don't think it means just individual local churches, but the church of all believers of all time.

That's who Christ gave himself for. But these people, I put it to you this way. In fact, I said it like this in Mexico.

Figuratively speaking, as the blood of Christ flowed from Golgotha, it flowed into Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, Arkansas, Chiapas, Tabasco, Veracruz, the uttermost parts of the earth, and from the blood of Christ sprang up local churches.

That is, the gospel produces local churches. Yeah, and I think that I would agree that certainly the universal church is a thing that exists.

But I think Brother David's point was the only way that we experience the church is locally, though.

Even if you travel somewhere else, like you did traveling to Mexico, you still experience the church through the expression of local church bodies.

And you get these people that are like, yeah, I don't go to church, I am the church. Yeah, and that's just, no, the church is local church bodies.

Yeah, and I will say this. Jesus says in Matthew 16, 18,

I will build my church. So if you stop there, well,

I mean, maybe you could make that mean anything, right? You could make, well, the universal church. But what does he say after he says that, and we've talked about this a lot, too, with church discipline and stuff.

He says, I will give you the keys of the kingdom. He immediately, if I can use this word, institutionalizes the church.

That is, it's not just this invisible amorphous blob, because the church has been given the keys to the kingdom.

That is, it's actually impossible from the mind of Jesus to think of the church as just,

I'm just these individuals, I am the church. No, you can't think of it that way, because Jesus so clearly shows us that you can't.

I will build my church, and I'm going to give this institution the keys of the kingdom. Now, that leaves you some options.

Maybe you could say, obviously, this would be a wrong option. But you'd be like, oh, yeah, it's talking about the institutionalized church of Rome or whatever, or a state church or whatever.

Well, I would argue, no, that's not what he's talking about. He's talking about individual local churches have the keys to the kingdom.

Now, I do have a definition for a local church, but whenever you're ready for that, I'll toss that out there to you.

Yeah, throw it out there. Just before you do, one real quick thing I think we want to point out with that is that in the

New Testament, it's the fellowship that is at the heart of the life of the church.

You look at even the practice of eating the Lord's Supper. Yeah, in the practice of eating the

Lord's Supper, what Paul criticizes in 1 Corinthians 11 is that they're not sharing it, is that they're not doing it.

They're coming together, but some are going ahead and having too much and excess, and others aren't getting anything, and they're not sharing.

They're not really having fellowship with one another. If we think of,

I am the church, and we divorce that from the assembly and the fellowship of the body, the community that is the local church, then we've really lost what the local church is in favor of something that's very individualistic, which is probably very attractive both to Americans in general and postmodern people in general.

Well, even that definition I gave earlier, which we agree with, though it's basic, needs to be fleshed out some.

But what is a church? An assembly of believers met together. So twice it kind of emphasizes assembly.

And met together. And met together. That is the church. And there is something particularly to say about the church when it's gathered.

There's a gathering and scattering, as it were, but there's a power invested in the church when it is gathered with the keys of the kingdom and such.

Anyway, I'm going to give you a definition that is classic, and basically since the time of the

Reformation, that a local church must have three things.

This is not a healthy church, per se. This is just a church.

You understand what I'm saying? It's not saying, man, if you don't have these, you're not healthy. No, if you don't have these, you are not a church.

So here are the three classic pillars of what constitutes a church.

Number one, it's a place where the word of God is rightly preached.

Number two, it's a place where the ordinances are rightly administered.

And three, it's a place where church discipline is rightly practiced.

Now, people can argue with that definition. I'm just saying that is sort of the classic definition since the time of the

Reformation of what the church is. And I thought that we could really spend some time working through that, because if we don't have these right, then we don't have a church.

So let's walk through that together, because I know there will be some questions. But number one, where the word of God is rightly preached, this is what the catechism said.

I read that earlier. An assembly of believers met together under preaching of the word of God. And you've already kind of addressed this a little bit, but you want to talk about that even more.

What does it mean that the preaching of the word of God is at the forefront of the definition of a church?

Yeah, I mean, when we look at what God calls pastors to do, the qualifications that the word of God gives, the only qualification, if we think about those qualifications, really that is not tied more to his character, but to his ability, is his ability to teach.

Because at the heart of the church meeting is fellowship around the teaching, this putting forward of the gospel and what

God has taught in his word, so that the believers can live godly lives and then go out into the world to proclaim the gospel.

So, yeah, I think it's at the very heart of the church that the scriptures are taught by the pastors.

I mean, I think that's what we're doing when we're coming together in church. And I think that you can have church, you can have a true church that is sick.

But so you say maybe the preaching is weak or maybe the preaching, it's just not very good or whatever.

But the Bible is being opened and the sense of the text is being given.

Okay, that now there's some things obviously want to grow strong, expository preaching. But we're just talking about if that's not there, you're not a church.

Right. So like if you're gathering and you're maybe the Bible is open, it's just been telling stories or whatever, you know, or if the

Bible. So you're not talking about you're an unhealthy church, you're talking about you're not a church. Right. So now the second one is if we're going to exegete the the latest song on Caleb and not the scriptures.

Yeah. What are we doing? What are you doing? So, OK, so I think these next two will need to flesh out some things.

I think that one's easy. Like the word of God must be being preached or you're not a church.

You're gathered together and you're under the preaching of the word of God.

OK, secondly, now we talk about the ordinances must be rightly administered. Now, I will say this, this is pushing back.

This is I think Calvin gave this definition anyway. This is pushing back against, obviously, Rome. OK, so how many ordinances are there?

Well, we we would recognize two in Rome would recognize all kinds of sacraments.

Well, they have seven. Yes, seven. Seven sacraments. Yeah. So we're recognizing baptism in the

Lord's Supper now. And I know people have gone different directions on this in Baptist are notoriously ready for a fight.

I'm not I'm not saying that Presbyterians are not a church. Well, I was going to ask you that very question.

Yeah. So I would say that I would obviously say that their practice is unhealthy.

I would say it's problematic, you know, but I would say the difference is the agreement that we have with the with baptism, for example, the agreement we have is that baptism is not salvific and it is a sign of a of the new covenant.

And it and it points us to Christ, you know. And so I'm willing to have that.

So I'm not saying, you know, you don't you guys don't even have a church at all.

I think that would be too far, you know, and I think I think it'd be uncharitable.

But I also think it's not wouldn't even be technically correct. You know, now I know there's I got some strong Baptist folks that like to bring that up.

But our Presbyterian brothers are congregational, which I don't even know if there are congregational churches anymore.

But the you know, the congregational type, you know, I'm talking about Owen Edwards.

I'm not saying they weren't part of churches because they, too, practice ordinances. I would say the two only two ordinances they practice baptism wrong in error.

Well, at least when it comes to children now, a lot of Pato Baptist will immerse adults, you know, that they come to conversion.

So so anyway, I mean, what did you want to say about that? Well, I was going to ask that very question is, is how do we think about churches that we would consider as churches, churches that would align with us around the gospel, but would have differences on the issues of the ordinances?

They might not even like using the term ordinances. They probably wouldn't like that.

But but I'm going to press this a little bit more. What if it what if we're talking about a prayer, which there's very few of them that do this?

But what if what if it's not just baptism, but it's also the

Lord's Supper? They're they're they're doing Pato communion, which well, I mean,

I think it's similar to Baptist churches that are that they may not do

Pato communion, per se, but they do. Oh, you know, officially, but they do open communion.

They just let everybody take it, you know, and I would say both those practice are practices are in error and they're serious, but they're not.

You know, I mean, I think if somebody saying like the Lord's Supper is Coke and Dorito chip

Doritos or something. Yeah. Now we're talking about something. It's not. Yeah, they're not. Or man, there's some churches that they don't do the

Lord's Supper, you know? Yeah. Well, you can just tell me, like, I can't remember the last time we did that.

You're like, OK, well, you're not a church, right? Because you have to observe the ordinances and we could have a different episode about frequency and all that, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. But the point and you made it, you just said something I want to and I failed.

I should have brought it up. But when we talk about the right preaching of the word of God, the gospel is at the forefront.

We must preach the gospel. Right. If we're not preaching the gospel, we're ultimately not being a

New Testament church. Now, we could talk about frequency of how much do you have to preach the gospel every sermon?

I do. I do. I'm not necessarily saying you have to do that to be a true church or whatever.

I'm just saying that the gospel must be at the forefront of your preaching, the life, the righteous life, the substitutionary death and the resurrection of Christ for sinners and the call to repent and believe like we must.

That's the right preaching. And then the ordinances point us to the gospel and they remind us of the promises of God.

And they're also something tangible for us to hold on to, as it were, of a commitment pledge even on our end of we believe these promises.

I think the point about the ordinances is them not being a means of justifying grace.

Right. They're not a means of regenerative grace. Yeah. So not a baptismal regenerationist view or a full -on sacerdotal view where grace is being administered in the elements or in the…

Yeah. But let's be clear. We have to have this discussion today. Baptism is for believers.

Baptism by immersion is a redundant statement. You don't… The sign must…

Immersion by immersion. Yeah. The sign must signify…

If the sign doesn't show forth what it's signifying, it's not the sign.

Right. Well, immersion is the sign, being baptized into the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, showing forth our death to sin and newness to life.

Read Romans 6. You don't get that. You get that no other way but baptizing believers.

Then the Lord's Supper is for… So what we do at our church is close communion.

So we do open the table to other churches of like faith and practice who are not under discipline.

Now, you say that may sound kind of broad, but we're such a small church. We know when people are visiting, and we take the

Lord's Supper once a month. So when people are visiting, when we take the Lord's Supper, we're able to talk about that with them, usually before the service.

So that's how we fence the table. But we don't just say, okay, guys,

Lord's Supper, whoever wants to come, have it. So right preaching, administration of the ordinances.

And then here's another one that we need to flesh out. But the right practice of church discipline.

And so that implies formal membership, right? Yeah. Yeah. Now, so here's the question with that.

If we take this definition, these criteria, here is the practical implication of that.

Then there are very few churches. Well, I would say that we want to be careful with this one as well, and we want to be gracious, and we want to give churches time for correction, because churches slide into error.

So here, this would be one argument. A lot of churches that don't do church discipline today, that's not how they started out.

You know what I'm saying? There's a lot of churches, if you go back to their early foundation, that was a practice.

And I would say this, they still are doing membership practices.

I'm talking about a lot of these churches. They still do membership. They're still doing formal covenantal membership.

But now they're at the point, yes, so I'm circling back to what you said, but they are at the point now, after decades and decades and decades, where you're like, okay, you're sliding into a position where like, you're not even actually a church if you don't care about membership.

So it's not my goal in this episode to be like, you're not a church, you're not a church. But it is my goal in the episode to like, let's think, like, this is weighty.

Yeah. So if you don't care, so if you don't care about preaching, you don't care about administrating the ordinances, if you don't care about membership, you're not a local church.

And I really like how that you mentioned that you really know if a church cares about church discipline by whether or not they care about membership to start with.

Because a church could argue, let's say there's a church, and they've not had any kind of formal active church discipline in decades.

Yeah. It's hard to believe, but I suppose they could argue we've had no sin requiring it.

Individuals have gone to individuals and they've just always repented. And so it's just not been.

And I suppose we could, we would have to say graciously, praise the Lord. You know,

I hope that that's true, because that's amazing that God has given you these decades with no issue that would require church discipline or formal, you know, the point of public church discipline.

But that being said, if the church doesn't even have membership, if they're just a preaching point, if they're just a place where people come, but there is no covenantal tie between the attendees and this institution, then at some point you've got to say, well, you don't you don't care about church discipline because your structure doesn't even make it possible.

Well, and that and it's like, so you have church plants, things like that. You have people gathering like it's

OK, like you're gathering on Sunday, you're preaching. But until you're constituted as a church, you don't you shouldn't be doing the ordinances.

And and how you're constituted church, I think it's in scripture. I think it's a biblical precedent.

Churches plant churches. So it's a pretty rare case where someone just goes out and plants a church.

Although that's kind of how we do it now, or we use mission organizations to plant churches. We just say sponsoring church formality.

You know, but in the scriptures, I think the pattern is we want to see churches send out ordained, authorized representatives to plant churches, churches, plant churches.

And and one of the things to be constituted as a church is you need to have defined membership that that could be.

It should be written down. I think that we could make arguments from, you know, enrolling the widows and such that the early church kept written down records.

The point is, you know who's in and who's out. There's a defined membership.

Yeah. Whether written or verbal. I think the members have to know that they've made a covenantal commitment and at least the elders have to know it.

Well, I mean, otherwise, how could anything function in the church if the individuals don't know that they've committed to this church, that they're a member in that sense?

And the elders don't know who the members are. I just don't even know how that could function.

Because you couldn't do church discipline. You couldn't you really wouldn't even be able to know how to discipline or how to fence properly.

You know, we practice the Lord's Supper fairly similarly to the way you guys do fencing in a pretty similar way.

But even even there, that would be difficult if we had no clue who

Marshall First Baptist was. Well, and I was I was a situation one time at a church.

I wasn't at this church, but I knew of this church that they had to openly homosexual women as part of the church.

But but the church didn't have membership. So it was like, OK, what about you know,

I'm saying like that's a that's a problem. You're not a church. And and so I think this matters greatly.

I think that we need to talk. So also, it kind of helps us. So, for example, the other day, our friend

Gunnar, he was talking about cowboy churches. You know, he said, that's not even a church. Well, you know how

I feel about that. Right. But if we use this definition, there's some things that could be a church.

I mean, we might. Yeah, I would

I would I would want to say I know of some

I know of some cowboy churches that I would disagree with that methodology. But I genuinely believe that they are preaching and teaching the scriptures and the gospel.

They really are. They really are baptizing people according to what

Christ instructed us. They really are bringing people into the membership of the church and they they really are eating the

Lord's Supper together. And as far as I know, I don't have any reason not to believe that they're practicing church discipline.

And so it would I think I think it would be very ungracious to say, but because I disagree,

I think this is a bad method or strategy. It's very unhealthy practice and unhealthy.

And I agree. And I agree. I don't think it's a healthy. But that's not what that that they still meet the definition.

We want to be careful of. So it's not a blanket, all cowboy churches, churches.

But I'm saying you can't say none of them. Yeah, that's perfect.

Perfectly said. And that's that's the thing. Like, you want to be careful. We're talking about Christ's bride. So if she's sick, you want to help her.

You want to move her towards health. But you don't want to say you don't want to begin anathematizing churches that actually they may be sick, but they are churches.

I'll just read from the from the 1689. This is a beautiful chapter. I'm not going to read the whole chapter.

It'd be way too long. It's a lot. But I will read chapter 26, paragraph three. The purest churches under heaven are subject to mixture and error.

And some have so degenerated as to become no churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan.

Nevertheless, Christ always has had and ever shall have a kingdom in this world to the end thereof of such as believe in him and make profession of his name.

OK, the church is the kingdom. The kingdom is expressed in local, visible congregations.

And even the best find me the best local church in the world today.

And I will show you a church that is imperfect, that needs to grow, that needs to reform, that needs to improve.

So even the best of churches are subject to needing that. And then you and then you kind of go down the scale.

Other churches need it even more. But you do eventually get to get to a point where the confession is pretty strong.

Synagogues of Satan, of course, there they are referencing Revelation there.

But so on one hand, I want to be careful. And what you said is true.

There are sick churches, but they're still true churches. But on the other hand, let's be clear, too.

There are people gathering in in the name, they say, of the Lord. But they're not.

They are. This is not a true church. Right. The gospel is not here. It's all about entertainment.

It's all about self. You know, I just go ahead and say name in my mind.

First thing pops up, Stephen Ferdinand, you know, or Joel Osteen or whatever. Like just because you're gathering in the name so called, you're saying you're gathering in the name of the

Lord doesn't mean that you're a church. So this is this is just so, again, like we could have no whole nother episode.

And we have about what's a healthy church. But really in this episode, we just kind of been working through.

OK, bottom line, what is a church at all? Yeah. And let's distinguish something else in in common language that around us, a lot of people use the phrase we're going to have church.

Yeah. Not we're going to meet together as the church. We're going to have church. And they even refer to some things as having church that aren't that aren't the church at all.

Right. So sometimes you'll hear people say, well, I was talking to these other believers and we got to singing some songs and and we we were having church.

And it was like, well, no, there was no church there. And I'm not even disparaging that that was a bad experience.

That is the thing that shouldn't have happened. I'm saying even as good it wasn't church because your church is not just something you have.

It's not just something you do. It's a it's an assembly. As we said in that simple little definition we had at the very beginning, that's meeting together.

And so it's and another thing I would say about that, we mentioned the Cowboy Churches a while ago.

While I think there are some true Cowboy Churches, that movement also, you know, every rodeo, every high school rodeo, every whatever, they're going to say, you know, at nine o 'clock before we start the rodeo on Sunday, we're going to have

Cowboy Church. Well, there's no church meeting there. Yeah.

What they're going to sing some songs and somebody is going to get up and hopefully they're going to share the gospel.

Right. But the point we're saying is that's not a church. That's not a church.

You don't just have a church with just an assembly that came together that day for that one time and will never meet together again.

That's not a church. But we often refer to that as having church.

And I think that confuses just the general population to think that church is a thing you do, not a group of people you belong to.

It's a place you go, not a covenant community of people that you are invested in.

And we say this all the time. I say it and I'm wrong. You know, it's just our vernacular. We're going to church.

We mean we're going to the church building. Right. But more biblically accurate, technically, we say, well, we're going to gather with the church.

Even if my building were to blow away, we still go and gather with the church.

That's the thing. The church is the gathering. There's no such thing as being the church without gathering.

Like I am the church. Like, no. And by the way, no, you are not. Individually, you are not the church.

Right. Any more than you would say one brick is the building. This is the building.

No, this is the brick in the building. It's part of the building, a central, important part of the building.

But this brick is not the building. Neither is the individual the church. You are part of the church, but you are not the church without gathering with the church.

And you like living stones are being built up. Yeah. Yeah. That's how Peter says it.

That's right. Yeah. Now we're getting in eschatology again. We're the temple. We're not waiting on the temple, bro.

That's right. That's right. We are the temple. That's right. Something else to mention here.

You know, one of my formative experiences as a Christian. So I was converted in October of 1991.

Bad. Bad. That makes me old, doesn't it? What were you like? You were like two or what?

I was like 12. So I was converted in October of 1991.

We joined the church, First Baptist Church in Shirley. In January of 1992, that church burned to the ground.

Oh, man, we often say if this building were gone. We but but my very first church experience as a believer was of our church actually growing, actually getting closer in fellowship and love for one another through a time when we did not have a building.

Yeah. And and we rebuilt built a building actually in another place where the church was at that, you know.

But but my point is just to say that was one of the formative experiences

I had as just an infant Christian of. Oh, yeah. The church, the church building is not what the church is.

Yeah. Yeah. At all. We can be anywhere and be the church. And you're saying that in a positive way.

But a lot of people say it in the way of like that, that building, not the church. And what they mean is, so they don't ever they don't ever have to go.

Right. Wherever your building is, that's where the church gathers. And that is and that is that is the place the local church meets.

And by the way, we can get a miss. It's not where two or three are gathered. You know, that's

Matthew 18. That's dealing with church discipline. So you're not like, hey, two or three of us, part of our church were gathered out here in the deer woods.

Like, no, it's it's the assembly. It's met together under the preaching of the word of God.

Hey, listen, I thought I know we're getting kind of long here, but this is so good not to read. So let me read paragraph six, seven and eight from the confession.

And when I say the confession, you know what I'm saying? All right. Paragraph six chapter. Again, this is the same same chapter.

So chapter twenty six, paragraph six. The members of these churches are saints by calling, visibly manifesting and evidencing in and by their profession and walking their obedience unto that call of Christ and do willingly consent to walk together according to the appointment of Christ, giving up themselves to the

Lord and one to another by the will of God and profess subjection to the ordinances of the gospel.

Paragraph seven to each of these churches thus gathered, according to his mind declared in his word, if given all that power and authority, which is in any way needful for their carrying on that order and worship and discipline, which he has instituted for them to observe with commands and rules for the do and right, exerting and executing of that power.

Paragraph eight. A particular church gathered and completely organized according to the mind of Christ consist of officers and members and the officers appointed by Christ to be chosen and set apart by the church, so called and gathered for the peculiar administration of ordinances and execution of power or duty, which he entrusts them with or calls them to to be continued to the end of the world are bishops or elders, or we would also add or pastors, overseers, et cetera, and deacons.

So, again, that's that's chapter 26, paragraph six, seven and eight.

Again, I would encourage you not just going to sit here and read the whole thing, but I would encourage you to read anyone to read.

It's a very good definition of of what the church is. Any any thoughts you want to mention from that?

No, I think I think that was that was really good. And it's very helpful for us to think about, you know, what the church is and and who we are as as individually members of it.

As Paul says in first Corinthians 12, you know, Paul's explicit there about the importance of our being members of the body and the body there that he's talking about when he's writing the

Corinthians is the Corinthian church. Right. He's talking to a local church and he's talking about them being individually members of the body there.

And so I think that's that's all of what. So in its individual churches that are invested, you heard that with the power and authority to carry out the commission, all these things.

It is individual churches. This is what God is doing in the world today.

He's not building. No, I'm not saying no network or no organization or convention is of the

Lord. I'm not saying that, but I'm saying the focus of what God is doing today is the church, local, visible congregations.

The further we move out from that, the worse things can tend to get.

Again, I'm not saying a network is wrong or associations wrong. We see that in the scriptures, churches working together.

All that's great. But but the focal point, better understand that what

God is doing in the world today is building churches. That really helps us with missions.

Like, what are we doing? You know, we didn't even talk about worship, but we've had episodes before about the regulative principle and all that.

You know, I mean, that should all be part of of what's happening in the church. But the point

I'm trying to say is this is the kingdom. This is what God is doing. And if you miss this, you really miss the heart of Christianity.

It's not just about saving individual people. It's about saving a people for his possession.

Titus 2, saving a family. That are zealous for good works. Zealous for good works.

Yeah, that's something the Lord is just I've been seeing it just everywhere in the scriptures here lately.

And, you know, we don't want to get into the things that are going on currently. But but just the need for holiness.

Amen. You know, the need for I mean, everywhere in the scriptures. And maybe this is a thing that that our brothers in our audience would really need to hear.

Brothers and sisters in our audience. Listen, it's not enough just to know the right doctrines. Amen. Memorize your your your catechism and your 1689

Baptist confession. But but if we just know all that stuff and it doesn't drive us to righteous living.

With our brothers and I would just add to this with our brothers and sisters in the church.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not not A .W. Pink bouncing out, you know. Right. Right. I'm saying drive us to just so.

The point in Hebrews 10, when the Hebrew writer says not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some.

But he encourages us to continue to meet together. And the reason for that is so that we can stir one another up to love and good deeds.

Right. That's the reason to keep meeting together is that we stir one another up to love and good deeds, to righteous, holy living.

And we just need that. We've got to. I think for too long, we've kind of we've kind of we've kind of taken it like if you got your doctrine right, we can we can we cannot be too concerned about the way a person's living.

And that's just that's not right. Just like we would say a person that's claiming that they're living a righteous life, but they're believing something that's that's heretical, that's unbiblical.

We would call them out on that false doctrine. But we also need to realize that that doctrine ought to lead to right practice.

Amen. And and I'm finding more and more over the last couple of few years, really, it's all about it's all about within the context of the church.

That's right now. So your doctrine, right. Your living right all within the confines of the church.

And I'm finding this more and more about all the controversy, all the things, things that we could have talked about today and things that we still may talk about.

But you have enough to do in your local church. That's right.

I promise you that there is enough, especially if you're a pastor or a or a or just a church member.

Yeah, there is a lot of things that you could be doing for the advancement, health improvement of your local church without having to fall into every single controversy.

That was me for a while with the SBC. I think it was a noble fight, but it was just off.

I've got points drain too much time for me because what's more important, you really have to believe.

So maybe we can in here, but you really have to believe this in all that's going on in the world today.

More eternal significance is happening in that little church in via Hermosa, Tabasco than it is with the presidential election.

Now, I know I was like, whoa, whoa. Some people may even argue, not even believe that. But I'm just saying

I believe that because I believe that where God is working and what God is doing today. Yes, we see these big things out front.

God's working in those two. But what God is doing in the world today is building and investing and working through churches to bring a people onto his own possession under the headship of Christ for the glory of his son.

Amen and amen. Let me have one encouragement for our brothers that might be listening to this, because this this could come off as, well, my church is so far from where it needs to be.

And I would say this. So is mine. But but here's the encouragement.

We can look at where God's brought us. So sometimes we can get discouraged if we're looking at our ideal of what we we think the

New Testament's teaching that the church ought to look a certain way. And we can we can almost become discouraged because we think, man, there's just no way to get from here to there or it's going to be too hard to get from here to there.

And and we can become discouraged and thinking it's never going to happen. And at the same time,

I would encourage you will look back how far has the Lord brought you? And you may see, of course, each person's situation will be different, but you may see, wow, over these last six months or six years or 16 years that you've been at your church, the

Lord has brought you a long way. And then think, where can the Lord bring you in another six months, another six years, another 16 years?

If we will just covenant and commit and stay at, keep your hand to the plow at the local church, the

Lord will bring about not just growth the way that the world usually thinks of it.

More people, more dollars, more all those things. But the kind of change and transformation and maturity among the body of Christ that we that we want to see that that comes because we we keep at the very thing

Christ is doing, which is, as you said, I will build my church. That's such an encouragement.

I really appreciate you saying that, you know, and this is the saying we have, and it's just kind of caught on.

And I don't care if it's ever tied to me or not, but I just wish it would catch on more and more.

And that is Christ is worthy of a healthy church. And you say, so you so I encourage it like, oh,

I just can't. I just don't ever. OK, but Christ is worthy. Christ is worthy of your efforts there.

Christ is worthy of your praying. One simple thing. Take the members of your church, write them down on a piece of paper if you don't already have it and pray for them and continue to press and you'll have to make hard decisions.

And here's the thing. I had this discussion with my wife recently, but you have to be you have to say, you know what, if I'm fired, so be it.

I'm not saying go out there and duly do something stupid. I'm not saying that. Right. But you just have to get to the point where you just say, look, this is worth more than my salary.

This is again, be wise. But when it comes down to it, this is the direction we've got to go.

And you have to actually push in that direction. Some guys try to lead by centimeters and over 25 years, they haven't moved an inch.

You know, you've got to you've got to push. Sometimes you've got to say you got to make some stand.

Sometimes you do have to know your battles, but you do have to actually fight some battles, you know, and you have to say,

OK, this is what we're doing. But I'm just saying Christ is worthy of it. He's worthy of a healthy church.

Yeah. What you think? That's good, man. That's OK. Well, we will. The outro music should be playing at this point now because I do have one final exhortation.

You ready for it? I'm ready. If you don't have your tree up by the time this episode, it's time to get the tree.

So happy fall, y 'all. If you really believe the church is the building, the church is the house.

The church is what God's doing. This this is his work. If we really believe what

Ephesians says, we are the poimos, the masterpiece of God. How are you going to respond?