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Father in heaven we come before you this morning just Delighted to be here first of all secondly just delighted in all that you've created around us as we just think about the Beautiful leaves the beautiful day that you've given us all the beauty that surrounds us.
Father you are a great creator and a great sustaining God Lord as we look to your word this morning and what it says about the church. I just pray that you'd give us a renewed Interest in these things a renewed Appreciation of what you are accomplishing In and through your church and father the importance that you place on it.
And I pray that you'll bless each one here in Christ's name. Amen and for those who will listen later I Was reminded last night that people do that. You know, some people just can't handle being here in person when I adjust my stand.
Sorry. So, you know, one of the things I like about Facebook is people post things I wouldn't ordinarily see. And the other day I mean for good or for ill but the other day I was struck By something someone posted about a church in the Midwest.
And it was actually a rather unique church I thought because you talk about limiting yourself by demographics. How many of you have ever been to some form of an ethnic church. I Remember when I preached once at a Chinese church, I got the invitation.
I thought okay, that's a little bit different. You know, am I gonna have a translator? They're like they laughed at me like I was a knucklehead because I am. Because they have two separate services one for the adults Who only speak Chinese and then one for the younger people who speak English and so I was in the English-speaking one.
Which made sense? I've also been With pastor Mike we we went to an African American church few times which was different too because when they said How long do you have to preach and he said until you're done they meant it.
You know, they just kept going and going and it was kind of we didn't get a briefing. You know one of the things about the sheriff's part of that they did well as they would brief you what to expect and here we show up at this church and After the opening hymn, you know, all of a sudden everybody stands up.
Turns around and kneels and I was like We're trying to catch up because they were all gonna kneel to pray and I thought We don't do that. My knees got pretty sore, but I digress. I mean there's there are differences.
But how about this for a limiting factor? This church is african-american. I think it was in the Detroit area. But it's also homosexual and I just thought and you know, you go to don't go to the page, but I Went to the page and you know, it had a picture of two black men and I just thought okay.
I mean I'm not just thinking pragmatically. I'm thinking biblically but pragmatically I'm thinking that's just dumb if you know anything about the African American community. Or the Hispanic community, they're not it.
They're very traditional in their family structures. They don't like this whole idea, I mean the Homosexuality these people are almost separated almost Segregated out from the community so to speak and so the idea of this Homosexual African-american church, I thought that's bizarre and then I went on to read there's already one Atlanta and there are several other ones and I just thought They're proliferating African-american homosexual churches and he said this writer said don't try to fight it.
It's just what God's doing. And I thought to myself. Oh, there's a God who's doing it. All right small G. But this is it just reminded me of how really the church is under assault the idea of the church is Under assault.
Let's open our Bibles to Matthew 16 18 and there are a lot of things I Mean, there are a lot of things we could say about this verse. I'm not going to go through the whole context. Peter's just made his great confession That Jesus is the Christ and we come to Matthew 16 18 and the Lord says and I tell you you are Peter and On this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell Shall not prevail against it.
Now I really have no interest this morning and discussing what it means upon this rock I'll tell you I'll give you a hint. It's not the Roman Catholic Church. It could be his confession it could be Peter some people say it's the disciples the Apostles generally there are Several different theories about it, but there are three things.
I want to bring out briefly before we go any further. First of all, you look at it. The Lord says I will build. It's not you know, I'm thinking about constructing it's not I may work through a parachurch organization.
He says I will build leaving no doubt about it, this is his determined Nature this is what he's going to do. Secondly. Look it says my church. I had a Professor in seminary he used to say so tell us about your church.
And he'd always say and I can't almost help but talk like me. Oh, no. No, no. It's not my church. It's the Lord's Church. Because that was his attitude always. It's not his church. It's not Mike's Church.
It's not my church. It's the Lord's Church. And that's helpful. Not just in keeping our egos somewhat in check. But also just in in terms of thinking about we have a stewardship. We have a responsibility.
These people are not our people even though they are our people. We are under shepherds. He's the Great Shepherd. We are under authority. But putting those two ideas together I will build my church. He's going to do it.
It belongs to him and today. What do we see? We see people trying to do what build their own church gather their own sheep and goats. Wheaton Terrace just bring them all in and the idea seems to be you know.
What if we get too many people then we'll just build a bigger barn. But we're not gonna we're not gonna chase anybody away. We want to build the church. We want to grow the church. Church growth. I mean this whole idea of church growth if you just look at this verse you to go.
I don't understand that Church growth. I will build my church. Jesus is going to grow his church. We're not gonna do it and if you know the elders here, you know that we're not gonna do it. We can't do it, but the third point here and the gates of hell Shall not prevail against it.
What do you suppose the significance of that is other than the obvious? The gates of hell will not provide the gates of Hades or death really more literally will not prevail against it. What do you think that means?
Okay, the sin of the world there isn't enough sin to really ultimately drag the church down any any. Other thoughts about that Peggy. Okay, the Lord will prevail. He will accomplish his goal of building the church.
Bruce. Okay gates are built to in ancient times. They were built to keep people out and the gates of hell will not be able to Keep us Out of heaven, I guess so anyway, I'm gonna I'm gonna mess it up other thoughts Brian.
Okay, everything death and everything I come and encompassing death and won't have any impact on the church. Okay, if we think about the gates of hell, I mean to me. Or the gates of death obviously, there is that idea of hell and death and The idea that death or hell cannot overcome the church, but even more than that I would suggest to you that the gates of hell as a symbol It certainly indicates shall not prevail against it.
That Satan and the forces of darkness will not prevail against it. There's a struggle going on for the church there always has been there always will be when we think about. Many of you know most of you know by now that my background is Mormon and they say that within a very short period of time after the Lord was crucified and the disciples were killed off, so we're talking about 95 100 AD somewhere in there that Basically the truth left the earth and then it didn't come back until Joseph Smith Reestablished it and so for you know, 1 ,700 years the truth was gone and I look at this and I go Jesus said I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
1 ,700 years it was gone. No. Well, what else? Within a very short period of time. This is true within a few hundred years. The Roman Catholic Church was the dominant Christian Church on the face of the planet.
Persecuting those who actually taught the Bible and putting them to what? Death. Today, it's not so outrageous the forces of Evil at least in the United States and in most of the world are not persecuting the church, but they are in some places in Africa in Asia.
There's certainly a lot of persecution we think even of Brothers and sisters behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War we think of them now in China. There's certainly some persecution there. But there's something Pernicious going on.
I think in our culture and that would be this idea of like I said this African American homosexual church Getting the church to accept the idea that Sexual deviancy is no longer a sin and it's something that must be accepted in the cultural norm.
That's an assault against the church. It's a little more subtle than physical persecution. I mean people, you know, even today we think well I I don't know what I would do if you know persecution really came upon the church.
Well, I don't think we do know but Like The men who were burned at the stake and the people who were put to death for their faith even during Roman times God gave them grace and Right now it's pretty easy to be a Christian relatively easy.
But there may come a time where it won't be but God will give the grace then but the point of this passage here is Jesus Christ does win. He does get his way. But there's opposition there always is there always will be but I wanted to ask the question this morning, what is the church?
We're gonna get to the bigger picture of should you love the church and we're gonna spend Weeks probably talking about the different aspects of the church how it should be structured what it should be doing what church life should be locally look like a lot of different things and I'm pulling together different resources from Nine marks people from MacArthur a lot of different places.
But what is the church the church is the work ultimately of our Lord? He's the one who does it. Listen what JC Ryle says. The church of our text is made up of all true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ it comprehends or includes all who have repented of sin and Fled to Christ by faith and been made new creatures in him.
It comprises all God's elect all who have received God's grace all who have been washed in Christ's blood all who have been clothed in Christ's righteousness all who have been born again and sanctified by Christ's Spirit.
All such of every nation and people and tongue compose the church of our text. This is the body of Christ. This is the flock of Christ. This is the bride. This is the Lamb's wife. This is the church built on the rock.
Now he goes on to say that not all members of the church worship God in the same way or use the same form Of government. He says that's fine. You can be Presbyterian or in those days Episcopalian, I don't know if there are too many Anglican or Episcopalian churches these days that actually preach the Bible.
There are a few but they're becoming more rare. It's kind of funny. If you go around the world, where are the most conservative mainline churches? Africa mostly. You know when you talk about the Anglican Church there or even the the Catholic Church, they're the ones who want to hold on to The traditional understanding of what it means to be Roman Catholic or Episcopalian either one.
It's when you go to the more European areas that you come into the bigger problems. He this is Ryle again He says all whether they're Episcopalian, whatever they are if they're truly Christ, they all worship with one heart.
They're all led by one spirit. They are really and truly holy. They can all say alleluia and they can all reply. Amen. This is that church To which all visible churches on earth are servants. In other words, there's an invisible church.
Every single one who believes is in the church Universal the Catholic small C Universal Church. That's why you know when you hear that phrase from some confessions one church. One Holy Church Catholic or whatever.
Everybody goes Roman Catholic. No, it just means universal so. Don't need to worry about that but that's that's what we all belong what we all belong to and Again, Ryle says they are the scaffolding Behind which the great building is carrying on they are the husk Under which the living kernel grows a lot of plant talk this morning.
They have their various degrees of usefulness. Right. I mean churches which are more Formal and less instructive. Maybe there are a lot of Christians there, but they don't really Tend to grow as much they're not as useful to the Lord.
But he says the best and worthiest of them is that which trains up most members for Christ's true church. But no visible church has any right to say and this is important. We are the only true church we are the men and Wisdom shall die with us.
Why is that important? That no one can say we are the true church the one true church. Everyone else is wrong except for us. What. Yeah, that's a cult. Somebody says, you know if Bethlehem Bible Church ever puts in their statement of faith.
We have the truth. We have cornered it. There is no one else. It's interesting if you if you look at cults, this is one of their marks. They say we are the only true church. That's true of the Mormons the Jehovah Witnesses.
Several other churches some of which I won't name because they're too big, but that's just true. He says no visible church should ever dare to say we shall stand forever. The gates of hell will not overcome us.
Because it's the wrong wrong way to think. Just as bad as we are building. The church is the idea that we are going to stand and no power of darkness will ever overcome us. That's just wrong thinking.
The elders here we all acknowledge that we are frail and sinful men. Heaven forbid that we would ever say the gates of hell will not overcome us. Church is not built upon men, but upon Christ's blessing upon his work.
Let's look at Ephesians 4 11 and 12. Want us to see this that the church is the entity upon which our Lord bestows gifts. The church is first the work of our Lord and then secondly the church is the entity upon which our Lord bestows gifts.
Ephesians 4 verses 11 and 12 and who would read that please go ahead. This is Really one of my favorite Passages in all the Bible because it has so much Again so much that we can draw out of it. He obviously referring to the Lord Jesus Christ in the context and he gives these gifts really to The church why and it's right there in verse 12.
To equip the Saints for the work of ministry. I love it so much because It's the Saints who are supposed to do the work of ministry. It's the people in the pew that are to be equipped to do the work. For the building up of the body of Christ The Lord gives Gifts he gives teachers and preachers to the church.
Why. So that the the Word of God will be adequately and accurately proclaimed to them so that they may apprehend it. So they'll understand it and so that they do what go out and they preach the gospel to people.
They encourage one another they do all the things that the Bible talks about because they know it. They've been equipped to do it and what ultimately happens is right there at the end of the verse for building up the body of Christ.
The body itself is being built. How? Through the work of ministry and ministry of Mike Abendroth. No, it's through the word. It's through the will of the Lord and it's through the efforts of the Saints who are being equipped by The shepherds and teachers.
Now every Elder every pastor should have one goal. Let's look at Colossians 128 again just an overview before I start. We start dealing with specific items. We should have one goal and it goes right along with Ephesians 4.
Colossians 1 verse 28 again a familiar verse Him we proclaim Jesus we proclaim warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom. That we may present everyone mature in Christ. The goal here at Bethlehem Bible Church is that every single person who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ Would become a mature Christian no longer like newborn babes.
Who can only take milk but those who can digest meat those in fact that word they're mature means perfect complete. Kind of if you were to throw a German phrase on it, you know, you would be the uber bench the the Superman Superhero of Christians.
It's the idea yes, it is kind of funny. I Mean we never fully attain that but you you know, you hope by some time in life and for some it happens earlier. For some later, but that you've gathered enough knowledge.
That you can actually start practicing these things. That you can help people that you can minister to the body that you can not just be somebody who needs. But somebody who who helps. Somebody who can adequately minister the word to other people to other believers in their time of need or even unbelievers.
You know, how do you by the way? The other day I just I mentioned this in class the other night I've talked about my Mormon friend a few times like the one who said that I was saved while I was in the Mormon Church.
I just didn't know it. I don't know if I mentioned I knew that for some time his wife had been sick. Well, she died this week. Her funeral was yesterday 50 years old and you know, so how do you come alongside an unbeliever whose Wife has just died who says, you know, he knows she's in a better place, etc, etc, etc.
How do you do that? Well with great care. But these are these are things that we need to be thinking about. I you know. As a church body our goal should be that we never get to a point where we just say I don't know what to do.
Help me. I mean if we do that's fine. But you should as you grow in maturity in your knowledge of the word. Application of the word should come along with it. You should think okay. What do I say to people?
You know, how do I comfort them in this time? Do I lie to them and say yes? You know, she is in a better place or he is in a better place whatever the case may be. But we want everyone to be mature in Christ that is our goal.
Okay. Now I'm going to we're gonna go over. Because I think this is important later on. I I think you know my my head I'm sort of planning ahead and I'm thinking well eventually and this isn't an invitation eventually.
We'll talk about how to biblically leave a church. But I want to talk about what a church should be composed of first and I stole these from nine marks and Many of these will be familiar to you. But I think we we ought to have this discussion before we go any further nine marks of a biblical church.
I think one of the great Fact I have it in my future notes for future weeks. I Found a book it's really not a book, but it looks like it should be a book. It's called church hopping for dummies and it really has become quite the fad, right?
You just stay in a church until you figure out and then you move on. I Mean, we've had some very interesting Reasons why people leave but Church hopping has become quite the thing. We tend to I think many people tend to view especially Americans.
We tend to view church as as Changeable as a grocery store or as changeable as I don't know. Do you change allegiance to your sports teams that easily? I actually I think people probably change their allegiances to their church more easily than they do their sports teams.
If you don't believe that I want to convert you into being a Lakers fan, it's just I know it's not gonna happen, right. But the first mark of a biblical church Really has to be expository preaching. Let's open our Bibles to 2nd, Timothy 2nd Timothy chapter 4 and if I could get somebody to read verses 1 to 4, please Bruce now we say a lot of times that that sounds like today and it does doesn't it?
But I'm gonna tell you something if you went back 1900 years and we read this in a church service you'd say that sounds just like today. Because they were doing it then, you know all this hubbub about the the so-called gospel of whoever that was Mary or whoever it was where Jesus was supposedly married and then it turned out the whole document was shock a fraud.
People were even in the early days looking for something new something different something that spoke to them. Something that incorporated more of their worldview the the whole Gnostic Gospel thing came out of this idea that somehow we can marry the ideas of Christianity together with Greek philosophy.
Let's just put these kind of two things together and see what we come up with. So these things are not new this is all. There is nothing new under the Sun there have been different times where The gospel has or gospel teaching has been more Prosperous has been more widespread and then there have been times where there have only been little pockets of believers and even in those little pockets they were under Assaults, but if we're going to talk about expository preaching, what is it?
Well, you know if we just look at the word expository it is to show it's to expose the text. It's verse by verse preaching. We tell people all the time. Well, I go to such-and-such a church and there are they say that and then you say well, what's your pastor teaching through?
Well, he's doing a series on work. He's doing a series on the good life. He's doing a series on. You know the quintessential pastor Mike example 15 ways to be a better neighbor. Eight ways to be a better, you know worker at work whatever they are.
You know all kinds of practical things and we're not really working through a book and there's a certain emptiness to that why well because a pastor then or a preacher could just kind of cherry-pick and move around and get whatever he wants and and just focus on things that interest him or might be of interest to more people and.
And he would never pick a text like me we heard this morning in the first service and we'll hear in the again in the second service. Would you know we just skip over certain things just go huh? I don't want to know.
Not this week move on. But when you have to go verse by verse, it means well, let me just tell you for me. It's been a real benediction because when I first got here I was Kind of picking different texts because you know when you only get to preach every so often.
That's what you do. And then as I started preaching through books. Something strange happens and you go. Yes, we know that. What do you suppose happens as you actually preach verse by verse through a book Steve?
You preach the whole Council of God, but what do you suppose the impact is on the preacher? You grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and guess what else happens? I mean, this is gonna sound really weird and I don't mean this in any kind of you know, I speak to dead people kind of thing, but it's almost like whether if you're Preaching through Peter or you're preaching through Timothy or whatever.
These people become like your friends. And this is what I mean. You get to kind of you you read as you study through as you dig through these things you get to understand. Okay now I understand why he's saying this in this order.
You know, there there really is a logical consistency to what he's doing here. And we lose all of that when we just go, you know what? We're just gonna chuck all that and we're gonna give you guys what you want.
We're gonna give you the you know, 28 ways to a better parking lot. I Don't. I don't know. I don't know. Yes well, excellent. Tom and You Really are enabled to do that. Let me just kind of repeat what he said you're unable to twist scripture by jumping around and you know.
Since Tom brought it up. We just finished a class. Where we read a book by Norm Geisler and then we read a book by James White. Norm Geisler is a theologian of some renown. He's taught seminary for 50 years.
What was amazing in? That class. And Was how James White really walked through passages of Scripture in his book and explained the context. Why was that amazing? Because Norm Geisler didn't do that. It was a verse here.
It was a verse there, you know well this verse in Ephesians can be explained by Isaiah by Ezekiel and by Revelation and by really well, what about what Paul's writing in Ephesians? No. Time out you don't want to do that.
That'll just confuse you. Okay, Erickson asked two questions. Number one. Can you be topical and still expository? Yes. It just takes a little bit more work. Because then you have to kind of work to catch up to where you were so that you understand the flow of thought and what?
I go to a church that was topical if you if by topical you mean just topical then probably topical expository probably not. Only because even so even though they're being expository in their topical messages.
Two things are gonna happen. I Predict one is over time. They're gonna leave the expository behind whether it's this guy or the next guy somewhere along the line. That's gonna get left. But the other thing is then they can still do what?
Skip over the passages that nobody wants to hear. Skip over the passages about husbands loving your wife as Christ loved the church skip over the passages about you know. Having obedient children skip over the passages, whatever whatever it is that people really don't want to hear you know.
Skip over the the passages about homosexuality because that's you know, taboo don't want to discuss that. All those things you you just kind of get to pick and choose then what you're gonna what you're going to cover.
So, you know my own personal thing would be no and the reason would be because I do want the whole counsel of God so. Back to any other questions comments. Bob. That's a great question. How do you judge true exposition?
They can go through a book and still not do the exposition. That is true. Because the goal of exposition as I said is to expose the text you want to do exegesis. That is you look at the original text you draw the truth out of it.
You consult Commentaries which gets back right back to what I mentioned in Ephesians 4. Is the idea that Christ is given the church gifted men throughout the ages? So why wouldn't you want to see what they said about given passages to make sure that you're not coming up with anything unique?
So, how do you know if something is expository preaching even though they're going sequentially through it? Well, if you listen to it and you go, I don't know if that quite fits with the context. And you listen the next one.
I'm not really sure that fits with the context and then you start saying yourself I mean, it would be a matter of study, you know, basically, how do you discern whether or not something fits in a con?
Fits the context if they're preaching it accurately. Well, then you'd have to look you'd have to study it yourself. But what the what the typical church in that sort of situation will do is they love to preach through a book like acts or Some kind of narrative maybe in the Old Testament or something like that and draw great conclusions out of that and.
But bottom line is the difference between exegesis that is looking at the original languages. Original languages and trying to draw the meaning out of the text understanding the flow of thought keeping in mind what the author's purpose was all those kind of things as opposed to is a Jesus which is to take your presupposition that is what you want the text to mean and Imposing that on the text which is far more common than it should be that's why you wind up with a lot of Nonsense really in today's churches because they know what they want to come out of the text.
And so they go to the text and they make it happen. And that's why you'll find that a lot of the more charismatic. Really way out there. Churches will do what they'll take a little passage in the Old Testament.
You know the valley of dry bones and they'll turn it into you know, whatever who knows. You know, it's why we should on Halloween do whatever. Who knows? Or they'll go through acts and they'll say this is normative.
We should expect people to fall through the roof and then raise them from the dead. That's what the you know. They'll they'll tell you all kinds of things. That's why today we have somebody up in the roof.
No. Here he comes. That would be unsettling. So, how do you judge it? It's really gonna take some work. But I mean if you if you look at the text and you listen what's being said you go well, that really has nothing to do with what the text says then then you have an issue and there are churches where and The kind of take the text and then just use it as a launching pad, you know to just go their own way.
So that would be a that would be a warning. Yeah, Peggy, yeah, and we'll we'll get to in fact, that's where we're going here but Peggy just brought up, you know, some of the big things about looking at a church is how they talk about salvation and Sin and how people come to Christ and we're we're coming to all those things.
But expository preaching verse by verse in such a way that the text is exposed. It's made clear. It really doesn't matter how clever the outline is and if you've listened to some of my outlines, you know what I mean.
That's not it's not always the key. But expository preaching is the one essential. I think that's under assault today more than any other why. Why do you think that is? Convenience, I mean any it takes time to put together a Message if you're actually studying the text if you just kind of look at the text and you sort of.
You know write down a few notes do a little napkin sermon and you just wing it. It's pretty easy to do that Bob. Okay, I think that's true that there's a real lack of trust in the word even among preachers or teachers or pastors.
You know, they say that they believe that the word transforms but then when they put it in a practice. They don't really it's not so much about that. They don't care about transforming people. But their primary goal is to pack them in just one more thing and then I'll get to you Bruce.
There are their churches that are set up really and this is just bizarre to me. But they're set up to bring people in on Sunday morning. Everybody yeah, I mean if they could get everybody in town to come to church on Sunday morning, that's fine.
And then they don't want to offend them while they're there and they hope over time that they'll matriculate Programs during the week where they'll do things like learn about the Bible and hear the gospel, which is just a bizarre idea Bruce.
It's true. I mean what he said was, you know, they like to get people pumped up. You know, how pumped up are you when you hear about? You know letting up not many of you be teachers. You won't be thinking.
Oh, I don't want to be a teacher when you leave. So, you know that that won't thrill your soul. Yeah Russ, yeah, I think political correctness the whole hate speech movement. I think that's part of it.
There are parts of the Bible that offend today's Modern sensibilities. I mean it really is amazing when I saw that post I put on there I go it is a really sad day when you can read Romans 1 18 and following and say That's the church in quotation marks the church Giving hearty approval to evil.
It was crazy. Somebody else Brian. Preaching is hard work. That's right. And and You know, I think for a lot of people it's too much. It's too much work and even January was not in your head on that one.
So that was good Steven sure. Well, they want their ears tickled, but I'll tell you something else seriously There are a lot of passages in the Bible where even if you preach them rightly There are gonna be a line of people at the door saying thank you so much pastor.
That was a great message that really, you know moved me. That was great. I'm gonna go home and listen to that again. Can I have five copies from my neighbors? But these are all things that we need to learn because we are shaped and we grow by them.
Was there another comment or question? I think that's right mark. And the other thing is, you know, it does it challenges us all these different Passages they challenge us in our thinking what we've always thought or believed.
Some some things are just difficult and we hear them we go can that be right and we have to study them out and see for ourselves and sometimes, you know, especially if you've been a Christian for some time.
We don't like to get our world rocked all that much. So yeah, I would I would agree with that. Let me just finish out this section here I I think it's I think expository preaching is under assault or under attack because It it doesn't fit our paradigm of instant gratification.
I mean, you know, I one of the first things that struck me when we went to Saddleback Church in Southern California Rick Warren's church years ago was the breakup of the sermon. It was like eight to ten minutes of Talking I wouldn't even call it preaching eight to ten minutes of talking and then a song and then eight to ten minutes of Talking and then a song it was like it was set up like a talk show.
With commercial interruptions, you know, I thankfully they didn't go they didn't have laundry detergent or beer to sell. But it was you know Hertz rent-a-car. You know was the same kind of setup because that's you know.
The mindset is while Americans can't listen to a 40 minute sermon, so let's give them what they can do. They can take, you know, six seven eight, maybe ten minutes tops. And so I think that's part of the reason that it's become Passé but but it is challenging.
But but I think it really is the key because if you don't do that, well, let me let me just put put it this way I think if you look at the remaining Key elements of a church that we'll talk about. I think if you take away expository Preaching those other things are less likely to happen.
For example Church discipline as rare as it is. But if you go to a church where they don't preach and teach the whole New Testament. Do you think the people are gonna be ready if the pastor gets up there on Sunday morning and says it's my sad duty.
To tell you that this person or that person we've gone to them. We begged them and they're unrepentant in their sin. What's the church gonna do? They're gonna say what what's he what's he talking about?
What we're gonna do. What why would we do that? Because they've never been taught. They're clueless. Stephen well and and you know really in an untaught church church discipline becomes all about the heartlessness of who?
And the pastor it's his fault look what he's doing. Wasn't me by the way. That's that's the mindset, right. And it's only when you walk people through the scriptures and they understand these things and you think well, it's not about the pastor.
It's not about judging the other person. It's about wanting what's best for them that they go. They're saddened. They're shocked. But they also want to help. Anyway, we need to close and we'll pick this up next week.
Father we just thank you for the church. Not just Bethlehem Bible Church but every place across the United States and across the world where the name of Christ will be Named today and where your word will be taught father we would pray for especially the churches in the Persecuted areas of the world we think of the Muslim world.
We think of those nations and communism. Father, we would pray for the saints there that you would Just undergird them and give them more grace even more grace and that they would just rejoice not in the persecutions that if necessary are Occurring in this lifetime even for a short moment, but in light of the treasure That you have promised them and that you have preserved for them in heaven father I pray for each one here that you would just grow us in Appreciation and love for the church of our Lord Jesus Christ.
It's in Christ's name. We pray. Amen.