Christ's Vision for the Church

Providence Baptist Church

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told my wife this was fixing to be the best sermon she's heard all year and she didn't find it very amusing.

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Turning your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 5. Oh, somebody just got it.

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Okay. All right. Week 100.

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We are in week 100 in Ephesians. And it's customary in many places to begin a new year with sort of an assessment of where a church is and I have friends even preaching today who will be preaching basically like a state of the church message as it were.

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And I think that's good. I think it's helpful. But we're going to do something a little bit different this morning.

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Instead of looking where we are so to speak and maybe where we've been, we're going to instead look at who we are and who we are to be.

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We're going to be examining this morning Christ's vision for the church.

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At the end of the day, I don't care what your vision is or my vision or the community's vision is for the church.

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I think that the church ought to be this or you think the church ought to be this way or the community thinks, well, we ought to have the church like this.

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No, no, no, friends. I care above all else what Christ wants the church to be.

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And here we are in a new year by God's kind providence. We have 53 Lord's Days this year.

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It's so sweet that we are here together in this text and on this day.

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And what this sermon is going to do is going to launch us into a new sermon series for a bit. We're going to, after today, we're going to take a pause.

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I'll talk about that more in the sermon in just a minute as we seek to be the church that King Jesus would have us to be.

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As we began the year 2022, we had no way of knowing all the things that would happen in that year.

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So as we begin this year, we want to think for a moment who we are as a church and what

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Christ would have us to be. But we're going to begin this morning in Ephesians 5. We're going to read verse 22 through 33.

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I understand this is talking about husbands and wives. And there's a pertinent application there that we ought to glean from the text about husbands and wives.

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But we're going to be preaching this from the foundation of Christ and the church. And you'll see that as we go through.

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So I hope you found Ephesians 5. Would you stand with me in the honoring of reading God's word? And we're going to read verse 22 to 33.

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So Paul says, wives, submit to your own husbands as to the

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Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its

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Savior. Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

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Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.

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That she might be holy and without blemish, in the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.

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He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church, because we're members of his body.

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Therefore man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

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This mystery is profound, and I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

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However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

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Let's pray. Father, help us to understand this text, not to just quickly run to the application of husbands and wives, but let us understand the mystery that lies at the foundation of this text, namely, that Christ and the church are the picture, are the foundation for even understanding the marriage.

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We pray, God, that we'd understand what it means that Christ loves his church. Help us to understand what it means that Christ has a vision for his church, and help us to align ourselves with that vision.

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Lord, even if it's hard, even if there are things that are difficult for us to let go of, let us let go of these things.

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Let us repent, and let us align ourselves with the word of Christ. We pray, Lord, that no matter what else happens in this year, that we would be a church that's seeking to honor our

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Lord. Let us remember this, that Christ is worthy of having a healthy church in Perryville, Arkansas.

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And so, Lord, let us labor towards that end, no matter the cost, for the glory of our King. We pray,

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Lord, that you would move in this service, and speak to us from your word, and shape us into the people you would have us to be.

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Lord, we love you. Help us to increase in our love for you. Would you even call those who are unregenerate to yourself, even today, passing them from death to life, that they would call upon you in repentance and faith.

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And we pray it all in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. We will come back to this text eventually, and talk about the application for husbands and wives.

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I think that's important. But where we finished on December 11th was actually, we finished verse 17.

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And we didn't get all into verse 17 where I wanted. So I want to pick up there, and then we'll jump into this morning's text.

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So back in verse 17, that's kind of where we left off. And we are skipping a little bit, but the reason we're skipping is because this is going to transition us into another sermon series.

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But I'll address that in a minute. Verse 17 first. Paul says in Ephesians chapter...

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I'm like, what in the world? My Bible just turned over to Corinthians. They're like, that's not the right verse.

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Ephesians chapter 5 verse 17, Paul says this, Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the

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Lord is. So we didn't get into all that verse that I wanted to. So I'm going to begin here, because I think it's a very appropriate

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New Year verse, as it were. We do not want to be foolish, right? Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the

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Lord is. We want to understand as a church the will of the

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Lord. This word for understand in our text is a word that Jesus used often in the

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Gospels. For example, He said in Matthew 13 verse 13 that He spoke in parables so some would not understand.

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Or He would ask His disciples sometimes things like this, Do you not understand?

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It's used in Luke 24 verse 45 when it says that Jesus on the road to Emmaus with the two disciples opened their minds to understand the

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Scriptures. So in one sense, we could say this morning that it's the very thing that separates a believer and an unbeliever.

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A believer by grace is one who understands what the will of the

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Lord is, and an unbeliever does not. Paul says, Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the

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Lord is. So as a Christian, it is our great duty and privilege to know

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God's will. Now think about that for for just a moment. Like don't let that pass you by this morning.

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What we're saying here is that the reality is that by grace, through the illuminating work of the

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Holy Spirit, the Christian can understand the will of God.

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Like who are we that we could know the will of our Creator, and yet Paul instructs us to do so.

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In fact, to not do so, listen very carefully, to not care about God's will is to be a fool.

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That's not Quatro's words. That's Paul's. Verse 17. This is God's word.

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Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the

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Lord is. So as we begin a new year, we want to be wise, not foolish.

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We want to be full of knowledge, not ignorant. We want to know and do

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God's will. Now what does it mean to understand God's will?

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Let me mention this. There is a sense in which there's one sense in which believers cannot and do not understand

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God's will in terms of a secret will. For example, would you turn real quick to Ephesians 1.

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In Ephesians 1 verse 11, the will of God is spoken of in this way. We can't understand this will of God, but He's hidden it from us.

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Ephesians chapter 1 verse 11. Ephesians chapter 1 verse 11. In Him we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will.

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That is, God has a secret plan as it were that is unfolding before our eyes day after day after day, and I don't know what that plan is going to look like tomorrow per se.

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I don't know who's going to be president in 2024. I don't know what the weather is is going to be three months from now.

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I don't know these things. I don't know what kind of a new pandemic is around the corner or whatever, but I do know that all things are flowing from a secret inscrutable sovereign ordained plan of God.

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And I take confidence in that. But the Bible tells us that the secret things belong to Yahweh.

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And so we're not called to understand or to know the secret will of God.

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We leave all of this to God. However, our text in Ephesians 5 .17 speaks of the revealed will of God.

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Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. In other words, we're to know and understand and apply and pursue

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God's will for our lives which is revealed to us where? In His Word.

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How foolish we are this morning if we call ourselves Christians, but do not give careful attention to God's Word.

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Two side notes to make real quick. One of the things that we're going to do as a church, Gunner said memorize the

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Bible, but just to be clear, not going to memorize the whole Bible in 2023. Not that that's not a worthy goal, but we are going to memorize sections of the

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Bible. We're going to encourage and challenge and help one another and hold one another accountable in that. And so we're going to begin with Psalm 96.

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So read Psalm 96 at home this week. Read verse 1. You say, well, I can't memorize. Your brain is a lot better at memorizing than you thought.

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For example, we could embarrass ourselves if I could probably start singing some 80s pop song right now and then stop and all of a sudden you could finish the lyrics and you hadn't heard it in 40 years.

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Right? But it's tucked away in our brain. So let's use our brain to memorize portions of God's Word and that's what we're going to do.

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Another application I'll make here is to grab one of the reading plans in the foyer and I encourage you to read through the this year because we want to not be a foolish church.

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We don't want to be a foolish people. We want to understand what the will of the Lord is. Now with that in mind, let me tell you where we're going as a church.

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After today, we're going to press pause for a moment on the Ephesian series. In fact, you already noticed we're skipping some verses here, not because they're unimportant or I'm you know,

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I'm not trying to not preach them. I'm going to come back and preach them. That's the plan. When the series is over, we'll come back and do that.

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But in light of understanding God's will and in light of where our church is and in light of the day and the hour in which we live and in light of it being a new year, what we're going to do is we're going to take some time to assess who we are as a local congregation.

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That is, what is it that makes Second Baptist Church of Perryville, Second Baptist Church of Perryville? Right?

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Like are we just a carbon copy of other churches or is there something that makes us distinct?

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Who are we? What are we to be about? What are our distinctives? And as we examine these things, the idea is we don't take a poll.

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We don't go door to door. You know, some churches do that. They go door to door and they say, what do you want to see in a church?

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Well, we're not going to do that. We don't take a poll within the body. What do you guys want to see in church?

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What do you guys want to see in church? No, no. Rather, we seek to understand what? The will of the

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Lord. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And so that brings us to today's sermon.

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Christ's vision for the church. It is our desire as a body to understand

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Christ's will for the church. Christ is the head of the church and we care about His will above all.

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Frankly, it doesn't matter, does it? What my vision is or what your vision is or what the community's vision is.

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If it doesn't align with Christ's vision for the church. Let me remind us as we go into this that Jesus loves the church.

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Can you imagine, can you imagine sitting down with me and Stephanie eating lunch, telling me how much you care about me, how much you love me, but saying right in front of me, oh, but I don't like your wife.

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Oh, she's just got too many imperfections. She is just, she's just not a good person. I just don't like being around.

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You know, I just want a relationship with you, not your wife. You think me and you would be friends?

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Of course not. That's right. Amen. Of course not. Friends, Jesus Christ loves the church.

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The church is His bride. How great a work Christ has already done for His church and is doing in the world today.

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The church can be sure today that Christ will always protect her, always have her best interests at heart in times of prosperity, in times of disaster, in times of persecution.

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King Jesus has an infinite sovereign love for His church. You may not understand all that God is doing in our day, but we are resolute on this truth.

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God is working all things together for good for His church and for His own eternal glory.

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In fact, I would say this, you cannot understand Christianity rightly without understanding the church rightly.

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And I'll even add that you can't fully understand all the implications of the gospel rightly without understanding the church.

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All right, what then is Christ's vision for the church? I want you to remember four words. Peculiar, holy, equipped, submissive.

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Peculiar, holy, equipped, submissive. In fact, you could fill out your outline right now if you wanted to.

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Peculiar, holy, equipped, submissive. Number one, the church, first of all this morning, the church is a peculiar people.

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Look at verse 25. Now we jump into our text. Verse 25, Paul says, Husbands, love your wives as Christ...

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This is a great burden for husbands, isn't it? Husbands, love your wives. How? No, as Christ loved the church and gave

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Himself up for her. First of all, the church is a peculiar people. Now, by peculiar,

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I don't mean weird, though you've known some weird church people, right? But by peculiar,

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I mean like 1 Peter 2 9 and the King James. 1 Peter 2 9 and the King James says that we are a peculiar people.

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But he doesn't mean that we're weird. It means that we are God's possession. In other words, in English, the word can mean belonging exclusively to.

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And so here's what we're saying about the church. We're saying that the church is a peculiar people in this sense. That Jesus didn't give

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Himself up for an amorphous group of people, just a random blob of people.

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No, no. He gave Himself, what does the text say? Up for the church. Verse 25 says that it actually couldn't even be any plainer.

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Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for who? Gave Himself up for her.

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Not a holy people, not a people who were already holy, not a people who were worthy of Jesus laying

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His life down for. That's what verse 26 and 27 says, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

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In other words, our Lord Jesus gave Himself up for a people who were in need of cleansing and in need of washing.

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He didn't give up Himself for good people, but for wretched people, people deserving of His wrath.

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As we stood between, as we stood on earth with our fists clenched in wrath toward heaven,

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Christ was suspended between heaven and earth and nailed to that old rugged tree with His hands open to the

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Father as He said, Into my hands I commend my spirit. The King left His throne and gave

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His life for unworthy sinners. The text says, for His people.

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Christ bore the wrath of God on Calvary for the church. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave

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Himself up for her. The church was chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.

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We have seen this in Ephesians. Particular persons placed in Christ. Blows my mind.

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I know it blows some of yours. But placed in Christ, not for any good that we've done, but all because of God's grace.

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And in Christ bought the church with His blood because we are His peculiar people.

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So here, as we think about this, we need to understand verse 25 as the universal church.

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Christ loved the church, gave Himself up for her. In other words, what I'm saying here is that all those in Christ from all time make up the universal invisible church.

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Not that you can't see it, but that it's a lot bigger than just one local church. In other words, Jesus doesn't just lay down His life for one local church, but the church at large.

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All people who believe on Him for all time. This includes Old Testament saints.

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In fact, turn back in your Bibles to Ephesians 2. Ephesians 2 verse 19 says this,

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Ephesians 2 verse 19, So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,

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Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the

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Lord. In Him you are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the

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Spirit. This describes who the church is. It's Jews and Gentiles and anyone who

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God has brought near through Christ. Shows us how the church is built. It's built upon the revelation of God and the gospel of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. It shows us what the church is. The church is glory depicted. God's saving undeserving rebels for the glory of His name.

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It's God's dwelling. The church is God's dwelling. God dwells in a temple not made by human hands.

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He dwells in His church. I know that some people in their eschatology are waiting for another temple to be built in Jerusalem, but let me just offer this insight if you will.

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God is building a temple right now. You know who it is? It's the church that God is dwelling in.

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The church. And this church has not only glory depicted God's dwelling, it's also growing decisively.

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The church that Christ purchased, the peculiar people Christ died for are being gathered in as we speak all across the globe.

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Again, I don't know what your eschatology is, but that's your doctrine of the end times. Some people look at their doctrine of the end times in a very, very pessimistic way.

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And that is, well, I guess the church is just getting smaller and smaller and ultimately the world will prevail. But let me push back on that in just a minute and say that the church is prevailing, right?

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I understand that we're always going to undergo persecution and tribulation and the mockery of the world, but God has his people all over the world for the glory of his name.

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Well, how do I know if I'm part of the church? Aren't you glad, man, like aren't you glad to know whether or not you're part of the church?

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You don't have to go back into the recesses of eternity and find that communication between the

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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as they choose the church in eternity past. No, no, the Bible teaches us this.

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How do you know if you're part of the church? Have you believed and received the gospel by faith, turning from your sins and looking unto

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Jesus as your only suitable and all -sufficient Savior? Have you done that? If you've done that, then it's only by grace.

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And if you've done that, then you make up the church. Because the church is made up of those who are regenerate.

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Those who've been born again. It's made up of those who repent of their sins and believe the gospel. The church is a peculiar people.

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Now, I'll tell you about the doctrine of election. It doesn't mean it's God's fault if you don't get saved.

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It means he's left you to your own choice of rejecting him. But if you are saved, it's all because of his amazing grace that began in eternity past.

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And here's something you can't miss in today's message too. And that is those who are part of the universal church, unite themselves with visible local congregations.

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In other words, we cannot understand Ephesians 5 this morning apart from local churches. How could you possibly say that,

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Quattro? It doesn't say the local church anywhere in there. I say that because we have to remember the context of Ephesians.

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Paul wrote this letter to Ephesians to who? The church at Ephesus. A local church.

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So we are a peculiar people that assemble together. That's why you should feel a burden when you can't assemble.

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We have some people who are out today because of sickness and such. And we have some people out today who

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I know already, when they miss church, man they miss church.

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You know what I'm saying? Like they it's like when they miss it's like it's a burden. They're not sitting at home like, yay

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I get a free day off or whatever. Like it burdens them. They want to be here with us, but because of providential sickness or whatever they can't be here, but they want to be here.

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And this is how it ought to be, right? We want to assemble. God's people gather regularly in commitment to one another under the leadership of qualified men to be taught and to worship and to fellowship and to love one another and to observe the ordinances.

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Commitment, real commitment to the local church is a necessary outflow of what

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Christ has done to us by His grace and through His gospel. You're going to hear people all over our county, all over the

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Bible Belt say you don't have to go to church to be a Christian. That doesn't even make sense, right?

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And it's not that we're going to church so that God accepts us. It's because we've encountered Christ in His Word, because we've been given a new heart, because now we love

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Christ and we love His people. We therefore what? Gather with His people. Secondly, the church is a peculiar people.

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Secondly, the church is a holy people. Now down to verse 26 and 27, we're discussing Christ's vision for His church and we see here that Christ's church is a peculiar people.

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He gave up Himself for the church. We see in verse 26 and 27 that the church is a holy people, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the

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Word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish.

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Too often, friends, the doctrine of our doctrine of salvation is way too small.

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You understand that being saved is not merely about conversion. Verse 26 talks about sanctification.

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Believers are sanctified. In this instance, it means set apart. We're consecrated to the

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Lord. How? By the washing, the text says, by the washing of water with the Word. It's possible here that Paul is alluding to the symbol of baptism.

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And that's what baptism is. It's a symbol. It's a symbol. It actually symbolizes on the outside what

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Christ has already done on the inside through the Gospel. We've heard the Word of Christ and so we have responded in faith and Christ has cleansed us.

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We are forgiven of every sin, past and present and future, because Christ has paid our debt on Calvary.

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Verse 27, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish.

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Husbands, do you remember your wedding day? Do you remember all the emotion and nerves and all that?

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But then you're standing at the front of the altar and then the song is played, you know, here comes the bride or whatever.

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And you look back and the doors open and here she comes, beautiful, clothed in white.

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She took your breath away, perhaps. Maybe you cried a little. In a reverential way, this is

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Christ's vision for the church. The text says that He is going to present

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His bride, He's going to present the church to Himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish.

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Without blemish. That's the idea of blameless. Let me just mention the doctrine of imputation.

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What we're talking about here is that in Christ, if you are here today and you are in Christ, the

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Bible says strange things about you like this. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ.

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How can that be? How can that be when we struggle with sin every day, when we snap at our wife or our children or we get frustrated when the man cuts us off on the interstate?

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How can it be that there's now no condemnation? Isn't there more sin in me to judge? And the reality is this.

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In Christ, we are credited with the righteousness of Jesus only by grace through faith.

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Because Jesus got our sin debt on Calvary and we receive by faith the imputation.

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Big word. It just means we are credited with His righteousness. Blameless. If you are in Christ, your status before God in Jesus is blameless.

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Jesus did not attempt to save people on the cross. He accomplishes salvation to the fullest extent for His bride.

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Christ has set believers apart positionally, but I also think that we see this impacts the church practically.

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In other words, the church today actually walks in holiness. Hear me clearly.

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Christ cares about the holiness of His church. So should we.

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Christ cares about the holiness of His people and therefore so must we. Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave

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Himself up for her that He might sanctify her having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy without blemish.

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In other words, sometimes we think about Jesus this way. Jesus died on the cross so that He could make heaven so much better with all these people in there.

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No, that's not what the text says. The text says that Jesus died on the cross so that He could have a holy church and He will.

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He will. And so Paul is writing to a local church and so there's application here for us as a local church to care about the holiness of the church.

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When we fail to commit to a local church, we're showing a lack of concern for the holiness of the church.

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When we fail to care about meaningful church membership, we show a lack of concern for the holiness of Christ's bride.

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When we fail to confront sin, we show a lack of concern for the holiness of the church. When we fail to see that that Christ shed

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His blood, that the church would not simply go to heaven, but that we should be holy, we are showing a lack of concern for the holiness of the church.

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Jesus Christ cares for the holiness of His bride and then therefore we must too.

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Some people say things like this foolish things, don't go to church, be the church. That's nonsense.

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You can't be the church without gathering with the church regularly.

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And all that the Lord would use is to stir a greater love in our hearts for the local church.

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That we would repent of our neglect of it, that we would be committed to her well -being, that we would seek accountability for ourselves and others out of love for Christ and love for one another.

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Christ loves His church and He loves the holiness of the church. Friends, the holiness of the church is a testimony to the world and so is the lack thereof.

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The church is a peculiar people, a holy people. Thirdly, an equipped people. This is really beautiful.

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Jesus doesn't just call us to be holy, He equips us to be holy. Verse 29 says it this way,

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For no one has ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it. Those are two words you want to pay attention to.

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Nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church because we are members of His body.

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In other words, think about this. If you're a believer this morning, Christ nourishes and cherishes you.

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He takes care of you. We saw this in Ephesians 1 already, but I'm going to read

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Ephesians 1 -3 again. Ephesians 1 -3 says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

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How many spiritual blessings has the Father in Christ bestowed upon His church?

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Some? Most? 90 %? 85 %? How much has He bestowed? And the text says every spiritual blessing.

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In other words, Christ equips His church. He nourishes and takes care of His church.

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Every spiritual blessing. If you're a believer in Christ, if you're a believer, Christ is in you. And you are in Christ.

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The church is endued with grace upon grace, to the praise of God's glorious grace, chosen by grace, called by grace, equipped by grace, kept by grace, matured by grace.

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God equips us with too much grace for us not to mature in Him.

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It is the very power of Christ in you this morning that enables you, that causes you to desire and pursue the holiness that we just talked about in the last point.

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Do you begin a new year? You think about these questions.

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Do you long for a better walk in the Lord? Do you look at your life and you say, I want to be more committed to the church?

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I want to be more evangelistic. I want to read the Bible. Do you long for these things? I hope that you do.

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And here's the encouragement I want to give you. Christ is in your corner, right?

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Like if you're in the Lord Jesus Christ, He doesn't...back to the...let me just read it this way. This way the text says,

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For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church because we're members of His body.

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Okay, think of it this way. You've got an arm and your arm's not working well.

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So what do you do? Well, I'm going to fix that thing. My arm's not working well. I'm going to take a baseball bat and I'm going to beat my arm until it works well.

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Okay, I'm not a doctor, but let me just say that's not good advice. Don't do that. I don't got to tell you you're not going to do that.

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Why? Instead, you're going to nourish and cherish your arm. Maybe go to the doctor.

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Maybe you take an ibuprofen. Maybe you'll do some exercises. Why? Because you want to bring it up to speed where it needs to be.

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Okay, the text says that Christ nourishes and cherishes His body. In other words, as you long this morning to walk closer to Christ, do you understand that's the same desire that the

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Lord Jesus has for you? And He's not standing over you with a bat to beat you over the head, but rather to equip you and empower you.

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He is the church's provider and builder and keeper and chief caregiver. But listen to this.

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This is not like just internally, although you know Christ is in us, but it's also through vital external means.

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In other words, you want to know one of the ways that Christ nourishes His church? Well, look at Ephesians 4.

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Turn there to Ephesians 4 verse 11. We've covered this already, but look. Here is one of the ways Christ provides for His church.

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Ephesians chapter 4 verse 11, And He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, or the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the

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Son of God, to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.

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In other words, you want to know one of the ways that Christ actually equips His church? It's through faithful pastors, so that the church would be equipped for ministry, so that the church would be built up, so that the church will mature.

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Now, I said earlier that the church is a people, but I don't want you to think that I mean that the church doesn't have a specific or particular geography.

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Local churches do. So with the two offices of the church, pastors and deacons, local churches are people who gather in a particular place regularly for prayer, regularly for fellowship, for worship, for preaching, for discipline, for discipleship, and observing the ordinances.

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Friends, and we have no right to structure the church in any other way.

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Let's keep reading Ephesians 4. Do you realize it's not just pastors, it's not just pastors that Jesus equips the church, but even the body, like the body itself equips the body.

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Keep reading verse 15, Ephesians 4. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we're to grow up in every way into Him who is the head and the

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Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow, so that it builds itself up in love.

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So you realize it's not just pastors, but church members, and healthy biblical church membership is another way that Christ equips

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His body. Now, let me say something here that you don't think about very often, but when you miss church, you say to yourself, you know it's been tired, it's been a long week,

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I'm tired, I don't feel 100 percent, I'm just going to sleep in,

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I'm not going to go to church today. I don't really need it. Okay, that, number one, that's wrong, but can

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I just give you the other perspective? The text says in verse 16 that when each part is working properly, it makes the body grow.

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So can I say something? When I wake up in the morning, if my arm says, Quatro, I'm not going to work today,

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I'm tired, I'm taking the day off, I don't need you. Okay, but you understand what the rest of my body is going to say?

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Hey dude, but we need you, right? We need you. You may say today that you don't need the rest of the body, but I need you.

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I don't want to walk around today without my right hand. I need you. I need your help. And so when you say, I'm not going to church,

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I don't need the church, you're leaving the church without a vital aspect of its growth and maturity in Christ.

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We need you. And you need us, but we need you.

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Consider that. Life is too short. Life is too precious.

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God's glory is too indispensable to the meaning of life to not care about this vision for the church.

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A church where every member is involved. A church where there is no such thing as an inactive role.

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A church where membership is meaningful. A church where church discipline is practiced. A church where qualified men are serving as elders, and qualified men are serving as deacons, where pastors preach faithfully, and saints are being built up and maturing in Christ.

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A church that prioritizes missions and evangelism. There are simply too many places today in the

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Bible Belt where Christ's vision for His church isn't prized. All over the place, where people just want to operate their own vision of what a church is or what a

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Christian is. I get emails and letters in the mail. I get so many letters in the mail from different organizations that say, you need to try this at church.

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You need to do this at church. You need to do this. You'll get more people to grow. You need to have this kind of website. You need to do this kind of outreach.

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And people remain unconcerned about actually following the King's book.

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Unconcerned with false conversions. Unconcerned about biblical worship. Unconcerned about faithful and intentional evangelism.

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Unconcerned about a healthy ecclesiology, that is a healthy doctrine of the church. Unconcerned about holiness.

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I want to tell you something. A couple weeks ago, it was around Christmas, so I was just reading in my own

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Bible, reading Isaiah 9. And in verse 13 of Isaiah 9, it says this, the people did not turn to him who struck them, nor inquire of the

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Lord of hosts. The people did not turn to him who struck them, nor inquire of the

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Lord of hosts. As I read that, I thought about COVID. And I thought about the riots over the last few years in our country.

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And I thought about the moral degradation of our society. And I had this thought.

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This is nothing other than the discipline of the Lord. This is a wake -up call.

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And yet, in response to these terrible events, what are many places doing?

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They are just plunging headlong off into absurdity. They are not turning to him who struck them.

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They are not inquiring of the Lord of hosts. Churches are, instead of turning to the

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Lord, they're turning to new inventions, or new tactics, or new gimmicks.

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And I'm calling Prairieville Second Baptist Church to return to the book. Now, we're not after modern ecclesiology, but instead, we are after the ancient past.

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We are after the way of the Lord, as Jeremiah 6 says. We want to do what Christ would have us to do.

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And the question before us heading into a new year is simply this. Will we be a people who inquire of the

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Lord in His Word and in prayer? Do we care about Christ's vision for His local church?

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And here, what I'm driving home is this point. Christ doesn't just tell us what to do and leave us alone to see if we can figure it out, but rather,

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He equips us to do it. There is not a man in this town.

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There is not a man in the history of the world. There is not one man who cares more about a healthy church in Prairieville, Arkansas, than the

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God -man, Jesus Christ. We have the Holy Spirit that joins us to Christ, that gifts us, sanctifies us, supplies us with every grace to carry out

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Christ's vision for His church. We have Christ with us. Will we follow? Because another way

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Christ has equipped His church is by giving us His written Word. Pastors, church members, and His Word. And this is going to lead me to my last point.

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The church is a submissive people. The church is a peculiar people, a holy people, an equipped people, a submissive people.

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Go back to verse 22 of Ephesians 5. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the

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Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church,

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His body, and is Himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also should wives should submit and everything to their husbands.

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Again, there's application there for wives, and I'm not minimizing that at all, but I am saying this.

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What lies behind a wife's submission to her husband is the imitation here that we have, the reality of the church, the mystery that the church is to submit to Christ.

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There is a standard. People don't like the word submission or authority or all that kind of stuff. People basically say things like this, and I hear it.

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You hear it chanted. My body, my choice. You can't tell me what to do. If I want to do something with my body, if I want to do something with a child inside my body, if I want to have this orientation, if I want to change from this gender to that gender, or if I want to just make up a gender, or if I want to just declare myself an airplane, whatever it is

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I want to do with my body, I get to do it. Why? It's my body. But the Christian worldview pushes back and says, no, it's not your body.

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It's God's body. There's actually a standard that we must conform to. There is an authority.

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We don't need, the church does not need to adapt to a godless age. The church is called to conform to something else, and here is the objective standard, objective standard, by which all churches must conform.

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Total submission to the head. There are churches, and I know them, and I've talked with their pastors, and I've talked with their church members.

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There are churches all across the Southern Baptist Convention today that are more concerned about what the world thinks of their church than they are about what the

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Lord Jesus Christ thinks of their church. And we think that Baptist churches are little democracies, don't we?

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We'll get together and we'll vote, and whatever we vote, that will drive the direction of the church.

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But let me offer this pushback, if you will. The church is not a democracy. It's a monarchy.

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The pastors aren't the kings. The deacons aren't the kings. The church members aren't the kings. In fact, there's only one king.

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Christ is king. Christ is king of his church. Now, Christ tells the flock to listen and follow, obey her pastors, but it's not the pastors who are the head of the church.

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It's Christ. Christ is the head of the church, and he's given us his own word, and so then what we do is very, very simple.

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It's very, very, very simple. We take the pages of the book and we say, this is the king's book.

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Therefore, what does the king's book say for the church? And then we seek to align ourselves with what the

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Bible says. It's very, very simple. Why is it so hard for churches to do this? It's because of the godlessness of our ages, because of the temptation to compromise, and the temptation we feel we don't want to make someone uncomfortable, and we don't want anybody laughing at us and those things.

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But it's very, very, very simple here. What we do is we take the king's book and we say, what does the king want?

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And then we do that. We read the scriptures and we say, this is what the

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Bible says, and this is what we should do, and there's no controversy.

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And look, we have some peripheral matters that we get to use Christian prudence for. For example, what time are we going to meet?

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What type of bulletins will we have? What kind of font are we going to use in the bulletins?

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How many songs are we going to play? What style? But beloved, in terms of the day the church meets, in terms of what the church does during the service, in terms of how the church worships, we don't get to make up what we want to do.

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We must bow to the scriptures to regulate our meetings. We must conform to the scriptures in all ways.

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We don't look to the world for its ideas on what works. Guys, people all over the world today even are looking to the world and trying to get good ideas from business practices and CEO models and things that are done in movies or television.

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They're trying to get these ideas and they're trying to apply them to the church in order to win more people to the church.

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But what we must do is throw pragmatism to the pit of hell and obey the

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Bible. When the local church submits to scripture, she's submitting to Christ.

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You understand, when we buck up against scripture, when we say, I'm not doing that, this is what we're doing.

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We're looking at the Lord Jesus square in the face and we're saying, I'm not going to do what you want us to do.

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Well, how could we do that to one whom our soul loves?

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We order the church as Christ would have us. We worship Christ as Christ would have us.

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We have a heart for the lost as as Christ would have us. We make disciples as Christ would have us.

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And then we just shun anything contrary to what the head wants, because it's his church.

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This isn't my church. It's not your church. It's no one else's. It's Christ's church. Over the course of Baptist life, there have been many situations where pastors or deacons or church members, they get grumpy, right?

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You know the Baptist trope. Like the Baptist trope is you Baptists split over the color of the carpet.

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Do you know why that's said? Because it happens.

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Do you know why it happens? Because you have people who actually think that this church is their church.

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And here's the reality. It's not. It's not mine.

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It's not yours. It's Christ's. And who are we to have a vision of the church contrary to that of Christ's vision?

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Friends, I'm pleading with us that we would prize the Bible. Who are we to treat the church and our ministries as optional addendums to our lives, right?

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As though we have our real life over here. And then over here, we have our church life. And sometimes they mix or whatever.

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But really, we live like our real life over here. And then every now and then we dabble in church. But this is not the Bible's vision of the church.

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It's not Christ's vision of the church. Do you see how closely knit the identity of a believer and life in the local church is?

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And I even say this, if you care about revival in our nation, true revival in this nation will not be separated from a

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Christ -centered vision for the local church. I wonder this morning as we begin to close, if you're willing to assess your own life in this area.

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Is the local church, is this local church an actual priority for you?

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I'm not saying can you just come in here and amen the sermon. Like any Christian with anyone who professes to be

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Christian, if you have a pulse at all and you hear the preacher stand from the pulpit and say, we got to obey

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God rather than men. We got to listen to the Bible and not the world. We got to follow Christ and no one else.

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If you are a professing Christian at all and you have a pulse, you ought to say amen to that. But that's not just what

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I'm asking for. What I'm asking for is, will you assess your life? Is the local church not just something you come and amen?

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Is it an actual priority for you? Not just showing up here on Sundays and being fed and leave, but is life in the body an actual urgency for you?

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Are you committed to the body as though your life depended on it? Because in some sense it does.

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Maybe you're here this morning, you've put the church on the back burner because you've never closed in faith with Christ.

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You don't have the full pardon for all your sins. For you, I say repent. Shame on you, right?

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Shame on you to live a life of pretending. But on one hand,

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I say shame. On the other hand, I say mercy. Shame on you for living a life of pretending, but mercy is before you today.

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Repent and believe the Gospel. Go to Christ even now and He's ready to forgive the worst of sinners that come to Him for salvation.

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Perhaps there are genuine Christians listening this morning who need to repent of a paltry view of Christ's church.

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Will you repent? Even in your heart now, will you say, God, I'm sorry for viewing

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Your church as less than what I should. Help me to see it rightly. Repent and adjust your ways.

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Will we see the church as the fullness of the mystery of the Gospel? The greatest hope for our nation, the greatest hope for the world today is that local churches would take seriously

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Christ's vision for the church. What about you?

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Father, would you help us to have Christ's vision for the church in our minds and in our hearts?

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Lord, help us to be and understand what it means to be a peculiar people, a holy people, an equipped people, and a submissive people.

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Apply this to our hearts and lives practically. Let us love the local church more and more and more in the year of our

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Lord, 2023. Help us to be the people that You would have us to be. Help us to not care about what the culture or society or others may say.

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Let us pursue Christ's vision for the church here. As we go through the distinctives of our church, we pray,

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God, that You would honor that preaching series and help us to be Your people.

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Lord, there may be some here today who don't know Christ. Lord, I pray that they would look to the Gospel they heard today, that Christ gave

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Himself up for the church, that He atoned for her sins, that He bore

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Your wrath for those who would come to Him in faith. And I pray today they would say, why not me?

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They would repent. They'd believe the Gospel. We pray it all in Jesus' name,