Ecclesiology 1 - What is the Church?

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With your Bibles open to Matthew 16, if you would find your place down to verse 18.
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And this is going to be our reading for the beginning of tonight's lesson.
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We are beginning a new series tonight, which is part of our larger, broader series on the subject of systematic theology, which is what we've been doing now for well over a year.
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We've been going through the major heads of doctrine, theology proper, Christology, Pneumatology, Soteriology, Anthropology, Angelology, well tonight we begin the study of Ecclesiology.
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And I'll define that in a little while, but before I do, I want us to read our text.
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This is Jesus speaking.
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This comes in the context of Peter's great confession, where Jesus came to the disciples and he said, Who do people say that the Son of Man is? They said, Some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, others say Jeremiah or one of the prophets.
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And he said to them, But who do you say that I am? Simon Peter replied, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.
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And Jesus answered him, Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.
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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.
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May God add his blessing to the reading of his word.
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May we always have its truths written on our heart.
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So tonight we begin the study of Ecclesiology.
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The study of Ecclesiology is the study of the church, the doctrine of the church.
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And simply to start with, it might be easy to first and foremost answer the question of why do we call it Ecclesiology.
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Well that is because the Greek word, Ecclesia, or Ecclesia, is where the word in English, the word church, comes from.
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And so this is the reason why we call this Ecclesiology, because of the word Ecclesia.
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Now, you might be wondering why Ecclesia becomes the word church, because it doesn't sound the same.
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If you think about it, you can't really derive church, and you know a lot of Greek words do get English equivalents.
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You know, words like Cardia for heart, and so we talk about cardiac, that's what the Greek is used for that term.
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A lot of our words have Greek roots, but the word church in English actually comes from a root that's Scottish and has a variation in German.
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In Scottish the word is kirk, and in German it is kirch.
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And it is out of those things that, you know, English is a hodgepodge language.
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It has taken from all various backgrounds, and the English language is one of the most difficult languages, because we have so many rules, because we've taken from so many ancestor languages, and so the word church is actually a derivation of the words kirk and kirch.
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And those words actually come from a different Greek word, and that is the Greek word karyakon.
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And I do want to mention this because it matters.
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We talk about the Greek word karyakon, and that comes from the word koryas.
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Is anybody familiar with koryas? Okay, koryas is a word that we should familiarize ourselves with because it means Lord.
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So, when you think, you hear Jesus, and you read in the scripture, Jesus Christ, it's Jesu koryas.
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It's Jesus, I'm sorry, Jesus is Lord.
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Jesus the Lord.
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It's koryas is the word that is used, and it's an important word.
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It's the translation of the word of the Old Testament of the word Yahweh.
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In the Old Testament we have that name of God.
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The name of God is Yahweh, or pronounced more specifically Yahweh.
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The four-letter name of God, sometimes referred to as the Tetragrammaton.
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It's four Hebrew letters, yad, he, vad, he, and it means Yahweh, or translated Yahweh, or transliterated, and we translate it as Lord, but in the New Testament when it's translated into Greek, it's translated koryas.
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It's interesting, Jesus is given the title Lord, the title Yahweh, and Jesus is Lord.
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And so koryakon is the adjective version of that, the adjective neuter, and it means belonging to the Lord.
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So the koryakon are those who belong to the Lord.
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So the koryakon are those who belong to the Lord.
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So now we can start to get the idea of where the word church comes from.
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The word church comes from koryakon, actually rather from kirk, or kirk, and it's derived from koryakon, which means belonging to the Lord.
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But none of these words are defining ekklesia, and so we need to understand that word as well.
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Because ekklesia is the word that your Bibles usually translate as church, not koryakon.
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The word that your Bibles usually translate, and by the way, I don't mean to be jumping all into language, this will matter in a minute.
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I see some of your eyes glazing over already, like, man, I've waited a month to come back on Wednesday nights, and I'm already dying on the vine.
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No, I promise, this is going to matter, because all this language stuff does matter when we start to take apart what ekklesia means.
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Because when Paul wrote about the church, he didn't call it the koryakon.
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When Paul wrote about the church, he called it the ekklesia.
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When Jesus says in Matthew 16, 18, I will build my church, it's ekklesia.
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In fact, that's the only time the word church is used in the Gospels.
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There's only one time that the word church is used in all four Gospels, and it is in Jesus' words when he said, I will build my church.
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In fact, some people would say, I've even heard people say, Jesus never came to build a church.
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The church is a man-made construction, it's a man-made organization, Jesus didn't come to create a religion, he came to create a relationship.
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You ever heard that? I'm going to say it nicely, no bueno.
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Now I'm talking a whole different language.
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That phrase, Jesus didn't come to build a religion, build a relationship, you're violating one of the basic rules of language, because what is religion? People say, well religion is man's attempt to reach God.
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No, it's an expression of faith, it's what you believe, and in James it tells us that pure and undefiled religion is what the Christian faith is.
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So it's not wrong to call it a religion, and it's not wrong to say Jesus came to build a church, because he said in Matthew 16-18, I will build my church.
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See the problem is, many people tried to build their church.
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The problem in the last 2,000 years is not that Christ came to build a church, it's that men abscond with his church, and try to make it their church.
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I remember years ago, one of my professors went to fill the pulpit for a church that needed an interim pastor, because the pastor had retired, and they needed an interim pastor.
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So he arrives a week early to meet the deacons and get to know the church, so that he could understand the layout, so he'd be ready for Sunday morning.
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And he walks in to the church on Wednesday to meet the new people, and the first guy to greet him was an old elderly man.
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He walked up and shook his hand and said, I want you to know I'm deacon so-and-so, and I'm the head of this church.
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And my professor, who I love, Dr.
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Jerry Powers, he said, I'm glad you told me, because I thought it was Jesus.
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Great answer.
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I'm waiting for the day I get to do that.
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It's such a quick, great answer.
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I thought it was Jesus, I'm glad to know it's you.
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Honestly, a lot of people do that.
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They want to build their church in their name, they don't care what Christ has to say, they don't care what the Bible has to say.
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They want to have a monument to themselves.
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What is the Tower of Babel? Was it not a monument to man's achievement? Well, if you read, though, it wasn't so much that they were trying to reach God.
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Now I'm going to go take a left turn here, because I'm going to preach on this in a few weeks.
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Well, in Genesis 11, so it might be a few years.
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It says they wanted to make a name for themselves.
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The Tower of Babel was built because they wanted to have a monument to their power, a monument to their name.
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They wanted to build something that their name might be remembered.
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That's what men are about.
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Men love legacies.
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Men love that it's their church.
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Jesus said, I will build My church, not yours.
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My church, right? And when I build My church, the gates of hell will not prevail.
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We see a lot of churches where the gates of hell overcome, and it's because it's men's church, it's not Christ's church.
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The Bible says when Christ builds His church, the gates of hell will not overcome.
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And Jesus did come to establish a church.
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He came to establish a bride.
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The church is the bride.
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And we're going to talk about that in a few minutes.
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But before I get there, I want to talk about this word ekklesia, because it is important, because I think it's been misunderstood.
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How many of you have ever heard that the word ekklesia, or ekklesia, means the called-out ones? Okay, nobody.
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Okay, that's good, because now I don't have to fix anything.
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Because that's what a lot of people, because the word ekklesia comes from two Greek words.
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The first is a prefix, ek, which is where we get the word out of.
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It's exit, right? That's the Greek derivative, means to go out, right? So ek means out of.
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And then kaleo is call.
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Now, you remember the paraclete, the word for the Holy Spirit? You've heard that, right? The paraclete is the one who Jesus said, if I go, the Comforter will come.
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And that's the Greek word.
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That's the same root, kaleo.
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Parakletos means to call someone beside you.
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Ekklesia means to call out.
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And so people will say, the church is the called-out ones.
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Slow down.
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Because that's not all that it means.
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That is an etymology of a word, but not a definition.
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You understand what the difference is? Etymology is where words come from.
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It's the understanding of where words come out of.
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So, for instance, your word television.
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What does it mean? Well, tele means far.
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Visio means to see.
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So it means far-seeing.
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Is that what television is? No.
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But that's what the etymology of televisio or television is.
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And the same way with ekklesia.
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Does it mean called out? It can.
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But in Greek, the word ekklesia does not simply mean called out.
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It means to be assembled.
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It means it's calling people out of their homes into an assembly.
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It's not just calling out.
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It's calling to.
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It's come out of your home and come to the square.
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Come out of your home and come to the assembly.
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It's very important that we understand that.
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Because a lot of people have tried to take the etymology of ekklesia and say, well, yeah, you don't have to gather at the church.
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Everybody's called out.
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We're all called, right? We're called by God, so we're safe, so we're called.
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So we don't have to be together.
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We don't have to be gathered.
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And you know what the Greek word for that is? Baloney.
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I ain't said it in a month, so I'll say it now.
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The Greek word for that is baloney because it's garbage.
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People who say, and I'll say this if you're listening online, people who say, I can be a Christian, but I don't need to gather with the body, are just wrong.
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And here's the funny thing about that, is I shouldn't have to defend that.
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Such a statement should be so obvious that I should not have to spend 30 minutes explaining that to someone.
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The whole New Testament is written to the church.
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Read every one of Paul's letters.
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It's either to an individual in the church or to the whole church.
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The New Testament is about this verse.
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Jesus said, I will build my church.
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The New Testament is about the reality of this verse becoming a reality.
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Right now I'm preparing for our survey of the New Testament in our academy.
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And I'm right now to Acts, because I'm literally surveying one book at a time.
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And so I'm writing my lessons ahead of time.
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And this morning I woke up early and I got out in my office and I was working on my computer and I was working on my lesson on the book of Acts.
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And it struck me.
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What is Acts? Acts is the transition from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant.
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But what brings the transition? The falling of the Holy Spirit in Acts chapter 2 with the day of Pentecost and the birth of the church.
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That was the transition from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant.
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Now, Covenant theology would say, well, there was the church in the Old Testament.
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Israel was the church of the Old Testament.
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And I understand that.
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But when we speak of language, I'm simply using the language of the fact that something new happened on the pages of Acts 2.
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The Holy Spirit, which had previously resided within the temple and the Holy of Holies, would now reside in the hearts of all believers.
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There would no longer be...
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We don't go to temple, by the way, on the Lord's Day.
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Where do we go? Well, we say we go to church.
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We are the church gathered in the building.
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And the building itself really is irrelevant.
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Because remember when we couldn't come in the building but we gathered out there on the sidewalk? We were still the church.
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And if this church were to burn down tomorrow and we had to go meet in a school, we'd still be the church.
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And if the school wouldn't let us meet, so we all had to gather at Jack Bunning's house, we would get in his backyard and we would have church in his backyard.
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Because we would be the assembly of God's people in that place.
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I keep stressing this.
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A while back, it wasn't too long ago, it was on Jennifer's birthday.
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I know when it was.
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It was on Jennifer's birthday.
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Went to eat.
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Took her to dinner.
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And nice young man came to the table.
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He was the waiter.
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Very nice young man.
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And we started talking back and forth.
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And I brought up the subject of church.
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And I said, young man, do you go to church? And he said, no, I don't go to church.
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I am the church.
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Now, what I said was, no, you're not.
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I wasn't trying to be ugly.
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And I wasn't rude.
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He laughed.
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He thought I was funny.
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Because he said, I don't go to church.
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I am the church.
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I said, no, you're not.
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The word church means assembly.
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And you can't assemble alone.
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You're not the church by yourself.
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That ain't how this works.
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And he goes, oh, I didn't know that.
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Well, now you do.
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I said, what you're doing is you are using an excuse, which has become very popular.
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I want to be the church.
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I don't want to go to church.
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You've heard people say that? It's garbage.
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It is garbage.
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Because all they're doing is they're trying to find a reason to excuse themselves from what is so obviously commanded in Scripture.
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Assemble yourselves together and do not forsake assembling yourselves.
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Well, I don't want to go to church.
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I don't get anything out of it.
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It ain't for you.
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People come up to me afterward.
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I didn't get a lot out of worship.
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Well, thank God I wasn't worshiping you.
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Because I wasn't here for you.
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And if you didn't get anything out of it, I wonder what you put into it.
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I mean, there's a lot we could say.
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But the reality is, when we talk about ecclesia, yes, the derivative of the word, yes, the etymology of the word does mean to call out.
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But it's more than that.
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It's assembly.
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And so when we ask the question, what is the church? The church is the assembly of God's people.
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By the way, it's the assembly of God's people.
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It is not the assembly of the world.
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See, a lot of churches have taken themselves to become the entertainment experience for the world.
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And they've said, what we're going to do is, we're going to make the church just like the world so that when worldly people come, they feel comfortable.
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I'll tell you this.
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I will say this, and again, if I'm hurting feelings, just get your sip of water because it's going to get worse.
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If our goal...
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Well, let me say this.
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If we are entertaining the world, then we're not doing church right.
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This is not an entertainment center.
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In fact, I believe church is an institution of higher learning.
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It's a place where people gather for learning about God's word and then going back into the world with the knowledge to take God's word with them when they go.
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There's reason.
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We come to worship, and we come to grow so that we can go and make more worshippers.
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By the way, that's the way you should think of evangelism.
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Evangelism isn't about getting people saved because that focuses on the individuals.
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We're not focused on the individuals.
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Evangelism is about God.
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God deserves to be worshipped.
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People out there aren't worshipping Him.
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Therefore, I'm going to go to them and I'm going to say, there's a God who deserves your worship and you're not giving it to Him.
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Now, I'm going to say it just that way.
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But you understand, that's the problem.
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There's a God who created you who deserves to be worshipped and you're not.
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It's not just about heaven and hell.
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It's about a kingdom and a king.
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And He deserves our worship.
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He deserves our life.
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Jesus said, if any man will come after Me, he needs to be able to take up his cross and follow Me.
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Why? Because it ain't about you.
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It's about Him.
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Now, does He love you? Yes.
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Did He come to die for you? Yes.
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Is there a great benefits package? Oh, yeah.
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But it's not about that.
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It's about the king who deserves to be worshipped.
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Therefore, when we come together on Sunday morning, what do we come together for? What is church for? It's to worship God.
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I mean, we really do.
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We think about that a lot here.
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What did I tell you? I spent two weeks away at other churches.
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For what reason? Because I wanted to worship God.
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I was off.
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I was off.
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You know what I joke when I go out, you know, when I'm out to dinner with people? And people say, oh, let the pastor preach.
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And I say, no, I don't do it every time.
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I joke, you know, because it's a joke.
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But the reality is, worship is not work for me.
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What I do on Sunday morning, I do it because I love it.
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And always trying to do it better.
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Not because I want to show off for you.
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I'm not here to put on a show for anybody.
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But I want to do for my God.
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This is one thing I don't get paid for.
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I do get a paycheck.
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Because I spend many hours a week here.
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I work here.
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This is my job.
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This is my labor.
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But on Sunday morning, I'm not being paid a dime for getting up and preaching the Word.
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That is my offering to God.
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I've spent all week preparing for that moment where I get to come and speak to God's people on God's behalf.
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And that's a blessing.
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I don't want a dime for that.
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And if I couldn't do the job that I do here during the week, if the church couldn't pay me and I had to go cut lawns or teach school.
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I ain't teaching school.
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I got a degree, but I ain't doing that.
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But there's a lot that I could do to make a living.
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But preaching is the gift.
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That's not how I make my living.
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Yeah, brother.
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There's not much more sweeter than assembling with the saints of the Lord.
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Amen.
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Amen.
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And that's the part I want people to understand.
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Is we talk about what is the church? It's the most blessed thing in the world.
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It's what Jesus gave Himself for.
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What does it say? Husbands, love your wives.
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Does Christ love the church and gave Himself up for her? Right? Christ gave Himself for the church.
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I hate it when I hear people say, Well, I love Jesus, but I hate the church.
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Shame on you! To utter such a thing.
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Now you say, Well, I've been hurt by church.
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I tell you what, ain't nobody been hurt by church like I have.
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We've all been hurt by church.
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Well, I take that back.
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There's people who've been hurt worse than me.
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But we've all been hurt by church.
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We've all had times where somebody has hurt us.
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Does that mean that Christ was wrong in wanting to build the church? Or that men are wrong in how they behave in the church? And so we have to look at the church differently.
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So what we're going to do over the next several weeks, which you'll see on here, we're going to look at eight aspects of the church.
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First, we're going to look at what is the church.
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That's tonight.
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Next week, we're going to look at church structure.
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Week three, we're going to look at church leadership.
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Week four, we're going to look at church membership.
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What do you expect? And what should the church expect from you? That's a very good question.
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Part five, we're going to look at church worship.
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What should we do when we gather? Part six, the ordinances.
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We are baptistic, meaning we believe in the baptism of believers only.
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So we're going to talk about what that means.
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That's ordinance, right? There are two ordinances in the church, baptism and the Lord's Table.
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We're going to look at church discipline.
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That one will not be a fun lesson, but it's an important one.
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And then finally, we're going to look at church support.
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How ought we as the people of God to see the work of the church and how it is to be funded? That's an important question.
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But for the last bit of tonight, I'm going to ask you to give me a few extra minutes because I took some extra minutes at the beginning.
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For the last bit of tonight, I want to break down very quickly and give you some scriptures.
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You notice there are five headings I gave you tonight.
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We said, what is the church? It's the assembly of God's people.
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And in the Bible, we have five metaphors for the church.
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This is what's on your handout.
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Five metaphors.
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I'm going to give you the scripture, and I'm going to encourage you to read these scriptures and meditate on them.
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Okay? I'll read them, but then I'm not going to give a lot because if I tried to preach all this, it would just take all night.
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And I think I've said what I want to say, but I want to give you the passages.
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First, the church is a body.
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Paul tells us this in 1 Corinthians 12 to 13.
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Just as the body has many members, and all the members of the body, though many are one body, so it is with Christ.
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For in one spirit we were all baptized into one body.
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Jews are Greek, slaves are free, and we're all made to drink of one spirit.
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We are one body, and the Bible calls us a body.
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In Ephesians 1, it says the same thing.
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It says that we are his body.
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Ephesians 1, 22 and 23.
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We are also called the bride.
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I mentioned this earlier.
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Ephesians 5, 22 to 30.
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It says, wives, submit to your husbands, ask to the Lord.
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Husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.
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So it's interesting right there.
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It says, this actually, this passage in Ephesians 5, 22 to 30, gives us three metaphors in a row.
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It says he is the head, we are the body, and he is the husband, and we are the bride.
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He gave himself up for her, us.
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We are the bride of Christ.
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We see this also in Revelation 19, verses 7 to 9.
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Let us rejoice and exult and give him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.
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It was granted to her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure, for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.
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And the angel said to me, Write this, blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.
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And he said to me, These are the true words of God.
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That's the great culmination of history, the marriage supper of the Lamb, when Christ will receive us as his bride.
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A few years ago, I heard Paul Washer give a tremendous example.
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You know who Paul Washer is? He's a pastor.
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If you've never heard of him, look it up.
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He is very good.
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And Paul Washer told a story.
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He said, Imagine a king goes away on a journey, and he leaves his bride, and he tells his subjects, Care for my bride while I am away.
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And here is her clothing.
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She is to be adorned with these clothes, and she is to be fed properly, and she is to be taken care of.
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This is the bride of the king.
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And the king goes away.
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And the king returns to find that they have stripped her of her royal clothing.
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They have placed upon her the clothes of the harlot.
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They have treated her poorly, and bruised her body, and mangled her hair and her face.
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What do you think the king would do to those subjects who so attacked his bride? The answer is obvious.
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And the question is then, How do we treat the bride of Christ? They say we are the bride of Christ.
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Yes.
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But often the worst attacks against Christ's bride come from within.
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But it also reminds of those who are attacking Christ's bride, the danger that they have put themselves in.
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Think about right now.
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Think about how many churches are under threat.
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There is a church in California, $5,000 fine every time they meet.
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John MacArthur's church, their parking lot has been taken away.
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They were leasing the parking lot, which is across the street from their facility.
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The city has taken their lease away.
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Even though they were all paid up, and everything was good, they came in, took the lease, but they have nowhere to park, so that they can't meet.
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Beloved, you attack the bride of Christ, and that is a dangerous thing.
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For that is the king's bride.
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The church is also called a building.
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Ephesians 2.19-22 Listen to this one, because I often hear people say the church isn't a building.
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That's true.
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The church isn't a building, but the people of the church make up a building.
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Listen to this.
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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, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a whole temple in the Lord, in him you also being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
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You see, we are the building of God, in the same way we're the body.
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You know, like in a body you have hands and feet, and elbows and toes, and in a building you have studs, and you have sheet rock, and you have metal walls, and you have a roof, and all these things, and that same picture.
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Who's the cornerstone? Jesus Christ.
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What's the foundation? This is important.
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What's the foundation? The apostles and prophets.
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Why? Why is the apostles and prophets the foundation? Well, yeah, but this, in more particular, this is what the apostles and prophets have given to us, the word of God, used by God to give us the word of God.
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Christ is the cornerstone, the foundation is the apostles and prophets, their words given to us, and we build the church upon the word of God.
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Number four, priesthood.
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I know some of you may have had a background in Roman Catholic theology, where they were priests, and you had to go to the priest to receive absolution for your sins, or maybe you have friends and family that are in such a situation.
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One of the things that the Reformation rediscovered, did not invent, but rediscovered, was what was known as the priesthood of all believers.
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And it was found in 1 Peter 2.
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Listen to this.
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As you come to Him, a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
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And then verse 9 says this, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may claim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into the marvelous light.
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A few years ago, we had a wedding or something.
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It was back before I was the pastor, and a man came from the Eastern Orthodox Church.
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And our former pastor met him, and he came dressed in the garments of the Eastern Orthodox priest.
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He had a very long robe.
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He had a very large ivory cross.
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You remember, Shirley? And he had the vestments of the priesthood.
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And he came to the pastor, and he said, You may call me Father.
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And the pastor said, No, I don't think I'm going to.
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I was pretty proud of him that day.
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I was happy.
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But you see, the priesthood belongs to one person only, and that's Jesus Christ.
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But in Christ, we are all made priests before God because we are united with the high priest.
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And in that union, we become a royal priesthood.
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You see, the church is not one priest giving absolution to everyone else from the pulpit or from the communion table.
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It's one priest in heaven who makes intercession for all of His people, and thereby all of them are holy.
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You are holy.
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You are a saint.
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You know that? You heard of Saint this or Saint that? Saint Paul, Saint Andrew? The idea of sainthood has been absconded by the Roman Catholic Church because they take the idea of sainthood and they make it into something that you must achieve through works.
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Sainthood is something that is given to you by grace through faith.
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You are called hagiosmos in Greek.
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It means the holy ones or the sanctified.
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Very important.
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Last, you are the flock.
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Acts 20-28.
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Our elders, this is an important passage for us because in speaking to the elders, the Apostle Paul said this, Pay careful attention to yourselves and to the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God which He obtained with His own blood.
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That's an important passage by itself because it says so much about God obtaining the church with His own blood, but it also speaks to the elders.
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It says this is the church of God and it's His flock.
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You're the pastors.
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Pastor is the word for shepherd and it means to shepherd the flock.
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We also know this in John 10-11.
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Jesus says, I am a good shepherd and I lay down my life for the sheep.
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John 10-25.
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The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me but you do not believe because you are not my sheep.
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My sheep hear my voice.
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I know them and they follow me.
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If you want to understand why we are called a flock, it's because of intimacy.
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The shepherd knows His sheep.
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He calls them by name.
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The Lord is my shepherd.
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I shall not want.
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He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.
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He leadeth me beside the still waters.
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He restoreth my soul.
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Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for Thou art with me.
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Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.
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Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
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Thou anointest my head with oil.
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My cup runneth over.
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Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
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Why do we read that at funerals? Because it's about the intimacy of the shepherd with his flock.
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I may walk through the valley of the shadow of death but I will fear nothing because the shepherd is with me.
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That's the wonder of being part of the flock.
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That's the danger of being outside of the flock.
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I want to close with this.
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And this is an important distinction.
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Because earlier I said that the church is the assembly.
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It is in the sense of what the word means.
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It means to assemble.
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But we are still part of the church when we scatter.
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But there is a blessedness in the assembly that is not the same as when we are scattered.
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There's a reason why we come together.
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There's a reason why we need each other.
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I need you.
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You need me.
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And look around.
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You need everyone else.
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That's what we're here for.
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We're here because we are needful of one another.
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And I'm going to end on this.
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When you ask the question, well is every time a group of people that are believers gathered, is that a church? The answer is no.
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Even though some people would claim Matthew 18 where Jesus said where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them.
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So where two or three are gathered, that's a church? That's not true.
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Because not only is the church the gathering of the saints, but the church gathers with purpose and with structure.
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This week, Liberty University, they're going through a big issue with their leader who's been their president who was ousted and some things.
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But I don't want to talk about that.
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I want to mention this.
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They posted a picture online and it was their, what do they call it, where they gather, all the students gathered, no, not a convocation.
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Maybe it was a convocation.
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They gathered for a service and they posted a picture.
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And here's what it was.
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Everybody was on the football field six feet from each other.
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Because you know, COVID.
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So they were all on the football field six feet from each other.
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And the post read at the top, the article read, this is a picture of the church.
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And I said, no, it's not.
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Is it a gathering of believers? Yes.
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But there's more than just gathering that constitutes a church.
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John Calvin said this.
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He said, if you do not have the proper preaching of the gospel, the proper administration of the ordinances of God, and the proper administration of biblical discipline, you don't have a church.
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So what we're going to see in the next seven or eight weeks is we're going to see that church begins with the assembly.
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But there's more to the church than just the assembly.
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There's actually a structure provided in the New Testament to tell us how the church is to function.
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There is a way to be a biblically functioning church.
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And we're going to learn about that in the weeks to come.
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So let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for the truth.
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I pray that tonight the truth has been proclaimed, your people have been edified, and that this has been something that they will be able to apply to their lives and understanding.
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I pray all this in Christ's name and for his sake.
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Amen.