Have We Missed the Point of Church? | Theocast

Hi, this is John. Today on Theocast, we're gonna have a serious conversation about have we missed the point of the church? I'll just go ahead and say this in the beginning. Is the church the primary means that God uses to strengthen and build us up in our faith?

We're gonna make the argument that, according to the scripture, yes. Stay tuned. If you'd like to help support Theocast, you can do that by leaving us a review on iTunes and subscribing on your favorite podcast app.

You can also follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Plus, we have a Facebook group if you'd like to join the conversation there. Thanks for listening. Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ.

Conversations about the Christian life from a reformed and pastoral perspective. Your hosts today are Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina and I'm John Moffitt, pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

It's good to be here with you today. There are some admittance of listeners who have been listening to us for a year and then realized they lived in the same town as us because they kept skipping the intro.

So if that was you, you might wanna go back and find out that we live in the same town as you. You never know. Yeah, never know. Justin, it's good to have you. You were traveling last week, so it's good to have you back in your

Normal, my normal habitat, normal environment. Yeah, that's right. I recorded on the road last week. It was good. It was a good recording. The Theocast Roadshow. That's right, if you haven't listened to that, go back and listen to it.

Justin, today's probably a subject that you and I are gonna have to try our best to keep our blood pressures down. It's something that we do for a living, but it's also something we are extremely passionate about, not only the history of it, but the function of it.

So tell us, what are we talking about today? And keeping our blood pressure down, meaning that we just care a ton about this and we're passionate about today's conversation on a number of levels, and that'll become clear.

So the title of the episode, you've already seen it, because I assume even if you skip the intros, you do at least look at what the title is. And so the title is, Have We Missed the Point of Church? And our answer to that, speaking from the perspective of evangelicalism in the States, is that in many ways, yes, we have missed the point of church.

We don't want to bury the lead. I think if you were to ask the average evangelical, what is the point of church? And by that we mean, what is the point of the church as an institution, or even what is the point of church gathered?

I think you would get a whole host of answers, and the vast majority of those would be not good. And so it is our conviction as confessional Protestants, in our case, as confessional 1689 London Baptist Confession guys, that the point of the church, the thing that makes the church utterly unique, is the forgiveness of sins and the declaration of righteousness on account of Christ alone.

And that everything that the church is about, everything the church is, everything that the church does flows from that thing. And there are several implications of that that we're probably gonna get to today.

But I think in the ears of many people, John, to say that, the only thing that is utterly unique about the church is that forgiveness, absolution, righteousness in Christ, sounds reductionistic and honestly frightening.

And it's like, really? Is that true? And we're gonna contend, yes, in fact, that is true. And that everything that we do in the life of the church is centered on that. And I think the reason this conversation matters so much to me, John, is that I know that you've had this experience too.

I have walked through this in my own life, but I have seen it in so many other people's lives, where people have either misunderstood, and this is kind of even touching back on last week's episode on deconstruction, where people have had experiences in the church or experiences with Christianity, where it's been about all of these other things that have been confusing, that have been exhausting.

It ends up in some way being about personal moral transformation, or it ends up being about personal transformation to the end of societal transformation, or maybe in some streams, it's just unashamedly about societal transformation, through political and social endeavors.

And so people have gotten the point of the church confused. It's had all kinds of clutter thrown on top of it. And I think when we begin to discover this reality, that the church gathered and the church as an institution is about the forgiveness of sins, we understand why we need it, and it stirs our affections for it.

Like if you're struggling to answer the question, why do I need the church? I would humbly suggest to you, if you are a Christian and you're struggling to answer the question, why do I need the church?

You have misunderstood the point of church. Because when you understand the point of church, as a Christian, you will not have to struggle to answer that question, because the question answers itself.

And if you're listening to me talk right now, and you're thinking, brother, I don't know what in the world you're talking about. I've never felt that way in my life. Keep listening, and we're gonna do our best over the next 35 minutes or so to try to persuade you that what we're saying is the case.

So there we go. John, whatever you wanna say, brother, I'm sure it's gonna be good, and I'll pick up on it and try not to trample on you. No, that's a great introduction. I have so much compassion for people that have experienced abusive church, anemic churches.

We talked about an anemic gospel, right? And then typically anemic churches produce anemic gospels. And if you've not heard that episode, I'd encourage you to listen to it. Anemic gospels produce anemic churches too.

It goes both ways. That's a better way of saying that, yeah. And one of the mission statements I tell our church almost weekly is that our goal is to reach the lost, the confused, and the abused by the church.

And unfortunately, because of the sinfulness of men, the arrogance of men, we, and this is not surprising because Paul warns Timothy that this is going to happen. There's gonna be people with itching ears and you're gonna have false teachers and preachers that come in, and ravenous wolves that come in and hurt the sheep.

So it's not a shock to Justin and I that there are churches out there, large amount of churches, and large churches that are hurting and confusing Christians. So if you're listening to this and you love the message of the gospel, you're loving what you're hearing about resting in Christ, but your experience in Christ's church has nothing positive to it.

First of all, I am sorry. And I apologize on the behalf of all Christians that we have not served you well in that area. So in many ways, Justin and I are asking you to allow us to walk you through scripture and the history of our faith to show you that your experience is, unfortunately, it's not what was intended.

God never intended the church to be a place where there was confusion, abuse, and hurt, but he always intended the church to be, as Paul says, a place of unity and peace. He literally says in Ephesians chapter four that we are to be eager to maintain the bond of peace.

And when people think about church, Justin, they don't use the word peace. They definitely don't use the word unity. Not their experience has been. I have people, I've had people describe church to me, and as they describe it, I reinterpret it as the most lonely place on the planet.

They're gathered with people, and yet they don't know them because they're superficial plastic people, and you cannot be real because if you're real, you're gonna get trampled. And all you're offered is not Christ.

All you're offered is not how to rest in Christ. What you're offered is just how to be a better human being in the flesh. Or a better Christian. Yeah, you're offered Galatians three. Oh, yes, faith alone, faith alone, faith alone, but now here's how to do works of the flesh.

And Paul says, who bewitched you? And a lot of churches, and I know this is a broad statement and dangerous one, but if you listen to the message, it's grace alone for salvation and flesh alone for sanctification.

And that's what Paul says, bewitched. Yeah, so I'm gonna lead off my comments. I mean, I know I did the introduction, but you know what I mean. I'm gonna lead off my comments with this because I just wanna be as clear as I can be about this.

What is the point of church? Why do I need the church? I'm just gonna speak personally as a believer. Yeah, I'm a pastor, but I'm a Christian, right? I'm trusting Christ for my righteousness and for forgiveness of sins.

And so I need the church because the church is where, precisely where I can find the forgiveness of sins in Jesus' name. It is precisely where I can find absolution of guilt in Jesus' name. It's exactly where I can find the declaration of righteousness on account of Christ for me.

And it's the only place that I can find those things. And so I go to church. I need the church because it is there that I find forgiveness, absolution, and righteousness. It is there that I am given the Lord Jesus Christ in word and sacrament.

So corporate worship, right? I mean, I'm talking in corporate worship terms. I'm talking in ordinary means of grace terms right now on purpose. When I come to church on Sunday, what is it that I need?

I need the word of God preached. And in the word of God being rightly preached, I need Jesus preached to me. I need Christ preached over me that he has satisfied for my sins and has accomplished and fulfilled the law for me, and therefore I have peace with God.

I need that desperately. I need to be reminded of that reality. I need the right administration of the Lord's table and baptism, which is all about my union with Christ by faith. I need that. But alongside that, what I desperately need is not just a general kind of place I go where forgiveness and absolution and righteousness are preached and given to sinners, but I need to go to the place where I can fellowship with other people who have been forgiven on account of Christ.

Because I need that fellowship with my brothers and sisters, because they too, like me, are pilgrims in this world on our way to our ultimate home, right? And so, again, for me, as I'm processing this, I'm like, why do I need the church?

It's like, no, I want to turn that on its head and ask you, proverbially you out there that may think you don't need the church, how do you think you're gonna live without this as a believer? Like, if you don't have a place to go where Christ is given to you, where you are exhorted, receive what Christ has done for you, where you're reminded that he's accomplished your salvation and it's over, if you don't have that, and if you don't have a place to go to be with other people who've been united to Christ that you have also been united to, how are you gonna make it?

Is the question. I think the burden of proof lies there. And so, what's the point of church? In some senses, it's forgiveness and fellowship. And it is the only place in the world where I can find either.

The Church as the Place of Forgiveness and Fellowship

Yeah. You know? Justin, let me walk this backwards and Please, do whatever you need. We said this earlier and it's a little punchy, so it'll get the blood flowing early in this podcast for the listener and for us.

So, Justin, it's safe to say, I'm not, just answer yes to all of this. You know, play the game with me. I'll step in the trap. That's cool. We'll unleash it. It's safe to say, I wrote these things down, so I don't wanna forget.

It's safe to say all spiritual growth happens through the word of God. That's, everyone would agree with that. All spiritual growth, if it, it's safe to say that it's impossible to grow without the word of God.

Yes. That would be safe to say. Okay. I don't think that's controversial. Yeah. No, it's uncontroversial. Not controversial yet. Now, that means that the content then of the word of God matters because we then have to pay attention to how, because the Bible says a lot.

Bible says a lot, right? Bible says a lot about It's a pretty big book, yeah. It's mostly narrative, mostly describing God's redemption of sinners. And then towards the end, we get an explanation of our union.

You'd already said it, our union with Christ. Just so we understand And our union with each other in the church. Well, it's going to get there. So we understand, no, it's fine. We understand union in marriage.

So in the Old Testament, the two shall become one flesh, right? So we understand that union where there are two are now brought together. This good, healthy, reformed tradition of understanding union in Christ, which those outside of the Reformed faith would agree with this.

So it's not just a Reformed doctrine, but they have promoted it heavily, meaning that you as an individual are united in spirit with Christ and you receive all benefits of it. Meaning that when God looks at you, He looks at you with the righteousness of Jesus.

He looks with you with the purity of Jesus, meaning that you've been cleansed. He looks at you as the son adopted. So you aren't Jesus, but you are the adopted one. Therefore, He looks at you. Literally, Jesus says in John, Lord, help them understand that you love me.

You love them as much as you love me. So we receive because we're united. Clothed is another way of saying that we are one. Because of that, we receive all of the benefits. Now, that's the description of your experience.

Then God in His word says, okay, to help you understand and grow in that knowledge, grow in that awareness, Paul will say things like walk by the spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

He's talking about living life in the awareness of your union, living life clothed in the righteousness of Jesus. Living in a way that is commensurate with your union with Christ is another way to put it, yeah.

Right, so now if we are true theologians, if we're true Bible people, we're Bible thumpers, like I only believe what the Bible says, and we agree to the statement that all spiritual growth happens through the word of God, the word of God plainly states that spiritual growth, all right, here comes the controversial one, Justin.

Spiritual growth, I will say primarily and most likely only happens through a biblical, local assembly called the body of Christ or church. Can I go? I'm gonna agree with what you said. I'm gonna go turn up the temperature, man.

So I would say that the primary way we grow spiritually is through the ordinary means of grace administered in the assembly. So the ordinary means of grace primarily being the right administration of the word of God, the preaching of the word, and then the right administration of the sacraments, Lord's Supper, baptism in the gathered church.

Alongside those two things, you could add prayer, you could add song to that, the things we do when we assemble. That is the primary way we grow spiritually. I would say if you expand it, life in the church generally, if you expand it to those categories that I alluded to earlier, where you've got ordinary means of grace and you've got the fellowship of the saints, and by that I mean not just the gathered church, but our life in the body of Christ with other believers.

And by this we mean hospitality. By this we mean spending time in groups or whatever. By this we mean just enjoying each other, that life together stuff. I would say that if you combine the assembly and the ordinary means of grace and fellowship of the saints broadly, that is exclusively how we grow in the Christian life.

And that sounds insane to the modern evangelical ear where we think that we grow alone. And we think that me and God, me and Jesus time, not that everybody loves this song, but there's a reason why I walked through the garden alone was so meaningful to so many people for so long.

It's a terrible song. Because they were already alone in the church. Well, but it's like, it's me and Jesus. It's me and God. It's me, it's this individual thing. It's about me individually and it's about my intensity, my sincerity, my devotion, my whatever.

When in reality, no, the Christian life is inherently corporate and it's inherently church shaped. That's right. Can I read two? I'll die on that hill, bro. Yeah, I'll read two quotes real quick to argue that point and then throw it back to you.

No, you're fine. This one's from Bavink, Herman Bavink in Reform Dogmatics. He says, God alone is the distributor of grace and he alone can bind its distribution to the means ordained by him. He's arguing our point that God distributes grace for the sake of growth.

I mean, this is Galatians three, we'll get to in a minute. Then this is our confession. So this is the Latter Baptist confession. Just so you understand, this isn't new to us. This is very old. It says the grace of faith whereby the elect are enabled to believe to the saving of their souls is the work of the spirit of Christ in their hearts and is ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the word by which also and by administration of baptism as the Lord's Supper, prayer and other means appointed by God, it is increased and strengthened.

Did you hear that? Increased and strengthened. It's the ordinary preaching of God's word and the administration of baptism in the Lord's table and the congregation of prayer. He doesn't mean individual prayer there.

He means a corporate because all of those are done corporately. So our confession for the last, and the Westminster would agree with this, for the last 400 years, we've been arguing that the primary way our faith is strengthened and increased is not on an individual administration by ourselves alone with the word of God, but it's the gathered congregation.

And I think it's important that the confession here says it's the ordinary way in which God uses this. Now, Justin, we had said this beforehand, I'm gonna mention this now, just as a little bit of a, you know, for those caveat, there are extreme circumstances where Christians find themselves isolated, not by their own decisions, but because of circumstance.

And I believe that God gives extraordinary grace and administrates in extraordinary ways in those times, but that's not the normal experience of the Christian life. The way that I always frame that is the Lord gives extraordinary grace in extraordinary circumstances.

And so that is not the norm though. Like, so again, don't misunderstand us for that Christian who's been literally imprisoned for being a Christian, you know, because they've, right. Or, you know, because of persecution is not able to assemble or whatever.

That is not what we're talking about right now. The Lord absolutely keeps his people and sustains his people with extraordinary grace in times such as that. I mean, it's just how he is and how he operates.

But we're talking about the normal, you know, quote unquote, normal life under the sun. The experience, certainly, I mean, if we're talking to primarily American Christians here or Western Christians in nations that are rightly understood to be Western democracies, right, where we can, yeah, might we experience some level of persecution at a societal level?

Okay, fine. But are we able to assemble regularly? Yes, we are. And we're able to assemble freely. So we're talking about that kind of situation. Yeah, I think it's a good comment. Go ahead, please. I'll throw one more in there.

And this one might cause us to go all kinds of places, but Justin, one would feel guilty in modern day times to miss a quiet time because they feel that that's the primary way in which God grows and sustains them.

But they are not so bothered when they miss a mealtime. That's when we gather together. And I find that upside down. I find that the priority is in the wrong place. And I don't fault the believer for this because most likely that's how they've been trained by their pastor or the culture.

We're here to say the prime, I mean, Hebrews literally says, do not forsake the symbol of yourselves as such as you is, or is. Such as you is. As is the habit of some. Is the habit of some. Is what you're looking for.

You get me all worked up and I'll have all kinds of bad English coming out You're all hopped up on Mountain Dew. I wish I was drinking Mountain Dew right now. It's just water. But my point of it is, is that we, some of the arguments, like we use Ephesians 4 constantly, but Ephesians 4, 16 literally says, when the body functions properly, gathered together, by the way, underneath the administration of the preaching of the elders and teachers in Ephesians 4, 11, it says, when the body functions properly, it builds itself up in love.

So there's a sense where, you know, I'm preaching through the book of James and I think James has been highly misinterpreted, misapplied, but my belief through the study of James is that James is arguing for unity and peace within the body and he covers everything that is causing disunity and peace within the body.

And he is writing to them about their faith and they're saying, if you believe in Jesus, then the result of that, every single thing he says, Justin, has to do with what's distracting the body from unity and peace, every single one of them.

Well, it's just like, it's Ephesians 4, 30, you know, where giving the devil a foothold in the church has everything to do with tearing each other to pieces with what we say. Yeah. Can I, let me read just one part of James I think is helpful for us.

He says this, who is wise and understands, this is James 3, 13, who is wise and understanding among you but is good contact, let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitterness and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth.

This is not the wisdom that comes down from above but is earthly and unspiritual mnemonic for where jealousy and selfish ambition exists, there will be disorder and vile practice. And he's making this so clear, but then in verse 17, he says this, but wisdom from above is pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and fruits, sorry, and good fruits, impartial and sincere.

And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. So everything that James is arguing for here in his book is this is how believers are to find, I mean, can we just say selfish ambition?

This should not exist. Vile practices and disorder should not exist. Let me just go back to chapter one. This is what the very famous verse James says, if anyone lacks wisdom, which he just described what it was, let him ask of God who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given to him.

Here's what's interesting, Justin, is that when we hear that from James, you know what we think immediately? Individually, in my closet, by myself, this is, he is actually writing to the church saying, if the church, if you're lacking these things, you need to come together and ask of God so that you can receive these things.

We individualize everything. And yet when James is writing, he's like, I'm writing to the 12 churches that are all scattered abroad all over the place, and this is what's happening to you. And yet what do we do?

We individualize it. If you're new to Theocast, we have a free ebook available for you called Faith vs. Faithfulness, A Primer on Rest. And if you've struggled with legalism, a lack of assurance, or simply want to know what it means to live by faith alone, we wrote this little book to provide a simple answer from a Reformed confessional perspective.

You can get your free copy at theocast .org slash primer. I mean, if you need more scriptural warrant for this kind of church-shaped life that we're contending for, John's already brought up the book of James, but there are ample other things.

The whole second half of the letter of the Ephesians, we've brought that up, very clear. I would argue the entire letter of 1 Corinthians is about this, and there are very pointed sections that make this just crystal clear.

You have sections of the book of Hebrews. Not only did you mention Hebrews 10. I mean, Hebrews 10 right there, after he's talked about the sufficiency of the Lord Jesus Christ, he then talks about how we together draw near to God with full assurance of faith, holding fast to our confession together.

That's what we do. And then you have the chapter 13 about how it's good for us to submit to our leaders. There's the pastoral epistles are written, two congregations through a pastor, and so clearly there's a need for this kind of churchly life and the need for elders and shepherds and teachers and all those things.

We could go on and on and on. The Christian life is inherently corporate. It's inherently church-shaped. I want to circle back briefly to what I was arguing for toward the beginning of today's episode, that the church exists primarily for the forgiveness of sins and the fellowship of the saints, and that's what we need and why we need it.

I want to read a quote from Jay Gresham Machen really quickly, and this is from his famous book called Christianity and Liberalism, and just a little bit of a teaser. In the coming weeks, I assume John and I are going to try to do an episode on confessional theology, maybe multiple.

I think that one thing about Machen's book is that it's almost always read purely through the lens of conservative versus liberal, kind of evangelical versus liberal dichotomy, whereas I think if we read Machen understanding him to be a confessional Protestant, not a pietistic Protestant, it's really revelatory.

But anyway, here we go. Machen says this about the church and about how what we need is a place for us to go because we're weary pilgrims. There must be somewhere groups of redeemed men and women who can gather together humbly in the name of Christ to give thanks to him for his unspeakable gift and to worship the Father through him.

Such groups alone can satisfy the needs of the soul. At the present time, there is one longing of the human heart which is often forgotten. It is the deep, pathetic longing of the Christian for fellowship with his brethren.

I'm just like, homie, you read my mail. I mean, this man lived 100 years ago. I mean, born well over, I mean, well over a century older than me. But it's just, it's like this man understood, not well over, about a century older than me.

He understood why we need the church. I need the church because it's the one place where the forgiveness of sins in Christ is offered. It's the one place where redeemed people on account of Christ gather in his name to worship the Father.

And it's the one place where we can go to fellowship with these other redeemed people. And how desperately we need this. Again, why do I need the church? My question is, how do I live without her? Well, yeah, and so many arguments from Paul where the giftedness of the church, God has gifted the church with various means.

And this is why it's so valuable that the church identify these gifts. Now I'm not talking about spiritual gifts test. What I mean is men of God who can accurately teach and shepherd through means of teaching.

I honestly think that we also need to identify strong women who are strong in the faith and that can love. I mean, Paul literally says that they need to love and care and administrate this wisdom to other women in the church.

So the church is all about strength. It's, I mean, literally Romans 15, those of you who are strong have an obligation to deal with the failings of the weak. There's this idea of that people come in weak with the faith and the church is there to build you up in your faith.

Now, this is what we're told, Justin, go home and here's your reading plan. And the church says, no, come on in and let us take the power of the spirit and transform you. Can I say this? I think people, I don't know that people, even John would say something as good as the church exists to build me up in my faith.

I think people would say, no, the church exists so that I can be better, so that I can be a better Christian, so that I can be a better citizen, so that I can be a better father, a better husband, a better mother, a better wife, whatever.

Like that's why I go to church to get better. And it's like, well, I would say, I'll go ahead and say that, yeah, you might come to church to get better in some sense, but what you ultimately are getting better in is learning through life and trial and suffering and pain and every other thing, like under the word of Christ and under the sacraments, you are learning to trust Jesus through all of that.

If that's what you mean by better, then okay, right? But if Sanctification is the process of a greater and greater awareness and faith and dependence on Christ. In spite of circumstance, right? I mean, that's the whole steadfastness piece, right?

I mean, even of James one, I mean, I know you're preaching it right now, but good gracious, like God produces steadfastness through pain, right? So I think, let me just say this, John, I wanna introduce this paradigm.

It's not accidental, right? That we use the language of pilgrims for theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ. That language of pilgrim is not unique to us, certainly. The reformed have been using it for hundreds of years.

I mean, I'm even thinking about, I mean, obviously there's pilgrims progress, but then I'm even thinking about Michael Horton's systematic theology. I mean, he's got pilgrims all over that thing. Because why is that?

Well, confessional Protestants, reformed Protestants understand that the metaphor of a pilgrim, a sojourner, an exile is the right one to use. Not only is it a biblical image, but it communicates that we're gonna be weary, that we're gonna struggle, and that we have not yet reached our homeland.

Like we are in the midst of, there's an already, but not yet. We've been promised a land, we've been promised a home, we've been promised that we're gonna have immediate fellowship with God forever, but that is not yet our experience.

We've been promised that we're gonna be delivered from sin, you know, completely, like where we won't even have a sinful flesh anymore, but that's not true yet. And so we're pilgrims right now. The problem, I think, in so many streams of the church is that we're not thought of as pilgrims, weary pilgrims in need of rest, in need of forgiveness, in need of reminders of righteousness that Christ has accomplished, in need of fellowship.

But instead, we are supposed to be activists, or warriors, or conquerors, or whatever it is, where we're just so spiritually strong that we just go out and slay everything. And it's like, well, okay, I understand that Jesus, by his spirit, has conquered the devil and is building his church.

Amen. And I mean, we're able, you know, in the power of God to do all kinds of things, but we ought not get that twisted. We are still weak, and we are still feeble and frail, and need these reminders weekly in the corporate assembly, and we need the fellowship of our brethren, of our sisters, because doing this alone is an impossibility.

That's right. Yeah, anyway. Well, here's the thing. We, as Reformed, believe and can argue from scripture that sanctification is a monergistic, mono, meaning one, is a monergistic endeavor. Ergo, meaning to work.

Yeah, that's right. Synergistic, meaning two working together. So we do not believe that we work alongside God to sanctify ourselves. We do believe that we work out our sanctification, meaning that as God works in us to do his good pleasure.

Oh, doesn't it sound like Philippians 2? But this goes back to Galatians 3. Sounds like Philippians 3. Yeah, Galatians 3. I strive to take hold of the resurrection so that, you know, because Christ has taken hold of me.

That's right. He says, who bewitched you? Have you begun by the spirit? Are you now being perfected by the flesh? So God says that it's by his spirit that he transforms you, but how do you keep your faith in the right place?

I mean, this even goes back to James 1, where he says, if you lack wisdom, he goes, ask and it will be given to you generously, to all, without reproach. And the point of it is that the, by the way, wisdom there, he doesn't mean intellectual knowledge.

He literally means, if you go, I think he's talking about the fruits of the spirit. Go read chapter three, verses 13 and following. It's about gentleness and meekness and patience. The point of it is, is that all of this comes to us by means of the spirit, and the spirit has a mechanism that he uses.

Let me redo this quote by, I mean, anytime you read Calvin, it's almost like a mic drop, right? Not that he's perfect, but he helps us. It says this, this is from his institutes. But as our faith is slight and feeble, unless it is propped up on all sides, and sustained by every means, it trembles, wavers, totters, and last gives away.

How here, our merciful Lord, according to his infinite kindness, so tempers himself to our capacity that, since we are creatures who always creep on the ground, cleave to the flesh, and do not think about, or even conceive of anything spiritual, he condescends to lead us to himself, even by these earthly elements.

And so before us, in the flesh, a mirror of spiritual blessings. He's talking about the ordinary means of grace here. While you're doing this, I'm just gonna go ahead. This is from Calvin's Liturgy for the Lord's Supper in the church in Geneva.

This is just a brief excerpt. Quote, let us understand, therefore, that this sacrament is a medicine for poor, spiritually sick people. And since we see only bread and wine, yet we do not doubt that he accomplishes spiritually in our souls, all that he demonstrates to us outwardly through these visible signs, namely, that he is the heavenly bread that feeds and nourishes us for eternal life.

Another quote from Calvin on the Lord's Supper. Again, ordinary means of grace. Quote, to demand perfection in order to receive the table betrays appalling ignorance, not to say stupidity, for it would make it useless and superfluous.

It was not instituted for the perfect, but for the weak and feeble, so as to awaken, prompt, rouse, and exercise whatever their faith and love might lack. Close quote. It's like, people have understood this before.

I mean, John and I are not the first Christians to say this stuff, that actually, corporate worship is for the weak. And it's for those who are weary and needy and know themselves to be. Who show up needy, but who show up expectant that God is gonna meet us in our need.

And that Christ will minister to us. I know we both, John, agree about this, and I know we make a big deal out of this at CBC. Corporate worship is not a human activity. It's not about entertainment. It's not about motivation.

It is not something that we offer God that he needs. It has everything to do with us casting ourselves upon God in Christ completely. We come in need to receive from the Lord what only he can do and give to us.

And so, that is a better historical, reformed, biblical perspective on corporate worship and why the church exists and why we so desperately need the church. Because it's the only here that we can receive these things.

And where we can fellowship with each other and have that unity and camaraderie in the Lord Jesus Christ to keep putting one foot in front of the other in this pilgrimage that we're on. Hmm. So, Justin, to add to that, I believe with full conviction in Ephesians 4 that Paul makes the promise that the Spirit will come and do something that is supernatural, that cannot be reproduced by humans anywhere else.