10 Essentials Series: Ecclesiology, the Doctrine of the Church

Okay, so you guys know we're going through the Ten Essential Series, and we are up to – we did

Bibliology, Theology Proper, Christology, New Mythology, Angelology. We did Anthropology, Hermardiology, Soteriology, and today we're up to Ecclesiology, which is basically the doctrine of the church and church government.

Next week we'll do Eschatology, which, again, we'll be edifying. So Ecclesiology is the doctrine of the church.

I like, again, what MacArthur says. He just lays it out in the beginning in his Systematic Theology so well, so I'd just like to codify it so that we have our course set for us.

He says, The church is the dearest place on earth. That eloquent description articulated by renowned 19th century preacher

Charles Spurgeon captures a proper Christian perspective regarding the church. For all who know and love the

Lord Jesus Christ, no place in the world should be sweeter or more cherished than the church.

The church is precious for many reasons. First and foremost, because the Lord Jesus died on behalf of her.

Because the church is loved by Christ, it ought to be treasured by all who belong to Him. As Spurgeon went on to explain, nothing in the world is dearer to God's heart than His church.

Therefore, being His, let us also belong to it, that by our prayers, our gifts, and our labors, we may support and strengthen it.

If those who are Christ's refrained, even for a generation, from numbering themselves with His people, there would be no visible church, no ordinances maintained, and,

I fear, very little preaching of the gospel. Could you imagine if a friend of yours came to you and said,

Listen, I'm going on a trip. I'm going to be gone for a long time. I want you to take care of my wife while I'm gone.

And he goes away on the trip. And all of a sudden, you don't take care of his wife. And she falls on hard times.

And she doesn't have enough money to feed herself or clothe her children. When the husband comes back and you, his friend, didn't take care of his bride, what are you going to say?

This is exactly what Jesus said to His church. I'm going away, but I'm coming back. In the meantime, take care of my bride.

He is a husband to the bride. In light of this vital importance, believers have much to gain by carefully studying what

God has revealed about the church in His Word. So let's get into it. So what is the church?

The church is marked by the Greek word ekklesia, which means called out ones, those who have been called out of the world and placed into the kingdom.

And the church is comprised of all born -again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, the whole number of the elect, who have been, are being, and will be redeemed from their sin with Christ as their head, as promised in and by the

New Covenant. Notice this doesn't say any one particular denomination is the church. The church is not marked by a denomination.

It's marked by Jesus being its head and you being born into it by the Spirit. The church belongs to Jesus, of which

He is the head and chief shepherd, and which was purchased by His own blood. Ephesians 4 .15,

rather speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ, for whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Jesus says, I will build my church. When you have the Spirit inside of you,

He is using the Spirit to build, to mold us, to shape us into His image, to better reflect

Him. Ephesians 5 .22 and 24, wives submit to your own husbands as to the

Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, His body, and is

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

Now, some women and some men use this as a way to say, wow, look, you have to submit to your husband.

And they mean it's like a lordship submit. And it's like, look, would you submit? Would anybody in here be willing to submit themselves to Jesus Christ?

Yes. Yes, He's perfect. Husbands need to reflect the love and nurturing of Jesus Christ to their wives so that their wives would be willing to submit.

A wife is going to be submitted to their husband as the husband is submitted to Christ, because he's going to better look like Him.

The husbands are not to lord it over the women. That's not what this is about. Jeremiah 31, 31,

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant

I made with their fathers on that day, when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.

My covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. So Jesus is the husband and head of the church.

The church, again, called out ones, is comprised of all the born -again believers. Luke 22, and this is, where is this, as promised, the church of the born -again believers, as promised in and by the new covenant.

This is what these scriptures are about. And likewise, the cup after it had eaten said, this cup is poured out for you, is the new covenant in my blood.

New covenant. 2 Corinthians 3, not that we are sufficient in and of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant.

Okay, so first, he makes us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not an old covenant.

Not of the letter, but of the spirit, for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. That's a reference to the old covenant and new covenant.

The letter of the law, the commandments can only condemn you. They can never make you righteous.

The new covenant is the only way you can become righteous, because the spirit gives us life, births us, so that now we are followers, we are adopted into the family.

Yes. Amen. Amen.

So for those of you listening on the podcast, the day the law was given, when Moses went up on the mountain,

Mount Sinai, he came down, they had the golden calf, God slaughtered 3 ,000.

The day the spirit was poured out on Pentecost, 3 ,000 came to know the

Lord. That's a great, great point. Yeah, just a coincidence, right?

You think God planned that, or yeah, yeah, it's, come on, it's man's free will.

He just, all right, Hebrews 8, for he finds fault with them when he says, behold, the days are coming, declares the

Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. We read this already.

For they did not continue in my covenant. And so I showed them no concern for them, declares the Lord, for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the

Lord. I will put my laws in their minds. I will write them on their hearts. I will be their

God and they will be my people. They shall not teach each one his neighbor and each one his brother saying, know the

Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest for I will be merciful toward their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more.

An identifying fact of the new covenant is that you know the Lord. Can anybody tell me what the definition of eternal life is from the scriptures?

I'll give you a hint. John 17, this is eternal life. That they may know you, the one true

God in Jesus Christ whom you've sent. That's the essence of eternal life. Knowing Jesus as Lord, having been in union with him, loving him, worshipping him, acknowledging and confessing him as Lord.

That's part and parcel of the new covenant. And this is going to be real important in a couple of minutes when we get to the ordinances of the church.

Again, this rock, all throughout the Old Testament, especially in the Psalms, the Lord is my rock.

The Lord is my rock in salvation. I will build my house on the rock. The rock is Jesus Christ, not

Peter. God did not build the entire church on one man who would renounce him and then have to be restored.

He builds his church on the rock of Jesus Christ. First Timothy 3 .15,

if I delay you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living

God, a pillar and buttress of the truth. The church is of God. Ephesians 5 .23,

for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body. The church is his body.

John 15, you are my friends if you do what I command. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his pastor is doing, but I have called you friends.

There's a closeness, a friendship with Jesus and his church. For all that I have heard from my

Father, I have made known to you. First Peter 5 .4, and when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.

You have the chief shepherd, which is Jesus Christ, and all the pastors who are under shepherds, under Christ, we are going to answer as shepherds directly to Jesus Christ, not to an ecclesiastical body, not to a pope, not to a bishop, directly to Jesus.

Acts 20 .28, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the

Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God, which he has obtained with his own blood.

Right? Again, like I said before, the church is the blood -bought people of Christ. Yes. Yeah, they're going to have to stand before God and give an answer for the things that they've said and done from the pulpit.

I mean, that's a frightening thing. Elders are going to have to give an account to God of the souls he's put in their care, custody, and control.

Like, that is so, such a weighty responsibility. That's why I think it was

Paul who said, be careful that you want to become teachers. You're going to have a stricter judgment. Right? You're going to have a better reward, but a stricter judgment.

It's a weighty responsibility. Hebrews 9, he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, securing an eternal redemption.

Again, Jesus purchased the church, the people of God. Okay, what are the marks of a church?

The nature and characteristics of the church. First, it acknowledges Jesus as Lord. Second, it's formed by the

Holy Spirit. It's united and comprised both of Jews and Gentiles. It's a new covenant community that all know

God. Right? Everyone in this covenant knows God. It's a testifying community, speaking

God's Word and proclaiming Him. It's a worshiping community, and it gathers together on the

Lord's Day. So it acknowledges Jesus as Lord. Matthew 16, 16, Simon Peter replied, you are the

Christ, the Son of the living God. He's acknowledging Jesus as the Messiah. Romans 10, 9, you guys know this, because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is

Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, there's many people that confess with their mouth

Jesus is Lord, but they don't have true, honest belief that He was resurrected from the dead for their sins.

They can make a false profession of faith. But if you do it from the belief in your heart, you will be saved.

For with the heart, one believes and is justified, and with the mouth, one confesses and is saved.

For the Scripture says, everyone who believes in Him will not be put to shame. There's no distinction between Jew and Greek.

For the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing His riches on all who call upon Him.

For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Sometimes when we go through the

Scripture, we have to ask questions, right? What does this mean? What is it saying? Another question we have to ask is, what is that not saying?

What does that not include? When He says everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, what does that tell us negatively?

What it doesn't tell us is that everyone who calls on the name of St.

Joseph will be saved. Everyone who calls upon the name of Mary will be saved. It's making a definitive statement, everyone who calls upon the name of the

Lord will be saved. Why? Because there's no other name under heaven and earth by which men must be saved.

It's the name of Jesus, no one else. That's what the Church believes.

The Church is formed by the Spirit. John 3, 5 and 8, Jesus answered, Truly, truly, I say to you, truly, truly, now hear this, this is your captain speaking, truly, truly, unless one is born of water and the

Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. The wind blows where it wishes, you hear a sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes, so it is with everyone who is born of the

Spirit. The Spirit has to birth you. Now some point to this and say, born of water, oh, that's baptism.

However, that word and, it's chi in the Greek and it could also be translated even, so you must be born of water, even the

Spirit, because the Spirit is likened to water in Ezekiel when God in his new covenant says,

I will sprinkle clean water on you. This is a reference to Ezekiel 36, okay?

The Spirit is likened to water and wind and anywhere the

Spirit blows and raises someone to life, that's how you're born again. You're born again by God's Spirit, not by water baptism.

Baptizing sinners doesn't make them a saint. The Spirit is what makes somebody a saint.

For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical, but a

Jew is one inwardly. And circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the

Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man, but from God. See that term again, not by the letter?

What's that referring to? Old Covenant, the letter of the law. You're not going to be saved by the law.

You're going to be saved by the circumcision of the Spirit. In the

Old Covenant, you had to circumcise males who were eight days old and it was done by the parents.

The Spirit circumcises every child of God. It's the parents circumcising the child.

The church is united and comprised of both Jews and Gentiles, Ephesians 2 .13. But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off, the

Gentiles, have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made both one,

Jews and Gentiles, made them one, and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility.

The dividing wall of hostility is the law. The Jews are saying, we have the law. Jesus is saying,

I tore that down, abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two.

So making peace, it might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

Again, this is a defeater for dispensationalism who says, Israel, you have Israel, the people of God, and then the

Israel of God, who are the spiritual people of God. To which I say, every child of God believes in his son

Jesus Christ. There are physical Israelites who renounce

Christ. They call curses upon themselves. They're not the people of God. In fact,

God in Revelation says they're of the synagogue of Satan. You can't get worse than that. So although we have a respect for Israel, God chose them out of all the nations of the

Messiah. Praise God. But we're not racists. We don't bow down and worship

Jews. There's one Jew we bow down and worship, but that's it. And he is true Israel. It's a big difference.

Revelation 5, 9, and they sang a new song, saying, were there you to take the scroll and to open its seals? For you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe, every language, every people, and every nation.

God is not the God of Jews only. He's the God of the entire world. Adam wasn't a

Jew. Abraham wasn't a Jew. So for the first 2 ,000 years of the people, there were no

Jews. Abraham's grandson was called Israel. That's when Israel came into existence and was pointing forward to a future

Israel, meaning Jesus. Isaiah says, Israel is a luxuriant vine.

Hmm. What does Jesus say? I'm the vine. You're the branches.

Jesus is true Israel. The church is a new covenant community that all know

God. We've gone over this several times. The new covenant, in the new covenant, they shall all know me.

This is the essence of eternal life, that they may know you, the one true God in Jesus Christ whom you have sent. Nobody in this covenant can say they don't know

God. If you're in this covenant, entrance into this covenant is by faith. Faith in Jesus.

If you place faith in Jesus, you know him. You're intimate with him. That word know is like how

Adam knew Eve. There's an intimacy, a marital intimacy. Our covenant with Christ is how he knows us.

He knows us intimately, and we know him intimately. Hebrews 8 .8 also quotes this again in the book, written to Hebrews, written to Israelites, who have one foot in the old covenant and one foot in the new covenant.

Disaster. What you're saying is, listen, I trust in Christ. But just in case, I'll put my foot here too.

Trusting something else besides Christ is not trusting Christ. Like we talked about before, we use that term, don't put all your eggs in one basket.

When it comes to salvation, you put all your eggs in the basket of Jesus Christ. That's it, wholly and completely.

Nowhere else. The mark of the church is it's a testifying community speaking

God's word. Mark 16 .15, and he said to him, go into all the world, proclaim the gospel to all creation.

Acts 1 .8, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.

A witness is somebody who bears testimony. When you call a witness to a stand in a jury, they bear witness to what they've seen.

As a Christian, we bear witness to what's happened in our heart and what we see in the church. We pray,

God moves. We see lives being radically transformed because of the love of Jesus Christ and the

Holy Spirit within them. And we proclaim that boldly. Revelation 12 .11,

and they have conquered him by the blood of the lamb, by the word of their testimony, for they love not their lives even unto death.

Now, this is something that it seems like we're getting closely acquainted with. It's moving in that direction.

There may come a time when you're called, call the president

Lord or call Jesus as Lord. You call the president Lord, you live, you confess

Jesus as Lord, you die. So what I'll tell you is a quote that I heard a long time ago. You will never die for something you've never lived for in the first place.

You need to be living for Christ now. So when the trouble comes, you don't cower.

I know where I'm going. If we live, we live to the Lord. If we die, we die to the

Lord. Whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. Very important.

Markover Church is a worshiping community. John 4, but the hour is coming and is now here.

When the worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.

God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. In the old covenant, they would worship him, but they were not spirit -filled.

There were some spirit -filled believers there, but for the most part, they weren't. We who are the church are the spirit -filled, blood -bought people of God who are worshiping him in spirit and in truth.

Who is the truth? Jesus. So we come to the Father through Jesus. We're worshiping him in truth.

Philippians 3, 3, for we are the circumcision who worship by the spirit of God and the glory of Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.

This is Paul writing this letter, talking to the church. We are the circumcision.

What were the Jews calling themselves? They're the circumcision. Paul says, no, no, no, no, no. We're the circumcision.

Circumcision of the heart, not the flesh. Okay. Worshiping by the spirit of God, putting no confidence in the flesh.

The Pharisees' big stand was, we keep the law. That's boasting your flesh. You're not boasting in Jesus.

And we gather together on the Lord's day. So the son of man is Lord, even of the Sabbath.

As many Christians, reformed Christians who hold to new covenant theology, who say the

Sabbath is not a legal binding command on us. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. He's Lord of the

Sabbath. And when do you take the Lord's supper on the Lord's day? You think it's sinful not to take the

Lord's supper and not to gather together? Yeah. Of course, we're the people of God. We gather together.

Acts 2 .42, and they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship to the breaking of bread and the prayers on the first day of the week.

When they were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them and he prolonged his speech until midnight. 1

Corinthians 11, when you come together, it's not, is it not the Lord's supper that you eat on the first day of every week?

You should be putting something aside, tithing, gifts aside to store up so that there'll be no collecting when

I come. It seemed that there was a Lord's day that they gathered together in the book of Acts and throughout.

Hebrews 10 .25, let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.

If it becomes your habit to not meet, Paul's rebuking you. He says, let us not give up, neglect meeting together.

It's very important. I keep saying that, right? This is all important. Gosh, okay.

This is something that I learned from, it's biblicaltraining .org.

It's a website that I went through. It was really helpful. So what is an image of the church? The church is called, a couple of metaphors, four of them.

The church is called a body, a bride, a building, and a flock. So the church is the body,

Ephesians 1 .22, and he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Ephesians 4 .15, Christ, from whom the whole body is joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part of it is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

When each part is working properly, makes the whole body grow, right? We need to, as the body of Christ, be walking in faith, participating in the means of grace, growing in the grace and knowledge of our

Savior so that we can help each other. When one piece suffers, the whole body suffers.

That's why it's incumbent upon us, who are in covenant with each other, to go to the person who's suffering and minister to them and help them through.

The church is called the bride. Ephesians 5 .23, we've read this, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and he himself is its

Savior. 2 Corinthians 11, I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness.

Do bear with me, for I feel divine jealousy for you, since I have betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.

So, Jesus is our husband, the church is his wife, the church is the bride, the wife of Christ.

The church is a building. 1 Peter 2 .5, you yourselves, like living stones, being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

The body of Christ is the temple of the Lord, right? Here it is, a holy temple,

Ephesians 2. Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure of the building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the

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

Spirit. When the church gathers together, there's a manifest presence of God in our midst.

That doesn't happen when people are on home, zooming in to the church service.

The church is the gathering of believers. 1 Corinthians 6 .19,

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, you were bought with a price.

Glorify God with your body. Okay, and finally, the church is a flock.

John 10, I am the good shepherd, I know my own and my own know me. Remember, eternal life, knowing

Jesus, I know my own, they know me. Just as the Father knows me and I know the

Father, that's an intimate relationship. And I lay my life down for the sheep, and I have other sheep that are not of this fold,

I must bring them also, they will listen to my voice, for there will be one flock, one shepherd.

Again, Jew and Gentile brought together to form one body. This is not Jewish Israel on one side, and then the church on the other.

There is no two peoples of God, there is one people of God who trust in God the Father, and worship

Jesus as Lord and Savior. Acknowledge him as Lord and Savior. Okay, the structure of the church.

This now deals with who heads up the church, who's in charge of teaching and leading the people.

The church has a structure and authority in local assemblies as described in the scriptures. Membership is not an option for believers.

We are to submit to leadership and to one another. Ephesians 4 .11,

and he gave us, he gave the apostles, prophets, evangelists, the shepherds, and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body.

Now these four offices, obviously, capital A, Apostles, is no longer in play. There's only 12.

We have prophets in the sense that when we get up from the pulpit and we speak the word of the

Lord, that's prophesying. Everyone in here can prophesy in the sense that you can tell somebody, you are gonna stand before Jesus and give an account of your life.

There is a judgment to come. Is that prophetic? Yes, it's in God's word. It's a future event.

You also have evangelists, people who are equipped to share their faith and help others to do it.

You have shepherds, elders, who teach and preach, and teachers, all right? And what are they to do?

To equip the saints for the work of the ministry. So these people, although they are workers in the ministry, their job is to equip you for the work of the ministry.

So if you're a Christian, guess what? You're in ministry, whether you realize it or not. So accept the teaching that you get, make good application of it, and pass it on.

That's how the church grows. We are a people who can continually communicate the kingdom of God to the people around us.

Romans 1, 2 and 7, Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, which he promised beforehand through the prophets, through whom we receive grace and apostleship.

God called to be saints, grace and peace. All right, so these are all the things that God does in setting up the structure of his church.

Obviously, it's built on Jesus as the chief cornerstone and the 12 foundations, the apostles.

1 Corinthians, Paul called by the will of God to be an apostle, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our

Lord Jesus Christ. As you can see, if you're a Christian and you call upon the name of Jesus Christ, you are a saint.

Saints, you know those are all saints. Saint means set apart. It doesn't mean somebody who has more good works that outweigh their bad works, and then they're beatified.

You need eight miracles in the name of... That's not what this is. That's a man -made tradition that appears nowhere in the scriptures.

Galatians 1, 2, Paul, an apostle, not from men nor through men, but through Jesus Christ and God the

Father who raised him from the dead. Apostles were appointed directly by God to be an apostle.

Okay, so Revelation 1, to the angel of the church in Ephesus. Now, generally when we hear angel, we think of wings and somebody from heaven coming down, but the word angel just simply means messenger.

So to the churches in Revelation, he keeps saying to the angel, to the angel, to the angel, to the angel.

What he's saying is to the messenger, to the leader of that congregation, to the shepherd, the messenger of that congregation who heads up the church.

That's who he's addressing this to. So to the angel means to the shepherd of the flock.

Those shepherds are put in charge of the flock to keep it together and to nurture it, right?

And we see that all throughout this three, four, five, six, seven. Seven churches.

Okay, we also see that in Hebrews 10, 24. Let's consider how to stir one or another up to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together.

We went through that already. Hebrews 13, 17, obey your leaders and submit to them for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account to God.

Let them do this with joy and not with groaning for that would be of no advantage to you, right?

Submission doesn't mean worshiping the guy in charge. What it means is putting yourself under that person to speak into your life and to nurture you and feed you

God's word and let you know when you're going wrong to be brought back into right alignment with God.

1 Peter 5, 4 and 5. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.

Likewise, you who are younger be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves all of you with humility toward one another for God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

The elders are to lead the flock of God. Romans 12, 5.

So we through many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. Not only are you submitted to the elders but you are submitted to one another.

This is why when somebody has a disagreement with someone else, we practice Matthew 18. You go to that person, right?

You explain to them what the offense was. Hopefully they hear you. If that doesn't work, you bring two or three people.

If that doesn't work, then you get the church involved. The church meaning the elders because we are covenanted to one another, right?

We form one body and when one part of the body hurts, the whole body hurts. We're in covenant with one another.

Therefore, we have a responsibility to one another to be reconciled to each other and reconciled to God.

We are God's family, right? In this day and age, people do not want to confront one another.

We need to learn how to lovingly confront someone with gentleness and respect.

Not divisively but in hopes of their reconciliation and them seeing something that they possibly done wrong.

And as you go to that person, you should be humble enough to hear what they have to say. Maybe you have a blind spot, right?

That needs to be addressed. So you go humbly, say, brother, sister, this is what I heard you say.

This is what I think you mean. Am I right? You know, we can do this gently and it can work.

God's people are filled with God's spirit. If we follow God's principles, it will work, guaranteed.

1 Corinthians 12, 19 through 20. If all were a single member, where would the body be?

As it is, there are many parts, yet one body, members. Ephesians 5, 19, addressing one another in Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing, making melody to the

Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

So really, Votibachum says it this way. There should be two lists. If you're going to submit yourself to the elders, you need to know who they are, right?

So you have one list. These are the elders who are shepherding the church. And then you need another list, the people who are submitted to the elders.

There are plenty of people who attend, but those people, I'm not going to have to give an account for those people when

I stand before God because they have not submitted to us in our teaching. We hold to the confession.

That unifies us. So we're all on the same page. Two offices of the church are elder and deacon to be occupied by men.

Elders are to care for the spiritual well -being of the church and deacons are to care for its physical well -being.

Elders and deacons are recognized and chosen by the church. There was a public and formal act of setting individuals aside for ministry.

And this is 1 Timothy lays out the qualifications for an elder. Therefore, the saying is trustworthy.

If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, which is that word episkopos, he desires a noble task.

Therefore, an overseer must be above reproach. The husband, right, male of one wife, sober -minded, self -controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.

He who knew pronouns would come into effect here. He must manage his household well with all dignity, keeping his children submissive.

For someone does not know how to manage his own household. How will he care for God's church?

It's very important that an elder and overseer is shepherding his own family. If an elder or an overseer is not willing to shepherd his own family and lead them correctly, why would you let him lead the church, right?

He must not be a recent convert. This is something that the American church has fall victim to.

You make a profession of faith. Three weeks later, you're leading the Bible study in, you know, kid's church.

It's like, no, no, no, no. You need to be tested. You need to be submitted for a while.

And understand the doctrines before you start spouting off stuff that you know nothing about, right?

He must not be a recent convert. He may become puffed up with conceit and fall into condemnation of the devil.

It's for his own protection that you stop him from doing this. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders so that he may not fall into disgrace and into the snare of the devil.

Unfortunately, this has happened over and over. Deacons, likewise, must be dignified, not double -tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain.

They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. Anybody want to guess what's the mystery of the faith? It's a mystery.

We don't know. The mystery of the faith is that Jesus came. God is the

God of Jews and Gentiles, right? The mystery was Christ in you, the hope of glory. God was saving

Gentiles. He saved the whole nation of Nineveh. He saved Ruth the Moabite. He saved Naaman. He saved tons of Gentiles.

Yet the Jews were like, no, no, no. He's our God, right? So he must hold to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.

Let them also be tested first, right? A deacon needs to be tested. And then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless.

Their wives, oh my goodness. So this would be a man, right? The deacon would be a man. And his wife, likewise, must be dignified, not slanderer, sober -minded, faithful in all things.

Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children in their own households well.

For those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.

So you have two offices, elder and deacon. Now let me ask you something.

I talked to you about asking questions to the texts. What is this not describing? Think of some other religious traditions.

What are the offices that they have in their church? Bishops, priests.

You want to ask somebody who believes in bishops and priests, could you show me in the New Testament what the qualifications of a priest are?

Where are they going to go? There's only two offices in the New Testament church, elder and deacon. If you want to be a priest, you're going to have to go to the

Old Testament understanding of what a priest was and go based on those qualifications. Good luck with that, yes.

Yeah, well, because there's one term in there where it talks about deaconess, but it means wife.

It's the wife of the deacon, right? So they think, again, that deacons can be in charge.

But again, it's real clear in the scriptures, you know, a woman cannot have authority over a man.

Yeah, so it's, okay. So just ask them, what are the qualifications for a priest in the

New Testament? All right, the doctrine or the ordinances that the church has to admit it is two, baptism and the

Lord's Supper. Baptism is to be administered to believers only. It signifies the application of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus to the believer.

Baptism, and the Greek word is baptizo, means to dip, dunk, submerge. And therefore, baptism is by full immersion.

There are several of the Greek words for sprinkle and pour, rahatizo, proskoushos, brouho, ekaio, none of which are ever used in conjunction with baptism.

Oh, those poor Presbyterians. See what

I did? It's bad that I actually have to point that out. That's how, all right, whatever.

Pour, P -O -U -R, pour, okay. If you're a Presbyterian brother and listen to this, it's in jest, okay.

Matthew 28, 19, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the

Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

Again, what is that saying? What is that not saying? It's not saying that if you're not baptized, you won't be saved.

It's saying if you don't believe, you won't be saved, right? There are plenty of people who get baptized who don't believe, right?

And there's plenty of people who believe who aren't baptized. They're going to be saved because of their faith, not because of baptism. Acts 2, 38,

Peter said to them, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the

Holy Spirit. Baptism. Acts 16, 31. And they said, believe on the

Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your household. And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and all who were in his household and to all who were in his household.

And he took them the same hour that night and washed their wounds and he was baptized at once, he and his family.

Then he brought them up into his house, set food before them, and he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.

He rejoiced that he believed. He didn't rejoice that he was baptized. Baptism is a symbol, okay, of what has happened.

We're going to go through that in a second. Okay. Romans 6, 5.

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the

Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall be certainly united with him in a resurrection like his.

We are united to him by faith, not by baptism. Baptism followed spirit baptism, right?

When Cornelius was filled with the Holy Spirit, Peter said, I can't withhold water from him.

He can be baptized. He's been filled with the Spirit. 1 Peter 3, 21. This is a verse that causes contention for some people.

Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus.

See, it says baptism saves you. Well, actually, what is this? It says baptism, which corresponds to this.

What is this? We need to know what that is because baptism corresponds to that.

This refers to the sentence immediately preceding this one, verses 18 through 20, where Jesus suffered, died, and was made alive in the

Spirit to bring us to God. This is what baptism corresponds to. Not the immersion into water, water baptism, but an appeal to God for a good conscience, knowing that your sin was nailed to, your sin was paid for at the cross.

The Holy Spirit circumcises us and renews our minds such that we have faith in Jesus for our salvation and trust that it was good enough to save us.

Jesus' resurrection becomes our resurrection and we are saved from God's judgment, which is pictured in water.

When God judged the earth in Noah's day, he flooded it with water. And we picture that in baptism.

We once were under God's judgment, right? God's wrath abides on all who don't believe in his son, right?

Water, we died to that at the cross. We were dunked under the water, which means that we were judged, but we come out up above the water, showing that we survived the judgment.

Why? Because Jesus died on the cross in our place. We were raised from death to life out of the water.

We went from judgment and into spiritual life and placed in the ark that saves us. Jesus is that type and shadow of the ark, the type and shadow pointed to Christ.

All who are in Christ Jesus will be saved. Okay, so baptism, credo, believer's baptism or pedo, children baptism.

Now, actually that word pedo could mean child. It's not the word for infant. So do we baptize children, children who make a credible profession of faith?

We've done that many times. Because they'll say, oh, Jesus says, suffer not all the children, let them come to me.

And we're like, yes, let the children come to him. I never met one infant who was dying to come to Jesus. It just doesn't happen.

But when a little child says, daddy, why am I not taking communion? Which is what happened here one time. Daddy, every time communion, why am

I not able to take communion? I trust in Jesus. And that person brought forth their child, their son, who gave a credible profession of faith.

And we said, yes, praise God, we will baptize you. Okay, so think about this.

The Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed developed out of the baptismal practices of the early church, where those being baptized customarily confessed their faith in response to a series of questions framed along Trinitarian lines.

So before you were baptized, you had to ask, do you trust in Jesus Christ as Lord? Do you believe he was conceived by the

Holy Spirit? Do you believe he was born under the Virgin Mary? Do you believe that he died on the cross? Do you believe that he was buried and resurrected from the dead?

You had to answer all those questions. Which means you had to be able to verbalize the answer.

No infant did that. The creeds were birthed out of what the people were asked when they were baptized.

That's how they become fundamentals of the faith. So these creeds point to the fact that the early church were credo

Baptists. You had to verbalize your answers to these questions, which ended up forming the basis for the creeds.

And this is more important. It's ironic that Presbyterians refer to their children as covenant children when their children literally do not participate in any of the three elements or substance of the new covenant, which are the law written on their heart, which means they're regenerate.

The spirit has circumcised them. That's not true of an infant. It may be, but you don't know, right?

The personal saving knowledge of God, no infant knows God in that way. And the forgiveness of sins.

So how do you know your child is in the covenant? You know that through a profession of faith.

Does God look different on a baby who's baptized and a six -year -old kid who isn't? If so, what's the difference?

I wanna know. If you're really concerned about your infant, do a baby dedication. That's what they did with Jesus in the temple.

Dedicate them to the Lord. Baptism is baptism into the church by faith. Your water baptism signifies what has been done for you and your acknowledgement of it because all those who are in the covenant know the

Lord. Very important. You can't take the

Lord's Supper, right? The church administers two ordinances, baptism and the Lord's Supper. All right, we gotta go quickly.

The Lord's Supper is 1 Corinthians 11. On the night he took bread, he given thanks, broken and said, take, this is my body, which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me. Every time we take the Lord's Supper, it's in remembrance of Jesus.

He fulfills the type and shadow of the Passover lamb. He's the lamb who takes away the sins of the world.

The same way the Jews were supposed to celebrate the Passover once a year, New Testament Christians are to celebrate the death, burial and resurrection of the

Lord, him delivering us from our sins. All right, 1 Corinthians 11, whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and the blood of the

Lord. Let that person examine himself. This is why we guard the table before we hand out communion.

We wanna make sure that nobody comes to the communion table unrepentant. If you have a sin, our warning is not meant to keep you from the table.

It's meant to draw you to Jesus Christ that you would now come and have table fellowship with him using the elements.

Matthew 26, take, eat, this is my body. Matthew 14, take, this is my body, this is my blood.

1 Corinthians 10, the cup of the blessing, the cup of blessing that we bless is not, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?

The bread that we break is not a participation in the body of Christ, right? That this doesn't mean literal, physical, fleshly body.

This means the spiritual presence of God. Jesus can't be in all places at the same time physically.

He can be in all places at the same time spiritually. 1 Corinthians 11, 24 and 25, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me. We get to celebrate the covenant renewal every week knowing that Jesus, our

Passover lamb, died on the cross, rose from the dead to pay the price for our sins. The differences between Presbyterian church leadership and Baptist church leadership.

Presbyterian polity is a method of church governance, ecclesiastical polity, typified by the rule of assemblies or presbyters or elders.

Each local church is governed by a body of elected elders, usually called a session or a constitutory through other terms such as Christ's board may apply.

Groups of local churches are governed by a higher assembly of elders known as the presbytery or classes. Presbyteries can be grouped into a synod and presbyteries and synods nationwide often joined together in a general assembly.

Responsibility for conduct of church services is reserved to an ordained minister or pastor known as a teaching elder or a minister in the word or sacrament.

So not only do they have elders, they have a group of people over the elders, presbyters, that now the elders have to answer to.

None of that ecclesiastical body is spoken about in the scriptures. It's elder deacon.

Baptist church polity or congregational church polity is also known as congregationalism.

It's a system of ecclesiastical polity in which every local church, each congregation is independent, ecclesiastically sovereign or autonomous.

Its first articulation in writing is the Cambridge Platform of 1648 in New England. Each church is led by a plurality of elders as confirmed or elected by the congregants.

The elders of the church are directly responsible to God and not another ruling body. The church can be part of associations or co -labor with other churches and even seek out other like -minded churches to help settle matters of dispute.

So what we are as Baptists, we see that there are elders and deacons.

It's a plurality of elders. It's not just one. Okay, so you want many elders. The scriptures say, submit yourself to the elders.

The elders are the ones who are going to give account directly to Jesus for your spiritual well -being.

Now, here's the thing. The presbyters or the elders, they're actually not members of the church that they're shepherding, which is odd because now you, the congregation, can't bring an elder into church discipline.

Only the people over the elders can bring them under church discipline. Okay, it should be the other way around.

If the congregants recognize something, they should be able to go to the other elders and say, listen, this elder is doing this.

We have to confront him. If he doesn't repent, he's going to come under discipline.

So real quick, the Presbyterian model, you have the congregation, session of elders, but above that is a presbytery.

And those presbyteries, like the elder elders, they get together in a general assembly and they form what the church direction is and what's going to happen.

Yes, in distinction is the congregational model where you have senior pastors, church council officers, deacons, committees, and church staff.

And the elders actually answer to the congregation. Everything we do here is by vote, right?

When we meet twice a year, we propose certain things. We give our recommendation.

We think we should do this. Ultimately, the congregation is going to decide how we spend our money, where it goes.

We're transparent and open with all those things. Finally, there's a third one that I didn't talk about.

It's called the Episcopal model. And again, these are offices that are not mentioned in the

New Testament, an archbishop, bishops, rectors, and then congregations. So they create this hierarchy and the archbishop, one person.

Not good. There's only one person qualified to rule over the church.

His name is Jesus. You will meet him one day and give an account of your life to him. We're not going to give an account to the archbishop or the bishop under the archbishop.

That's why the elders are commanded to nurture and feed the souls, because we are going to have to give an account for you.