2023 Laborers' Conference- Session 7 The Church

We are live. Good morning. Welcome to the 2023. We had just talked about hiccups and here we are creating our own hiccups.

I was not prepared and it's okay. We're not going to show them. We won't show the intro. We won't show the intro.

Happy Lord's Day, Claude. Happy Lord's Day, Rob. Praise the Lord for his life, death and resurrection.

We can just celebrate it every day, every day. We gather together on the Lord's Day to worship him, praise him together.

The Lord has allowed us to do that this weekend together with you guys who came from Tennessee, New York, South Carolina, Colorado Springs.

It's been a blessing. It has been a great blessing. It's amazing. I feel like I've known you all along.

It has been truly a blessing. It has been a blessing and this is like I said, this is a 2023

Labor's Conference born out of the Labor's Podcast, which we collaborate together on Thursday evenings at 830.

So please join us. And the Labor's Podcast comes from the

Lord bringing other podcasters together. And I just want to give out a shout out to all the guys that are active in our group.

Most of them have podcasts. Jesse Gomez, aka the Chicano Knox.

He has the Bible Theory Podcast. We would encourage you to go check him out. Brother Claude Ramsey.

He has the Here I Stand Theology Podcast. Please go check him out. Dan Self. He is with me on the

Truth and Love Podcast. Deontay Walters. He can't make it to the podcast.

He was on with us early, early on. Him and Jesse Bland. They were on with us early, early on at the beginning of all this.

Back around 2020 when our country was going through some rough spells.

They joined us and helped us walk through some of those difficult times theologically. That's awesome.

Yeah. They don't have podcasts. Deontay preaches at New Beginnings Church in California.

So check him out. Jay Antello. He's new. The Reformed Rican.

That's right. He's a good dude. That's right. Jeremy Hull. He doesn't have a podcast, but he's a pastor in Myrtle Beach area,

South Carolina. Faith Reformed. Yep. Baptist Church. John Jones.

Yeah. Real Talk with Big John. Check him out. Jonathan Foster, who's the pastor here at Vertical Life Church in Newton, North Carolina.

We are grateful. Yes. By the way, we should most certainly give a shout out to every member that has so contributed showing grace and kindness here to us because they have truly shown godly hospitality to us here.

So thank the Lord for them. Yes. They've been very gracious to us. Joshua Burns, he does not join us on the podcast.

However, he is our official garb.

Would you call it garb or wears? Yeah. 1689design .com. That's right.

That's 1689design .com. Go buy some Christian hat, shirts, cups, mugs, water bottles, whatever you can think of.

That's right. That's right. Matt Breeding. Yes. Our brother.

That's right. Matt Breeding. He's in Tennessee as well. Yes, sir. And he joins us when he can. He's a contributor to the

Libbers podcast, and we really appreciate him. And last but certainly not least, Brother Tyler Noe.

Oh, yes. Tyler is the brains of our operation.

No offense, Rob. Rob's the founder and the organizer, but Tyler is in the very best sense of the word.

He's the big head. He's the big, giant head of the Libbers. No, truly, he is a blessing.

I mean, his knowledge, his humility, his grace. He really is a blessing.

That's right. You're right. And I take no offense to that. I wish I had a quarter of his brain.

He's 24 years old. And as the old saying goes, he knows more than we've forgotten.

Is that how the saying goes? He would remember. He would tell us. Oh, so let's let me ask you this.

I'm going to take us to a modern evangelical Bible study. So, Claude, the 2023

Libbers conference, how has that made you feel? Well, yellow makes me feel sad.

Well, to be honest, there are feelings involved in theology and in doctrine, in sound preaching and teaching.

There are feelings involved in that. And it has made me feel secure in the faith.

It's made me assured of the love of God. It has renewed my confidence in brothers and sisters in Christ that are not necessarily in the same locale.

Because there's faithful men and women of God in South Carolina, North Carolina, in New York, in Colorado, in South Carolina.

I said South Carolina, though, didn't I? Knoxville. Jay is in Miami. Jay Antello is in Miami.

Deontay and them is in California. I mean, they're all over the place. And we hope the

Lord will allow us to grow. Yes, we do. We were like minded in the foundations, in the core, the core tenets of the faith.

Yeah. But also, Claude, I think we're also similar in our demeanors, in our character and our attitude, because we there's a compassion.

There's a there's a kindness toward one another. And not everybody carries that.

That's right. And we want to we want to example that the best part of our core desire is to example that because there's so much hostility, not just in the world, but in the

Christian community online. You're right. Hostility. And we want to example unity there.

There's differences and there should be separations at some times. Scripture speaks about that.

But they're also I mean, Jesus prayed for unity. I had something in mind that I wanted to say.

I forgot to wear my phone. I mean, my phone, my watch. And so I need to keep track of time.

My computer has a little clock down at the bottom. Mine says 1022. What's your phone say? 1025? 1025.

Yeah. So let's go by the phones. OK, we got about five more minutes. Let's see.

What what was a highlight for the weekend for you? I would say the highlight of the weekend for me, honestly, was the.

And again, if you folks watch the show, you know, I don't mean nothing by it, but I don't know.

I don't know why that Tyler's teaching and preaching is so that I'm so drawn to it.

But he's just so straightforward, so eloquent, so plain. So I would say for me, the highlight of the weekend would have been your sermon, the kickoff sermon and Tyler's sermon and his breakout.

That was that was for me. Those were the three. Well, you know, during the question answer session.

Yeah. And he said it was on the fly because we had a very difficult question.

Yeah, that was posed to us. And we were trying to answer it with grace, but with truth. And Tyler was looking at the passage and he was examining the text.

And he just he he laid out a word picture that that the text itself brings out.

And it was just so beautifully brought out by Tyler.

Yeah. And those word pictures helped me. Yeah. Those people who are not as analytical, academic, those word pictures really help.

Exactly. To visualize it, to understand what's going on. Yeah. And he brought that out and I thought it was it was helpful for me.

It was wonderful. And you, I think I think the opening sermon, this is, you know,

I think at a conference that the first preacher. I'm going to refer because I speak country speakers.

You can call them speakers, but I'm going to call them preachers. Right. You had that you had the opening sermon of the conference, which is a challenge because really you you set this.

You set the tone. You set the pattern for the remainder of the conference. And the bottom line is this.

If you were here, you got it. Guess what? If you weren't here, you missed it, but you can catch up.

Yeah. Online. That's right. So the podcast or are all the sermons are going to be trying or they are recorded, transmitted, set up on YouTube right now and on the

Truth and Love Network. Correct. In the process. In the process. So they will be sometime in a couple of weeks.

Yeah. We'll give a couple of weeks to recuperate. Hopefully sooner than later. While it's fresh on everybody's mind,

I wanted to come out there and I'm glad you brought that up. I wanted to say this before we leave, too.

We did something unique like we're doing currently right now. We we're podcasting prior to the service.

And the intent was and some of them did, they come back in here and they podcast it.

If we can use that as a verb after the service to kind of give you a warm up, a little conversation before and then a recap after the service and touching on some of the highlights in the sermon.

That was a fantastic idea. We had some hiccups, but I think it worked out really well.

It was really unique to the conference setting. Yep. And I enjoyed it.

I think it worked out well. And so what I'm doing, I'm cutting out the sermons and they will be posted individually.

Some of them have already been posted and we're working on getting the rest of them. But I would encourage you, if you have time and even if you can just listen to it going down the road.

Check out the content prior to the service and after the service because the guys come in here and faithfully gave some good conversation, some good content reflecting on the conference and what's going on here and what was said.

So check out the individual sermons and also check out the entirety of the podcast.

So Rob, to wrap us up here, what's happening today? So what's happening today?

This is session seven. Our final speaker is going to be Jesse Gomez, the Chicano Knox. He is going to be speaking on Jesus' authority over the church.

The theme of the conference was all authority in heaven on earth, the supremacy of Christ, Jesus' authority over everything and how we live in light of that truth.

And so the final session, the final sermon is going to be on the church.

And I'm looking forward so much to that. And we talked about how folks come in here after post service.

We're not going to do that this morning because this morning part of the session is going to be Q &A session.

So we're going to remain out there with the guys to be included in the

Q &A session. So if you have there'll be folks monitoring. If you have any if you have any questions, post them, make a comment, post them online.

And so the folks out there can see them and they can be asked during the service. But there will be no post service podcast.

We'll be out in the sanctuary. So this will be our goodbye. Yeah. And it's going to be the the the first the

Friday night Q &A was awesome. But today it's going to be a little bit intimidating because we're going to have a full church.

So there will likely be some good questions. So we look forward to that. But that puts us back in our element because what it was what it was like Friday night.

And I'm certain what it'll be like tonight today in the Q &A is it'll be it's basically just the same thing as we do on Thursday nights.

But there'll be a lot more comments and questions coming at us. So pray for us that the

Holy Spirit will speak to us. He'll give us clarity of mind and we can recall good, solid biblical answers and continue to pray for us throughout the year.

We're going to have a video and announcement about next year's conference. Lord willing. And we'll announce that at the very end.

So that wraps up the 2023 Labor's Conference podcast portion.

And Brother Claude, I love you. I was glad to meet you. And hopefully we have many, many more.

Amen. All right. Amen. So enjoy the service. And we're thankful that you are worshiping with us today.

When you speak, when you speak, you scatter darkness. When you speak, when you speak, you scatter darkness.

When you speak, when you speak, you scatter darkness.

When you speak, when you speak, you scatter darkness.

When you speak, when you speak, you scatter darkness.

When you speak, when you speak, you scatter darkness. When you speak, when you speak, you scatter darkness. When you speak, when you speak, you scatter darkness.

When you speak, when you speak, you scatter darkness. When you speak, when you speak, you scatter darkness. When you speak, when you speak, you scatter darkness. Good morning.

Glad to see everybody this morning. Today is gonna be a little bit of a different format.

Just so you know, this weekend if you hadn't paid attention, we had the Labor's Conference this weekend.

It went really well. Those of us that were able to persevere through that were very, very blessed and very thankful for all that the

Lord allowed us to do. And so we're very thankful for many of you who volunteered, snacks, and kept coffee going, and kept the green room going back there for the guys to hang out.

Just a ton of volunteers. Garrett Carter gets the bronze star. He put a bunch of overtime in, like behind the scenes earlier in the week, and those kind of stuff.

Or maybe it's a gold star, Garrett. Bronze is like, we give you the gold star, buddy. So, but he did a ton of behind the scenes work helping us get our technology working and all those kind of stuff.

And so if you weren't able to attend, we will have the sessions online. Content was excellent.

The guys did a tremendous job preaching the word and bringing truth. And so we're just very, very thankful for them today.

If you are part of the laborers group, I'd like for you to stand right now if that's okay.

All right? Could you stand? We got, so we got, I'm gonna introduce them real quick. We got Jesse right over here.

Jesse's from Colorado, from Colorado Springs, right? Yep, Colorado Springs, Colorado.

All right, so make Jesse feel welcome. All right. Big John Jones.

He is all the way from Lincolnton, North Carolina. All right, good.

Tyler Knoll. Tyler is from the eastern part of North Carolina. Claude Ramsey is from Knoxville, Tennessee.

And brother Robert Knight, he is right about two blocks away from First Baptist. Or we call him from Lincolnton, North Carolina too, right?

Good. All right, thank you. So today's order of service, like I said, it's gonna be a little bit different.

We have our opening song, have a few announcements here. We're gonna take up our offering. So for Vertical Lifers, this is our normal offering.

Big stake up. I'm gonna do one more song. Then Jesse's gonna preach. Then after he preaches, then we'll have a

Q &A time. We're gonna have the laborers come up, sit on the stage, and you can fire questions at them.

So I want you to like dig deep in the Bible, get the most obscure question you can possibly think of, and ask them, okay?

Especially Claude and Tyler, okay? They're like brainiacs, all right? So no, in all seriousness, if there's been something that's been burning on your heart, you've been in your

Bible reading, here at Vertical Life, we've been going through the Bible plan, we've been doing the McShane Bible plan, and you're getting a lot of Old Testament and New Testament.

And if you've been reading and something's like, there's a question on your heart, we're not gonna say we have all the answers at all, but maybe we can help guide you.

We can help think through some things together systematically. And there is a lot of knowledge and a lot of years of experience when we're all together.

And so we wanna, our goal is to labor with the body of Christ to help encourage you and to equip you.

And then, like I said, if we don't have an answer, what would we say, Claude? I don't know. I don't know, let's go research.

You know, we'll get back to you on that one, right? Make sense? And so it's gonna be a little bit of a special time today.

At the end of the service, we are gonna take up a love offering. We wanna bless these guys that's traveled from out of town.

And we did take care of their expenses with their place to stay and things like that. And so we are gonna take up a love offering at the end.

So this first offering will be just our normal tithes and offering. And at the end of the service, we're gonna do a love offering for the laborer guys.

I do have one other announcement that's just a little bit exciting, okay? So Vertical Life, you know that we have been in search mode for property and some permanent facilities, and just praying that God give us his vision, his direction.

Our dream is like a ministry center, a community center, where people come all the time, where it's not just church activity, but it's community activity.

In the midst of that, we're making disciples and reaching people. We've got a pretty big dream, okay? So this week, we had a $100 ,000 gift this week for God's vision.

So it's getting real, it's getting real.

And so that's a challenge to all of us, to pray, to what

God would have us to do as families, to invest and to do what God has called us to do.

We wanna reach this city. I wanna remind you that of all cities in North Carolina, this is the 60th most lost city.

And there are several hundred cities in the state of North Carolina. 66 % of the population in Newton, North Carolina do not have a relationship with Jesus Christ, 66%.

You start doing the math of the Newton Conover area, that's between 60 and 75 ,000 people, population total.

And then you deduct that down, we're talking a population of 40 to 50 ,000 people that do not have a relationship with Jesus Christ.

We got a lot of work to do, church. And I just don't want us to miss that. I just don't want us to miss what

God has called us to do, not just us, but linking arm in arms with other gospel -centered churches around our region.

There are people that do not know the joy of the Lord today. They're entrapped.

And God has told us, stay here, because I still got many more people in this city. Remember he told Paul, Paul wanted to leave and head out?

He told him, said, no, no, no, no, stay here. I got many more coming. But listen, we believe many more's coming, amen?

And we wanna have tools. We don't worship buildings, we don't worship facilities, but they are good tools in our tool belt to reach this city and reach this nation.

So it starts where you live, work, and play. We're not dismissing that right there in your neighborhood, right there where you go to work, where you go to the ball field on the weekends, wherever you're at where you live, work, and play, it starts right there.

We're not dismissing that. And then we wanna have tools that as we bring people in, we're reaching this city, this community, this region, amen?

Can you agree with me in that? Amen, let's stand and let's pray together. John, would you come on up?

And I'm just gonna ask John, John did our session on evangelism, and I just want him to pray over our city, pray over Lincolnton, pray over where the

Lord leads you that we'll reach that, and then just bless our offering. Okay. Father, we come to you in Jesus' name.

Lord, I ask you that you take this time and set aside in this day and you teach us how to become better soul winners for you, how that we might be better equipped to see your kingdom expand on this earth.

God, I pray that you bless this place, that you bless these brothers and sisters, that you bless those that have to give and those that don't have to give,

God. God, I pray that you move in their lives as individuals, that they might move, that you might be able to move in their communities, that you might be able to move in their cities, move in their counties and their state.

Lord, until we see every new thing and every time confess that you're Lord, we'll praise you because you're worthy, we'll love you because you loved us first.

It's in Jesus' name we pray and all God's people said. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Amen.

♪ The beginning ♪ ♪ One with God the

Lord most high ♪ ♪

In glory and creation ♪ ♪ Now revealed in you are

Christ ♪ ♪ What a beautiful name it is ♪ ♪ What a beautiful name it is ♪ ♪

In the name of Jesus Christ my King ♪ ♪

What a beautiful name it is ♪ ♪ Nothing compares to this ♪ ♪

What a beautiful name it is ♪ ♪ The name of Jesus ♪ ♪

You didn't want us to be darkness ♪ ♪

So Father you changed your light down ♪ ♪

My sin was great your love was greater ♪ ♪ What could separate us now ♪ ♪

What a wonderful name it is ♪ ♪ What a wonderful name it is ♪ ♪

In the name of Jesus Christ my King ♪ ♪

What a wonderful name it is ♪ ♪ Nothing compares to this ♪ ♪

What a wonderful name it is ♪ ♪ The name of Jesus ♪ ♪

What a wonderful name it is ♪ ♪ The name of Jesus ♪ ♪

Death could not hold you ♪ ♪ Fail to be for you ♪ ♪

Silence the ghosts of sin and pain ♪ ♪

The heavens are roaring praise of your glory ♪ ♪

You have no rival, you have no equal ♪ ♪

Now and forever God you reign ♪ ♪

Yours is the kingdom, yours is the glory ♪ ♪

Yours is the name of God the King ♪ ♪

What a powerful name it is ♪ ♪ What a powerful name it is ♪ ♪

The name of Jesus Christ my King ♪ ♪

What a powerful name it is ♪ ♪ Nothing compares to this ♪ ♪

What a powerful name it is ♪ ♪ The name of Jesus ♪

What a powerful name it is, the name of Jesus.

Sing, Death Could Not Hold You. Oh, death could not hold you.

The veil tore before you. The silence, the boast, the sin and the grave.

The heavens are roaring. The praise of your glory.

For you are raised to life again. You have no rival.

You have no equal. Now and forever,

God, you reign. Yours is the kingdom.

Yours is the glory. Yours is the name above all names.

What a powerful name it is. What a powerful name it is.

The name of Jesus Christ, my

King. What a powerful name it is. Nothing can stand against.

What a powerful name it is. The name of Jesus. What a powerful name it is.

The name of Jesus. What a powerful name it is.

The name of Jesus. Lord Jesus, we praise your name this morning.

We thank you for the power in your name. That at your name demons flee.

That graves open and people walk and live. And God, we are thankful that because of your work, we live.

Because of the finished work of Jesus, we have life. We have freedom. We are no longer condemned to death.

We have life through Christ. We praise you and thank you for that. God, I pray that we would not walk in fear in this life because of your name.

You go before us and you lead the way. And you surround us in and you cover our backside too because you are with us always.

You are by me. We praise you and thank you for your goodness to us, for your mercy you've shown to us, your tremendous grace that you give us all.

Thank you for Jesus Christ. It's in his name that we pray. As the church says, amen.

You may be seated. One, two.

I think this thing is on. It is? All right. All right. Greetings.

How you guys doing? I am Jesse. My name is Jesse. I come from the great state of Colorado.

I'm holding it down. I'm holding it down. I love North Carolina. You guys are very hospitable.

Very green. Very green. I've never seen so much consistency of green lawns.

I'm kind of jealous. But God has blessed the state, right? So, you know,

I covered this one topic. I covered this one topic, the church. In theology, we call it ecclesiology.

And it's a study of the church. And I've been studying the church since 2015.

I've been obsessed with it. It's been my number one thought since 2015.

And I felt like I was on, like, an epiphany where it was like,

I was in your seat at my church. And it was like, man, I wonder what God is doing around the world with other churches.

So that's how it kind of started. And so I started, like, doing a podcast and, you know, from my basement, my room.

And all of a sudden it's like in 38 countries interviewing missionaries, theologians, book authors, people who are experts or have hands -on knowledge about the church.

And I won't stop and I can't stop thinking about it. So today I have the privilege of, you know, expounding on this one verse about the church.

So take it as one little piece of a giant puzzle called the church.

If you ever had the privilege to study in the church, I encourage you to. Usually in theology, if you open up theological, systematic books, the church, the ecclesiology, is usually one of the last things.

And that's the only, that's one of the things that I have, like, I'm bummed out about. I'm like, oh, man, it should be, like, one of the first, man.

Because the church is such a God idea. It's such a

God idea that it is so big. So if you have your Bibles with me, with you, let's go ahead and open up to the

Gospel of, the letter, the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 16, verse 18.

I don't know if I'll go ahead, I'll try my best to get through it, but let's go ahead and see if we can get through it.

Jesus says this, and I tell you, you are

Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell cannot prevail against it.

Amen. So the grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of God endures forever.

Let's go ahead and pray. Lord Jesus, thank you so much for your word that is true.

It endures forever. Whether in Colorado or North Carolina, where the rain and seasons change, your word,

Lord, stays the same. And your word is changing things, changing worlds, changing hearts right now as we speak.

So I pray that you would speak through me to speak your word,

Father, to those people here who need to hear this message about the church. And I pray this in your name,

Jesus, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen. So recorded here in Matthew 16, 18, you have several things, and hopefully

I'll cover some of them. This is actually, you know, if you read the Puritans, this is actually one of the main verses that the

Puritans use as they traverse the Atlantic Ocean, and I don't think

I'll have the privilege to go through every single word here in this verse. So I would like to focus most of my time in the first part of this verse.

And if you read it, this first part of the verse, it's a confirmation of Peter.

And the second half of this verse is a prophecy. So if you want to look at it from two parts, you got the confirmation of Peter, then you got the prophecy.

So let's quickly talk about this confirmation of Peter real quick. Because I think you really do have to look at Peter here.

You can't just read this verse. One of the problems when we read the Bible is kind of like the same problem that people have when they eat steak or meat.

They don't chew their food. And I tell my son and my kids, make sure you chew your food because I don't want you to get a stomachache.

And sometimes when you read the Bible and you open it up and read such passages like this one, we don't read it slowly enough.

We don't chew on it long enough. How about you chew on it for the next five years and see how it changes your life?

Because I bet you it will. So this is how I think when we approach the

Bible in hermeneutics. How I was taught is slow down, slow down.

So let's go ahead and slow down and look at this first part here. Peter. The confirmation of Peter.

So let me ask you, have you ever thought about Peter? Like who he was and what he was.

He's a very interesting guy. And Peter, you know his name wasn't originally Peter.

His real name was Simon, not Peter. And you know

Jesus changed his name later on in the text. And his real name in Aramaic is

Kepa. Kepa. And that means stone or little rock.

So imagine your real name is Little Rock. Yeah, so imagine, you know, but hey, how's your name?

My name's Little Rock, Simon. So Peter, like many of you will probably relate,

Peter was a fisherman. So I know many of you were like, yeah. So he was a fisherman by trade.

And guess what? He was also married. So I know the Bible doesn't speak much about that, but from biblical records and other texts, it hints that he was married.

In fact, some of the apostles were married. And guess what? One of the most famous things that we see on Peter's resume is that Peter denied

Jesus three times. Also recorded for us in the gospel. So imagine having that in your testimony.

Hi, I'm Peter. I'm a fisherman, married, and I denied

Jesus three times. Nice to meet you. You're like, whoa, that's a pretty heavy load right there, right?

But later on, we know that Jesus forgave him. Like imagine the weight that he must have felt for Jesus to say,

Peter, I forgive you, I love you, I'm with you. Imagine that forgiveness, that feeling.

And we know something very interesting about Peter. We know a lot of books upon books about Peter.

And here's one of the facts that I found out that I didn't know before about Peter. Peter was not a fast runner.

He didn't run a 4 .3. He was a slow runner. And we know this detail because in the book of John, John says in chapter 20, verse four, both were running, and the other disciple, which was

John, outran Peter and reached the tomb first. Like, I was like, okay, so it's like in heaven, you know,

John gets to heaven, and I can imagine Peter just waiting, you know, to see John with his arms crossed and saying, did you really have to write that in, that you outran me?

Like, was that really necessary? I was like, what? Like, you ran slow. Like, I could imagine that.

But yes, Peter was a fisherman. He was married. Peter denied Jesus three times, but he was restored by Jesus, forgiven.

And he also ran slow. And later on in church history, we get the record of St.

Jerome, who also wrote a great deal about Peter. He said in very great detail that Peter also died a martyr's death in Rome, so much so that he died upside down, was crucified upside down.

In fact, he requested the Roman soldiers to crucify him upside down because he did not feel worthy to die in the same like image as his master

Jesus. So imagine the Roman soldiers who do crucifixion from nine to five, and you get this strange request.

Can I get crucified upside down while you're at it? Uh, oh, wow, okay.

Let's go ahead. We've never done that before. So that's Peter. This is the same

Peter that Jesus is talking to in this verse. Like, we gotta slow down before we get to the exciting part of I will build my church, and I gave him hell when

I was there. Like, he's talking to a person here. He's having a conversation. He's confirming the faith of Peter here.

Those are some of the facts that I think we need to get to know this person, Peter. Jesus confirms, in this verse, you see that Jesus confirms

Peter to be part of the elect, and if you read the entire chapter, just verse 24, how do we know that?

He confesses Jesus to be the Christ. That faith is connected to a confession.

It's not just an abstract idea. Faith is not just an imaginary thing, like a shadow.

It's based on, there's content, and there's meat inside these words.

That's why Jesus says, you, Peter, you are with me, basically. And what's going on here, at the same time, when you read this verse, it's not just a name change.

It's not just a name change. It's like, hey, Peter, Little Rock, you're no longer

Little Rock. You're Peter. So it's not just that. Yes, there's a physical name change, so Peter probably had to get a new

ID, but it's a status change. It's a status change. It's an identity change.

It follows you forever. If you think about it, your name follows you forever. Everybody called him

Little Rock growing up. Now everybody has to call him Peter, so that's kind of weird. So imagine changing your name in the middle of your life.

At 55 years old, right, everybody's like, hey, John, I'm not John no more. I'm Josh.

What? That's Peter. He had to remind everybody, hey, don't call me that.

Call me Peter. I'm a new man. I'm a new creation. It's a new identity that Christ is essentially giving here, and if you look at the whole scope of Scripture, God does this only a number of times, like physical name changes, so God is like in the business of changing your name, changing your identity, changing your person forever, and if you look at it, there's like a pattern here.

You look in the book of Genesis. God changed Abram, right, to Abraham, and then he changes his wife

Sarai to Sarah, then he changes Jacob into Israel, and then here he changes

Simon into Peter. It's kind of like a pattern. God is in the business of changing your soul, changing your name, changing who you are, and to one sense,

Paul the Apostle kind of echoes this, doesn't he, in his testimony, and his testimony used to be called, like his old name was

Saul, right, and then Jesus changed him so much that he no longer refers to himself to a

Saul. He's like, I don't go by that name. I don't go by that character of who

I used to be. I go by Paul, so ever since then, he refers to himself to a

Paul, so here in this verse, you have to say that Jesus confirms

Peter as a believer. It fits into a unique pattern of God's character, doesn't it?

God changes your identity. He changes your person. He changes who you were and changes you into something different.

If you give yourself a new name, it will probably not be as great. You know, I met people who changed their names before because I used to work in financial places and change their names on their accounts.

You know, it's very tedious, and it's like, what's your name? It's like this generated name from an

AI or something, and it's like, oh, wow, like is that the best you can come up with? So anyways, however, when you look at this verse, this verse has been abused before, hasn't it?

Like all Bible verses, there's always room for abuse, and specifically this verse, when it comes to the church, this verse is famous for abuse.

It has a long history of abuse, and you know who I'm talking about.

The RCC, I like to call them the RCC, and it's the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church, they love to take this verse.

In fact, they plant their flag on this one verse. They take this one verse, and they say, yes, it's about the confirmation of Peter.

You're like, okay, yes, yes, that's it, and they say, yes, it's about the election of somebody, about Peter becoming part of the church, and you're like, okay, well, yes, but that's not all they say.

That's not how they abuse the verse, actually. We agree with them up to that point, but it's how they manufacture what's coming next.

They say, no, this is actually a proof that Jesus himself appointed

Peter to be the head representative of the church on earth.

This is proof, they say, that Jesus actually appointed the first pope. It's kind of like King Arthur.

That's how legendary this verse is to the Roman Catholics. The next time you see a

Roman Catholic person or a friend, you're like, wow, you see Peter like a

King Arthur. That's how legendary this is. They're like, yeah, he's the first pope.

That's so great. You're just like, man, let's look at that. Let's look at that, because when you want to break down this verse, you have to look at that.

You have to look at the good and the bad and the ugly. So was Peter the first pope?

Is there evidence in the Bible that suggests that this verse is actually talking that the church should submit to one person on earth?

I don't think so. That's my opinion. I believe, I stick to the Bible. They believe they stick to the

Bible, but let's look it up. They say this verse proves it.

They go on to Acts chapter 15, and they say that text proves it.

See, he spoke the most. He spoke up, and he carried the respect in Acts 15.

Look at how they respect Peter throughout the whole book of Acts. John even allows him to speak most of the time.

It's like, well, I'm not sure if that really proves he's the pope. Maybe John was an introvert.

What about that? Maybe John didn't really, he was the youngest one, so he let the elders speak.

What about that? No, no. These verses is the proof, they say, that he is the first pope.

And I would argue that I think they're getting their conclusions partially from the biblical text because they're using

Acts 15, and they're quoting some Bible verses, but I think they're leaning heavily on Roman Catholic tradition.

They have to be. And probably using some imagination along, you know, somewhere in there.

You cannot have Disney without imagination. You cannot have the Roman Catholic Church without some tradition and imagination in there.

But if you just stick with this one verse, if you just stick with the Bible, you will find no such evidence that Peter was not the first pope.

You can't. There's no such office. First, you have to start with the office. Like, let me go look up this office in Paul's letter.

Oh, there's not. There's not an office in Paul's letter. Okay, let me go look up some biblical references that Peter went to Rome and planted the church in Rome.

Let me go look in the book of Romans, the letter of Romans, let me find that reference. Oh, I don't.

We don't. He doesn't. Here are some questions about this issue that all

Christians are kind of unsure about, both reformed, non -reformed, Catholic, non -Catholic.

Right? Capital C, Catholic. Right? So, like, how did Peter ever get to Rome?

Because Saint Jerome, in most of church history, says that he died in Rome. How did he get there?

How did he get there? We are unsure. Catholic historians,

Protestant historians, are not really sure of the method, how he got there.

We don't know. Did he take, like, a 737? You know, we don't know.

Was he a slave? Did he got there as a slave? We don't know. What did

Peter do, by the way, when he got there? Did he go to jail right away? Did he get beat up? Did he, like, escape?

You know what I mean? Some Christians, some Roman Christians were like, let's do a heist. Let's get

Peter out of jail, right? A jailbreak. Did that happen? We don't know. Did Peter ever get a chance to preach the gospel for sure to Caesar?

For sure do we know this. Is that the minutes of the meeting recorded in church history or secular history?

Once again, we are unsure. Did Paul ever know that Peter was the

Pope? That's a biggie. Because when I read the book of Romans, I'm like,

Paul doesn't ever reference Peter as being a big guy. In fact, Peter's not really mentioned in the book of Romans.

So these are some of the questions you've got to ask yourself. Some of the investigative questions. And by the way, when you read any text of scripture, it's a good habit to have a journal next to you, a blank piece of paper to write questions down.

Because when you write questions, it helps you dissect and digest the text better.

And then you don't read it quickly, do you, when you think it like that? Right? You're actually like, wow, that's a great question.

Let me write that down. I'm driving my kids to school and I'm still thinking about it. I don't know. I'm still chewing on it.

There's that chewing aspect. So the RCC loves to play these historical games.

There's no fact -checking for them. They assume, they have to assume all these questions as a yes.

Yes, Peter got there this way. Peter did this, and this is what happened. And yes, he climbed to the church. Paul didn't know about it.

There's no way he even... They just assume these historical events. They have to.

When they read the same Bible verse that we're reading today, it's like they don't need a fact -check.

They don't want a fact -check, actually. They actually don't like... That's what makes us Protestant. If you think about it, why are you not a

Catholic? There's probably like a Brazilian reason. But one of the reasons is that you stick to the

Bible, that you read the Bible, that you actually ask questions about the

Bible. Yes, some traditions are good. That's fine. But you know what? Those things don't trump our

Bible. That's what makes a Protestant a Protestant. So about this

Pope thing. Listen to what Thomas Watson has to say about Peter being the first Pope.

These words, as in the words of a young generational young kid, they are lit.

The Pope succeeds Peter only in his denial of Christ.

Wow. Those are fighting words. And if you think about the...

Don't get scared about Latin words, okay? They're only Latin words, worth about 25 cents. Okay?

So the first Latin word, you look at it, the word Pope. It's just a Latin word. It means father.

Just like Simon means Little Rock, right? So it's just a little word, Pope. You're calling someone father.

Now, kids, I wouldn't recommend you call your father Pope. It doesn't sound right.

You know, so I wouldn't recommend that for kids. But that word does mean father. Now, here's another word in Latin that's a little bit more serious, right?

And these words are worth about 50 cents in the market. So if you look at these words, vicarious

Christi. I'm sure you heard those. The more serious Latin words. If you look up any translation in the

Bible, you don't find those words in the exact combination and those pronunciations.

Vicarious Christi in the translation. That is very telling.

It should have been here. Jesus should have said, you, Peter, vicarious

Christi. The debate should have been over with Jesus pronouncing the

King Arthur of the Bible vicarious Christi. They're not even found in the translations of the

Bible. Not even in the Latin Vulgate. And you know what? Just because some words are not found in the

Bible, I'm not arguing, well, we shouldn't use these words, right? Like the word hot dog is not in the

Bible. And the word National Football League is not in the Bible. So can we use those?

Come on, don't be silly. Of course not. We could use those. We could use those words. And they like to play those games, by the way.

Like, yeah, you, no, no. Let's just stick to the Bible. So what I'm saying is, yes, like, we could use

Latin words, but let's just be careful not to use certain

Latin words to the apostles because that's what they're doing. They're taking the

Latin word and they're applying it to the apostles. Historically, when you read this verse, it doesn't prove that Peter was the

Pope. You look at translations, this verse doesn't prove that Jesus was confirming that Peter was the first father.

And you look outside of the Bible, you look at history, when Peter was gone, when Paul was gone, and John after 90

AD, or 99, some people say, he was gone, you look after all the apostles, none of the early church fathers from the first, second, third, fourth century called

Rome as the capital of the whole church. The church, you look at the writings, they didn't believe that the

Roman church was the center of the solar system. There's no evidence that Rome became the capital of Christianity in the first three centuries.

Actually, just quickly going through these things, you have to say, man, like the burden is on them, isn't it?

The burden is on them. How would they read this word? I, you, Peter, I will build this church on you.

That's what they're saying. You're the main man. You're the CEO from here on out. The burden is on our neighbors,

Roman Catholic neighbors or Roman Catholic friends, right, to prove this to us consistently with the

Bible, with history, with the translation, all of that. The burden is on them. The Pope actually didn't even start using the vicar of Christ until like the fifth century, until the end of the fifth century.

Why is that? Well, there's much more history into that. Well, in summary, I think in just one verse, if you look at it,

Jesus is merely confirming that Peter professed his faith in him. I think it's as simple as that.

Like why do we have to play Latin Kung Fu with this?

Why? He's just a man. It's simply, we look at the man, we look who Peter was, right?

Peter is just confessing his faith to Jesus. That what? Jesus was the

Christ. Jesus doesn't make Peter the first Pope of the church. Jesus is merely changing his identity, which also falls into a certain pattern in history, like he did to Abraham.

He doesn't really, and plus, if you read this verse, it shows you who really has authority over the church, doesn't it?

Jesus. He changed his identity. Peter didn't say, well, I'm gonna call myself

Peter from now on. Is that okay, Jesus? Will you call me Peter from now on? Like, no. Jesus changes

Peter, not Peter changes Jesus. Now, because of time, let's go ahead and move forward in this verse.

The second part of this is a prophecy of God. But let me dissect this into a couple sub -particles.

The promise of God. Jesus says, I will build my church. One of the most encouraging things you should hear this morning is that Jesus is building his church.

One of the greatest things that I do on my podcast is that I interview people, yes, but I get to, for one hour, get to look into the window what

God is actually doing in that part of the world. I talked to Muhammad Farhidi, underground church builder in Iran.

Perhaps the top 10 most wanted person in Iran. He's a Christian, lives in Colorado Springs, so I have the privilege of meeting with him.

He built 38 churches underground, all illegal, every pastor's wanted.

Thousand people each. New converts, right? Church houses, another thousand church houses after that.

Every one of those churches and every one of those Christians, they don't have the privileges like us.

Many of those Christians don't have Bibles. Many of those Christians don't have Psalms or Psalter or hymns to sing or Christian radios to turn on the radio to sing.

They don't have none of that. They don't have the money. They don't have the resources. They don't have none of that. And guess what?

Under the threat of death and betrayal, those Christians in Iran are basically, to use football language, blitzing the gates of hell.

And if that doesn't excite you, you need to reexamine your heart.

It could be that your heart is so cold, so focused around your center here that you don't understand what

God is doing in Iran. It's great. The evil regime in Iran is evil and it is detrimental.

They killed many Christians. But guess what? Their days are numbered.

Their days are shortened. They are outnumbered by Christians. It's only a matter of time that Iran collapses in the form of revolution, however

God brings it, and the Christian government, predominant government, takes over the country of Iran.

It's only a matter of time. Jesus said, I will build my church.

Now, I don't have the time to get into the larger portion of this second half like I would love to, but let me just say this to all the naysayers, the

Christians who are pure spiritualists to this verse, and they say, you know what? No, Jesus is not building a church like that, like kingdom building and world building, none of that.

It's like kingdoms all in heaven, not on earth kind of thing. Well, part of that is true. But let me bring it down to earth into a more

Reformed perspective for you. If you look at this one verse, Psalms 33, chapter 4, you have to look at this one verse to connect it with Matthew.

Why does Jesus say, I will build my church? Why? How do we know? Because Psalms 33, verse 4 says that the word of the

Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness.

That's how we know. So in the course of history, God has been faithful to his promise because his words are true.

His words never come back empty, right? So God's providence, some people call this providence,

God's providence is always done according to his will, according to his timing, and if you look at most of the historical

Reformed confessions, if you want to further study it, they do great explanations of it.

I don't have that time to get into it. Yeah, but Jesse doesn't feel like God is building his church because look at North Korea, man.

Well, yes, North Korea is the evil empire right now, and in the current moment, it's a nightmare.

It's a nightmare for Christians. So how is Jesus building his church there? I would say

God is faithful. God is faithful. Well, why would you say that, man?

That's not very mean. Well, not to under guard, not to diminish the pressure point of people that are there, but did you know that there's a massive underground network of churches in North Korea?

The churches is not dead. I also interviewed somebody about that. That's why they created the labor camp,

Camp 13, the biggest labor camp in North Korea. It's the size of Los Angeles.

They're not for political dissenters only. Oh, no. That's where all the religious dissenters go.

That's why they had to build the biggest camp in North Korea, the size of Los Angeles, and everybody there is pretty much a religious dissenter, and many

North Korean Christians are born in labor camps because it's a generational thing.

You go against us, your whole generation is cursed. Your mom, your cousins, everybody goes to jail, not just you, not just the father, not just the pastor, all his church and all their family, family, family.

Everybody goes to the labor camp if you're a Christian. What I'm trying to say is that the church is sometimes more visible in history, and then sometimes it's less visible in history, like places like Iran and Afghanistan, Yemen.

Those are places where the church might be less visible. Here in North Carolina, I think the church is really visible.

In both places, in history, God is faithful, right? God is faithful.

If you want to just take a look at history, and I know a lot of my woke friends would say, history is not perfect, and blah, blah.

The church is not perfect. Well, yeah, the history is not perfect, but look, the devil is not winning.

History proves it. Just look at the pattern here. Look at the pattern. Let me see how fast

I can go through this. The church suffers, right? But God, he used the

Greeks to invade the world, introducing the Greek language into Israel as a result.

And in that, the translation of the Hebrew Old Testament is translated into the

Greek, the same translation that Paul used and many Christians used after that as a bad result a long time ago.

God built his church there using that one beautiful product and result of Alexander's conquest of the world.

The church suffers again, but God uses the incarnation, the death, and the resurrection of Christ, and the coming of the

Holy Spirit through Pentecost to fulfill the covenant of the Old Testament and the

Abrahamic covenant to bless every single nation out of that. Isn't God faithful?

Oh, well, the church suffers. Yes, but God uses the conversion of someone named

Paul, and the results were amazing. He's like the perfect messenger to go into the

Gentiles. He understands Greek thought, probably has a double PhD. He says that's dumb, and then he goes and calls himself a

Roman citizen to buy himself some time and preaches the gospel to Caesar.

The church suffers, but God uses something horrible for something amazing.

He destroys the temple. He destroys the temple of Israel and scatters his people out into the world.

No more centralization of religion. No more priesthood. No more temple,

Ichabod, of all that. Jesus fulfills the ceremony, the ceremonial laws, and the priestly laws.

The church suffers again in the form of martyrs, but guess what? Like one church father said, that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.

Christianity is spreading no matter what, but the church suffers again, but God converts the

Roman emperor into a Christian. What in the world? He converts him.

However that is, it's not perfect like I said, but he comes and brings a law of toleration.

Now Christianity, for the first time, has the potential to grow in a pro -visible

Christian environment. Unlike before. The church suffers again, but God calls

Athanasius to go against the whole world to tell, to bring what kind of message.

Not only the gospel, but to bring something precious to us. That God is a trinity, that there's a father, there's a son, and there's a holy ghost.

He holds back the tide. Like to use football language again, Saint Athanasius is the best offensive line, and they try to sack

Jesus, and he didn't let them. Amazing, isn't it? God, the church suffers, but God uses

Saint Columba to travel to the furthest part of the Roman Empire to convert the

Scots, the last people group in the Empire that are unreachable to you

Scottish people out there. Amen? You're here, if you're Scottish background, because if somebody had the audacity, like Columba, to pass that, to cross over the

Jumper Wall, to preach and reach a people group that are savages, and if you're here because of Scottish background, thank

God for Saint Columba. The church suffers again, and there's a massive people of invaders called the

Vikings, and I'm sorry if your background is a Viking, but they are a terror to Christianity, killing, pillaging not only the pagans and Christians alike, but especially the

Christians. They bring, guess what? The gospel brings those

Vikings to Christ, the worst people group that the church has ever faced, but the church suffers, and God brings a reformation to Europe, bringing the gospel, planting the seeds of the

United States. The church suffers again, and brings the first great awakening to this

United States, reviving it. The church suffers, but God uses many

Christians to bring an end to an evil institution called slavery, and the church suffers again, but God, and I'll leave that blank there for you.

Get that? But God, and I'll leave that blank for you to fill out, because where do you fit in, right?

You're like, man, we're suffering, man, look at Colorado, look at California. Yeah, it's a pattern, but God is faithful.

Jesus is faithful. He's building his church. He's keeping his promise, and it's not done. With America or without America, God doesn't need

America. If he wants to use America, that's cool. If he doesn't want to use it, that's cool.

Look at the Canaanites. Look at Pharaoh. He didn't need them. He doesn't need us to accomplish his faithfulness.

Is that you Vikings tearing up everybody? I'm converting you. Why not? You guys make church security guards, anyway.

So if you're a Viking background, thank God that Christians preach the gospel to some of those guys, and some of you who are coming from Viking backgrounds, thank

God that God was faithful to bring your people's heritage to Christ, right? Otherwise, you wouldn't be here, some of you.

So in summary, we talked about how Jesus appointed Peter, and the church is not losing, and the church is on the winning end, and there's moments in history that the church is less visible than others, but God is faithful.

And this leads to the second part, to the third part, you know, church structure. This does talk about church structure here in Matthew.

The congregation, the church structure. Questions. Remember, I told you to write questions. When you study the

Bible, chew it slowly. Write questions, and it'll change your devotion life, trust me. Does the church have authority?

Huh. First of all, an elder and a deacon, are they little monarchs, or are they limited in power?

Huh. Question. Oh, how should the church be run? What are the standards, if there are any standards, right?

Questions. Questions. Many questions. Like I said in the beginning, I don't have the time, and I don't have the time to get into the structures of Anglicanism, all the fun stuff, and Presbyterianism, and all the fun stuff.

Instead, I want to devote this last piece of time to the need for structure, actually.

The need for church structure. And you know why? Here's my first point. No matter the structure, people are prone to error.

You know, and, and, let me piggyback on that, there's no hope outside of the church. It's like a rock, being stuck between a rock and a hard place, right?

Like, people are prone to error in any structure, but there's no hope outside of that.

It's the best we got. Christians can be wrong. Christians can be wrong. Just because a

Christian may be wrong, though, hold on, doesn't make Christianity a fault, does it?

So the answer is, yeah, of course not. Jesus is faithful to build His church, but He didn't promise, notice what

He did not promise. He did not promise to make the church infallible. He's like,

I'm gonna promise to make the church bulletproof no matter what. No. We live in a fallen world, even when

Jesus is making promises and keeping them. Like, in the face, just look at this, in the face of Jesus, in the flesh,

His disciples are arguing. We are prone to error. And look, listen to how

Jesus responds to this argument. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you, you must be servant.

And whoever wants to be first, you must be a slave. Like, isn't this a slap to our pride?

Servanthood, Jesus? Yes. Because Christians are prone to error. We are prone to abuse.

People use this as an argument all the time, right, in the colleges and the universities and in the media and in movies.

They love to make the Christian the hypocrite in every single movie, don't they? Yes, the church is not perfect, but that doesn't mean you need to abandon the church because the church is not at fault.

Jesus never promised a perfect church like that. We are hypocrites. We are progressing more and more to be like Jesus, right?

But that doesn't mean there's hope outside of the church. Okay? There is no hope. Let us not abandon hope.

So instead of arguing for a weak system, instead of arguing that the system needs to be burned down and rebuilt, let's argue for a better unity, more love with one another, more servants with one another.

Let's not give in to this free society, no rules, no standards, no creed, no bylaws, no confessions, no history, no church history.

It's only the church. We're not free -ranging chickens. This verse has mountains.

It's as high as high peaks when it comes to the structure of the church. This argument actually doesn't disprove the structure or the needs.

It actually cries out for the need of it, actually. I'm not here to disprove those disagreements, but just to move quickly here, the nature of man compels that the church has to have a structure.

Natural law argues that the world and creation is very orderly, isn't it?

The sun commands the eight or nine planets, whatever decade you're from. Gravity dictates man cannot fly.

Mothers dictate the newborn's survival. Children must obey their parents. The Bible tells us to pray and obey the king.

The Bible tells us to obey church leaders. Isn't this like natural law? Just the way things are?

Everything has a structure. This is some of the stuff that the Greek philosophers got close to Christianity because they discerned, like, hey, the sun never moves, doesn't it?

This isn't like, this is order, isn't it? So everything has a structure. The church has no exception to this structure.

What did the apostle Paul, you know, what did the apostles do after the

Gentiles came to faith in the New Testament? You notice that? The apostle

Paul, for example, goes back, brings the gospel, right, as the churches, and what does he do right after that?

He goes back and he's like, man, they all need leaders. Man, they all need structure. We need to go back and establish organization, don't we?

Hey, Titus, why don't you stay in Crete? Timothy, when I'm dead, I'm gonna write you a letter and I'm gonna pass you the baton, okay?

And your ministry is simple, all right? It's an ordinary ministry. Preaching? Here it is.

Are you excited, Timothy? Yes. Preaching and discipline. It's like, what?

That's it? Flashing lights? No, no, no. Rap music? Nothing like that? Nope. Look what Acts 14, 23 says.

Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church, praying and fasting as they entrusted them to the

Lord in whom he had believed. But church people sometimes aren't content, are we, sometimes?

We like our potlucks or casseroles or hot dishes. What do you guys call them? Casseroles.

All right, tell that to Minnesota because they got a big beef. Oh, no, hot dish. Okay, so why would

Paul spend so much time and energy begging the church to get along with one another, pushing for uniformity and conformity instead of disorder and just do what you want?

Paul and the apostles, both, all of them had the concept that there is no salvation outside of the church.

And if you read the book of Hebrews, there's a huge verse on it. Real quick. Listen to this third century father.

He says, he can have, no longer have God his father who has not his church as his mother.

And you're like, I don't like that, that's Roman Catholic. Well, he's not Roman Catholic, but if you don't like that, let me bring him more to home.

My friend, a reformed Baptist and elder says, a Christian without a church is in trouble.

So Paul and the apostles understood this very clearly that when it comes to the church, the church has a delegated power, a spiritual power.

It's not the same kind of power like Caesar. So Paul understands these concepts very clearly that a church without order is a church not from God.

And in fact, if the church is left to our own natures, the church would have consumed itself.

We are prone to error. We are prone to sin. This is our human nature by design.

We are fallen ever since the garden. We're prone to this. But that doesn't mean we need to abandon the church because there's no hope outside of the church.

This is the best you got. If you ever find a perfect church, the Virgin said, don't join it because you'll mess it up.

So authority and structure is assumed by the mere virtue of church discipline as well.

Imagine if you and your wife paid for salsa dancing lessons or dancing lessons, and then all of a sudden, you just don't listen to the instructor.

You just did what you did. Just do whatever you want. Would you be great dancers at the end of that?

You probably wouldn't be great dancers, in fact. So the same principle can be found in the church and her structure.

If you want to be disciples of Jesus, the New Testament says, then you must be trained like disciples in the disciplines of Jesus.

Just like salsa dancing. Take the salsa discipline seriously, I guess. Latinos represent.

If you want to make it to heaven, guess what? You don't need to be a good pastor to get there. You know what is needed for you to get to heaven?

You just need to be forgiven. You just need your sins forgiven That's it.

In fact, the word disciple and discipline are kind of related, huh? It's paramount for the church to understand this, that both instruction and correction are needed for growth.

Let's see if you can detect this conversation. Jesus says to you, all authority on heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Like, okay, well, that's cool, Jesus, but I have a problem with my church brother. Yeah, big problem.

Okay? Jesus says, well, if they don't, if they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church.

And if they refuse to listen even to the church, then treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector. Pagan, I just put the word

Viking in there. Sorry about that. Okay, well, Jesus, I've done that. My brother's a

Viking and worse than a tax collector. Now you're going to listen to me, but I feel good about myself,

Jesus. I want to become a teacher. I feel good about myself. I want to help others. And then Paul would say, okay, this is a trustworthy saying.

If anybody aspires to the office of overseer, he seeks a noble task. But St.

James would be like, let me take it back on that, Paul. Not many of you should be teachers, by the way, my brothers, for you know that whoever teaches will be judged with greater strictness.

So both Peter and John, any apostle you want to name, they're not here to hold our hands, are they?

Like, where's John? John, where you at? Apostle John, where are you? He was in the physical flesh.

He's not here. They knew they were not going to be here. So they left basic instructions before leaving earth.

That's a little catechism thing with it. But the church has spiritual powers, delegated powers, declarative powers, not powers of the sword.

See, a well -structured church is an orderly church that practices both instructions and discipline.

We talk about that a lot in the conference. That's one of the marks of a healthy church, by the way.

Let me see if I can make this quicker. So the church is most structured when it obeys and follows the word of God.

Jesus, remember that country song, Jesus, or Jesus take the wheel? Remember that one country song? See, that's kind of halfway there.

Jesus doesn't only take the wheel. Jesus invented the wheel. Like, imagine the stress of all these people coming out in the modern day trying to reinvent the wheel for church.

Like, Jesus entrusted the church to us, he entrusted us with the gospel. The Godhead invited you to preach the gospel to the world.

Isn't that a privilege? That's like getting invited to a Navy warship for the

Fourth of July. How cool is that? Right? Well, the Godhead invites you into his kingdom to preach the gospel to the world, which is way cooler than going on a warship in the

Navy on the Fourth of July. So this is one of the church's missions, yes.

But he does not call you to be initiators for new directions of the church to reinvent the wheel.

He doesn't call you to be Pope. He calls you to be servant. That's why

I say, it must be a burden for those guys to try to reinvent something every Sunday.

Like something new, something tight. If that's you, take that burden off you.

You don't need that. The church also assumes a church structure because Christians will need to be faithful stewards to God's prior decisions.

So like whatever it's done before, we need to trust that that is the organization that God's decided for us.

Like who are you to recategorize the church? Like really, who are we to say we no longer need elders, we no longer need this and that, we need popes, we need new apostles actually.

No. That's out with the old in with the new stuff. It's very dangerous. Just read once again in truth on how

Paul gave an ordinary ministry to Timothy. There's no pope.

Can't force people to believe this. I'm going to have to skip a bunch of stuff.

So the source of the church's power comes from Jesus alone. The church elects officers.

The church has liberty to create creeds, confessions, bring influence to new spheres, assembles, and bring a new ruling on an issue.

Like hey, like none of this trans, you know, trans, transism, I won't say it, but transism, you know, the church is coming together in North Carolina and say as a church in North Carolina, all of us agree that this is bad.

The church has liberty there to do that. If you're, if you're a board of directors or I don't know how you call them here, there's a session in my church, the elders, they could come together and vote on something and then the church could participate in that vote.

So there's liberty there. Jesus gave his liberty for some of these structures. And if the church carries away with it, carries, you know, drifts off to the end, then it becomes not really from Jesus, it becomes like man -made, man authority.

And let me see, and lastly, the church is structured, the church structure assumes sola scriptura, doesn't it?

The concept that scripture alone has, is one of the main principles of the Reformation. And there would be no

Reformation without this principle. And you're like, well, what is the sola scriptura?

Well, John McArthur defines it like this. Sola scriptura simply means that all the truths necessary for our salvation and spiritual life is taught either explicitly or implicitly in the scripture.

You're like, really? Yeah. No secret sauce? No. No, so even the

J -Dubs, that's what I call them, the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons and all these new structures of churches, right?

Even the Roman Catholics, they love and they all have a form of church discipline and instructions, do they?

But guess what? All of them create a new structure outside of the norms of sola scriptura there. Like if you just read

John McArthur's quote, you'd be like, okay, well, we only need the Bible to create the structure. We're free to play with it a little bit, right, to work it out.

But we're not free to be initiators to call people popes and to create a whole new wheel.

That's what they're doing. They have reinvented the wheel. They have said, sola scriptura is create, but we like to have something else that's like a new shiny wheel.

So in summary, in closing, a church is more structured when it's simply trusting and obeying to Jesus. Being organized is simply how

Jesus' promises are kept and made and fulfilled. He cannot keep his promises of this orderly church.

The Holy Spirit working in the church brings order, not disorder. And yes,

Christians can still have disagreements over the liberty style of church, the prone, whatever, prone to error, right?

But Peter was a great example in this verse because look how

Jesus kind of just quotes it. The fact remains that the evidence is in, right?

Those who seek to be great in the kingdom of God must first be servants,

Jesus says. So it doesn't matter what you're subscribed to. If you're Syrian Baptist or non -denom, whatever,

Jesus says you must be a great servant like me if you want to be great. Not Pope, not initiator.

Amen? Go ahead and pray real quick. Father God, thank you so much for your church and how you're growing it.

You keep your promises, Lord. This is why we're here. Just an inside look,

Father, of what you have done, an inside look, a quick look of what you're doing to your church here as well in North Carolina.

We should be excited, Father. We should be thrilled to be a part of this endeavor. That we are servants.

So use us, Lord. We are yours. Use us. We all want to be great. But Father, humble us to be servants first.

And I pray this in your name, Jesus. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen. Thank you.

♪ God bless you. Thank you. God help me out.

It's been a good time, buddy. God bless you.

God bless you. God bless you. God bless you.

God bless you. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

Who initiates this salvation? Man or God? God. Who calls man to repentance?

Man or God? Who initiates salvation then? God. The Bible says that no man comes to the

Father lest the Spirit draw him. So we don't argue with Scripture when Scripture couldn't be any more clear. I hope

I answered the question. The reason I say I don't know, like I've mirrored W. Tozer whenever he says things like, why would

God do it? I don't have a clue. And if we're answering children questions that would somehow shut the door on them seeking after the

Lord because somebody told them that there was no hope for them, I'll not take part of that, not in any way, shape, or form.

We've been sternly warned by Christ that it would be better we're not born. Go ahead. Sure. Yes.

Yes. Conformed.

Conformed to the image of His Son. Yes, sir. He's right in the

Roman church. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. So let's flesh it out a little bit.

All right. So does this question insinuate that man has no obligation to surrender to God?

That's what I want to ask you that question before I go any further with it. Okay.

If God has already predetermined your salvation, then can you lose it based off of many merits that you've done?

So, sure. See, me and you agree a lot more than you think we do.

Me and you agree a lot more than you think we do. Sure.

It's there. I want to stand up.

Okay. So now

I want to flesh that out a little bit with not a point of Scripture but rather a principle learned throughout

Scripture. We're familiar with the angels, correct? So the angels were produced by God to perform in a purpose and whenever they rebelled against God they were condemned permanently to hell without any chance of repentance, correct?

The angels aren't given an opportunity to repent. Adam was unique in the fact that he disobeyed

God and God has given space for repentance. So if man were created the exact same way the angels were created in the fact that they were predestined for a role and predestined for a certain life and then they rebelled against it, how is it that man has an opportunity for repentance?

I believe that in this fine line that I can't point to a Scripture in more than a practice is where personal obligation and willful surrender falls into play.

Really love forced upon somebody is not love but willful love is really love.

So when you love God because you recognize what God has done in you, that's love indeed.

If you're forced to love Him then it's coercion, no longer love. So therefore while there is a sovereign

God that does not in my opinion and can't negate man's willful love and obedience to this

God and we have to be careful at times how we approach election because it almost paints

God in a box of saying that well I've saved him now I got to deal with him or her and the people on the other end it appear have been done unjustly.

One thing we can know for sure is God is just and that God is right and whenever we fail to see it in that way it's because we don't have eyes to see it.

So I don't have eyes to know or a mind that can understand where God's sovereignty and man's free will dance together.

Might be salsa dancing though. It might be. But angels do have a will and that's the reason he's using that illustration angels do have a will.

Let me read us a text and then we can be here all day. Okay. To help us summarize

Tune into the podcast. That's what I was fixing to say. That's what I was fixing to say.

To summarize this subject a text that helped me tremendously was

Hosea chapter 2. Okay. You want to run over there to Hosea chapter 2. Is that where you was at, Tyler? It is.

Okay, good. You want to read it, Tyler? You want to read it? Go ahead and read it and then I'll give a little explanation. What verse were you picking up at?

I was going to pick up to make it simple, verse 6. Hosea 2 .6

One of the things I love about the Christian Standard Bible is when the New Testament points to the Old they put it in bold.

And so I turned to Romans 9 it's like two -thirds bold. And honestly when

I got to Romans 9 I found myself in Hosea. That's right. And that's where I started grappling with this idea when

I was 21. But Hosea 2 .6 Therefore, this is what I will do. I will block her way with thorns.

I will enclose her with a wall so that she cannot find her path. She will pursue her lovers but not catch them.

She will look for them but not find them. Then she will think, I will go back to my former husband. For then it was better for me than now.

That's good. I'm going to stop us right there just for simplicity. Of course. Is that okay? And so Hosea 2 shows very clearly a picture of the sovereignty of God the predestining and the election of God.

It's a simple question for me is who's stronger, us or God? Well, let's answer the question.

This is an important answer. So who's stronger, us or God? Well, you know it's God but then sometimes we don't act like it's

God because then we're going to say that my ability to choose defeats His choice. So here

Hosea 2 answers that question. God's saying this is what I'm going to do and He's of course speaking to Israel.

Okay? Is God ever going to let Israel go? No, because it's the lineage that He's ordained predestined for Christ.

Was Israel ever disobedient? Of course she was. Were there consequences for this disobedience?

Absolutely. So then God says this therefore I'm going to hedge her up. I'm going to put a hedge around her.

Now, it's not fatalism. Fatalism means that you're stripped of your ability to make decisions.

That you're stripped of your human responsibility. It's not fatalism. Notice what the harlot in this story does.

And we're the harlot in the story by the way. I tell Vertical Life that all the time, guys. Where are we at in the story? Okay? We're the harlot in the story.

Look what it says. It says that she's going to continue to pursue her lovers. She's going to...

Sorry, my phone all flipped around there. But she's going to continue to pursue the things that she wanted, right?

So she's going to continue to pursue her lovers and she'll not catch them. She's going to continue to pursue after the things of the world and the wolves and the flax and the things that made her money.

And she's not going to be able to have them. Okay? So on and so forth. And so it's not that she all of a sudden wakes up one day and is like a robot.

I'm just going to love God. No. God says I'm going to hedge her in. And I'm going to allow her to have the things that she wants.

Does not a good father do that? Amen? And then at the end it says then she will find her way back to me and be healed.

She will find her way. There's this hedging in, this closing in. So it's not fatalism. She very clearly is making decisions in the whole journey, right?

She's very clearly... She has fleshly desires in the whole journey. But God knows exactly how to.

And this is how I came to grapple with irresistible grace. It was those two things.

One, who's stronger, me or God? Because I'm pretty hard -headed. And you all know that about me, all right?

So I'm hard -headed. But who's stronger, me or God? Of course God is.

And then the hedging in, I still today. Do we not still today as believers still grapple with this flesh?

And thanks be to God, he has hedged us in. He is saying I know as a good father how to keep you standing in the faith.

I know how I won't leave you. I'm not just gonna leave you to your own devices. And so that's where...

Do I believe that people have free will? Absolutely. But with our free will, we choose hell every time, Romans 3.

In my opinion, Romans 3 says no man seeks God. No man's seeking after God. So then all of a sudden, why did you start seeking

God? That's a question to answer. And so, Edith, even in this with your students, asking them that question, why do you even care about God?

Why are you even asking this question? This goes back to the blasphemy question. Why are you even asking that question? And the good news is if someone is asking that question, then there's an evidence that the

Lord is stirring in their life. You know, there's a stirring there. Jessie and I, the last thing

I'll say, Jessie and I answered this question just a little bit the other night, even because we love evangelism here.

We love to share the gospel people. You know, Bruno, we love to knock on doors, you know, and things of that nature.

Some of these guys never done that, so we gotta get them out there, okay? And so, we do that, and we pray with people, spontaneously praying with people.

Do I ever, for one second, knock on a door and be like, hmm, I wonder if this one's elect or not?

No, not for a second, because I believe that God is so sovereign that His word will not return void.

And when we knock on that door, if that door comes open, this is a divine appointment. This is a divine appointment.

I'm not, for one second, wondering if this person is of the elect, if I should waste time sharing the gospel with them or not, trying to figure it out.

No, we preach the gospel. We proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ, and His grace is sufficient, and it's marvelous.

And so, again, if you wanna get right down to the nitty -gritty of it, it's okay, too, to say there's things that we know, and there's things that we don't know.

Amen. There's mysteries. Just for research, for your research, as you continue to read,

I encourage you to continue to read and ask questions. You know, there was a Reformation over 500 years ago.

They debated this topic. And the Roman Catholic Church had their best theologian come after Luther, their best, named

Erasmus. And Luther answered all his questions in one little book called

The Bondage of the Will. The Bondage of the Will. It's probably eight bucks now.

Isn't that incredible? Somewhere on Amazon. Eight bucks, probably. The Bondage of the

Will. Luther's response to Erasmus on the

Roman Catholic position on predestination and human will. Really great resource to really get into what we're kind of talking about.

Luther already answered all these questions, like 500 and many years ago. Continue your research.

Quick question, and then we'll wrap this up. Yeah, great question.

So a person gets saved, right? So that would be the big question. Like, did the person get saved?

Because if he's not saved, you will know them by their fruits, right? So he'll be, you know, the fruits would tell the root of that faith.

You know what I mean? Like, is he walking in the fruits of darkness still? Is he walking in the light?

Like, is he in the church? Does his elders know him? Like, you cannot just appoint yourself.

I didn't get to the whole thing, but you can't appoint yourself as an elder. I just woke up, and I feel called, and there

I am. You know, Steve, I recommend another resource for your investigation, right?

There's a resource by Steve Lawson called Called to Preach, written in this year,

I think, or late last year, actually. Called to Preach. He talks about being called to preach.

He wrote it for young pastors who are in line as a candidate, whether in a

Presbyterian church or in a Baptist, it doesn't matter. He wrote a great synopsis of what it is to be called, qualifications, how do you know if you're called to be like a

Steve Lawson. Steve Lawson is the man when it comes to that. So Called to Preach is a great resource for you in your investigation.

But to answer your question, I would say he will need to be known by his elders, and his elders will need to make that decision with him, right?

Yeah. Yes. Sure. Sure.

Sure. Sure. Not necessarily.

No. I think the question is, in the South especially, and you may not be aware of this, in the

South especially, being divorced is a disqualifier because they interpret husband of one wife as divorced and remarried.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I see what you're saying. Yeah. I don't think he's just here in the

South. Maybe I didn't say that correctly. Yeah. Unfortunately, yeah. It's getting into the qualifications of elders and deacons, husband of one wife, one that ruled with his household well.

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Yeah, so unfortunately, divorce is real.

We live in a fallen world. It's very broken. And whenever you disciple people, it's messy, and people are messy, right?

And broken. And so look at Paul. Paul was not divorced, but he had murdered.

Murdered. So which one is worse, divorce or murder? Both are bad. There isn't a clear biblical teaching against murder.

Right. There's a clear biblical teaching on murder. Thou shalt not kill is murder.

That's what I'm talking about. Qualifications. Yeah, so it all depends on the denomination. Some denominations are a little different on the divorce thing.

I would say, in my opinion, it would probably fall to the freedom of that local church government to make that call, okay?

Yeah. We're hitched to the Bible, but if a church elder wants to be an elder, and if he is, like, modeled, and he could be a candidate for sure.

That doesn't mean he's going to be elected. See, the way it works in a Presbyterian church is that you need to be elected by your congregation, right?

And then you need to be vetted, a long sense of vetted. That word vetted, capital V, right?

You can't just be elected and boom. You've got to be vetted by a long process.

And if the elders are not allowing you, bringing up charges, finding your life in delinquent or your doctrine in delinquency, then, yes, you will not be elected to be serving as an officer of the church in the

Presbyterian church. So, yes, and the way it works in the Baptist is probably a little different. There's some vetting, and there's other ones probably not as much vetting.

But, yes, this is why if you read another resource, Christianity and Liberalism, written by J.

Machen Gresham, J. Machen Gresham, yeah, in the last chapter, he talks about the church needs to up his game on vetting and not allow all these churches, pastors come in.

And the reason why they're coming in is because the church is not vetting them enough, right? He wrote that 100 years ago, 1923, right?

Like, have we improved in vetting within Presbyterian or Baptist? Not much, right?

Look at all the scandals in the SBC, 700 accusations, 700 reports, 700 reports, right, of the sex scandals.

And that's just one denomination, right? So the vetting process needs to be taken more seriously, right?

So I would leave it to the local church government to decide, right, for themselves if that person is fit to be an elder or a deacon in that local church government.

So if the local church government vets, they vote, and all that stuff, then if they build a house without the

Lord, that's going to fail. But if they have the Lord build in that house—

Let me—Claude, I know you had something to say. Take three minutes and speak to it. I want to speak to it because this is my local church, and then

I'm going to let Robert wrap this up. Is that okay, guys? So two things. You gave the example of a man's lost, he's saved, then this comes up, right?

So first of all, the Scripture says any man who is in Christ, he's a new creature. Old things pass away, behold, all things become new.

Second, I would tackle the actual language that's used in the text.

We assume into the text that that qualification is saying a man who has never been married before, but the context of the passage is in a society where polygamy was a practice.

So the contextual understanding of that passage is one woman, man, meaning that you don't have multiple wives, not that you've not been married before.

And then it comes down to like what Jesse was saying there. It comes down to the local vetting process within the congregation because the elders in a local congregation will know the individual, right?

They'll know the ups and the downs. Pattern of the life is important. It's not a snapshot.

We can't just look at a snapshot of somebody's life, right? Because you take a snapshot of my life, you will go home right now and say,

I wish I wouldn't have listened to that dude say anything because he's a piece of crap, because I am.

Right, that's why I pointed to Paul. Paul was a different man, murdered and all that stuff, and all of a sudden

Jesus chose him to be an apostle. Right, which is, yeah, but he had an awful life.

So can Jesus change a person or not? Like how powerful is salvation, right? Very powerful, yeah.

So I think we're dealing with a couple of things. Yeah, you look at the movie version, not the snapshot. Right, I think we're dealing with a couple of things.

Every single person in this room that is a believer in Jesus Christ is qualified and called and expected and commanded to preach the gospel.

Period. Period. The proclamation of the gospel. But not everyone is called to be an elder or to be a deacon or to be a pastor.

We have a body that we function together. And we preached about this here a few months ago here.

And then, you know, and we talked about this a lot. So in my lifetime, coming through Southern Baptist Life, we had a horrible experience with this.

And the reason we had a horrible experience with it was there was very little vetting, like authentic vetting of biblical gospel centers.

Literally, they put a bulletin out, an insert in the bulletin that said, Any man that's not been divorced, his name's on the list.

And the scarlet letter is the divorce. Okay? So I came from that, and then, and knowing that that's wrong, and hated it.

And then it becomes a whole political rigmarole and a whole voting thing, and just, it's terrible.

Okay? And then you can swing to the extreme other side of, like, this legalism, you know, or liberalism, rather.

That's more legalism on one side. You can get this other side to be like, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You know, all things, behold, every man's a new creation.

That was before my salvation. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. And where we're at here is

I can't deny husband of one wife. The normal translation for the word husband of one is actually, all throughout the rest of Scripture, the word first.

So you can't deny that. So I can't just skip over it as if that doesn't exist. Okay? So that's it, but in the

English translation we have, it still says one. But all other places that that exact Greek word is used, it does use the word first.

So I can't just ignore that. But at the same time, I do understand that there is a grace to be applied.

There is a local autonomy to be applied. There is an evidence in a person's life that whatever has happened in their past is so far in the past that it has not made them without or not caused them to have reproach.

And I think that's the biggest thing. And it does, at times, unfortunately, become circumstantial.

Because I've been in situations where I've had deacons there that their girlfriends showed up at church.

Now, they've only been married once and have one wife. Right? There's a circumstance right across town over here where there's a deacon in the church, which in that church is the same as an elder, okay, because they don't have the office of elders.

They just have deacons. There's a situation right across town here that the deacon sits in church with his wife, and the girlfriend sits right behind him.

So, no, no, no, no, but what I'm trying to say is he would say that's his first wife in Christ. But is he still qualified?

Right, of course not. So what I'm trying to say is there have become some things that have become very, very obvious, very obvious that are like no -brainers.

The problem in the church, though, is we try to make these rules so that we don't have to use our brains. We don't have to work hard or vet through people or talk hard or have hard conversations.

Like, say, like, you don't mind me saying this. Bruno and I have breaks, but I'm like, Bruno, you've got to get some more patience, bro. Have we not said that over breakfast?

And he don't mind me saying that to him. I mean, it's like we've got to talk a little bit, you know, and then he's talking to me.

He's like, bro, hey, look, you're, you know, and we speak in each other's life. Just because I'm a pastor here doesn't mean that the men of this church don't speak into my life.

You know what I'm saying? I mean, there's a brotherhood there, so there is an evaluation. So I think we're always looking for the law, and I think there's the spirit of the law that is there.

Then the whole spirit of the law for the qualifications is, can this man stand in this pulpit and preach this word of God above reproach?

That no one in here, if he gets up and preaches on husbands love your wife just as Christ loves the church, is there anything in his at least recent past, or maybe his extended past, if you beat your wife to death, then you're probably disqualified.

So even MacArthur says it this way. Is it possible? Possible. Is it likely?

No. Okay, that's how they measure it out. Okay, because then they go on to deal with when he manages household wealth.

But is it possible? Yes, the redemption. So this is not a spiritual matter, and what you're making it, in my opinion, is a spiritual matter.

It's not a spiritual matter. A person that has this is cleaned and redeemed and forgiven and free to go serve.

What this is is not a spiritual matter. This is a perspective of people matter. See, this is not a

God's perspective. This is a people perspective. So those qualifications are written not to earn

God's favor. These qualifications are written so that these people will follow you without hesitation.

Does that make sense? So that's why it's grappling through there, and that's why there's, like I said, all the other ones, including our wives, must be hospitable and our children in obedience.

And, I mean, if you see John Luke, who's up here playing the con today, if you see him out here smoking cigarettes on the back porch out here and giving the little kids cigarettes, well, what kind of reflection is that on his daddy?

And you're like, well, cigarettes? Well, just so you know what I'm saying, all right? Cowboy cigarettes even, all right?

But you get the point. Does that make sense? So that's going to do a direct reflection on me as the local pastor of this church, that I don't have my household in order because now my son is acting a fool out here, and then

I'm going to get up and preach to you how to raise your kids? What are you going to do? Yeah, it's order.

It's order. All right, Robert. Hey, look, seriously, watch the podcast on Thursday nights, okay, 830.

We continue to grapple through these things. Does that make sense? And you may not have got your question answered today because we had so many different opinions.

That's okay because we're grappling through it just like you are, guys. Maybe we should do a Q &A episode in the future.

Go ahead, Robert. Wrap this up. Well, Claude just recommended that continue to blow his phone up, and we'll have content for the podcast.

Yes, text me. Do all kinds of stuff. Please. If you need his number, put it up on the screen. I'm just kidding. 704 -512 -3394.

I'm glad that God has— Bruno's going to come down and take the love offering up, guys, and that way we can go ahead and dismiss as soon as Robert's done.

I'm glad that God has shown me my inadequacy. That way I don't have a false idea that I've done anything.

So all praise goes to Jesus because he's brought these guys together.

He's given me these guys as friends, as brothers, and I'm thankful for them. God has given us vertical life and all the wonderful things that you guys have done.

So it's all God, and it's all what he's doing. So we give him all praise and glory for what he's doing.

We're just glad to be a part of his kingdom, and thank you for that. Jonathan gave some statistics this morning about the lost in Newton, and every city has their own statistics.

But you know what all those people have? One of these. And so us old geezers are trying to get on the

Internet and trying to reach the lost. We're not all that old. I'm the old geezer up here, so I'll be the old geezer.

You all be the whippersnappers. There's us old geezers. Sorry. Some of us are old geezers.

And some of us old geezers are trying to figure out how to make hip and cool graphics to make it appealing to people and young people.

And so we appreciate your support and prayers, and also to do that and to fight the algorithms to make it get out further.

We'd love for you to like and follow those things on social media and their individual podcasts.

Here I Stand Theology Podcast, Bread of the Word Podcast, Bible Theory Podcast, Real Talk with Big John.

Follow these guys so that we can reach more people. And we also appreciate the

Christian businesses that have come alongside us and are putting the gospel in movie theaters like the

Carolina Theater. We are thankful for them putting the gospel in the theater and letting people come in and preach the gospel after movies.

We praise God for what he's doing. So thank you.

One last thing. Unless the Lord, which he does, Lord willing, we will have another conference next year.

And if he continues in a certain direction, unless he changes our mind, this is the direction we're going.

But we're open to the Lord doing what he wants. So if the

Lord allows, if this is his direction, this is what it will be. Reformata Baptist Church, Knoxville, Tennessee.

Make your reservations in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and we'll see you next year.

That is, how do you say it? Reformata, right? Reformata. I was going to say the

A .I. said Reformata or something. So Reformata Baptist Church. This is

Claude's church. And so I've already talked to you a couple about that. Lord willing, we will make a trip up there so you can plan a year in advance.

We want to go support that. We want this to grow. We want it to be something that's powerful and informative and a safe place to ask good questions.

Yep. It's going to be the exact same dates as this week. It'll be the same weekend. I know with the calendar year, everything will shift.

But be like, what is this? Basically the last weekend in April. Basically the last weekend in April is what you can look at.

We will discuss among ourselves if we're going to do Friday, Saturday, Sunday, if we're still going to do the Thursday night, or do we do it all day again?

I mean, this is the first time we've ever done this. So we're learning. We're growing. And we would love your feedback on that, too.

You're not going to hurt our feelings. We would love your feedback and saying, hey, this would have done better.

We could have done more of this. One thing that even John and I talked about, the topics that we chose were huge topics.

So you're barely just skimming over the surface. And so it might be we narrow our topic base down to where we can go deeper.

There's a bunch of stuff that we'll continue to work through. But if you've got feedback for us, feel free to do that.

All right. Well, let's stand. Let's pray together. I'm going to do another vertical culture.

We started it this way, and we're going to end it this way. So I'm going to ask you guys to go to the middle down there.

All y 'all, if you're germaphobes, then get over it. I'm going to ask you to go to the middle.

And I want everybody to gather around them. And let's pray over them. Father, I am so grateful to have the honor and privilege to pray over my brothers at this moment in time.

Lord, the influence that these men have, whether it be a local church or through podcasts, through their families, through their neighborhoods, potentially reaches into the thousands of people.

I pray, Father, that you will bless them and that you will keep them. You will cause your face to shine upon them, that you will anoint them with the power of your

Holy Spirit to be unashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation.

I pray that you will continue to sharpen us in agreement and disagreement, help us to grow and to understand.

At the end of the day, for hundreds of years, these topics have been debated and discussed.

And the only answer that we can have is your word. Father, I pray over these men that you would give them an insight and a depth and an understanding to your word greater than they've ever had before.

I pray that we'll never be unhitched from your word, but that we would love your word and we love your law and we delight in it day and night.

Teach us your ways, Lord. Thank you for this church family, and thank you that you have granted us the opportunity to be a host here.

And I pray, Father, that you will help us unite as your body, functioning well, helping to learn, helping to grow.

And at the end of the day, Lord Jesus, may you receive all the honor and glory. For you are

King of Kings and you are Lord of Lords, and you are our Savior and our Master, our friend and our brother,

God our Father. Thank you for your spirit that fills us and equips us for this good work.

And I thank you today that even for this ministry, ministry or any individual here, our adequacy is never in you, in us, but our adequacy is solely in you.

We thank you for that, Lord. Now use us mightily, we pray in Jesus name. Amen.