We Are They

0:01 All right. Well, first of all, Mr. Morris, I'm probably going to have to pass on your marriage counseling thing. I'm kind of going to hold out until Tammy and I have our first disagreement, and then we'll and then when the need arises, I figure we'll... So far, eighteen years and she's never been wrong.

0:25 Just kidding. That's just a joke. That's why you're happily married. That's right. Right.

0:32 That's actually my I get that from my father-in-law. He said that. I stole that. We get along well because she's never wrong. Let's open in prayer and then I'm going to try to explain what's happened here this morning and what I hope to happen, and we'll go from there.

0:52 But let's ask the Lord to bless our time. Heavenly Father, as we come before you this morning, having already met to remember your son and what he did for us, Lord, it is on that, that we base all who we are and all of our hope is on that. But Lord, it's also a blessing as we open up your word, the things that are taught and the lessons that are there for us to improve our lives here and to help our thoughts towards you, improve our thoughts of you. And we pray that this morning, that using a simpleton like me, that we can still come up with, through your word, the magnificence of the things that you have there for us, that there will be still something to gain this morning. Pray that your Holy Spirit will work in all of our hearts to be submissive to you.

1:56 We pray these things in your name. Amen. Okay. I have to start out with an explanation. And I love the idea that there are titles with the messages now because it helps us to prepare throughout the week in advance for what the person is talking about.

2:17 I've found that in those times that I'm able to be here in the message and I know what it's going to be about, like knowing that Don was going to be in the body, I was able to start reading on the body because that was actually part of the direction I was thinking too. So I'm going to try to explain this here, but as Roger and I talked about speaking and coming up here, the idea began with a simple thing, and I can't remember how many weeks ago, so I'm not going to mess this up. Whoever fixed it knows, But I was in the bathroom a number of weeks ago, and the faucet in the men's bathroom was leaking. The knob was loose, and you had to really crank it to get it to shut off. And if you didn't crank it hard enough, the water was going to continue to drip out of there.

3:08 And I remember thinking as I turn off that water and I look back and it's still dripping, went back and cranked it again, I thought, when are they going to fix that? And I went back the next week, I'm using that faucet and still dripping. I'm going, we're probably wasting a lot of water here. You know what I mean? We're wasting a ton of water.

3:31 I can't believe they haven't fixed this thing yet. And that's where the whole we are they idea popped into my head was who are they? Who am I thinking of that would be they? Was it the elders? Mr.

3:53 Morris, should you have fixed the sink? I don't know. But I thought, I need to get myself to Home Depot and get a faucet and replace it. I'm capable of doing this. It's something I've done at home without flooding the house that I'm aware of.

4:09 And I'm capable of doing this. So why isn't it me? Why isn't it me? And as those thoughts began to develop, and it didn't develop far enough, someday, hopefully it will, and I can expound on that further, the thoughts were actually about, as I'm thinking about our young people here and their role, and that's been something that's been heavy on those of us who are part of Boys to Men, been heavy on our hearts, is what role are young men going to play as they develop in the assembly. And so I thought, well, we need to really expound on those things that are the characteristics of a New Testament church.

4:52 And then through that, we can talk more about what is our role in that and whether we're talking about gifts and those things or just the day to day functioning of the body and how we fellowship together and how who cuts the grass and who does those things, that there is no they. Now there are certain theys. I should say that's not completely true. There are certain times when we should say, what are they going to do about that? For instance, if I stand up here this morning and there's something that I say that is doctrinally incorrect, there is a they.

5:58 And so as I went through this, a lot of this is going to be review. As we go through the characters, a lot of people have expounded on certain sections of this and done a great job, and I've gotten to go back. I'm at the disadvantage sometimes of being in the back, and love being a Sunday school teacher. I know that the Lord has called me to do that, and I feel great about doing that, but I do miss a lot of what goes on out here. And sitting by the computer if you were at my house, you would understand this.

6:25 But sitting by the computer and just listening to messages doesn't always happen. You know what I mean? There's not always that opportunity unless you can pay attention as you're getting hit in the head with a football or whatever else is going on. But it's hard to just sit and focus. So there was a lot of catching up the last couple of weeks with the messages that have been presented over the last September, right?

6:44 And I believe we started in September. We finished Matthew in August, right? So going back to September, trying to catch up with those messages. I didn't catch up with all of them, I regret to say, but I did get to listen to a lot of them. And what a blessing it is to have those to be able to go back.

7:00 So I really recommend that if you miss something, today you might get an overview and that will help. But everything I'm going talk about is pretty brief. I'm going to stop on a few points that I don't know have been covered that much, but a lot of it's going be a review of what Ray talked about back in November too. So for the young people, I think about them in terms of... We have a lot of kids that are growing up, going to college, getting married, moving out, doing those things, and how important it is for them to know what to look for in a church.

7:32 But best of all, folks, I'm going to tell you that going through this and reading, one of the things that I used is what we're using with our Sunday School class, and that is this book with the characteristics of a New Testament Church, aptly titled Short Articles, and this is by Robert Gessner. And we've been using this with our Sunday School class, and it's been a very good learning experience for me because I've grown up, my whole life has been in the assembly. I've never known another way of doing things. Okay? And so you take for granted sometimes the way we do things and never even consider why it happens because you don't know much else.

8:12 And I can say that now I've experienced some other things. And going to some other places and visiting other churches, it's been very helpful in me appreciating what we do here. And that is not for us to be puffed up with pride over what we do. It is in humble submission that we look at the word of God and we take what he said about how the church should function and we try to obey it. Period.

8:38 It's not because we're so great. You know? And having been in this assembly for forty two years, I know there's been moments where I felt that we felt that way a little bit, that we were guilty of that, that we do it the right way and everybody else. And that's really not what it's about. It is that humble submission to the Word of God and to what He wants for us.

9:00 So as we look at these things, I found that I was really I benefited a great deal from this. So whether it's a review for you, whether it's new for you, whether it's old hat for you, it was good for me. And sometimes that's the great benefit of this process going through it. So this is a takeoff. We're going to go through these.

9:23 This is not a complete list. I'm sure that there's things that people would add to this, but if we're going to look if you're going to make a decision about how you worship and where you worship, then it's important that you understand the characteristics. And a lot of things have been talked about individually, as I said, so there's going be some review. Todd talked about the word of God and the authority of scripture. And it's where I decided to begin.

9:52 It was tough to figure out what do you put first on this list when you talk about the characteristics of the church because you tend to want to go by order of importance. And you can't. It is absolutely impossible to go by order of importance other than Christ is the head. If Christ is... If you are Christ centric, then you have to kind of start there, I admit.

10:11 But in a New Testament church, the Word of God is regarded as inerrant, is complete and profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, and the truth of scriptures are believed, taught, and utilized for edification and correction. Now, to many of us, this is just this is what we do. We've always you stand up here and the guy talking there, if he doesn't use his Bible, there's probably a problem. You know what I mean? Right?

10:41 I mean, that's how we look at things. We say, if that guy doesn't open up his Bible, then we're probably going to have an issue with this message. And that's always been the way it is. But I'm going to tell you, and I say the name of the church, but Tammy and I long ago went to visit another church, and the pastor sat down on a stool and it was great. They had a coffee bar.

11:19 I work with disabled kids. That's a good portion of my life is dedicated to that. And so this guy's message was on the need for us to be thoughtful and kind to the disabled. I thought, okay, well, I'm sure this is going to go somewhere. It didn't.

11:38 The whole message was on being kind and thoughtful to the disabled. We watched a video that was a heartfelt, tear jerking video about the disabled and the family and their assembly or their group that had a disabled child. And there was all these things. It was a production. It was quite a production.

12:01 The word of God, nobody ever cracked it open. It was never I thought, why are we what are we doing? So we went out and got coffee. It just wasn't wasn't a focus. Christ wasn't the focus.

12:18 The Holy Scriptures weren't the focus. It was these things of the world. And I'm going to say that I think that that's more and more common now, isn't it? Let's take another thing. Why is it so important that we teach our kids and that we hold true to these things ourselves that our center is Christ, that everything we do is scriptural as best as we possibly can.

12:46 For those that have been around for long enough, they will tell you we are not, everyone here will tell you, we are not perfect. We are not perfect, but the intent to follow scripture needs to be there. Why else do we need to follow what it teaches in scripture? I don't think that there's ever been a point in American history that religious freedom has been under attack like it is now. And I think, and not even just attack from weird groups out there, the special interest type things, but by even our own government under attack.

13:30 We are going to be there's going be a lot of pressure, and there already is pressure. I don't know if you guys heard that the pastor that was supposed to give the prayer at the inauguration has been cut. Have you heard about this? Okay. He's been cut from the inauguration prayer.

13:45 And why? That's right. Because his viewpoint on homosexuality did not match the administration's. And they found a tape from 1995 with him referring to homosexuality as a sin, and he used scripture to back that up, and so they pulled the cord. They pulled it.

14:07 They said, no way, we can't have you do that. Right? And this is from our president who's going to put his hand on that Bible that he doesn't obviously believe and swear to uphold the constitution. Right? Then it's no wonder...

14:25 Let me read this to you. In the recent term of the Supreme Court, this is from Imprimis, if you guys get this from Hillsdale, it's fantastic. In the recent term of the Supreme Court, the administration's lawyers took the position that there should be no ministerial exception on the religious freedom grounds for employers such as religious schools from federal anti discrimination laws. Church schools and other religious institutions, they argued, have only as much protection as nonreligious groups do not on freedom I'm sorry, do on freedom of association grounds, as though the religious clause of the First Amendment added no ground whatsoever for a unique religious freedom claim. In the best religious news of the year, the administration lost this case nine to zero.

15:11 If you didn't catch all that, the administration was going after religious schools, Christian schools, Catholic schools, whatever, if they had rules against hiring homosexuals as teachers. And if they, you know, so the administration said this is discrimination, they can't do it, they're going to go after them. And luckily, they lost. But the very fact that they would file suit on this is disturbing, isn't it? It is disturbing.

15:40 So we have around us a world that is not looking to the scripture for guidance, not looking to the scripture for an understanding of what God's will is in their life. That's clear, isn't it? That's clear. The world is not doing that. The problem is it's creeping into our world as well, isn't it?

16:02 Because we've seen it happen in churches already where they've slowly gotten away from the things taught in the word of God and slow and it's all incremental, isn't it? It doesn't happen overnight. But incrementally, they have gone away from the things that are taught in the word of God to appease the world. And so we need to be careful of that, don't we? And it's only through understanding scripture and teaching that is the only doctrine that we follow that we can do that.

17:01 If you want to look at the difference of what some churches are teaching, you won't find that. That all men are in sin, all men are sinners and condemned. That's... We'd hurt someone's feelings. We would make people feel bad about themselves.

17:17 Right? I'm telling you, you could go around and check out some places and they won't... You won't hear it. You won't hear it at all. God's only son became a man, fully God, and lived a perfect and sinless life and was perfectly obedient to his father's will, becoming the propitiation for our sin through his death on the cross.

17:39 And God's wrath against our sin was appeased. And we'll check out we're not going to go through these references, but put them up there much for the kids to be able to check it out later, and I'll give a copy to anybody who needs that for the young people. And then the spotless lamb of God, having resurrected on the third day, now sits on the right hand of God to make intercession for those who come to the Father in His name. And one more. No, make that three more.

18:17 That salvation requires repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. He's the only way. There's another difference. It is no longer politically correct. It is no longer okay to say because it's offensive.

18:35 And I'm finding that the more I look into these things and the more I start paying attention to these things that while we don't want to intentionally offend others, it's hard for us. Well, we want to demonstrate love. Want to do... I'm starting to wonder if that's actually true. I wonder if we need to be a little bit more offensive.

18:59 You know what I mean? And I'm not... How do you offend in love? But yet it is because the truths of the scriptures, the truths that we have, they are offensive to some people. You're a sinner and you're going to hell.

19:15 That's offensive, isn't it? You're a sinner and you're going to hell. That's offensive, and yet it's the best news you can give somebody. It's the best gift you can give them is to tell them that there's a way out. There's a way out.

19:28 And so we need to be a little more offensive and a little more dogmatic about that. For by grace you have been saved through faith and not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. It's only through the grace of God that we can be saved in our faith in Him. Another truth of scripture, the church began on the day of Pentecost, having been filled with the Holy Spirit. The apostles immediately went out preaching and baptizing.

19:53 And that's an important one because as I went through my list, I recognized, oh, I didn't talk about baptism. But notice that baptism is immediate as part of that. Very rarely do you find examples of scripture where the apostles were out there teaching and preaching and people were coming to the Lord and there wasn't immediate baptism. And we talk about baptism as a personal choice. It's similar to head coverings, right?

20:22 It's a personal choice. And you either are choosing to be obedient to God's Word in that or you're not. And yet, sometimes we're too gentle with that truth as well, aren't we? Jesus says, be baptized, doesn't He? The Bible says, certain things, wear your head covering.

20:44 It says that. And sometimes we're gentle with that stuff. But once again, it's the truth of scripture. We shouldn't be afraid to talk about that, those things in love. In love.

20:56 Christ is preparing a place for those who have put their trust in Him and will fulfill His promise to take us home. And that is our hope. And that is another truth of the gospel. Now, as I was going through the website, having already put that part together, I realized that there is a version of that on the website that I hadn't seen before. It's under What We Believe, right?

21:25 And it's much better and much more the references are better and a whole bit. And I thought I should have just copied and pasted that right into there, but I didn't. So you could look at that too and see some more there. But those truths need to be taught at any church that you're considering. And if they're not, then that church is not of God.

22:15 But here's the examples that we have. Steadfastly is the word that's used. Daily is the word that's used. And at the first day of the week. Okay?

22:26 So there's certainly nothing that says, Bicorally, you shall. You know what I mean? It doesn't say that. But everything that we have in the example from the book of Acts and other places is that we do this as frequently as possible. I almost wonder, as I was looking into this and praying about it, are we not taking advantage of other opportunities in our personal time with other people, with other Christians, even our own families?

22:53 Could we not break bread as a family to remember the Lord? He says, As often as you do this, as often as you take the bread and the cup, remember me. And I don't know, I mean, I don't know what our stance is on that, but I know it feels like, seems like we could do that any time, couldn't we? And even meeting together in each other's homes or doing things like that, which is going to come up in a little bit, that we could. We could do that.

23:18 It's my take. I don't know. You can correct me later if I'm wrong on that. So anyways, we see that it's done steadfastly, it's done daily, and that guidelines are provided, that there's order given to it. And we do, we have a God of order.

23:33 And so Paul goes through and instructs because the Corinthians were doing some things that they shouldn't. To them, it was about eating and people were getting drunk and... Not the point. Not the point of why they were meeting. It was to remember the Lord.

23:48 And so in a New Testament church, if you're out there and you're searching, if they don't do this and they don't do it frequently, and I'm not going to put a time on it, I think it should be weekly, if not more. But I would be uncomfortable with quarterly. You know what I mean? I would be uncomfortable with that personally. I don't know that that's the kind of frequency that we're asked to remember the Lord's death.

24:17 I think we can do that all the time. In the New Testament church, there's the plurality. This is the third point, plurality of leadership. In scripture, they referred to as elders, shepherds or overseers. Now, there is no point in scripture where there is ever one man designated as the leadership of a local body.

24:50 Never is there a time when it says, this person shall be the elder of this assembly or that's never it never happens. It's always in plural. You should appoint elders. You should if you listen to if you're able to hear Denzel's boss's message, very clear in there that this was always in the plural, that elders, it was about a group of elders. Okay?

25:13 So if you're looking at a New Testament church, if you want your church to be adhering to the word of God and how it's designed, then you need to have a plurality of elders, plurality of leadership. And these elders are recognized based on their... I'm sure those pauses sound good on tape, don't they? I just thought of that because I remember other people pausing to think and I go, Wait, did it turn off? No, it's still on.

25:54 Okay. But, I'm sorry. Those elders are recognized based on, of course, there's qualifications for that, and that was also in Denzel's message. You should go back and listen if you need to. The qualifications that they demonstrate, and then they are recognized for having those attributes and they already meet.

26:18 They're already doing the work. And this, I love how one person said this long ago. They're already doing the work, in many cases, of an elder. They may not be officially recognized as an elder yet, but they're already doing the things that an elder does in many respects. Now I'm not saying I'm saying that there's somebody that they can go I'm not saying that they're doing all the functions of the elder yet, okay, so don't get me wrong there.

26:40 But they already show a lot of those attributes and a lot of those characteristics that you would expect to see in an elder, right? And that's how they're recognized. But their job, first of all, they have to be willing to serve. They cannot be forced to do it, right? And it seems to me I'm not sure about this, but it seems to be a life sentence.

27:23 It's a lifetime sentence for all of us. Don't you get that? So if you're doing it, just plan on keeping on doing it. That's the way it kind of works. But anyways, until we can pass it off, that's what we do is we bring up other young men to take those responsibilities over and then that's when you get to retire, right?

27:44 I'm sorry. They are in submission to Christ our head and then they are to protect us. Those are the three things that I found. To guard against false doctrine, we read that in Titus one:nine, to teach from one Timothy five seventeen and to shepherd the flock, and that's in Acts twenty twenty eight. Okay?

28:03 Now we're going get to the point. These are the review things, so I'm not going to scripture so much yet, but we're going to because I only have ten minutes. Okay. In a New Testament church, I added this one. It wasn't on the list from the book.

28:14 It wasn't on the list from our book here, but I added this one because I think we have to also recognize that the body has to submit to the elder. If you're truly a New Testament church, then the body, which is, right, the elders, everybody, we're all the body, but the body submits to the elders too. And that, we've seen over the last twenty years or so times when that wasn't necessarily the case or whether that was difficult or whether there was conflict there. But in essence, it doesn't mean that we're always going to agree with the decisions of the elders. We're not always going to agree.

28:52 I've been under six, seven head coaches in football. I haven't found one yet that I agree with everything he does. Right? And I've been for some very good coaches. And we have some elders, we've had decisions that were tough decisions.

29:04 And if we are looking at our elders and saying, these are men that are going to God, looking for His will in their decisions, using scripture, prayer, looking to Him for what they do, then we need to, at sometimes, and I'm going to say it, shut up and let them do their job. You know what I mean? Sometimes we just have to do that. And I know because I've been here long enough that sometimes we get caught up in the this is where the they comes in, right? They are just...

29:35 I can't believe they, they, they, they, they, right? We get back into the they. That's dangerous. It's all we, it's all we, but we need to be willing to submit. Remember that all submission is really about submitting to God, isn't it?

29:52 That's what it's all about. It's never whether a wife submits to her husband or... Is this working? Just kidding. Whether a wife submits to her husband or it's the woman submitting to the man in assembly or whether it's the man submitting to Christ, our head, it's all submission to God.

30:14 That's what we're doing. Okay. So in the New Testament church, God's order of headship is practiced. Okay? And I think we're pretty familiar with this.

30:27 Taking the verses out of one Corinthians 11, that the head of every man is Christ, the head of every woman is man, and at the head of Christ is God. Most importantly there, that we recognize that in the Church, Christ is our head. Okay? I'm not going to go through it. Out of time.

30:46 I'm just going to briefly go hit that one. Because the ones where I really want to hit the scripture are coming up. In fact, better look at my notes again so I don't pass anything up. Oh, I did. Alrighty.

31:01 Hey, let's take a quick look at one Peter five:five. Actually, we're going to go to one Peter. We're going to read one through seven about the submission deal. I think it's worth taking a look at. I certainly don't want to break my own rule of not looking at scripture for all that we do.

31:30 First Peter five, verse one, The elders who are among you I exhort, I who am a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed, shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion, but willingly, not for dishonest gain, but eagerly. Nor is being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you'll receive the crown of glory that does not fade away. And so there's a talk there, as Denzel mentioned, that there's rewards that go along with faithfully doing those taking care of those responsibilities as an elder. But look at verse five.

32:19 Likewise, you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. And I like that Peter threw that in there, right? But if you keep going, notice that there's reward for that as well. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another and be clothed with humility, for God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that He may exalt you in due time.

33:12 There's one body composed of all believers whose head is Jesus Christ, as we see in one Corinthians 12 twelve-thirteen. The body was not meant to be divided based on the teachings of an individual, such as Lutherans who follow Martin Luther's teachings, or a practice that is being emphasized, that being the Baptist. Those are just examples. You could run through a whole list of them. Christ is not divided nor should his church be divided.

33:40 And I think that was something, I mean, always grew up, because we were in the semis, we were nondenominational and we don't think in terms of denominations. But I never really had put much thought into it, you know. Was it okay? Is it wrong to put your name, put a name onto something, put a name that attaches to your church. And I want to read something to you from the booklet here.

34:07 And then we'll look at one Corinthians so you can get turned into there if you'd like. We're going to look at both of those. There we go. I thought this was an interesting comment. Regardless of the name, and he goes through and he lists this is Robert Gessner he goes through and he lists a bunch of the names of different churches and even some of those that are just general names like Church of God and things like that.

34:40 He says, Regardless of the name, they have separated themselves from the rest of the body of Christ. And that, to me, that's what had never hit. There had been, you know, I thought, well, they have these ideas of worship and this is their interpretation. And so they, you know, and it was okay. Baptists are pretty good.

34:59 In fact, I remember a good part of my life if someone said, well, what religion are you? I'd say, well, if I tell them Plymouth Brethren, first of all, even Plymouth Brethren don't really like Plymouth Brethren, you know that term, so I can't say that. And if I say it, they wouldn't have any idea what that meant. They'd probably think of something off in the backwoods or who knows what they would think, because they watch TV and we're snake handlers or something. I don't know.

35:29 But I would say, well, we're very close to Baptist. That was the designation I used because I didn't know, you know, we're pretty close to Baptist. Has anybody else ever done that? Please, honestly. Okay.

35:42 Thank you. Yeah, we're kind of close to Baptist. As far as beliefs and doctrine, there's a lot of similarities there. So what's the problem? Well, consequently, separated themselves from the rest of body, consequently, we now find that one body is divided into many, many denominations.

36:01 This was obviously not brought about by the operation of the Holy Spirit. Would the Holy Spirit divide the Church of God? Would the Holy Spirit divide the church? So could it be through the Holy Spirit's work that this group decided to go here and do that and this, we're going to emphasize this and we're going to follow the teachings of this, right? We know that that cannot be the work of the Holy Spirit.

36:23 Thus, one must conclude that belonging to a local church under the control of a denomination cannot be in accordance with God's plan. I like how plain that is. I think sometimes we go, well, you know, like if our kids go off to college, if Justin goes off to college and of course I'm concerned, he's 13, everything he does, I, you know, beat my head against the wall and why? Why? 13.

36:45 That's when it all takes off for you, But Justin goes off to college, my hope and my prayer is that he's going to find a place of fellowship that is in accordance with God's word, right? And at one time, if he had said, well, I found a Baptist church, I'd be like, hey, great, right? Maybe that's all I should be around. That's another scary thing is that they're not assemblies, you know, drive 78 miles to get to something. But hopefully, he's going to be able to find that.

37:15 That's what I want for Justin when he goes off to college. For you young people, as you move out, don't settle. Don't settle for being in a church that's divided themselves. Okay? Let's take a look at one Corinthians, and I'll go there quickly.

37:33 One Corinthians 12 twelve-thirteen. We've looked at a lot of these recently. I realize that. I had the wrong ones marked. Okay.

37:59 For as the body is one and as many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit, we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and have all been made to drink into one spirit. There is no division there. Then let's take a look over in verse one, under my notes there. Christ is not divided, nor should His church be divided.

38:58 Be of the same mind. I think it still applies, right? It doesn't not apply just because it's nineteen hundred years later. Four, it has been declared to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of Chloe's household that there are contentions among you. Now I say this, that each of you says I am of Paul or I am of Apollos and I am of Cephas or I am of Christ or I am of Luther or I am of right?

39:27 Those things, it doesn't matter. I threw that in there on purpose, I am of Luther. That doesn't match either, does it? Those denominations are not of God's will. And I'm not saying that they're not Christians and they're not part of the body.

39:42 I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that to put a name on it is not from the Holy Spirit. Okay. It's a division of the church. Maybe we should get together and tell them.

39:58 Thank you for giggling. Okay. Now I'm getting into the stuff I really wanted to talk about. But I'm not going to, don't worry. I'm not going go too far.

40:17 In the New Testament church, Pietroche gives her exercise to glorify God and for the edification of the body. And I list the reference, some references there, and those were very familiar. And I took this right off of Bruce's message. I didn't get to hear it until I listened to it online. But these were the spiritual gifts that he emphasized: evangelism, pastoring, ruling, teaching, exhorting, faith, ministry, giving and mercy.

40:42 One of the things I wanted to mention about that, and I'm going to do it just briefly, but one of the things I want to mention about whole gifts, because I was trying to put some practical application for our young people and those things. One of the things we did in Voice of Man, we were reading in Timothy chapter four about don't let somebody look down at you in your youth. Don't neglect your gift, right? And I wondered sometimes, just throwing out, just food for thought, not trying to stir anything up. But just sometimes I wonder, are we, not they, are we doing what we should to foster those things in our young people?

41:19 And I know there's efforts to do that and we need to continue those efforts. Are we doing what we can as individuals, all of us, we're all responsible for this, which is one the things I loved about Bruce's message. He says there are certain people that are especially gifted in these areas, but we're all responsible to minister. We're all responsible to evangelize. We're all responsible to do those things, but some people are especially gifted in those areas.

41:42 Well, how we doing that with our young people? Are we fostering those gifts? I'm one of those that went a long time before I had any idea what my gift was, if you put a gun to my head, I think I could tell you. But I'm still it's one of those things that some people just don't know really what their gift is. So are we going and encouraging those things, hey, here's something I see in you.

42:07 I got great advice from Bob Markovich a while ago, and that was we were looking for a Sunday school teacher and I said, in fact, we still are. But we're looking for a Sunday school teacher, and I come up here and give a little speech about how we need to, you know, and we can use the Sunday school teacher. And Bob says, Listen, takes me aside, he goes, You've got to look for somebody who has the characteristics that you're looking for in a Sunday school teacher and go get him or her. Go recruit them. Let them know that they are the right person for the job.

42:39 And so I went to Justin. I said, Justin, are you interested? So you can thank Bob for that later. But it was great advice because I I saw in Justin a hunger for the word. I saw in Justin the things that I'd love for him to be an influence on our young people with.

42:57 What a great what a great fit. But we need to do that. Maybe we need to go and tell people, hey, I see this in you. You know, I see this in you. You could be this.

43:07 You could do this. And encourage those things a little more. So that's, I'll leave that alone. The body prays without ceasing. And I love that in our first meeting, in our breaking of bread, it is filled with prayer.

43:22 In the booklet, it talks about there is an atmosphere of prayer. Just a general atmosphere of prayer. It doesn't say that you pray this time and it must be on Wednesday night and it must be... You know what I mean? It doesn't say that.

43:34 It says that there is an atmosphere of prayer. And do we certainly follow a congregational prayer that we come together? I'm going tell you one of the most meaningful moments of my life, and I'm not I have a class that I teach on Wednesday nights and I don't make it to prayer meeting. And I grew up in prayer meeting, and I'm guilty of this. Ray's message, you know, when he says, Are you all going to be there Wednesday night?

43:58 I had to just hang my head in shame that I'm going to be at class. And I should be there. I'm not saying that I shouldn't, so don't worry. There's plenty of convictions that come through. This whole process is very convicting, okay?

44:09 And that's a good thing about it. But, where was I going with that? The best momentous time. Oh, when we had our own Nathan Morris having been carjacked and to have everybody come earnestly together to pray for Nathan was a huge moment for me to see the power the power of prayer and what prayer can do, but how important in terms of fellowship and how it brings us together, how prayer is important for us, as a group, to do that. And so that's something the Lord's working on me about, too.

44:55 Somebody's has got to look at a different night. Either we've to change prayer or I've to change my class. I don't know what to do there. It's tough. Both of them seem immovable.

45:03 Anyways, there are some references there that you can check out. Number nine, all financial support for the church comes from believers. I think Roger hit that pretty strongly in his. I recommend that you go back and listen to that. But all expenses, materials, everything is paid for, not with money from fundraisers and car washes and those things, but that it's the believers that take care of those things.

45:28 Okay? And let me get to the last one. And unfortunately, there's a couple of things I really kind of wanted to talk about that I'm not going be able to do today, and that's okay. But, I've to turn the page on my... This is kind of a big one for me because for some of us that we have seen assemblies in our area even that have been destroyed through immorality.

46:01 And I don't know some details and things like that, but whether it was handled properly or whether the body didn't submit or whatever the circumstances were, but falling apart because of immorality. Immorality in the Church needs to be handled. Now there's also you know, and I would love for somebody to speak on this and kind of dig into it deeper, but there's also instructions of how to take a brother back, right, who's done something wrong. And so it's knowing that balance of when do you tell them it's time to go and show them the door because it's a repeated pattern of behavior, and when is it time to pull them back in with a repentant heart and take them back into fellowship. It'd be a great thing for us to talk about further.

46:43 And I'm sure it's been, in my forty years, I'm sure I've heard it and stuff, but I'm saying it'd be a good thing to touch on again. And this was the one I was really hoping to spend all my time on, and that is in the New Testament church, the body radiates love. And that wasn't in the book, but I think it's encompassed by so many parts of whether you talk about evangelism, what is evangelism all about? You go back to Matthew chapter five, and that we, blessed are those who mourn, that look at the world and the state that it's in and have a burden for it. That is a demonstration of our love.

47:26 What we do for each other, our brothers and sisters in Christ. I was really affected by well, also came back here with my head hung low after the one another's that we the teaching that we had down in West Virginia a few years ago, the one another's and how we care for one another's. I'm going to tell you right now, my retirement dream at one time was to build like a little Unabomber Shack in Montana and just go into it and live off the fat of the land and have my nearest neighbor about one hundred and fifty miles away. You know what I mean? That was one time I thought this is Tammy and I and Tammy was like, I ain't going.

48:05 But I thought we just because I'm surrounded by people and it's busy all the time, it's just hectic, hectic, idea of just nothing. Sounds great sometimes. Know, solitary confinement? Yes, I'll take some. Thank you.

48:19 But that's not what the Lord wants us. He wants fellowship. He wants us to demonstrate love to one another. And we see that one John, of course, the love section, and I really wanted to read through one Corinthians 13, because I think it's a beautiful thing. All those other things we do, if it's not for love or if it's not for the Lord, it doesn't mean anything.

48:42 It's just a waste of time. And then our love for the lost, of course, and that is through evangelism. Notice, I wrote in pen. You could tell, darn it, I forgot baptism. Okay.

48:55 So anyways, let's close in prayer, and I'm sorry I went over a little bit. Let's close in prayer. And folks, I hope that that was of some worth to you. But I certainly I know that for me, what a great process to go through and review why we do what we do and what it should look like and how we should treat each other and all those things. They're just so important.

49:19 So let's give thanks and praise God for what He's done for us. Once again, Heavenly Father, we come before You having looked into your word and saw the incredible plan that you had for us, that it was all planned out, that it's not haphazard. It's by design that you brought us together in your name to worship you and to encourage each other. We pray, Lord, that as we talk about some future plans here that in our church, our assembly, that will look at ourselves and what we do and analyze ourselves and be diligent about making sure that we are doing things according to Your word and Your desires. We pray these things in Your name.

50:10 Amen. Now folks, I want to mention something real quick. On February 10, speaking, that's why I wanted to tie it in with the whole love thing, an idea came up and Roger, can I throw you under the bus here? Okay. Roger had an idea, and that was to get together with families, have put families together to fellowship and make it an event, if you will.

50:38 I don't know about you, but it's very hard. We have had people where we said, I remember Lisa and Mike, we were talking about getting together, and how many months was it? We started in April and we eventually got together in December, right? So it started in April and we said, well, how does this look for you? Okay, does this we get you know what I mean?

50:54 And it was December by the time it actually happened. And it's just tough. Schedules are tough and all those things are tough. But we're going to put this together. February 10 is the date.

51:05 And I don't want it's not going to be random, but it's going to be not matching either. But anyways, here's how it's going to work. You're going to have a choice. If you'd like to host a family or a group or a couple or a single person or whatever it is, if you'd like to host someone, you can sign up as a host. If you'd like to go to somebody else's house, we're in.

51:28 Bingham table for eight. Thanks. But if you want to go to someone else's house, you can do that. If you're indifferent, you can do you can sign up for that. And then you can also put the number of people you're willing to have or the number of people that you're going to bring, right?

51:48 I don't know what side Tammy is going to be on, but I have my guess. Anyhoo, I think it's a neat idea. We even talked about doing it as an 11:00 activity. Grab your family, go. Either go out to eat, go to their house, do something like that, but it was encouragement and fellowship and to get together, and maybe with someone that you don't normally get together with would be a nice aspect of that too.

52:15 And so the sign up sheet is going be in the back of the hallway. I encourage you to look at that and take a chance. Throw your name out there and see what happens. It could be a blessing for you, right? So anything else I need to say about it?

52:32 Great.