What is a Church

Grace Family Baptist Church presents the twenty twelve Simple refermand the conference. This year's conference, it's focused on church membership. We will now join Prester Vodie Baker as he reaches on what is a church? Well, good evening, we'll try that again. Good evening. It is good to have you here with us, and we welcome all of you, especially those of you who have come from outside of the Republic of Texas. We welcome you especially and hope that you enjoy this weather, but not too much, because we wouldn't want you to stay forever and overpopulate the Republic. But that's okay. You have special dispensation for this weekend, so we welcome you. My assignment tonight is to short of lay a foundation for the rest of our discussion. Don't want to assume our main argument or in the world of debate, we don't want to beg the question. And if we're going to talk about membership in the church, we have to first define what the church is. That's a question that cannot be left unanswered, and it's a question that we cannot assume because there is much debate, unfortunately about what the church is. God has given us three institutions, and those three institutions are the family, the state or civil government, and the church. Now, all of these institutions are important. All three institutions are absolutely necessary. The Bible commands submission to all three of these institutions. The family bears the rod, the state bears the sword, the church holds the keys. And submission is required and commanded to all three of these institutions. And a balanced Christian life requires participation in all three of these institutions. If we are not participating actively in these institutions that God has given us, our Christian life is not balanced. We don't participate in all of these institutions equally. Not all of us participate in these institutions the same way, but we all participate in every one of these institutions. And you may say, well, no, I don't participate in my family, Well, actually you did. Otherwise you wouldn't be here. Amen. You had participation in your family. And as a believer and follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, you're required to have participation in your family still, either as one who is attempting to evangelize your family that is lost, or as one who is trying to enjoy fellowship with those believers within the context of your family. It requires submission to and participation in the state or civil government. All of us participate in the state and civil government, every last one of us in some way or another, to some degree or another. Here in this country. We're talking right now about our participation by way of voting that's coming up here in the next well really less than two weeks November sixth, we all have there on our calendars. That is participation in the civil government. You get a call for jury duty, you're participating in the civil government. You look at the speed limit and decide that you're only going to drive five miles over. You're participating in civil government and in the church. All of us are required to participate in the Church. Of all these three institutions, though only one of these institutions will exist in eternity, only one of these institutions. We're not going to be in our families in eternity. We're not going to be in state and local governments in eternity. But the Church, the Bride of Christ, transcends time. So if it is important for you to participate as a member of your family and it is important for you to participate as a member of civil society. It is most assuredly important for you to participate as a member of the church. We read in Ephesians three twenty. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus, throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen throughout all generations, forever and ever transcends our understanding or limitations of time. Two familiar arguments. There are a number of familiar arguments, but two I want to look at here, and I want to look at these because there there are arguments that I hear frequently. There are arguments that in conversations with members of GFC and others around, I've heard frequently questions that we've received either through the church website or VBM website that go to these two issues. One issue is this idea that we just need two or three. That's it. The Bible says we just need two or three and so we can have church anywhere, we can be church anywhere. The other is the idea that you know, ecclesiasm it's not the institutional church. You might have heard that term, that derogatory term, the institutional church. Institution is a bad thing. So when you talk about the institutional church, you're already making a prejudicial statement the institutional church. By the way, we just introduced three institutions. Do you remember those three institutions, not just the church, but the civil government also the family. How come we don't talk about the institutional family. Amen? You know, I'm just not much on the institutional family. The first the idea you only need two or three. Oftentimes this is couched in terms of the home church. Where do you go to church? Well, nowhere, we're just kind of home churching right now. Not if you've had that conversation before. We're just kind of home churching right now. We only need two or three. Where does this come from? Well, Matthew eighteen again, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. Amen, Hallelujah, Praise the Lord. Two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them? You know I believe you know, we're gathered here in the name of the Lord, and the Lord is present with and in his people. But that doesn't make us a church tonight. There's nothing in this that defines the church, nothing in and of itself. But in its context we get some very important information about the church. And it's quite ironic because right here in this very passage that is often used or really sort of alluded to, not really even quoted, just sort of alluded to in order to justify informal gatherings in the place of church membership. Right here, if we put it in context, we find some very interesting things. And so we back up just a little bit and we find in eighteen fifteen, if your brother sends against you, go tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. We understand this is the first step in the church discipline process. And so my brother has sinned against me, and go to my brother. If he listens to me, I've gained my brother. What if he doesn't. But if he does not listen, take one or two others. There's that number. Okay, one or two others. Well, no, that's not the number, because the passage that we read says two or three witnesses. Right, there's you plus one or two others, which makes two or three. That's the context of that statement about two or three gathered in my name, take one or two others along with you. That every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. So now that's the second step. Brother, doesn't listen you take two or three. Now, remember at the end of this paragraph, what people want to argue is two or three are gathered in my name. There I am in the midst. Therefore we can have church anytime anywhere. You don't need the institutional church because you got two or three believers. If he refuses to listen to them, who are they the two or three? Tell it to the church? Okay? So okase, wait because wait, okay. If two or three is all we need to have church, then what's this step right here? This is the step that obliterates the home church movement the church. This is the step that does not allow you to gather two or three other families in your living room, listen to a sermon on the internet and say that you're doing church. If you can't say amen, you ought to say, ouch, he refuses to listen even to the church. Let him be to you as a gentile or a tax collector. He's excommunicated from what the church, this formal body known as the church, by the way, and we're just getting a little bit ahead of ourselves, but this goes to the point that we're arguing over the course of the entire weekend. How do you exclude someone for something that doesn't have membership if membership is meaningless and we just sort of come and go and ebb and flow as we please. Number one, how do you exclude someone? And number two? What difference does it make? Absolutely none? And so essentially here we've answered the question. But there's another more formal apologetic being offered or polemic being offered against the idea of the institutional church, that the ecclesia is not the institutional church. Let me just give you one example, and this is an example that I've been directed to on a number of occasions. This individual rites the Greek word ecclesia appears in the New Testament approximately one hundred and fifteen times. That's just in its one grammatical form, and in every instance except three it is wrongly translated church in the King James version. Those three exceptions are found in Acts nineteen thirty, two, thirty nine, and forty one. Here the translators render it assembly instead of church. But the Greek word is exactly the same as the other one hundred and twelve entries where it is changed to church wrongly. Now, are are you following here? It's one hundred and fifteen times, one hundred and twelve times they're wrong, three times they're right. Why In Acts nineteen ecclesia is a town council a civil body in ephesis. Thus the translators were forced to abandon their false translation in these three instances. Nonetheless, one hundred and twelve times they changed it to church. This fact has been covered up under centuries of misuse and ignorance. Praise God that finally now we have somebody to end the cover up. So what does the author suggest listen to this? This is not just semantics here, Okay, he's not just going off on the idea of the use of this word. Paul and Silas weren't church builders and soul winners like preachers today claim. They weren't proselytizing people from one church or synagogue to another. They were kingdom builders. Hold on to that terminology. They were dethroning rulers in the minds of people and alienating them from the mental holds Caesar had upon them through heathenistic central government. They were teaching the principles of Christian government. See it was geopolitical, folks. So what should the ecclesia or assembly look like? Not only they don't just want to get rid of the word church and replace it with ecclesia, but they also want to get rid of this idea that we're out there winning souls and building churches. What is this supposed to look like? Here's the answer. And ecclesia constructed on a Christian foundation would be based upon the principle of independence through law, God's law. It would preclude central government or monopolies by any entity. It would have free trade, private possession of land, and patriarchal eldership. It would use God law as its constitution and abstain from creating its own laws. That just works so well for Israel. Man would not rule man, but every man would be responsible for any crimes he might commit and answerable to his victims. According to God's law. The law would be enforced by every free male that is of age. This is not just heresy. This is damnable heresy, and it's taking root among people. This little sleight of hand where he kind of goes, you know, here's the Greek word, and this is what the Greek word means. Over here and over here. They keep telling you church, church, and you look around and people look at a building and they say that building is a church. And they look at Rome and they say Rome, gothoughts them, that's the church. And people just kind of shake their hair. Yeah, yeah, I see that. I get that. No, no, no, man, this is an asay. Not only is it an assembly, but it's a governing assembly. This stuff is geopolitical. This is bigger. This is about the government. This is about our society. This is how we change our country. Wow, before you run off and follow that, can we just look at a few other words in the New Testament that might have to come under examination. We have ecclesia and church and assembly. We get that, and we understand why they're making this argument one hundred and twelve times wrong, three times right. How about souteria salvation? But also deliverance. So it's like deliverance from a plague, or deliverance from starvation, or deliverance from whatever. So now do we need to stop talking about salvation in a spiritual sense as well? Or how about the aconoss deacon and servant? How about we didn't even translate that one, We just sort of transliterated and brought it over into English. How about Basilia and kingdom, which I find quite ironic because this movement wants to argue that these guys weren't about winning souls but about building a geopolitical kingdom. Well, you know, the geopolitical kingdom that they talk about is every man ruling himself, but the word kingdom sort of connotes some monarchy, just saying or how about this, you're sure, Jesus Joshua, do you have a problem there? So what is a church? We're not talking about these word games. Listen to this from Lew and Nina. I love the way they address this head on. Though some persons have tried to see in the term ecclesia a more or less literal meaning of called out ones, this type of etymologizing is not warranted either by the meaning of ecclesia in the New Testament, or even by its earlier usage. The term ecclesia was in common use for several hundred years before the Christian era, and was used to refer to an assembly of persons constituted by well defined membership. In general Greek use, it was normally a socio political entity based upon citizenship in a city state. For the New Testament, however, it is important to understand the meaning of ecclesia as an assembly of God's people. Two meanings, two manifestations, universal church and the local church. We understand the manifestation of the universal Church. What we're talking about here is the manifestation of the local church. We know that university churches all of God's people in all places, in all times. We get that. And when we talk about the universal Church, how many of you know, it's easy to love the universal Church. They won't disappoint you, they won't get in your business, they won't lie on you. Man Moses and David, and they just it's easy for me to talk about, you know, my solidarity with them because they never catch me on a bad day. But what about the local expression. We talk about the local church. It is from this Greek word ecclesia, it does mean a gathering called out ones. But let's look first at the second London Baptist confession. Our church is confession of faith and the execution of this power, wherewith he is entrusted. The Lord Jesus calls out of the world, unto himself, through the ministry of his word, by the Spirit, those that are given unto him by his Father. And so we have a called gathering. The church as a called gathering, it is a group of called out ones, those called out from the world, but those called into union with Christ and by extension with one another, that they may walk before Him in all the ways of obedience which He prescribed to them in his word. Those thus called he commands to walk together in particular societies or churches. Now it's a holy gathering, a called gathering, and a holy gathering. And yes, I use this word holy. It's a holy gathering. Well, nobody's perfect, absolutely, and yet we're commanded to be holy as He is holy. It's a holy gathering. Why not because we have attained this holiness in and of ourselves, but because of Christ, who is the Holy One, who is our righteousness. And if we are called out of this world, and we are called into Christ and into fellowship with one another, then we are called to be holy as He is holy, that they may walk before Him in all the ways of obedience which He prescribed to them in his word. Those thus called he commanded to walk together in what particular societies. It's a particular gathering, a call gathering, a holy gathering, a particular gathering. It's not random at all, for their mutual edification and the due performance of that public worship which He requires of them in the world. It is covenantal gathering gathered together by covenant. We intentionally covenant with one another. We don't gather together accidentally. We don't gather together by happenstance. But we intentionally covenant together as a church. And notice the reference there to the public worship that He requires. It is a worshipful gathering. It is a worshipful gathering. We gather together in churches to do that which can be found nowhere else. Amen, I can find friends anywhere, I can find friends, anywhere, I can find people who are politically like minded, Anywhere I can find people who are in the same socioeconomic status that I'm in. Anywhere, I can find people on a variety of different levels to help me with a variety of different things. But there's only one place where I can find worshiping community who worships God the way God has commanded us to worship him, and that is in the church. What are the minimal elements? Listen to this from the Augsburg Confession. The church is the congregation of Saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the sacraments rightly administered. That's the most minimalist one I could find. Excuse me first day with the New Libs. Minimalist one I can find. The church is the congregation of Saints in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the sacraments are rightly administered. The Belgian Confession puts a bit fine point on it. The marks by which the true church is known are these. If the pure doctrine of the Gospel is preached therein there we find that again. If she maintains the pure administration of the sacraments as instituted by Christ, we find that one as well. Thirdly, if church discipline is exercised in the punishing sin. In short, if all things are managed according to the pure Word of God. All things contrary there too rejected, and Jesus Christ acknowledged as the Holy one head of the Church, the only head of the Church. Hereby the true Church may certainly be known, from which no man has a right to separate himself. There we have it again, that true Gospel, and the administration of the sacraments, and the idea of discipline. So what is a church. Let me give you this number one. It is a biblical assembly. It is a biblical assembly. The church is defined by the Bible. The church is birthed out of scripture. The church is governed by scripture. It is a biblical assembly. It's not just any kind of gathering. In fact, Christians can gather in other societies. These are communities, and it not be a church. We could get together, for example, right now, there's an election coming up, and we can get together as Christians and say, listen, we want to join together and band together because of our civic duty, and so we want to start an organization to help educate people to think biblically about the way they go to the polls. We could band together as a group of believers and go and do that. But that wouldn't make us a church. Amen. It's a biblical assembly where the Biblical Gospel is preached. Biblical assembly, Biblical gospel with biblical officers, with biblical officers. It amazes me nowadays and if you watch Christian television. By the way, I have not yet patented this, but I'm going to. I believe that there are some people who are unlike me. I have a problem with my blood pressure being a little too high, but there are some people, I believe whose blood pressure is a little too low. And if there are Christians who love the Word of God, I think a nice dose of some Christian television would help to elevate that blood pressure on a regular basis. It amazes me that the titles, it's the guys are no longer satisfied with, you know, reverend or doctor or pastor. You know, we had to move on. Then we had bishop, you know, and that was that was the big thing, you know, Bishop, and then profit you know, because Bishop just wasn't enough. It was profit so and so and so on and so now it's apostle. Brothers are just moving higher and high. I'm working for somebody to call themselves Lord, That's about all that's left. Amen. Biblical officers, biblical ordinances, and biblical disciplines. What do we mean by these? But when we talk about biblical gospel, here's what we mean. We mean the historic gospel. We mean the gospel that was communicated to and through the apostles. We mean the gospel to which Paul refers in First Corinthians chapter fifteen, where he says, I passed on to you as a first importance that which I also received, And what did he also receive? That message that Christ died for sin, that he was buried, that on the third day he rose again. This historic gospel, it is a gospel that did happen, and all of it matters enough already with people who say no, no, no, it doesn't matter if it's historic. It just matters if I believe it. It just matters if it changes my life. Folks. Has a lot of stuff out there that's not true that has changed people's lives, and it is absolutely worthless. The gospel that we preach is the historic gospel. It is based on what Christ actually accomplished and that which was preserved and recorded that we might proclaim it until He comes, say man. That's the gospel that we preach. It is the historic gospel. It is also a God centered gospel, not a man centered gospel. I don't know about you, but I'm so glad that I do not serve a God who is somewhere in an effeminate, curled up ball, weeping and pining over me like I used to be told, like he just desperately needs me so bad. No, it's a God centered gospel. It's not the man sent here's the man centered gospel. The man centered gospel says, the worst thing that you've ever done is not choose God. Can't you see how you hurt him? Can't you see how he needs you? You need to make that right. You need to fix it. In other words, you need to walk down the aisle so you can fix God. That's a man centered gospel. The God centered gospel is not so. The God centered gospel talks about a sovereign God who created the world without anyone's help, and about a sovereign God who redeems his elect without anyone's help, for his own glory, for his own honor, for his own namesake. The sovereign God who needs absolutely nothing, who is completely and utterly self sufficient. By definition. If God needed anything, he wouldn't be God. The God centered gospel a Christ centered gospel. What I mean when I talk about a Christ's centered gospel. The gospel is about the person and work of Jesus Christ. It is about what God has accomplished in Christ on behalf of his elect That's the gospel that we preach. It is a Christ's centered gospel. It makes much of Jesus Christ. Not just ten ways to have a happy life and five ways to reduce stress with Jesus added on, but the fact that there is good news that something has been accomplished on our behalf, something outside of us that we could not accomplish on our own. That changes everything. Because of who he is and what He's done. It is a Christ's centered gospel. It is a cross centered gospel. It's a bloody gospel. Why is that important? You See? The cross says to me, I'm a sinner. The cross says to me that there was a price to be paid. The cross says to me that Christ died this vicarious death because of the sins that I had committed. That's the cross centered gospel. If we don't have the cross. Then, ultimately, what we're telling people is that their life just a little out of adjustment. That's a chiropractic gospel. You just need a little adjustment and everything will be okay. No, I don't need a little adjustment. I need the death of God's only begotten son. That's how sinful I am. That's how wretched I am, and that's how righteous God is. Our gospel is a bloody gospel because we are sinful men, and we are in desperate need of being saved ransom and rescued from God by God through the person and work of Christ on a bloody cross. That's what we preach. And it's grace centered. It's grace centered. Thank God for a grace centered gospel. Jesus died and he rose again. He took upon himself your sins. You have been redeemed, and now you go work. What are you serious? No, Now you go believe, you repent and you believe. Yeah, but I keep on sinning. Yeah, keep on repenting and keep on believing. Repent and believe. Yeah, but what about all this stuff he tells me to do. Yeah, here's the beauty. The beauty of it is because of what God has done in Christ. He has transformed you so as to give you a desire for those righteous things, and has empowered you so that you can walk in that real righteousness that you've received from Christ. So keep running toward it. Grace centered gospel, and a true church preaches this true gospel. If this is not the gospel you're hearing, you're not in a true or healthy church. This is the gospel we proclaim. Biblical officers. Who are those biblical officers, the elders slash pastor and the deacon. Those are the biblical officers. When we talk about elders, Who are we talking about where we're talking about called Men who are called and gifted by God. Men who are called and gifted by God. Not just men who are credentialed, men who are called and gifted by God. We can train men, but God calls them, Amen, men who are called and gifted by God. Men who are qualified for the work First three Titus one, one, Peter five. Those qualifications are there for a very important reason. Men who are called and gifted by God and qualified for the work, Men who are pointed at and ordained by the Church. Now this is he will take very close attention here, because here's where we sort of get off the rails. Sometimes we get so anti Roman Catholic that we start throwing out baby in bathwater. And here's a prime example. Well, you know the Roman Catholics, they believe in that Apostolic succession stuff. That's just wrong. Yeah's absolutely it is. It's wrong. But that does not mean that we now go to a place where we have sort of autocratic ordination. I don't need a church. I say I'm called, I say i'm ordained, I say I'm qualified. You know, I have privilege of preaching at colleges and seminaries from time to time, and I love to tell young preachers this, That's the most important thing is not how sincerely you feel about your call. The most important thing is that God's people acknowledge his calling and gifting in your life. If God's people don't acknowledge your calling and gifting in their life, you're not called. You. Just like the guy who sees the beautiful woman and says, I'm going to marry her. Really, does she know your name? No, but I'm going to marry her. Really. Have you talked to her? No? I try to, but she just gets this sick, revolted. Look every time I come close, but I'm going to marry her unlessen, until she becomes as convinced as you are, you are self deluded, Amen. And there are a lot of people out there like that. They feel it deeply. In fact, some people feel it so deeply that they're disqualified biblically. But because they feel it so deeply, they believe that somehow those qualifications have to be set aside. Because nothing is more important or more significant than the fact that you feel it deeply, or that you had a dream, or that you heard a voice, or that somebody told you when you were little that you were going to be a preacher. So men must be appointed and ordained by the church, set out by the Church. How can they preach unless they be sent? What about biblical ordinances? Well, what do we have? Baptism and the Lord's Supper. So now this again from the confession. Baptism and the Lord's Supper also serve as membership controls for the church. Baptism is the means for admitting people into the church, and the Lord's Supper is the means for allowing people to give a sign of continuing in the membership of the church. The church signifies that it canters those who receive baptism and the Lord's Supper to be saved. Therefore, these activities indicate what a church thinks about salvation, and they are appropriately listed as marks of the church today as well. These ordinances are important and they say something about the church on the front end and on the back end. They are significant, and it amazes me. And I'll just say this for us. Some of you have come from, you know, other backgrounds and so on and so forth, and this may be absolutely meaningless to you. But at GFBC, we observe the Lord's Supper each week, and I hear about this. I hear about this oftentimes. But I'm at pastor's conference with my fellow Baptist pastors and my fellow Southern Baptist pastors, and I hear this. It just doesn't compute. Guys will say to me that they just worry about the fact that we do the Lord's Supper every week. I said, why do you worry about the fact that we do the word Lord Supper every week? Well, I'm just worried that people will become jaded. What. Let me see if I understand this correctly. You think that by us doing the Lord's Supper on a weekly basis that it will somehow lose its importance and its significance before God's people. Pastor, can I ask you a question or two? I just have to do you preach every week? I'm just asking do you worry about the people becoming jaded at hearing sermons? Some of them have drama every week? That's not even in the Bible. You do that every week. The Lord's Supper is in the Bible. You can't find time to do that every week? Well, and that's an alter calls. Find me one of those in the Bible, and we do that every week. Don't worry about people becoming jaded, but we don't do the Lord's Supper. You know the other reason people say they don't do the Lord's Supper. Besides we don't want people to become jaded. We don't have time. Really, you do forty five minutes of song stuff, but you don't have time for the broken body and shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Shame on you. These are significant. These are important when believers go into the waters of baptism. That proclamation that we make about Christ and his death and burial in resurrection, when the bread is broken and we remember that body broken for us, and when we drink the stuff that's not wine because we're Baptist folks, and when we do that, we don't even have time for me to tell you this, but I have to. Now, A family and I were in England and we'd just gotten there, and we're at a church there, Reformed church there, small church, and we take the Lord's Supper and I, you know, just and I just you know, it's coming down and it's different. And I look around and this this this English woman. She looks at me and she says, you're all right? And I said, yes, ma'am. I said, was that wine? He said, of course it was. What do you use in the States? I said, we use gripe juice? And she said, how biblical is that we leave that one alone? Biblical discipline, Biblical discipline again, formative discipline like we talked about in second twenty chapter four, corrective discipline MATHU eighteen one Corinthians five, et cetera. A healthy church practice is loving discipline, and the goal of discipline is restoration. You know, one of the sad things about discipline is that when disciplined, and we see this, by the way, even with our children, you move away from a culture that is committed to discipline, and all of a sudden you worry that the practice of discipline equals abuse. It's the same thing right now with kids. You move away from a culture that understands corrective discipline, loving the corrective discipline, where you can actually see the difference between loving corrective discipline and abuse, and when you move away from that, everything discipline, all things discipline look like abuse. From a church standpoint, we've moved to that place where because we see bad examples, or because we've seen abusive examples, all of a sudden, all things discipline look like abuse. And we can't even talk about church discipline without conjuring up ideas of abuse or not being loving. But this is one of the hallmarks of a church. If there is no discipline, what is our membership worth? If there is no discipline, what does our membership mean? It's kind of like my mother when I was a kid, or your mother when you were a kid. Son. I do this because I love you, and I can remember as a boy thinking on a number of occasions I wish my mama didn't love me so much, Amen, But here's what she meant. She meant that her desire was to shape something in me and to even rescue me from myself when necessary. I don't know about you, but I need that, amen. I pray that I never get to the place where I believe that I'm so okay and so together that I don't need brothers and sisters on the outside who will come to me with loving correction. Here's the other problem. When we think about discipline automatically, we go to the end of that four step process in Matthew eighteen, when the overwhelming majority of discipline in a church that's committed to it begins and ends at the first step with brothers and sisters who here's the only way it happened. If brothers and sisters love one another enough, are close enough in the way that they share life together with one another, and have been given freedom by one another, only then can you have a successful church discipline experience at that first level. But if we're not close enough to one another, and we're not sharing life together, and we're not committed to one another, you don't even know my life. How do you know when you need to speak into it. And secondly, if I have not given you that permission, and you have not given me that permission, and we have not exercised humility towards one another, then we feel like the relationship is at stake. So we don't speak because we're not allowed to, because we've been told in no uncertain terms and even without words, if you speak into my life like that, I'm cutting you off. That's arrogance, that's dangerous. God has put you in the midst of an environment with people in whom His spirit dwells, who love you and desire God's best for you, and love you enough to risk saying to you, brother, I believe you need to check this. That is the grace of God in your life. That is the grace of God in my life. That is a healthy church. A church that does not do that is not a healthy church. A church where that's welcome is not a healthy church. Don't let the concept of abuse move you away from a commitment to the healthy concept of restorative disascipline. So what as a church. It's a biblical assembly committed to the Biblical Gospel, with biblical officers and biblical ordinances and biblical discipline, where biblical people feel right at home and desire to unite by covenant. Let's pray, Father, what a privilege to know you and to be known by you, to love you and to be loved by you, to serve you and to be served by you through your people and whom your spirit dwells. But we confess that I desire. It's often corrupted. It's so incredibly selfish. We want you to ourselves. We want our sin to ourselves. We want what we want, when we want it the way we want it, and we don't want to be interrupted or disturbed by other people who don't think of us as highly as we do. And yet, by your grace, you have called us into communities where we will be confronted with precisely those things called away from ourselves, called away from our sin. Reminded of our great need as we sing your word and recite your word, and read your word, and hear your word preached, and see your word and the ordinances, and the reminded of this historic, God centered, christ centered, cross centered, grace centered gospel that we desperately need, not just on a daily basis, but on an ongoing basis. Thank you that you have not left us to wander aimlessly by ourselves, but have called us to bodies where our lives will be intertwined with the lives of others who have been redeemed and transformed by the same Gospel and the same God. Grant by your grace, that we might love those for whom Christ died, that we might serve those, that we might unite with those, that we might submit to those whom you've called out of darkness into your marvelous light, to the end that our lives would be transformed and conformed to the very image of Christ, and whose name we pray. Amen. Thank you for watching the twenty twelve Simple Refermantic Conference. 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