Well, good morning. I apologize again, this is two weeks in a row now, for being late. So please forgive me for that. But today we are going to, this is actually our last lesson. So we're gonna be heading into a break from Christian education. We'll be taking our winter break beginning next week. So no Christian education classes next week until February. So we're gonna be taking a little bit of a lengthy break. That'll give us opportunity to spend time with our families, come to church a little bit later, and get a little bit more rest on the Lord's Day, but then also to prepare for the next round of classes, which I'm not exactly sure what that's gonna be. I have some thoughts, but I haven't really decided yet, so I still need to talk to the elders about that. But today, our class this morning, is church membership, pastoral care, and the OPC, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. So that's what we're gonna be looking at this morning as we come to the end of our Welcome to Reformation class. Let's pray as we begin. Our gracious God and Father, how we thank you for your loving kindness towards us in the gospel. We thank you that you have been a God to us and to our children after us. that your promises never fail, that you are faithful to us, that you have brought us out of our sin and misery and have provided for us a savior, a redeemer in the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you also for your Holy Spirit who is at work in us. And we ask you, Father, as we consider these important themes of church membership and pastoral care and the particular church in which we have been planted, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, that you would be with us and bless us and guard our hearts and our thoughts and help us, Lord, to understand what you would have us to understand today. And also we pray that you would prepare our hearts to worship you in our public worship this morning, in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, well, what I wanna do this morning, I don't want to say everything that could possibly be said about all of these things, because we don't have time for that. There's just so much that we could say that we're not gonna have time to say, but, What I would like to do is to ask you if there's anybody who has any thoughts about why we should be members of a church. Why should we be members of a church? Hank. This goes back to the class that Dan taught previously. We are called to be members of the communion of saints. OK. Yeah. Members of the Communion of Saints, okay, that's very good. That's a whole chapter in our confession. What else? Joyce, I think you had something. I said we're called to worship. Called to worship together, so worship is not a solitary activity. It can be. We can worship all the time. And I think one helpful For me, one helpful distinction would be the distinction between public worship and things that are worshipful. Not everything is public worship. Public worship is confined to a particular place and time. And so it's when God's people gather together under the ministry of the word and the government of the Lord Jesus Christ as he leads us really as our worship leader, but as the keys of the kingdom are exercised, there's an opening up of the kingdom as it were, there's a call to worship that comes. Nobody can take it upon themselves to call for worship to take place. It actually needs to take place through the officers in Christ's church, through the elders of a particular body of Christ. And so there's a lot that goes into that. But absolutely, we worship together. And so our worship and our fellowship, very connected. What else? What are some other reasons why? Dan. I used a lot of those back to the class you did last week. Sacraments. Sacraments. Yeah. Yeah, and let me just flesh that out for a moment, because I think Dan is right. Sacraments require that you would have structure, that you would have defined leadership. We talked about the connection between sacraments and church discipline, for example, and we know that church discipline clearly is something that's required of the church, and that means it's a whole range of things. It doesn't just mean putting people out of the church, excommunication, that's kind of what we think about when we think about church discipline, but there's actually a whole range of things that happen in regard to church discipline. And discipline really flows out of discipleship. If there's discipleship happening in a church, our hope is that there would be less or even no incidents of church discipline, but church discipline is a gracious means of God. But how is church discipline gonna be administered if there are no officers and if there's no defined membership? That's a huge question in and of itself. And so let me just back up for a minute. And we're talking about the biblical basis of church membership. And there are many passages in God's word that we could go to, but I typically will go to Hebrews chapter 13. And the context of that chapter is important for us to keep in mind. It begins, with this wonderful sentence, let brotherly love continue. And I think that's, when you think about what I'm gonna read in a moment, you need to have that in mind, that brotherly love is the context. And then a lot of things flow out of that. What is meant by brotherly love? A number of different things are mentioned. But then in two places in this chapter, we have what I regard to be a very clear calling to church membership. Verse seven, remember those who rule over you. We don't typically hear that kind of language at all anywhere in the United States of America, especially because we haven't, well, an earlier generation would have said we have no king but King Jesus, which is true. The generation that's alive today would say we have no king, period. But remember those who rule over you, there's a government involved here, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follow, considering the outcome. of their conduct. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And so think about that. That's a well-known verse, but the verse right before it is not so well-known, I would contend. And yet those two things are quite connected. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is King. He is Lord and King, he's head of his church, he's governing his church. And the question is, how does he do that? Well, verse seven helps us to understand how he does that. And then verse 17 also is really the implication that flows out of this. Obey those, again, notice this phrase, who rule over you and be submissive. for they watch out for your souls as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you. And so one of the things that we saw in the section on Presbyterianism, I didn't teach that, but I do know what Devin taught. And I think that one of the main things that he focused on was the fact that Christ is the only head and king of his church, and yet he rules his church through the government of men, men who are sinful men, but men who have been entrusted with authority, and that authority is from God. and therefore they are called to exercise a rule, a government. Now, they're to do so in a particular manner, not lording it over the flock, as the Gentiles do, but exercising a kind of leadership and authority that is Christ-like and gentle, and that is governed by, remember I said, that first verse in Hebrews 13, brotherly love. That's really the governing impulse is that governing impulse of love. But there's an authority, there's a rule, there's a government in the church, and that government is Christ's own government. He has appointed that government. And so to understand that is to understand one of the ways in which we are called to follow Christ. We know that the whole Christian life, discipleship, can be defined as following Jesus. Whenever I ask people, you know, what does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus? Usually, the first thing that people say is, well, it means to be a follower of Jesus. Well, when we talk about church membership, we're talking about one of the ways, one of the myriad of ways in which we are called to follow Jesus. We follow Jesus by following, insofar as they follow Jesus, those that God has appointed as governors in the church. And so there's a government. It's a kingdom. It's not a democracy. It's a kingdom. Christ rules his kingdom through men. And yet it's also, in one sense, you might call it a representative kingdom because the people are also involved in selecting their leaders, and that's one of the principles of Presbyterianism as well. And so when you recognize, well, I had a part in this, you know, I had a part in choosing my leaders, if I'm a communicant member of the church, then that softens it somewhat because you're recognizing, well, it's not something that's entirely imposed upon me, but I have a part in this because I'm called to be a king and a priest in the kingdom. And so there's a representative aspect of it as well. But there's this rule. And the idea of rule necessarily implies that there are those who rule or those who govern and those who are ruled, those who are governed. In my opinion, that That is one of the clear implications of this passage, and I think that this passage is one of the most clear indicators that there is a requirement for Christians. If they're gonna be a part of the kingdom of God, then they are called to be citizens through this church membership. You think about citizenship in a country. You may be born into a country, you had no choice whatsoever, And there you are, you're a member of that country. And you would say, well, I didn't choose to be a part of this. Well, that's not how citizenship works. In God's providence, you were born into this country or you were naturalized. But most of us, I would say, were probably born here in the United States. And so we are citizens. And that means we have privileges on the one hand, and we have responsibilities on the other. We have privileges that no one else in the world has. In other words, those who are not citizens of the United States of America don't have the privilege to vote, for example. or don't have any number of privileges. And so we can think of it in that way. Well, in the church, there are also privileges and there are responsibilities. Now, I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit, but I wanna talk a little bit about the practical benefits of church membership. What can you think of? Some practical benefits. What are some of the benefits of being part of Christ's church? Dan. Fellowship, okay. Fellowship, communion, the communion of saints. That was mentioned a moment ago. What else? What are some other benefits? Yes, Anna. There's a connectedness. And we saw that in Neon Kentucky. Absolutely, there's this connectedness. And it's not just that our fellowship is at the local level, but our fellowship is actually much broader than that. because we're a connectional church. We believe that we ought to be in fellowship with other churches. We're not non-denominational. If by that we mean that we're independent, that we're by ourselves, we're not connected to anyone else. We have no responsibilities to anyone, to any other church. Rather, we are very denominational. If we mean by that, If we mean by that, that we're connected to other local congregations. We're bound covenantally to other local congregations in our Presbytery and also in our denominations. That's a practical benefit because you think about the thank offering, for example. We've been collecting this thank offering during the month of November, and every year we send some amount of money that's been collected from the congregation that's over and above our tithes and offerings. And we're saying, we want to be a part of the work of the whole church. And so we want to contribute towards the work of Christian education and foreign missions and home missions. Well, that's another way that there are practical benefits to church membership. We're connected in that way. But that's also true at the local level. You're a member of the church. You come into some sort of financial need. And there's a diaconal ministry that's there to help those who have needs. And so the practical benefit is the love of Christ is ministered through real concrete actions of people. Hank, it looks like you had your hand up. Because we're connected, we get to pray for other people and they pray for us. We pray and they pray, and that's a practical benefit. I can tell you, people always tell me that when they're suffering and when they're afflicted, when they're going through something, some trial, just knowing that others in the church are praying for them is a great comfort to them. Or I could say also as a pastor, as an elder in the church, it's of great practical benefit to me to know that God's people are praying before I preach or are praying for the wider ministry of the church as we shepherd God's sheep. And so those are practical benefits. What else? What are some other practical benefits that you can think of being a member of the church? Very good. Accountability, discipleship, and mutual edification. And I don't have the time to go into all of those because those Because Jesse, what you've said there is a lot. You've said a lot just in those three things. But the reality is all we like sheep have gone astray and continue to go astray and continue to go astray. And this is not just true of members. This is true of elders as well. Elders are just like everybody else. And so elders need accountability as well. and that's one of the beauties, I believe, of the Presbyterian, or I should say, the biblical structure of church government, is that there's a built-in accountability so that no one in the church is not under authority. Everyone in the church is under authority because everyone is under the rule and government of Christ. That bears practical benefits. And you mentioned edification, which is the building up of the church, and I just preached Somewhat on that, as we were looking at Ephesians chapter four, and we were looking at the way that Christ gives gifts to his church, and he gives gifts of offices, and he furnishes gifts of men, and he blesses those men with gifts for ministry. But the purpose of the ministry is not to build themselves up. The purpose of the ministry is to build up the church, to serve. Christ and to serve the people of Christ and to minister the Word faithfully so that God's people are then built up, edified, strengthened, they're growing. And then also, that's not even enough, it's also that the ministry of the Word then furnishes God's people with the ability to then minister to one another. And so the body is then building itself up. That's Ephesians chapter four. That's another wonderful chapter. If you really follow through all of the implications of that chapter, you come away with nothing other than there must be church membership. Let me just say this. Another practical thing to consider is, Can you look around when you're in church on the Lord's Day and can you say, that's my pastor, those are my elders. If you cannot say that, if you have no pastor, if you have no elders to which you are accountable and who are accountable to you and to God for you, then there's a huge, huge problem with that. Huge, massive problem. And you're not experiencing all of the blessings that God has for his people. Because there ought to be someone who is accountable to God for the oversight and the ministry and the care of your soul. And you ought to be willing to submit to Christ by submitting to those who have that authority. Now, as I say that, I know that obviously there are those who have all kinds of different experiences, and some are not good. And some have been in contexts where authority was either not used well or even actually abused. So that has to be taken into account and yet we can't let experience be the determining factor. So that I've been burned by church leaders and therefore I'm done. I'm done with the church. I'm gonna have nothing to do with it because of my experience. Well, the Word of God says that Having someone to oversee your soul, and not just one person, but elders, a session of elders, is necessary and good and a benefit to your soul. It's not good when that authority is abused. That's not good. That's not God's plan. Those elders who have done that ought to be held accountable, but the exception ought not to swallow up the rule. Does that make sense? So often what happens is we say, well, I've had this experience, and I'm just, I'm done with that, no matter what God's word says. God's word teaches us that we ought to, at that point, search for a faithful church with faithful elders who are faithfully applying the word of God, and to pray that God would lead us in that direction. And so I just offer that as a corrective. And then rights and responsibilities of members. Under resources, I've got a couple of things here that I want you to think about. There's a good resource. I can't necessarily recommend it on every single point and I can't remember. if there are things in there that I would steer you away from. But John Owen is very reliable. He's a 17th century Puritan. And I think at one time he was Presbyterian, and then he moved into Congregationalism. So you may find in his book, it's a little booklet called The Duties of Christian Fellowship, and that's available from Banner of Truth as a Puritan paperback. So you may find in there some congregational tendencies, some congregational principles that would be basically opposed to Presbyterianism. But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. His intent in writing this book is to is to help church officers to understand their responsibilities to the flock and church members to understand their responsibilities to their elders and also to one another in the body of Christ. And so I think if you want to learn more about the rights and responsibilities with church members, that's a good place to go. quote something from our Book of Church Order, but I didn't bring my Book of Church Order, or I have it, it's just not with me right now. So, one thing I want to mention is, under Rights and Responsibilities, is that in our fifth membership vow in the OPC, there's a promise that we make, that we will faithfully attend the worship and fellowship of the church will faithfully participate, I think is the language, will faithfully participate in the worship and the fellowship of the church. And so you can, I think it's the worship and service, the church's worship and service, which I would put That would be a broader category that fellowship would fit into. And so I just want you to think about those two big categories. Worship on the one hand, service on the other hand, and then In those categories, you can probably come up with all kinds of things in your mind that would fit into those as either rights or responsibilities. So what are some rights and responsibilities of church members? And we may not get through, I don't think we'll get through all of them. Rights and responsibilities. The right of appeal, that's one of the things that I always try to mention when I'm going through my introduction to church membership with those who are wanting to interview for church membership. I want to emphasize to them that while they are called to submit themselves to their elders, their elders also are men under authority. And therefore, we're not like a non-denominational church that's disconnected from any other church, or a typical Baptist church that has no affiliation with anyone else. We're not like that at all. In that church, if you have a problem with the pastor, with the elders, if you think that the word's not being faithfully preached, or you think that there's some something that's happening that ought not to happen according to the Word of God, what do you do? Well, really you can approach the pastor and the elders, if they have elders, you can approach them, you can voice your concern, and then they can either respond favorably or unfavorably, and then what? What if they respond unfavorably and you still think that the word of God is being violated? What do you do? Well, if you're in a Baptist church, you don't have a presbytery. You see the problem? It's a huge problem. And it's actually, in my own experience, it's one of the reasons why in our church we've had a number of families who have come to us from that context because they had nowhere else to go. They couldn't, they had problems with what was going on in the church, they tried to address it, and then that was the end. In a Presbyterian church, one of the wonderful rights that we have, as Joseph points out, is the right of appeal, and that means that, If you believe that something is not happening as it should, especially according to the Word of God, whether in terms of a principle of the Word of God or an application, implications that flow from the Word of God, then what can you do? You can take that first step that you could take in the Baptist church, which is you go to your elders and you say, on the basis of the Word of God, I think there's a problem here. I'd like to talk about this. And then if, the answer is unfavorable to your position, then you're not, you don't have, it's not as if you have no recourse, you still do. You can go to the Presbytery, and you can ask the Presbytery, which is all of the churches in a particular region, our region is the region of the Southeast, and we have meetings twice a year, And at those meetings we, there are a number of things that happened. It's the work of the government of the church at the regional level, and we call it the regional church. But one of the things that happens is we deal with appeals and complaints. And so a member comes to us and says, I think my elders were in error. I think my elders were wrong. I think my elders are in sin. whatever it might be, and so then the Presbytery is required to deal with that according to the Word of God on the basis of the principles of God's Word, and there are portions of our Book of Church Order that help us to know how to deal with that. And so that's a protection for the members, and they can even go beyond the Presbytery to the General Assembly if things are unfavorable to them at the Presbytery level. Another obvious point to make here as well is that if you have been disciplined at the local level, and you believe, because churches are not always right. Our confession of faith actually says that. Our confession of faith says that churches can err, and there would be no Protestant churches if the church, as Rome said that it was, was infallible. That was wrong. And so We we believe that churches can make mistakes. And so there's a provision for that and and it's and it's a it's a really It's a protection for members that if you're disciplined and you feel that you've been wrongly disciplined just like I sometimes wrongly discipline my children And my children will say to me That was an empty spanking. I forget which one of them came up with that term. It was an empty spanking. They shouldn't have gotten that discipline. Well, it's because I'm a fallible man and sometimes I make mistakes. My children can appeal to me. in that way, and there's a wonderful right of appeal here. And so I think that's a wonderful thing to think about. What are some other rights and responsibilities of members? Yeah, John. Responsibility to give to the church. various ways, so that falls under the category of service. We give sacrificially of our time, our resources, the gifts that God has given to us in various ways. Even our fellowship is really a giving of ourselves in one sense. Now, we're also receiving. There's a giving and a receiving that happens in our fellowship. We need that fellowship. And so it's both a right and a responsibility. Some of these things are like that. They're both rights and responsibilities. Anything else that comes to mind? Dan. We have a responsibility to use our gifts for the building up of the church. Yeah, so if God has given to me some particular gift, Maybe I have a gift of music. I have the ability to play the piano or something like that. That's one area of giftedness. Or maybe I'm gifted in hospitality, opening my home. I have a special gift and a love for that. There are various ways in which we're given these gifts. In God's providence, if we recognize that he's given us some gifts or somebody else points out to us, hey, I think you're gifted in this way, we need to evaluate whether or not God is calling us in this season of our life to use that gift. And it may not be necessarily, you may have some gifts, but there's a season of life that you're in. I especially tell pregnant mothers or mothers who have just had a baby, it's not the season to be. you know, opening your home and doing hospitality. You've got this new baby and your focus needs to be entirely on the baby. And so, there are a number of factors to consider, but if God has gifted you in some way, you really ought to be thinking about, how can I serve? Or, if you look around the church and you see some need, And it may not necessarily be something that you like to do or want to do, but you see a need, you realize there's a need. One of the responsibilities of a church member is to say, well, can I fill that need? And is there anybody else that seems to be stepping up to do this? Well, no. Okay, well, maybe I should pray about this and ask the Lord whether or not I, because the reality is is that the church, you know, The things that are happening in the life of the church require self-sacrificial giving of ourselves in order for the church to function as it should. Any other rights or responsibility? I know we're not going to get through all of them, but anything else that you want to mention? Bob. But it just brought a thought to my mind years ago when I just became an OPC church member. And I was in kind of a church plant situation. Well, the pastor that was at our church was called to another work, so he was leaving, and I was thoroughly confused. So I went to the elders. says, now what happens? The pastor's going, you know? And I just remember the one elder saying, the pastor is a man. He's one man. And there'll be others to come to preach the word, you know? And we'll go from there. But I always kept that in my mind, saying, you know, You gotta take your thought process and think about the pastors are men, the elders are men, and what their responsibilities are, but what they're really sacrificing. I look at it and say, You know, there's a lot of time away from your family. There's a lot of time for this. So it's easy for me to go say, all right, well, I don't like Lowell's preaching, or I don't like Lowell's teaching, or I don't like the elders, you know, telling me that I've got to come Sunday evening or whatever, you know, which they won't. But at the same time, I think that's something that I feel myself doing is, like, I'll get worn down or something, and I start pointing the finger at it. It's not right because everybody has different situations, I think. But as you pointed out, for the whole church to look at this and be in prayer about it, especially in the situation of the church we have, planting other churches and people leaving and positions and things need to get filled. And we're going to have one of them opportunities coming for the whole church when we move over to the other building. But not only going into a new building, then Suffolk's going to start meeting in the evening. So we're going to have a responsibility to pick up turning the lights off at night or whatever that person might have been doing that moved on to the other church. I mean, I know I'm getting along, and here comes you know, the responsibilities and the rights we have as a church member. It's not just come on Sunday, put your offering in and go home. Yeah, it's well, I mean, we're connected. And if we if we love one another, we're letting brotherly love continue. Then we're going to be thinking not only about ourselves and our own situation in our own family situation. And how busy we are. We all know, we're all busy. But as I said to, I said this to someone, and I was talking about myself. I said this to someone just this past week, that busyness is never an excuse for negligence. Busyness is never an excuse for negligence. So if you're busy, That does not give you an excuse to neglect your responsibilities to your family. It doesn't give you an excuse to neglect your responsibilities at work. It doesn't give you an excuse to neglect your responsibilities, whatever they might be, to the nation in which you live, the state. And certainly, it doesn't give you an excuse to neglect your responsibilities in the church. You have to discern what the proper proportionality is for each one of those areas of ministry or of service. I don't like the term balance. You know, sometimes people say you've got to have the proper balance. And, you know, you get, you know, it's not balance because balance implies that there's the same amount in each category. It's not true. I'm not giving the same amount of myself in every one of those categories. But I'm called to discern before God what is the proportion to which I'm called in each area of calling that I have. And certainly we need to think about that in regard to the church. And it shouldn't be that the pastor, the elders, or the deacons if we had deacons, would have to browbeat people into serving in the church. Thankfully, that's not the case here at RPC. Very thankful for the warmth of fellowship that we have and the love that people have for one another. Let me just dip into these other two topics because I don't think we're going to be able to do justice to either of them, but the main focus did need, I think, to be on church membership. The second thing is pastoral care. And pastoral care has to do with our relationship to the elders and the elders' relationship to us and our responsibilities to them, their responsibilities to us. But ultimately, the way I've put this, if you look on your outline, shifts the focus. And I think this is important. Whenever I go to a home, And I sit down with the family, and especially if there are children present, and it's the first time that I've ever visited that home on a pastoral visit. What I say is that it's not a bad thing when the pastor or the elders come to your door. It's a good thing. And the reason that it's a good thing is because you need to see it as Christ himself coming to your home. I think this is where we go wrong, this is where we miss things. You know, I'm thinking, oh, this is an interrogation. They're coming to, you know, kind of spy out what's happening in my home and they're gonna, you know, gather all kinds of information against me. Of course, that's not at all what's the intent of the, of good shepherds of the sheep. The intent of good shepherds of the sheep is that they're coming to help and to serve and to minister and to assist in your spiritual growth and that of your family. That's the desire. But the way to have a right attitude about it, just as you parents of young children, you say to your children that your parents, and especially your father, are to represent God to you in the home. and you are to respond to the authority of your parents as unto God, as long as you're not being called to sin. Well, in the same way, Christ sends his elders and he sends them in such a way that his invisible authority, his invisible reign is made visible. And so, what does Jesus say to his disciples when he sends them out? He sends them out and he says to them, he says, he who receives you, receives me. And he who receives me, receives my father who sent me. And so this is the way in which we are called to receive the elders that God has appointed to us. And it's how Christ tends his flock. This is how Christ tends his flock. Jesus is not going to come to you in the flesh because he's in heaven until he returns. We don't know when he's going to return. But he tends his flock through his representatives, through those who are called to represent him. It's also how he protects his flock. There's a guarding aspect to the work of the elders. It's how he nurtures his flock, how he enables the growth of his flock. It's one means, it's not the only means. Certainly the preaching of the word is to be regarded as the chief means of grace, the main means of grace. But your elders might come to your home and they might say, you know, Bob mentioned evening worship a moment ago. And this is something that we emphasize at RPC. We emphasize evening worship. Why? You know, we want to be able to have a high attendance number on Sunday evenings. That's not the reason. It's because when we come to your home, and oftentimes we may actually do this very thing, we may say, you know, I've noticed you haven't been in evening worship. I've seen you've been faithful in morning worship, but I've noticed you haven't been there very much in the evening, if at all. And we would ask that question, not in order to interrogate, not in order to crush or to destroy, but rather because we have this conviction that worship is a good thing for God's people, and that every sermon that you hear ought to be another opportunity to be edified and to be built up. And that in an age in which we have so many voices pressing in upon us, so many voices saying so many different things, and the voices are without number throughout the week, the question that we have is how much better is it that we would hear the voice of Christ in the preaching of the word twice on the Lord's day rather than just once on the Lord's day? And so that's one of the reasons why we emphasize evening worship. I've always asked the question of parents of young children in particular, is it better for your children to hear 52 sermons a year or 104 sermons a year? And I've never had anyone tell me 52 is better. We know instinctively that 104 is better. Now I also know that there are legitimate reasons why people would not be able to attend worship on Sunday evenings. And we work with families about that, and we never hold that out as something that we would discipline people for, because we know that there are different levels of growth in the congregation. But it's something that, I'm glad Bob mentioned that a moment ago, because Christ nurtures his flock. It's not just, we're coming in and we're exercising our authority and we're saying, you should be in evening worship. That's sometimes how it's perceived, but it's that nurturing aspect. If you understand it rightly, here is a representative of Jesus, and you're to think this is Jesus himself coming to me and saying to me, I want you to grow. I want you to grow. And who doesn't want to grow? Even the youngest child wants to grow, right? The youngest, you know, my little boy, you know, he's like, I can't wait till I'm, you know, this big. Well, we want to grow. We want to grow in Christ, don't we? And so Christ nurtures his flock through pastoral care. A few things about this particular church, or I should say the OPC in general, not our local congregation. I don't have much time to get into the history of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, but if you look at your bulletin, I've got a little summary paragraph, tells you what it means to be Orthodox, tells you what it means to be Presbyterian, and it tells you why it's so important that we identify ourselves as a church, a true church of Jesus Christ. The history of the church, in a nutshell, is that what we call mainstream Presbyterianism, which had been faithful And Presbyterians were involved to a large extent in the founding of the United States. And there's a long history of faithful Presbyterian churches. And Princeton Seminary, which sent out ministers all over the world, was a faithful Bible-believing seminary for 100 years. That's almost unheard of. It was faithful for a long, long time. But what happened towards middle and especially into the end of the 19th century is that the churches began to become more and more influenced by what you might call theological liberalism. And I don't want you to confuse that with political liberalism. They're not really the same thing, although they might have the same impulse. But theological liberalism is simply coming to God's word and coming to it with a principle of unbelief rather than a principle of belief or a principle of skepticism. I'm coming to the word of God as one who can judge the word of God. rather than coming to the Word of God as one who sits under the Word of God. Do you see the difference? And so what happened is that mindset and a lot of implications from that mindset began to fill the churches. And so people began to question cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith, the virgin birth, the substitutionary atonement of Christ, the reliability of scripture. People began to question the resurrection of Jesus. A whole number, a whole range of things were up for grabs, so to speak. And they were saying that you could be a Christian And you didn't have to believe these things that the Bible teaches. You could be a Christian and you could also believe that the resurrection didn't happen. That's what they were saying. And there were those in the church who saw this as a threat, who saw this as a danger, who fought against it, who sought to not to break away from, they sought to hold things together and they sought to purify the church and to convince and to persuade. And ultimately, that ended in failure. And in the 1920s and then into the 1930s, it really came to a head in the Presbyterian Church, such that J. Gressom Machen and others were put out of the church through church discipline because they were seeking to be faithful to the truth of scripture. That's a very general summary. But I just want you to have an understanding of why our church exists. It exists because Presbyterianism more generally had become corrupted in many ways. And there was a sense that they could no longer remain in the mainline Presbyterian church. And so a new denomination needed to be formed. And the hope was at that time, 1936, the hope was that there would be a flood of people coming out of the mainline Presbyterian church. And it didn't happen. About 3,000 people that left. And that's one of the great sadnesses. And yet, though the OPC has remained small, I would say that by and large, we've remained faithful. Doesn't mean we've been perfect. We're not the only perfect church. We should never say such things about ourselves. But rather, we've sought to be faithful. And I think our history bears that out. And so I just want you to have that in mind. That's kind of the reason why we exist. Our Constitution, It's called the Book of Church Order. It's something that I often will go over with people. And again, I don't know why I didn't have that with me, because I wanted to go over the membership vows with you as well. But what I'd encourage you to do is if you're interested, and if you haven't looked at them recently, if you've already taken these vows, I'd encourage you to go on the OPC website, opc.org, and look up the membership vows, and you'll find that in the Book of Church Order section. And if you need help, I can even send them to you in a format that you'll be able to immediately see what they are. But our membership vows, basically, We begin with the Bible. We believe the Bible is the infallible Word of God. We move from there to the doctrine of God. Who is God? God is Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that He's one God in three persons, the same in substance, equal in power and glory. And then we, from that, also say that because Jesus is the God-man. He has a divine nature and a human nature. He's the Son of God and He's God the Son. So that's our second. Who is God and who is Jesus? Jesus is God, right? And then the third one is, well, who am I? And we deal with the problem of sin, and we confess that we are sinners by nature, and we need a Savior, we need Jesus. So that's our third membership vow. The fourth membership vow is a confession that Jesus is Lord. And we promise, by the grace that he gives to us, we can't do it in our own strength, but we promise to follow him. We promise to follow him as Lord. And one of those ways is, as I mentioned this morning, through church membership. And then finally, The last one is really where it comes all together, where we say we're willing to submit to the elders of this particular church and to follow them as they follow Christ, as they lead us to Christ. So we need to stop there. And I don't think I have any time for questions this morning, but I hope that's been helpful to you. And I'll go ahead and pray. Let's pray together. Our gracious God and Father, we thank you for the church. We thank you for the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is your kingdom. And we ask you, Father, that you would continue to build us up together as members of the church, as elders of the church. We pray that you would bless us as we seek to follow Jesus by following those that Jesus has called us to follow in the church. And we pray, Lord, that each member of the church would be involved in edifying the body in building up the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, in ministering to one another, in showing brotherly love. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Thank you all.