Good morning, Grace. It's good to see all of your cars and some of your faces. Our goal is to keep these services somewhat brief. We're very mindful of all of you, but especially those of you with small children bouncing around the insides of your cars. I think I even saw a dog or two. As I was getting ready to stand up here, I remembered that these picnic tables I'm standing on were assembled by Boy Scouts as part of my son's Eagle Scout project. So if I suddenly fall, I think I fear that more than any virus right now at this moment. So briefly today, I'm just going to share almost a sermon or some thoughts. Again, being mindful of the time with the baptisms we have, I realized that I was thinking about how much I miss church and how much we will miss church, and we do. I'm thankful that we can look forward to being in that building together, albeit with some restrictions and undoubtedly awkwardness next week. But as I prepared for this, it got me thinking, what is it that we are missing? What do we miss about church? My own conviction was that I think probably I was missing some things that maybe weren't of the primary importance, if that makes sense. You know, we miss singing. We miss handshakes, hugs, just talking and chatting with friends. We miss the fried chicken, the pigs in a blanket, the other food on our fellowship meals. We miss kids. You miss this playground, running around with friends. But those things are all things we should miss. I'm not in no way saying that we shouldn't miss those things and look forward to them, but what is it really that church is all about? What should we be missing? What are we missing, in fact? And does what I miss, does what we miss match what God's purpose and intent for church is? I think one of my kids mentioned to me seeing on social media the idea of people talking about what's essential and not in this day and age, and the idea that church is essential, but did you treat church as essential before this pandemic? So that gave me kind of a pause, I think. So again, I'm not going to dig deeply into a lot of these things, but hopefully this will be food for thought for you. Maybe you can do some homework, look into it further. So I always like the analogy of the ditches. As we drive along a road or walk down a path, there's a ditch on one side and there's a ditch on the other. Well, there's two ditches, I think, in the major viewpoints of what church is for or what church should be about. These two points of view would be, one, that church exists for evangelism, and secondly, that church exists for discipleship or for the believer. So on one side, church exists for the unbeliever. On the other side, it exists only for the believer. So this first point, the church exists for evangelism, you could see that in the seeker-sensitive movement that we're probably all familiar with. Rick Warren, in his book The Purpose-Driven Church, said, once you know your target, in his case, unbelievers, it will determine many of the components of your seeker service, music style, message topics, creative arts, and more. And he continues, it is my deep conviction that anybody can be one to Christ if you discover the key to his or her heart. The most likely place to start is with the person's felt needs. But because, obviously that's the end of the quote, but because the focus here is on the world, unsurprisingly churches many times seeking that way become more like the world, they look like the world. Spurgeon said, now Spurgeon obviously speaking much before the modern church growth movement, said that I believe that one reason why the church of God at this present moment has so little influence over the world is because the world has so much influence over the church. And he said again, the very church which the world likes best is sure to be that which God abhors. So while we shouldn't be weird for the sake of being weird, we certainly should be Christian and in that way look different than the world. Well, the other ditch on the other side of the road would be that church exists for just discipleship, to serve and strengthen Christians. Now, I think most of us probably rightly would be closer to this ditch, hopefully not passing over the rumble strips, but firmly ensconced in the right lane of this viewpoint. We do believe that church is for Christians. The church is a body of Christians. But the error enters here when we simply exchange the focus on unbelievers in the seeker-sensitive church and just swap that out for the needs of Christians, because there's another party at play in what a church is. So instead of being seeker-sensitive, we don't want to just be believer-sensitive. We do want to be sensitive to believers, obviously, but not to a fault. It would be possible, I think, to focus so much on learning and teaching and discipling that you never worry about sharing the gospel with others. So, how do we stay on the path and avoid these ditches? Well, thankfully, we have a Bible that will help us. One reformed elder wrote, and I'm using a quote, and then there's going to be a quote within a quote. I don't know if I'm allowed to do that, but I can't see anybody shaking their head at me, so I'm going to do it. So this elder says that the Bible does not leave us uninformed when it comes to the purpose and the centrality of the local church. The local church exists for God and for His glory. Charles Bridges says, The church is the mirror that reflects the whole effulgence of the divine character. It is the grand scene in which the perfections of Jehovah are displayed to the universe. When we understand that the local church exists by God and for God, we see that God's glory, not the needs of saved or unsaved people, is meant to be the ultimate determining factor for all the church does. The church does not emphasize reaching the lost, I'm sorry, the church does emphasize reaching the lost and it does emphasize edifying the saved, but it does so in ways that are honoring to God and consistent with his will. It ensures that both the method and the message of the church bring glory to his name. So that idea of method and message, both are important. The way you say something and what you say are important. So one possible way to sum up the mission of the local church is in three points, that we are to glorify God by worshiping him, edifying his people, and evangelizing the world. So very briefly on these points, worship, how do we worship him? Well thankfully again the Bible speaks to us on how we should worship. We could go very deep into this, but I won't. If you think about the regulative principle of worship, looking at our Baptist catechism, It says, what is the Word of God? What's the only certain rule of faith and obedience? And that guides us in our worship, not just in our daily lives. It's a big topic, as I said, but basically we boil this down to the ministry of the Word, prayer and sacrament and we get to see last weekend part of the reason I'll speak about in a minute that we are here doing a drive-in service is to get to these sacraments. Last weekend we had the Lord's Supper here today we get to celebrate baptism. This is a big point and I think it was Jonathan Lehman who said that through baptism in the Lord's Supper the church waves the flag and dons the army uniform of our nation. It makes us visible. To be baptized is to identify ourselves with the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as well as to identify our union with Christ's death and resurrection. To receive the Lord's Supper is to proclaim His death and our membership in His body. God wants His people to be known and marked off. He wants a line between the church and the world. Thank you. It's a charismatic service today. So the Lord wants this demarcation. And so we are thankful that the elders didn't do a drive-in service on a whim. We did it thoughtfully because we want to honor the Lord. We want to be very careful about how we worship God. But the reason One of the big reasons I think that we chose to do this is so that we could get to these sacraments. We shouldn't, hopefully you haven't been giving the Lord's Supper at home, because that's not how it works, but the church gathered together, granted awkwardly in our cars, is in the same place at the same time, hearing the same words spoken together, and so we can now be gathered as the church, not in the ideal way, not in the way we look forward to, but we are gathered, we are together, and so we can have these sacraments, which is obviously very important. Well, nextly, edification. As a church, we do look forward to our interaction with each other. Again, I'm not saying any of those things we miss are bad to miss. We should miss them. But we have to remember the order and the ultimate goal. This isn't just idle talk about the weather or sports, but true relationships with one another. This is part of why we're so thrown off by this virus, just not being able to meet and be together. Even here in our cars it's not quite right, as I mentioned. We can't see who's sleeping through the sermon. We can't see how the dad reacts to his child disobeying him. We can't see, when we're talking, the tear in the eye of our friend to cue us in to go a little deeper into that conversation. These are all ways Just examples of ways in which we become closer to each other, we are vulnerable around each other, and we see real life happening in the church so that we can fulfill the mission of the church, that we can admonish, encourage, and build each other up. This is well expressed in Ephesians chapter 4. If you want to turn there, it's just a couple of verses, but that's kind of where this message centers around. Ephesians chapter 4, verses 15 and 16. And in Ephesians 4, 15 and 16 it says, Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him, into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. When we grow in godliness, we grow closer to one another, and God is glorified because His church does its job then more effectively. Well, thirdly, we had worship, edification of believers. We also do worry about evangelism. A true church must fulfill the Great Commission given in Matthew 28. We have a role to play in that commission through our obedience to Christ and the worship that we give here and the edification that we receive enables us to go and share the gospel. Whether that be at home with our children, at work, around town, or in foreign lands, while we do not want to fall into the ditch of making our church look like the world, we should and must, at the same time, be faithful to evangelize the world. So again, as we long in this Corona time to get back together in the building behind us to worship, let's remember what we gather for. We gather as the local representation of the body of Christ, as God's church called for his purpose to do his work for his glory. And the fact that we get to do it together is a gift from God that we will always be thankful for. Amen. Let's pray. Almighty God, I thank you. for this day. I thank you for this church, even here scattered throughout these vehicles, that we are able to be here in the same place at the same time together. I thank you that it is your church. I pray that you would help us to be obedient to your word and your will. And I thank you especially that we get to celebrate today one of the sacraments you have given for the good of your church. For Christ's glory we pray. Amen.