and open them. I'm going to have you first of all turn to 2 Timothy chapter 1. We're just going to look at one verse there in a little while. And we're going to be all over the place. We're going to be taking a little break from the gospel of Luke, which is sad in a sense because I love reading about and studying about the Lord Jesus Christ and his ministry and his love, his compassion, his teaching. But we're going to take a little bit of a break and we're going to kind of do a separate series and maybe a few other things as we do this. One of my favorite times of year is when we gather and we talk about the Reformation. The Reformation is so great and so rich because one of the things that occurred there is they stopped doing things that were traditionally accepted. They stopped doing and following the traditions of men, and rather, they went back to the Scriptures. And they said, what do the Scriptures say? The Scripture and the Scripture alone is what drives the teaching of the church, and the Scripture alone is what we must follow. And so from that time period on, and there's some history behind this saying and whatnot, but from that time on, there has been this idea of Semper Reformanda, which is the church saying that we are always reforming. We are always taking the things that we learn. We're always taking the things that we do. And we are putting all of those things always and constantly up against the Word of God and saying, do we follow what the Scriptures teach? Because after all, that's what we follow. We follow God, a God who is great and who is wonderful and speaks to us. He does not speak to us verbally right now, but He speaks to us through His Word. He has given us His Word, and we follow what He has said, and we always want to conform to what He has told us. One of the things that we want to do is we want to look at what does God have to say about elders, deacons, and members. I included members in that for a very specific reason, and I'm just going to tell you the method to my madness on that one. I just don't want anyone coming here going, oh, this is about deacons and elders. I'm not either one of them. I'm free. I don't have to listen. Right? So I have to include everybody because we are all the church. We are the body of Christ. We are the ones who are here, and every person who is a member has a responsibility. You know, most of the, in addition to aspects of theology, many of the Christian denominations are differentiated based upon not only baptism, but the way that they govern themselves. For instance, you have Presbyterians who have elders, but there is a board that's higher than them that is over a whole group, a synod that is over a group of different churches. And so if your pastor is doing something inappropriate in a Presbyterian church, you will appeal higher than your local assembly. As Baptists, we hold to, and I believe is correct, that each local church governs itself. We can enter into alliances for the gospel's sake so that we can further the kingdom of Christ, but we govern ourselves. The authority lies in the local congregation. Around here and around most Baptist churches, what you will find is you will have churches that have a board of trustees, which is found in the Bible. If you look for a board of trustees, it's found in 1st Hezekiah 2, verse 3. And if you're new here, you may not know that there is no such book as Hezekiah. In other words, it's not found in the Bible. There is no such thing as a board of trustees in the Bible. But nevertheless, you have a board of trustees and a board of deacons, and then you have one solo pastor. And while this is not the hill necessarily to die on, I do believe and we believe that God has called churches not necessarily to become huge and great. That's not the that is not the the thing that you look to to measure is a church good. It is is a church healthy by following what Scripture teaches. That's what we want. That's what we should care about. Now, historically, in Baptist churches, that was not the case, that there was trustees and a board of deacons and one pastor. But they have gotten away from that. And in our church, and I believe biblically speaking, you are to have a plurality of elders and deacons. This is the biblical model in the New Testament. And so in our bylaws, these things are written in. And if you read carefully, you'll actually see some wording specifically for deacons that needs to be more precise as to what deacons do and their function. And so, over the next few weeks, we want to look at how the church should be served by elders, deacons, and members, and then look at how these things are written in our bylaws. Nothing major, but it is in the bylaws that can be reformed to the scriptures, and never the scriptures to the man-made bylaws. Over the last year or so, the elders and deacons have gotten together and we have undertaken a study of the proper function of deacons and elders and we are all in agreement on these things as we stand before you. So there is something that is very interesting that we noticed, however. Our church actually functions properly. Okay, so the elders and the deacons actually function properly, but it's not actually written properly. So it may be seen as a technicality, but I think practically speaking, it is a very important thing that we address these things for future events. So why is this important? One of the things that we did was we went through an 8-10 week study on biblical eldership by Alexander Straunch. And when you come through that, you think, boy, no one is worthy of this high office of being an elder or being a deacon. No one really is worthy of doing these things. But he says this, and this is why it is so important. When deacons are made overseers, and overseers are made deacons, the church is left with neither biblical overseers nor biblical deacons. And simply stating, we just want to be a biblical church. We want to do and follow these things the way that we ought, so that we can have a healthy church. So we're going to begin and look at the next couple weeks, what the scriptures say regarding these matters of deacons, elders, and yes, you as members. I want to start out and really lay a broad foundation and hope that you will uh catch the enthusiasm uh i love this stuff this is stuff that i will sit and talk about and some people i realize you have kids and you're trying to raise your kids and get your kids to school and changing their diapers and and it's not you know the most important thing on your radar but for for us i think that these things are very important and i just want to share these things with you over the next few weeks we're going to look at them so they're going to be some things that we're not going to get to today as I told my wife the outline today just for today is 11 pages long and that's just for today and she immediately started praying for the people. But the good thing is my notes that I have on the screen aren't, I'm not tied to those so extensively so I can kind of stop whenever I would like and we'll just pick up next week. So there's going to be some things you're going to say, wait a minute, you didn't talk about this. We'll get to it. We're going to get to these things in depth and we're going to do some good review. First thing I want to share about is I want to share a quote by Charles Spurgeon. Charles Spurgeon, you may have heard of him, lived in the 1800s, often referred to as the Prince of Preachers. Massive church in London, it didn't start out that way. A very eloquent man, a man who deeply loved Christ and was deeply committed to and deeply loved the church. Here's what he says regarding the church. And I wonder, and I just want you to stop and think about this for just a moment. Are these your sentiments? Because this is not specific to a deacon or an elder. Are these your sentiments? Are these my sentiments? He says this regarding the church, that the church is the dearest place on earth. Now, let me just stop right there. If you're going to the dearest place on earth, it's not a drudgery, is it? It's not something, oh man, I've got to go to church. I don't really feel like going today. No, if it is the dearest place on earth, it's something you love to do. It's somewhere you love to be. It's somewhere you enjoy being together. He says this, nothing in the world is dearer to God's heart than His church. Let me just pause there. How do we know that? Because Christ loved the church and He gave Himself for the church. If Christ gave Himself for the church, that means the person sitting next to you across the room, how much more should we love the people that we are surrounded by? With all of our failures and sins and warts and all kinds of stuff, because we are indeed a peculiar people, with an emphasis on peculiar, are we not? We all are a little bit strange. We all have to put up with each other. We think we're normal, but never mind. We have to see it this way, that we love one another. Therefore, being His, let us also belong to it, that by our prayers, our gifts, our labors, we may support and strengthen it. If those who are Christ's refrained, even for a generation, from numbering themselves with His people, there would be no visible church, no ordinances maintained, and I fear very little preaching of the gospel. So in other words, what he's saying there is we have to love one another, gather together to to have the ordinances together, to hear the word, to worship together, to fellowship. Because if we don't do those things, then there will be very little preaching of the gospel. Let me just start out by just a foundation of what is the church. What is the church? Of course, the church is not a place that you go to. This is a building. Lots of people have church in all kinds of places. In the New Testament, sometimes they met in homes. Sometimes they would go to a synagogue or other assembly places. And it's not the building, it is the people. The word, so we begin with the definition of the church, point one if you are taking notes. The Greek word for church is ecclesia. You may have heard this out there where you've heard people say ecclesiastical. You ever hear that word? That's where this comes from. When people refer to something as being ecclesiastical. What is your ecclesiastical affiliation? It comes from this word, and this word actually means those who are called out. Now, we get our English word church from the Greek word karyakos, which means those who belong to the Lord. or even things that belong to the Lord, such as, it's referred to as the Lord's Supper in 1 Corinthians 11 20, the Lord's Day in Revelation 1 10, the kuriakos, where the Lord is the one to whom these things belong. We belong to Him, we are the church, we are His people. And so this word ekklesia actually means people that are called out. They were originally called out in secular society, called out of secular society into civil affairs. They would administrate, they would They would work, they would labor, they were called out of the normal group to serve in a civic capacity. And this was an ecclesia. It also was used in many non-technical forms, such as assembly or congregation. As a matter of fact, Stephen used it this way in Acts 7.38, speaking of Moses and the people of Israel. In Acts 7.38 it says, this is the one who was in the congregation, that's the word ekklesia, in the wilderness. So he refers to Israel as the assembly in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai and with our fathers. He received living oracles to give to us." You see, that's an example in the Old Testament of seeing this word, ekklesia, where these are God's people who have received His words and they are following. They've been called out. That's a beautiful picture, beautiful imagery, isn't it? How they were called out of Egypt. Now they are God's people and they are going to be walking in God's way with God leading them. That is exactly what we have going on here. The only difference is we're not walking physically through the wilderness. We will sometimes journey through the wilderness, so to speak, of this world, and so we gather and we journey together, but it's not that physical aspect that Israel did, but we see the beautiful picture. By the way, the word ecclesia is used in so many different ways. Even in Acts 19, it's used of an angry mob in Ephesus. Perhaps in some churches that is appropriate then, right? Business meetings, right? OK. So simply put, how do we define a church? Well, there are lots of ways, and you can make this definition really as long as you want. You can fine-tune it. But I think that really we just need to understand what a church actually is. And so the church is a community of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ who by God's sovereign grace have been called out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His Son. This is what the church is. So in that definition, you have a whole bunch of things. The church is not just merely, hey, anybody who comes, anybody who walks through the doors, you're part of the church. It doesn't mean that. You have to be what we would refer to as regenerate. You have to be a believer, a true follower of Christ. Someone who is actually a born-again Christian, as if there is anything of a Christian who is not born again. All Christians must be born again, otherwise you're not a Christian. It's the very definition of a Christian. It's just redundant. But the point is that we are a community of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. That phrase means something, in Christ. It's not in anything external. but is rather internal in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we have been sovereignly called out by His grace. If that's what ekklesia means, the called out ones, the New Testament frequently refers to saints as being called out. Let me give you three references here which show this. Romans 1-7 talks about to those who are in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints. 2 Timothy 1.9, which was read this morning, speaks of this. One of my favorite verses in the entire Scripture speaks of who saved us, this is speaking of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling. This calling is not a, oh, well, I hear that call and I don't really want to do it. When He calls you to the holy calling, you respond. You do not defy the omnipotent God. Any more than when Jesus called out to Lazarus, Lazarus come forth, and Lazarus being dead would say, nah, I'm good. When God calls you, you respond. And we are called to a holy calling. That word holy means special. Unique. You remember that when Moses saw the burning bush, right? He saw the burning bush, and the Lord told him to do what? Take off your shoes. Take off your sandals. Take off your crocks. Whatever it was. Take them off, because the ground that you are standing on is holy ground. Now, there was not anything intrinsic in that dirt that made it special other than the fact that God's presence was there. And it was God's presence that said, this is a special place where you are. You are in a special place because God has made this special. That dirt is the same composition as all the other dirt. But what makes it special is God is there. And so we go out and we proclaim and we call people, get that word call, we call people to believe the gospel, hear the gospel. The gospel was beautiful and wonderful. You are in a ship and that ship is sinking. because of your sin. You have sinned against God. You have sinned against a holy God, a God who is perfect and wonderful and beautiful in holiness, and He is your Creator. You were made by God and made for God, and yet we have all rebelled, and we are so wicked. We are more wicked than we even realize. And yet, God calls us and says, here's the beauty of that. When you rebelled, I don't just leave you like that. I have made a way, not many ways, I have made a way for you to come and to be reconciled to Me, to know Me, to love Me, to walk in My ways, and I'm going to restore you to be the way that things should be. And I have made this for you. And it was because I sent My Son Jesus who took your place. He was your substitute. He died in your place so that when you should have died, He took that wrath. He took My punishment. And in addition to that, the laws that you could not keep because you were tempted and you fell, Jesus was tempted and He did not fail. So we have Jesus giving you His perfect righteousness, and He took the penalty so that when you place your faith in Him, He declares you righteous. And He can justly do that. It's not just like a grandfather who just waves a little magic wand or whatever, just fine, no big deal. Don't worry about it. OK, no, he he actually is just because he is a just God and he justly does that. And that should be the most glorious and it is the most glorious news ever. And we call people to hear that. But how many times have you ever experienced this where you share that good news with somebody? You go through, even in depth, you share this with someone, and you tell them, listen, your sins can be forgiven. And all you have to do is trust. It's not be baptized. It's not join a church. It's not any of those things. It's trusting in Christ alone, turning from your sin, believing on Christ. And you say to them, what do you think? And he said, well, you know, when I was four, my parents had me baptized. And you're like, did you hear a word that I said? And you go to people who they know, they will brag, I am the worst sinner ever, and I know it. And you tell them the gospel, and you are calling them to believe, and they go, no, I don't want to hear about that stuff. You know, like it's free. You know, they say nothing in life is free and that is very true. Right gave the illustration year a little while ago about that. There's no such thing as a somebody tries to give you a free cat. That cat is not free, right? We talked about that, right? Even a goldfish will cost you a little bit. If nothing else, emotional pain when you gotta flush it down the toilet, but. After it dies after it dies, but but the point is nothing in life is free. But the Gospel is free. There's nothing that you have to do. You simply cling to Christ. And people don't get it. But see, that is our call. That's our general call. But when you put out that call, here's the point, don't miss it. When you put out the call and someone says, yes, that's what I want. Yes, I need Christ. And they embrace Christ. That is the holy call of God. That's the special call of God. to believe and embrace and hear the Gospel. Well, the third point is in John 6.37 where the promise is given, all that the Father gives Me will come to Me. His church will come to Me. And He says, and whoever comes to Me, I will never cast out. That's incredible. That is incredible, incredible news. And so, God alone is the one who calls the people out by His grace. Therefore, we are His. It's not by persuasion or gimmicks or anything, but by God's sovereign power. And so, when we look at all of these things, We see it is Christ who was and is adding to His church, just like it happened at Pentecost, just like God Jesus called the twelve apostles, just like He called Abraham. So church growth is a spiritual thing that comes, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2.4, and my speech and my message were not implausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. So it is Christ's church. He will build it. We don't build the kingdom. You get that? We don't build the kingdom. It's his church. He said that he will build his church and that the gates of hell will not prevail against it. And so when we look at the church, we see this beautiful thing that is shown forth in all kinds of metaphors. We typically refer to the church as the body of Christ, do we not? That's kind of our go-to. But it is much richer than that. The church is also seen as the bride of Christ, as a family. as an olive tree, branches on a vine, as a harvest, as a building, as a kingdom of priests, as God's house, and also, yes, as the body of Christ. All of these things show forth the beauty of what the church is. So now we have to ask this question. So why do we gather? What is the point? Why do we gather together? What is the point of coming to church? What is the point of gathering as the church is probably a better way of putting it? Well, first of all, let's look at the purpose of the church. Point two in your outline, if you're following along, or at least for the slide folks there, the purpose of the church. First of all, the purpose of the church is to worship or to exalt the Lord. We gather not to be entertained. We gather not to be entertained. This is not entertainment. I do think that we should have a good time enjoying, but we gather to worship God. It is about Christ. This service is about Christ. It's not about you. It's not about me. It's about Christ. I know things are changing rapidly in our society, but imagine for yourself a moment, a wedding. And in this wedding, There's the processional music playing. These are the traditional ways. I don't know how people do weddings nowadays. But you're having this beautiful processional music. Here comes the groom. He walks out, stands, and the back doors of the church go flying open. And there stands the bride. And what is everyone supposed to do? Everyone is supposed to stand and everyone is supposed to turn and look at the bride. Right, because this day is about her. It's not about you. It's not about you as the guest. Imagine the doors fly open and the bride is standing there, and you as a participant, as a person who is there giving honor and giving credence to the wedding, jump up in front and say, hey everyone, look at my new clothes that I got for the service. Would anybody say, wow, that guy came here with the right intention? I guarantee you the bride probably will kill that person. Right? It's not about you. So church is not about me. It's not about coming for my felt needs. It's not about coming for anything other than God, other than exalting God. We must have that as the purpose. We must prepare. I think we need to prepare ourselves before we come to church. I do think Satan works hard overtime on Sunday mornings. I do think that. I do believe he steals little kids' shoes. on Sunday mornings to make you late. I do think that He possesses little children. I'm kidding. But you know what I'm saying. To create all kinds of problems, He gets in your car to make it not work. He gives you a hangnail because you're like, oh, I have a hangnail. I can't go to church today. He does all of these things to prevent you from gathering. Things that we would not allow us to keep us from going to a football game, but we will allow to keep us from gathering. And so, it's not about us. It's about Him. It's not about advancing anyone's agenda. It's not political, societal, or even ethical. It's about exalting and praising the God of Heaven. And so you need to shut everything else out and worship Him. Psalm 29 2, Ascribe to the Lord the glory due to His name. Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness. I'm not going to take time to read it, but Revelation 5, you can read that later. And I want to add a note that our worship is not merely singing. It's not merely singing. It is singing, but that's not it. When you give, is that not an act of worship? When you go and say, I'm going to go see how so-and-so is doing, my brother or sister in Christ, even though I don't feel like it, even though I've got my own problems, and you go, is that not worshiping the Lord and loving His church? Is it not worship to sit there and to say, Lord, I'm going to sit under Your Word. That's why here architecture means a little something. That's why this is raised. We are sitting under the Word. Lord, we're going to receive Your Word. Whatever You say humbly in response to what Your Word says, not what I say, what Your Word says, we are going to receive Your Word as an act of worship. Lord, whatever You say to us, we will We don't do because we worship You. We love You. Me doing this personally, this is an act of worship to God. There are a lot easier things to do on a Sunday morning. But it's saying, Lord, I love You and I'm going to submit to doing whatever You have called me to do. And so we gather and we worship all aspects Of church, every aspect is worship. I pray that sometimes when I get to do the announcements. If you ever listen, I listen. I I say Lord bless us as we worship you in our giving and hearing the word and fellowship with one another. That's worship. Including our singing. Which is very important. We are here to build one another up. Number two, not only worship the Lord, but also, letter B, to build one another up or to edify, exalt and to edify. We're to edify one another. Therefore, 1 Thessalonians 5.11, therefore encourage one another and build one another up just as you are doing. 1 Corinthians 1426 let all things be done for building up. You see, we're not meant to live in isolation. I know some people like that, and that's OK. Some people are people people. Some people are a little more introverted, but you need to get out there. You need to see people and then you can run back to your cave. But you need to see people you need to interact. That's how God created us. We are to hear sound doctrine. We are to sit under the Word. We are to allow the Word to change us by applying the Word. We are to be warned of false teaching so that we are not tossed to and fro in every wind of doctrine. We are called to love one another, admonish one another. care and serve for one another, bear one another's burdens, speak truth to one another, seek good to one another, stir one another up for love and good works, and to pray for one another. And you can't do these things at home consistently by watching church on TV. I realize, I mean, some people can't make it. That's not the point. I'm talking about, you know, oh, I got a hangnail. I'm out of church for the next two months. Okay, we need to gather because we need to edify one another and build one another up. You don't even know and realize the encouragement that you can give people just by listening sometimes. Where else are they going to go? They need to hear that people love and care for them and want to help and bear their burdens. Letter C, or the third point, is to proclaim the gospel to the lost. We gather to share the gospel, to hear it. The gospel isn't something we move past. We hear it and we live through it. We are saved by God's grace. We live by God's grace. As we heard last week from Matthew, And we hear it and we are encouraged to share with our neighbors and our friends and families. We gather to support and send missionaries and to plant healthy churches because this was the heartbeat of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Apostles as we see what they did in Acts as they obeyed Christ's command in Matthew 28 to go and to make disciples of all nations. So we come to this point here. So, if we are convinced that this is what the church is and this is what the church is supposed to do, then who is entrusted to make sure that this happens? Who is entrusted to make sure that this isn't just an entertainment thing? Just something to draw and to get more and more people to build something shiny and new so that they will come? Who is supposed to do that? And so we're going to see that it comes down to the congregation, elders, and deacons. Let's talk about this for a minute. The case for plurality. Point number three. The case for plurality. You notice that this is never just one person. It's always a plurality. The person who is in head of the church, of course, is one, and that is Christ. However, He gives us the ability and the responsibility to serve under Him. Everyone serves under His Lordship. And so we seek to run and operate in a way that brings Him glory. Not according to tradition, culture, society, psychology, or business. The pastor is not the CEO. Okay, he's not not a CEO. And so we look at these things. And we have to stop and just think for a minute, just just stop what you're whatever you're thinking about. And just think about this for a minute. Isn't this actually a really strange thing that we're doing right here? I mean, just think about it. Where else do you go? And the only thing that you have in common with one another is not your sports, is not even your politics or not your outdoor adventures or whatever, but is on all based upon what you have learned in a book. And the first thing that we do is we sing. We sing songs. We don't sing songs of cheer. We're not chanting. We don't have cheerleaders, but we sing. We gather together and sing. When else do you gather with other people and sing? I mean, unless you go to like a concert somewhere. OK, and so what we look at this and what we what we see is we gather for this for the purpose of singing. To the Lord, it's it's it's unusual, it's it's unusual that people do that. Not only do we sing. But we gather at a regular time and we pray. We pray together. We pray together and we lift one another up. And then we listen to someone get up and explain from a really old book. And we hear something, this story over and over, and we apply it in lots of different ways. Namely, the fact that there is God who became a man, and He lived a perfect life, and He died, and then He rose again, and He has given us a mission. And so we sit and we learn. Week after week, year after year, some of you have been here since you were born. And some people it's brand new. And you know what? Even if you've been here since you were born, you still don't know everything. You don't know everything and you certainly don't retain everything. I've been preaching at least Sunday mornings regularly for over 13 years, which chalks up to a lot of sermons. And I'll go to a passage and I'll say, boy, I wonder what that means. And I'll look it up and I'll say, oh, I did a sermon on that. And I'll look it up and I'll say, wow, that was really interesting and fascinating. Like I forgot about it. There is a little pastor trick. They said you can you can preach the same exact sermon if you just change the illustrations. People always seem to remember the illustrations. They don't remember the other stuff anyway. So I try anyway. But the point is that the Bible is inexhaustible. You can read the same book over and over and learn more and more from it. And so as we look at this, we see the point is it's a strange thing to do, but this is how the Lord Jesus tells us to do it. He doesn't tell us to look into trying to figure out how to Scale it as far as making it some sort of a merchandise to buy. He teaches us that we are to do and proclaim the Gospel through the foolishness of preaching. Preaching Christ, that is. 1 Corinthians 1.18, For the word of the Christ is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. So we look to this and we say, the way that we do this is by proclaiming a Christ crucified. Not by doing surveys and trying to find people's felt needs, but by proclaiming the gospel of Christ. And so there is a plurality in all of these aspects, except for the authority of Christ. He is the head. Now, as Congregationalists, there is authority in the congregation. This is why there is indeed church membership. We choose the leaders, we affirm members, we excommunicate members, and that is found in the authority of the church to do that. And it is not the pastor, it is not the elder, and it is not solely the deacons whose responsibility it is to do ministry. I've heard a lot of people do this. This is just one of those sayings I've heard a million times. People say, oh, are you in ministry? And what they mean is, are you like full-time in ministry? But the truth of the matter is every single Christian that is a member of a faithful church. If somebody says, oh, are you in ministry? You should say, yes. I might not be getting paid, but I am in ministry. Because Paul tells the Ephesians in Ephesians 4, 11 and 12, that he gives some apostles and prophets and so on and so forth, and he says he gives them shepherd teachers or pastor teachers, and the point is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. To equip the saints for the work of the ministry. So that means who is doing the ministry? The saints. Not just one person. Not just a few. But you all. You are doing the ministry. You are responsible for doing that. I am responsible for doing that. And so there is the responsibility to serve. There are way too many things for any one person to do. And so, that is how there is the ministry of the saints. And so, when we look at this, we come to it and we say each member of the church is indeed to serve the body. Each member plays a part. Each member must serve. See, there's a lot of teaching that can go on and sometimes if you're going to talk about the body, you know, you may say, well, you know, there's the mouth, right? That's what you're hearing right now. You're hearing my mouth, right? Well, imagine if my whole body was just the mouth. Now, when I was a kid, people said that because whatever came in my little brain came out my big mouth. Okay, there's all your all mouth, right? That was not a compliment. But but imagine if your body was just a whole mouth, right? And all you did, that would not be good. That would not be healthy. Okay, so yes, some are the some Paul gives the illustration, some is the nose, some are the ears. You need your ears. You need your nose. You need your eyes. You need all of these parts. They're vital. They're important. And so, each member must serve, whether it's serving in greeting or nursery, which is terribly important, by the way. Terribly important. Men's and women's ministry opportunities, helping widows, missions, evangelism, teaching, administration, mercy, counseling, whatever it may be, each person must be serving Christ's church in some capacity. When we look at this, we want to consider a plurality of elders. I'm going to get through this kind of quickly. We're going to come back and we're going to review next week. But we have a plurality of elders. Let me give this to you. And if you'd like a list of this, reach out to us. We'll get it to you. but an elder overseer and pastor. And we'll talk about this some more, but it is all the same office. The New Testament refers to those three things as the same pastor, overseer and elder. Those are all the same words used of the same office. As a matter of fact, you're going to see, and this is fascinating in 1st Peter chapter 5. Peter uses all of those to explain the same office. But overall, an elder is to shepherd the flock of God. And so, we see this in 1 Peter 5 and in Acts 20, verse 28. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock. in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which He obtained by His own blood." And so we'll get into various aspects of eldership later, such as shepherding, overseeing, warning, edifying, teaching, admonishing, leading, correcting, and caring. But one thing that we see consistently in the New Testament is the idea of a solo pastor is not found in the New Testament. So let me kind of give this to you kind of like machine gun here. Acts 11.30, there were elders, plural, in the church of Antioch. Acts 14.23, Paul and Barnabas appointed elders, plural, in every church, singular. Acts 15, Acts 16, Acts 21, they refer to the elders in the church of Jerusalem. Acts 20, verse 17, there were elders in the church of Ephesus. Philippians 1.1 had overseers, plural, at that one church, and deacons, plural. 1 Timothy 5.17, there were elders at the church of Ephesus. Titus 1.5, Titus was told to appoint elders, plural, in the town. James 5.14, said that if there's any sick among you, that you're to call the elders, plural, of the church, singular, to pray over you. 1 Peter 5, 1-2, Peter speaks of the elders that are among you. And there's a more generic term that's even used, a plurality, in 1 Thessalonians 5 and Hebrews 13, which speaks of the leaders that are over you. So we see the New Testament Example is not pastor singular, but is pastors plural or elders plural. You're going to actually find out the word pastor is actually used, though in English we use that all the time, don't we? But that's a very rare occurrence in the scriptures. Just an observation. It's most of the time it's used as elder. So where does a single pastor come from? I thought you might find this fascinating. I hope. But where does that come from? You go to most churches and you have one pastor, right? Well, where does that come from? Well, here is the argument. If you want to read later on Revelation Chapter 2 and three, remember there are the seven churches and Jesus himself says now to the angel of the Church of Ephesus to the angel of the Church of Laodicea to the angel of the Church of Smyrna or all the others. OK, they say, oh, see the angel. Was the pastor. That that's their argument, OK? And I'd like to make a joke and say, trust me, pastors are no angels, but. They should be in all seriousness. But in Revelation 2, what they're saying is, well, angel actually is a Greek word, Angelos, which means messenger, which must mean pastor or elder. Dan Wallace, New Testament professor, Greek professor. He says this. Just follow these three things real quickly. The problem with this is manifold. Number one, Angelos, which is the Greek word for angel. You can remember that, right? So you're learning Greek. Angelos is angel. OK, you always remember that like baptizo is baptized anyway. Angolos is used 67 times in Revelation. If we exclude the references in chapters 2 and 3 for the sake of argument, saying that that means pastor or elder, then we see a remarkable thing. Every instance of Angolos refers to an actual angel, unless of course pastors can fly in Revelation 14.6. OK, in other words, every other occurrence of ungloss in Revelation is an actual angel, unless you're saying, well, not in Chapter two and three. OK, number two, even if Revelation two to three were an exception, messenger is hardly an appropriate term for pastor. Pastors were in New Testament times restricted to certain local geography. A messenger is one, by definition, who moves around like a circuit-riding preacher or something it would have to be. They moved around. That was what the messenger did. So nowhere is a pastor ever referred to as an angel. And thirdly, you have the genre of Revelation fits the apocalyptic literature. I'm not going to read about that. Second of all, the second way that they get it, 2 and 3 John is written, each one is written to a singular elder. See, they say it's written to the pastor. However, it's written to two different people in two different churches. So the elder there probably means an older man, not a position of elder, because it can mean that. You know, sometimes it just means someone who's older. And 1st Timothy 3.2 and Titus 1.1, the overseer is singular and deacons are plural in the church. We can also just make a practical argument that really, when you have a church of any size, you have the burdens of all the people and you need people to help out. Let me just give you this statistic, one other thing, and then we'll be finished for today. One study showed in 2013, So this was 10 years ago, and do you think things have gotten easier or harder since that time? Just think of COVID. 1700 pastors leave their church each month or leave the ministry altogether. OK, 1700 pastors leave each month. I suspect that is higher now. Most of those probably is because they don't have people to share the burden with. them. Many of you in here are parents and this is kind of the easiest way that I can express it. To be a pastor, to be an elder, is kind of like this. You have to think of, not in a downgrade or a degrading way, but you kind of think of the congregation as your children. And so you carry their burdens. When they're going into surgery, you carry that burden. When their father passes away, you carry that burden. When they refuse to listen to what Scripture says and they're walking away from the Lord, you carry that burden. So imagine, some of you have one kid, two kids, three kids, four kids, ten kids, but imagine having 150 kids. That's a lot of kids. And you have some kids, right? You have some of your children, they grow up, they're responsible, they work, they do their homework on time, they don't get into trouble. And then you got the other ones that, well, let's just say you got the other ones. You see what I mean? You got some that, boy, I mean, they're on cruise control, and then you have some, and the phone rings, and you're like, what did Jimmy do today? Sorry to anybody named Jimmy. What did Jimmy do today, right? What's going on now? It's just one thing after another. And so anyway, it's great when you have many people to carry that burden so that you do not have burnout. I'm not making this up out of just thin air. This is the way it goes back all the way to the Old Testament. In Numbers 11-17, Moses had had it with the people. There were a lot of good people, but there were a lot who complained. And so he goes to the Lord and tells Him, Lord, I can't do this anymore. There are too many people to take care of. It's not possible. And so the Lord said, well, appoint 70 elders, good men, and here's what they are going to do. They shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you may not bear it yourself alone. If more churches had godly elders who shared in everything that was supposed to be going forward, there would not be lone pastoral burnout. There also is a plurality of deacons. Now the deacons, what they are to do And just because of time sake, I'm just going to put it this way. The deacons come along to assist the elders in the life of the church. Who are they serving? They're primarily serving Christ in the church, but it is their job to assist the elders in specific ministry roles so that the elders can do their job and the deacons can do their job as the people are doing their jobs. And so this is the ultimate. We're going to dive a lot more deeper into that in the upcoming weeks, and our time really is gone. But we do see in this, this is how the Lord has set up His church. So I hope that you are excited and I hope that you will say, you know what? I want to find out what am I supposed to do? How can I serve? How can I serve Christ church to make it a place not where there aren't problems because there's always going to be problems, but to make it a place where Christ is ultimately glorified and we do the best that we can in serving him. Let's pray. Lord, we are grateful for who you are and for calling us, Lord, into your great kingdom. Lord, this is your church. It is not ours. Lord, we make mistakes. We don't do things properly sometimes. And so, Lord, in those things, we do seek your forgiveness. Lord, we want to walk in a way that is worthy of the gospel. And so we're thankful we don't have the burden of carrying all of our failures with us because of Christ. But Lord, we do want to be faithful. We want to be faithful to You. And Lord, as we examine Your Scriptures, help us to be a healthy church. Lord, I believe that we are, and we just want to continue, and we want to grow, we want to strengthen. And Lord, for each one who is here, Lord, of course, if there's anyone here who does not know Christ, I pray that they will turn to You and see You. Lord, for those who have maybe viewed church in a wrong way and seen it primarily about themselves, that, Lord, we would repent of those ways. Lord, we just want to come to you and just worship you today, Lord, and even in our sacrifice of ourselves, of our consecration of ourselves to you, Lord, that we would humbly submit to you and to your word. And so, Lord, we pray that you will dismiss us now with your blessing and we pray it in Christ's name. And now, may the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who was and is and is to come, may his grace be upon you now and forevermore. Amen. Lord bless.