Well, this morning we are going to take a break from our series in 1 Samuel. We're going to look at the subject of Presbyterian church government. We're going to do that from Acts chapter 15. So if you would, turn in your Bibles there. It's rather appropriate, even in our series in 1 Samuel, to consider the government of the church, especially after we considered 1 Samuel 12, which was kind of Samuel's Exhortation for how Israel was to live now is the church under a king. And we need to understand that Jesus is our king now. So we'll consider the government he's established for us this morning. We're not going to be able to say everything about Presbyterian government. We're not even going to be able to cover the differences, the subtle difference between Reformed Presbyterianism and Presbyterian Presbyterianism, meaning continental reformed Presbyterianism, and then Scottish, English, Irish reformed Presbyterianism. That's kind of confusing, isn't it? Basically, there is a subtle difference, but the reformed churches have turned and understood Presbyterian church government to be the the government that Christ instituted for the church as God. And all the subtle details that we have, we're not going to consider those maybe at another time, but we're going to look at some main principles about Presbyterian church government as it applies to us today and really as we see revealed in Acts chapter 15 through Acts chapter 16 verse 5. And so if you have turned in your Bibles to Acts chapter 15, I ask that you might follow along and listen as I read God's holy and inerrant and inspired word. But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers. Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. So being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles and brought great joy to all the brothers. When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them. but some believers who belong to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said it is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses. The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us. And he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. Now therefore, why are you putting God to test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, just as they will. And all the assembly fell silent, and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. After they finished speaking, James replied, Brothers, listen to me. Simon has related how God first visited the Gentiles to take from them a people for his name. And with this, the words of the prophets agree, just as it was written. After this, I will return and I will I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen. I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things known from of old. Therefore, my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God. but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood. For from ancient generations, Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he has read every Sabbath in the synagogues. Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas and Silas, leading men among the brothers with the following letter. The brothers, both the apostles and the elders to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings. Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us, and troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions. It has seemed good to us, having come to one accord to choose men, and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements, that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what has been strangled and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell. So when they were sent off, they went down to Antioch, and having gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter. And when they had read it, they rejoiced because of its encouragement. And Judas and Silas, who were themselves prophets, encouraged and strengthened the brothers with many words. And after they had spent some time, they were sent off in peace by the brothers to those who had sent them. But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord with many others also. And after some days, Paul said to Barnabas, let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord and see how they are. Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. But Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. And there arose a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other. Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus. But Paul chose Silas and departed, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord. And he went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches. Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra. A disciple was there named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek. He was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra and Iconium. Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him, and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem. So the churches were strengthened in the faith and they increased in numbers daily. May the Lord bless this reading of his word and let us pray. Our God and our heavenly father we seek your blessing on the reading and preaching of your word and we ask that you might help us to understand your provision for the church and may we receive it with faith and embrace the government you've given to us. Through the king and head you've established over us, Jesus Christ, in his name we do pray. Amen. We, as Reformed Presbyterians, and really Presbyterians in general, we officially confess that the permanent form of church government is Presbyterianism. But when you look around the landscape, really of the visible church in America or the whole world, you'll find that Presbyterian church government isn't the only way churches are organized. And if you know church history, You might scratch your head and wonder why Presbyterians have fought so hard, even really to the point of martyrdom, to preserve this form of government. And today, you'll easily find in the landscape of churches, just amongst evangelical churches in America, you will find weak Presbyterian churches and stronger churches with other governments. So it's reasonable for us to ask this question, what is the big deal? What is the big deal about Presbyterian church government? Well, it doesn't necessarily seem to be that silver bullet for peace and unity and growth of the church. Well, quite frankly, that should be obvious. We're a bunch of redeemed sinners that have been united together and trying to live as one. And as we see those churches who hold to the divine right and institution of Presbyterianism, we find even among our churches a damaged testimony that there are many Presbyterian denominations rather than one Presbyterian church. But since Christ is the head of the church, we must submit to the government he has established over us. And so we confess. and seek to practice by his grace the permanent form of church government, that is Presbyterian. The book of Acts, as we've read in chapter 15, records, well really the whole book of Acts, records the history of how Christ established the early church through the apostles. And in Acts 15, we discover how he organized the church throughout the world. And this passage that we read, it answers our question, why does Presbyterian church government matter? And I think there's a two-part answer to that question. But I want to focus on this. Christ instituted this government, and he instituted this government for the care of the church. Even though it has failed at times, even among us, we will see that Christ strengthens the church and preserves the purity of the gospel through this form of government. We're going to consider from this passage really three points, and we're gonna pass over several parts of this passage that maybe you brought curiosity, but we're gonna mainly focus on the way Christ has organized the government, and these three points in your outline that there's, in Presbyterian church government, there's an appeal from a local church, There's an answer from the broader church, and there's an application to the whole church. These are the points we're going to consider this morning. So let's consider our first point, this appeal from a local church. Our passage in Acts 15 verse 1 begins in the local church in Antioch. A dispute broke out while Paul and Barnabas were ministering there. And quite frankly, it happened just like many conflicts occur in our congregations today. The church in Antioch struggled to understand the relationship of Jews and Gentiles in Christ's kingdom. The Holy Spirit had converted thousands of Gentiles. The Holy Spirit had united them also to Christ's church. In the early church, some of the Jews didn't understand how the New Covenant church should receive Gentiles into Christ's body. Even to complicate matters, the Pharisees had influenced some Jewish believers, and so these Jewish believers taught that Gentiles must be circumcised or they could not be saved. Before Christ, it's true that circumcision was the sign and seal of salvation. It was the sign and seal of being visible members of God's covenant and also members of God's covenant people, the church. But then Christ came. and he replaced circumcision with baptism as that sign of membership in God's covenant people, that sign of being a visible member of God's church and God's people, and that sign of salvation that is by grace through faith in Christ. This dispute that we read about in Acts chapter 15 verses one through three, and really five, this dispute was really about the gospel. In verse 5, some former Pharisees argued that circumcision and keeping the judicial and ceremonial law of Moses was necessary if the Gentiles were to be saved. In other words, they couldn't be saved without that. But later, Peter will confess that we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as the Gentiles will. Many people in the church were confused about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Some taught us salvation by works, but others contended for the true gospel of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. And the debate was serious. And it had many implications for doctrine and faith and worship and practice and general life in the church. And so the local congregations in Antioch, since they could not resolve the issue themselves, they cried out for help. And in verses two and three, the congregations in Antioch, they sought help from the rest of the church. They appointed Paul and Barnabas to take their questions about the gospel in Gentiles to Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, the apostles and elders of the church had assembled to deal with these sort of disputes. And so Antioch, they looked to that, the broader church, they sought help from the broader church or the whole church to resolve the conflict that they faced in their local congregation. We need to understand from this, and from the practice in Antioch, that Christ didn't leave us alone. He didn't leave local congregations to resolve these disputes ourselves. He didn't leave local congregations to answer the hard questions in the scriptures by ourselves. Rather, there is one church in Jesus Christ, and we must see ourselves as a congregation and members of the one church of Jesus Christ. And we must acknowledge that Christ has provided broader courts of the church to help local congregations like us. And so when a local congregation needs help, when a local congregation is suffering or is divided, We must learn from the example of the early church that we're not alone, and we must use the broader church. The broader courts of the church are Christ's means to peacefully settle the disputes that we cannot solve on a local level. And I want you to think about the three courts that the scripture identifies in Christ's church. They're the session, the presbytery, and maybe the Senate or General Assembly. The first is the local session. The local session, that word means that the elders, teaching elders and ruling elders of a local congregation meet in session as a court of Christ Church. The local elders in the local congregation hold the keys of the kingdom of Christ, and that means they have the keys of the kingdom to receive members into the fellowship of the saints, to discipline members, to manage the functions of the church, and to oversee and implement public worship. That's the first court of the church. It's the local session. The second court of the church is what we call the presbytery. Now, the word presbytery, it comes from the Greek word for elder, which is presbyteros. And the presbytery, therefore, is made up of presbyters, or elders, from local congregations. And it seems from the scriptures that the church was organized in presbyteries. Just take Jerusalem, for example. How did the church in Jerusalem function? When we look through the scriptures, we find that there were thousands of believers in Jerusalem. In the first five chapters of Acts, you just see the church grow exponentially. There were multiple languages, people from all over, not just Jews that spoke Aramaic and Hebrew, but you had Hellenistic Jews that spoke Greek, you had people that spoke Arabic, you had people that spoke different languages. And they're all part of that church in Jerusalem. And then there were 12 apostles that didn't have time to do the work of mercy ministry in the diaconate because they were so busy laboring in the word of God, the ministry of the word of God in prayer. When you put all these details together, it seems like the Jerusalem church was really a church made up of several congregations, much like a presbytery. And so as the elders in Jerusalem would gather, they were likely apostles and elders from all these different congregations. And we would call them a presbytery. And you see the presbytery, it's made up of elders or presbyters from local congregation and it rules over the doctrine and the practice of a group of regional churches. So you have the first church, the first court, the local session of teaching and ruling elders. Then you have the broader court, which is the presbytery, which is made up of representatives of elders from a regional group of congregations. And then we have the third court that we find in Acts chapter 15. In Acts 15, elders from the whole church, not just the group of congregations in Jerusalem or Antioch or Rome, but the whole church, elders from the whole church gathered to settle this appeal that could not be resolved in Antioch. And we call this court a synod. We call it a general assembly in other Presbyterian churches. It's the broadest, the broadest church. It's the court of the whole church. And we in the RPCNA, we meet once a year as a synod and there are presbyters and elders from each congregation, from each presbytery gather in the highest or broadest church a court of the church. And we need to understand that decisions at the synod level of the broadest church are final decisions because they're decisions not of just a little part of the church, but they're decisions that Christ has brought about from the whole church. And so Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, they appealed to the whole church to help on this important matter of the gospel and Gentiles. So our passage here and our story of Presbyterianism begins with an appeal from a local church, a local church or a group of local congregations appealing to the broader church for help. And that takes us to our second point that we find an answer from the broader church. Really, we see this answer come and develop in verses six through 29, where the broader church answers the questions from the local churches. And as we think about what we read, this passage teaches us how assemblies of the church, in these various assemblies of broader churches, of broader representatives of the church, it teaches us how assemblies of the church should function in a Presbyterian church. In verse six, the apostles and the elders of the church gathered to consider the matter. They assembled not just over coffee, which is actually rather fun to do, they assembled for a formal meeting. And I want you to see the significance of this meeting. It was not just some subset of the church. Rather in verse 22, Luke revealed, it seemed good to the apostles and the elders with the whole church. This meeting, it included presbyters from the whole church at that time, not just Jerusalem, not just Antioch, but the whole church. And so the Antioch church was about to receive an answer from the entire Church of Christ. Now, obviously, the assembly didn't include every single member of every congregation where they voted, rather, Elders from every part of the church participated in the assembly. Elders from every part of the church debated at the assembly. Elders from every part of the church formed the conclusion. And elders from every part of the church crafted and wrote the letter and the response to the churches in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia. And I want you to consider two important details about Presbyterianism and the government Christ established that we can learn from this assembly and how they met. And the first thing we need to understand is we see the parody of the elders in the church assemblies. We see the parody of elders in the church assemblies. Parody may actually be a foreign word, but it simply means the equality of elders in church assemblies. I want you to notice how Luke described the meeting, and I just want to read a few statements he made. He wrote that the apostles and elders were gathered in verse 6. All the assembly fell silent to listen to James. or Paul and Barnabas, I'm sorry, in verse 12. Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders with the whole church to choose men, in verse 22. The letter to the churches concluded this way. It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us, collective, the whole body and the whole assembly. You see, Luke described the meeting as an assembly of equal men. In other words, no one man made the decision. Rather, it was a decision of the whole group. Now you might be scratching your head and think, wait a minute, but there are apostles here. But what we find is that although the apostles had a special office from Christ, Luke describes a unity and equality between elders and apostles as they met and assembled in this court. And you know, Peter teaches this interpretation also to us. If you remember what he said in 1 Peter 5 1, he said this of himself, so I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder. So Peter was given that office of apostle, that special office to carry on the ministry of Christ after Christ's ascension. He was an apostle, but his office was actually rather complex. Not only was he was an apostle, but he was also an elder, a fellow elder in the church. And so as he sat in the Jerusalem council, he saw himself also as an elder and acknowledged the parity and equality of elders who assembled there. Today in the church, we try to preserve this parity or equality of elders in all the courts of the church, whether it's sessions or presbyteries or synods. Teaching elders or pastors and ruling elders have the same vote. One man does not make the decisions. Rather, decisions are made by the assembly of presbyters, both pastors and ruling elders, that Christ has ordained to serve and to shepherd the church. So the first thing we learn from how they did business is, the first thing we learn about the way Presbyterianism functions is there is a parody of elders. both teaching and ruling elders meet as equal elders in these assemblies. But second, I want you to notice the wisdom of Christ in this form of church government. The wisdom of Christ in the form of church government. Multiple elders gather from the whole church to consider questions and answers to appeals from local courts. When the church is ruled though through fallible men, we must acknowledge that there's wisdom in numbers. In Proverbs 11, 14, the scriptures say, in an abundance of counselors, there is safety. In Proverbs 24, 6, it says, in abundance of counselors, there is victory. You see, as sinful men, we cannot trust our minds to think clearly. or to make good decisions in these complicated matters so it is wise to seek multiple counselors. And so in Christ's wisdom, he established a government wherein there is not one man that rules over the church, but rather Christ rules the church through a plurality of elders. And that happens even on the local church. I thank God for John and Bill, and quite frankly, for like a host of commentaries. There've been a couple times in the past six years where I've done my exegesis and I've looked at the language and I've said, wow, I think the Bible means this, but no one agrees with me. And just, if you're ever studying the Bible in Calvin and Ritterbos and Voss, and Carson, they all disagree with you, you need to stop and do your homework. And on a couple occasions, I've emailed John or Bill and said, hey, this is what I think the Bible means. And Bill has written back rather clearly, you're wrong, Shane, and save the congregation. You see, because of our sin, we need to gather with a multitude of elders to make these decisions, to study the word of God. There is just quite frankly, wisdom in the counsel of multiple elders. But there is another dimension to the wisdom of Presbyterian church government, not just that practical wisdom that we don't want to trust one fallible man to make decisions. But you see, wisdom is more than just helpful, profitable, safe, statements and truths. Wisdom is Jesus Christ and living under Christ and his word and his rule. I want you to remember what Christ promised in Matthew 18 verses 18 through 20. He wrote, Again, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them." Christ is our wisdom. And Christ promised his presence when multiple elders gathered together to do the work of the church. And notice what happened at the assembly. and what they confessed in verse 28. They said, for it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us. You see, the elders did not gather alone in Jerusalem, but rather the Holy Spirit was with them as Christ had promised. And the Holy Spirit used this assembly to resolve that dispute and to give practical guidance to the church because Christ is our wisdom. And we must acknowledge that the Holy Spirit still works through church courts today. And so there's wisdom in Presbyterian church government, wisdom in the rule of multiple elders and appealing to the broader and broadest churches to answer questions of faith and life in the church. There's not just wisdom because we're sinful, because sinful men are ordained as elders. but also because Christ promises to work through the courts of his presbyteries that he's given to the church. Well, let's now consider under the answer from the broader church how they made their decision. And just quickly, you might write this down. This is the point. They appealed to the scriptures to answer the question. So we find in the debates in verses seven through 21, They appealed to the scriptures to resolve this conflict. The debate went like this. Peter reminded the assembly that Christ commissioned him to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. Christ gave the Holy Spirit to the Gentiles just like he did to the Jews at Pentecost when Peter preached to Cornelius. And then he asked them all how they could put God to test by binding the Gentiles to a law that they, the Jews, could never keep and be saved through. And Peter concluded by confessing that we believe we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will. So as the assembly debated, Peter stood up as a presbyter and appealed to the true gospel and tried to answer the Pharisees saying, how could you hold the Gentiles to a law that never justified us? And he went back to the true word of Christ and the true gospel of Christ that were saved by grace through faith. And then James answered the Pharisee party by quoting from Amos 2, following along what Peter said. And he explained that the Lord already revealed through the prophet Amos in the scriptures that the Gentiles would be brought into Christ's kingdom. Therefore, they did not need the burden of the judicial and the ceremonial law of Israel. You see, the Pharisees, they wrongly wanted to add circumcision and the law of Moses to the Gentiles' faith. Yes, you need to believe in Christ, but you also have to do these other things to be saved. But James and Peter argued from scripture that the Gentiles should not be burdened, because both Jews and Gentiles are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone. And so the assembly gently corrected the Pharisees, and upheld the true gospel of salvation. And then they established some practical rules for the Gentiles. James, as we read in the letter, recommended that the Gentiles be required to abstain from their pagan practices in submission to the Lord, but also they needed to abstain from these practices in order to preserve the unity of the church between the Jewish and the Gentile believers. And then the whole assembly approved the recommendation. Not just James. James put forward this motion, this recommendation, but the whole assembly approved it. We must recognize as we look at this passage as a whole that the decision, it wasn't made by rhetoric or power or position or popularity. The decision was ultimately made by an appeal to the scriptures. Modern assemblies today, whether it's the session, the presbytery, or classes, or senate, or general assembly, modern assemblies today must operate the same way. Every court of Christ's church must seek guidance from Christ through the scriptures. And although presbyterian church government and these courts fail all the time, No single elder has power and authority over the assembly as a whole. When it happens, we need to repent of that and turn to Christ, who is the only head of the church. But instead of having some single elder rule over the whole church, we need to set the rules for the church, develop and articulate doctrines in the church, and find resolutions to controversies in the church by seeking the scriptures of the Old and New Testament. The Bible is our final authority in doctrine in life. And we say that in our confession of faith in the very first chapter. So we see here that the broader church gave an answer to the local church. We see a little bit of how the courts of Christ's church function with parity among elders, with wisdom. And we see that the courts of Christ's church should submit to that principle of sola scriptura, that the Bible is the sole rule of faith in life. And finally, I want you to consider how the decision of the Jerusalem Council applied to the whole church. The council wrote a letter to the Gentile churches in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia. And since Paul and Barnabas had been on the gospel side of the debate in that church, the assembly wisely chose to send Judas and Silas with them. They went as additional witnesses of the decision that the assembly had made. When they arrived in Antioch, they gathered the church together and they read the letter to them. And I want you to notice what we find here in verse 31 of chapter 15. The church rejoiced because of the encouragement. And then Judas and Silas and Paul and Barnabas spent time ministering to the church to strengthen them and encourage them further. And we need to see from this that the decision of that assembly of the broadest church in Jerusalem, that council in Jerusalem, that decision had authority over the local church. And this is how Christ has set up the government of the church. Antioch and Syria and Cilicia all submitted to the ruling of the broader church assembly. The decision applied to them, and it had a great effect in the churches. They were strengthened, and they were encouraged in peaceful unity through that church assembly, through its letter, and through how the decision was delivered with the four presbyters who came to read the letter and explain it and minister to the church that they might heal in peaceful unity. The letter and the decision was specifically written for the Antiochian and Syrian and Cilician churches. but the effect of the assembly, it reached beyond those original congregations. That's what we read into chapter 16. In verse 4, we read about how Paul continued to use this letter and this decision of the assembly, it had a broader and a greater and a more universal life in the whole church. As Paul and Silas and Timothy went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them, for observance, the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem. In short, Paul applied the decision of the Jerusalem council, not just to Antioch, but to the whole church. He took the letter to the churches he visited, because it was not an isolated problem. Rather, there were Judaizers who forced the Mosaic law upon Gentile believers throughout the church and the early church of Christ. The Jerusalem Council had articulated the doctrine of the gospel and made an important theological distinction. And then they had given insight and guidance on how the church should live in unity. And their decision was like It was really like the confession of faith that our synod has adopted. It united the early church to stand together against the false doctrine of the Judaizers. Just like the confession of faith that our synod has adopted unites us to stand against false doctrine today and unites us under the true gospel. And you know, Paul would later elaborate on this doctrinal conclusion in his letter to the Galatians. because the problem did not go away. But the heart of Paul's message to the Galatians, it flows out of the decision and the theology that was done in that assembly in Jerusalem. I'd like to read briefly for you the Westminster Confession of Faith because the synods and councils that Christ has established in the church really has a bit broader function than what we see here. But I want you to listen or follow along to this quote of the third paragraph in Westminster Confession of Faith chapter 31. I have it in the bulletin. Our church has articulated this doctrine. It belongeth to synods and councils ministerially to determine controversies of faith, really like we saw here in Acts 15. and cases of conscience, to set down rules and directions for the better ordering of the public worship of God and government of his church, to receive complaints in cases of maladministration and authority to determine the same, which decrees and determinations, if consonant to the word of God, are to be received with reverence and submission. not only for their agreement with the Word, but also for the power whereby they are made as being an ordinance of God, appointed thereunto in His Word. You see, the decisions of the broader and broadest courts of the Church apply to the whole church. But I want you to see one more thing that we find, one benefit we see from presbyteries and synods in verse 5 of chapter 16. Notice what Luke wrote. So the churches were strengthened in the faith and they increased in number daily. Remember these churches are churches from the whole church that Paul went in his journey to minister to. See, Presbyterian government protected the unity in the Church and the pure teaching of the Gospel. And the Church was strengthened and the early Church grew. And when we submit ourselves to the broader Church through the Presbyterian Synod, we can expect the same growth and the same unity and the same encouragement in Christ. And so we should thank We should thank the Lord for uniting us to his church, and we should pray for a greater union with other parts of the church, even to the point that we might one day be united under one confession of faith as one visible body for Christ's glory and the spread of his kingdom. At our presbytery, at our synod meeting, we just approved some men to serve on the committee of what we call the RP International Alliance. so that we might better work with the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Scotland, and the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Ireland, and the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Australia, and East Asia, and Sudan. We're working toward this greater unity. We have NAPARC relationships, and there are about four denominations represented in the Denver and Front Range area, four or five. And we need to seek greater unity with them. And one day we should pray for a North American reformed and Presbyterian church that dwells together in unity and the preservation of the gospel, that the broadest chord of Christ's church might meet here and long for that day. So let's go back to our first question. Why does Presbyterian church government matter? The first part of the answer is that Christ instituted this form of government because he is God and he is the head of the church. Christ gave the apostles the great commission to teach the disciples all that he commanded when he gave that great commission to them in Matthew 28. And the acts of the apostles that we read about here in chapter 15 are the works of Christ the works of Christ. We need to see through what is happening to see it's the works of Christ to establish his government in the church. In Presbyterian church government, each congregation of the church is ruled and led by multiple elders and each congregation is bound together into one church under one confession of faith in submission to the whole church and in confession that Christ is our head. But the second reason Presbyterian church government matters is that Christ has given it to us for our good. Christ uses this organization in the church to strengthen us and to preserve the purity of the gospel. So we must be thankful that we're not alone. And we need to look forward to days of greater unity among the visible church so that we might benefit from Christ working through the whole church to reform us, to strengthen us, and to encourage us in his grace. Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, we are grateful for your wonderful work in us, and we ask that you might remove rebellious hearts that we all have, that do not want to submit to others or authorities you placed above us, but cause us to submit to you and embrace the unity we have in your one body, the church. We ask this all in Jesus' name. Amen.