(crowd chattering) All right. Again, we apologize if the tables got moved around a little bit, it's because we had lunch and then we set it up, and I think this is better anyway. It gives you a little bit more space so that you're not sitting back to back with somebody.

So instead of having seven tables, there's six tables per row, and that's why we have extra tables in the back. So most likely, I asked you to look at the table that you're in now and try to stay within that table. Last week wasn't the final one, this is it, okay?

So whatever table you are in now, please stick to that table, okay? So that next week when we come around, you don't have to come and look, you can just come straight and sit down, okay? All right, today we're gonna be talking about, again, the third part, when we're talking about God-centered worship, and we talked about the holiness of God.

So first week, we talked about God's nature of holiness and the importance of that as a foundation for understanding everything that we know. Pastor Mark talked about Leviticus and how in reflection of his holiness, how that affects our view of ourselves and where we stand before God. So he went through the book of Leviticus in highlighting God's teaching through the tabernacle, through the sacrifices, and how that reveals where we stand before him.

So we talked about that last week. Today's session, we're gonna be talking about the ramification of that in the life, individual life and in the corporate life. Because we're, again, gathered together as a church, we're gonna be talking about our church vision, why we practice what we do. So the part of PCC is not simply to go over fundamental doctrine, but also to kind of bring the church on the same page as to the philosophies.

And again, if you've been at our church for a long time, again, all of this stuff is gonna be reviewed to you, but for those of you who are maybe in the last, maybe five or six years that's been here, you probably heard it here and there, but maybe not collectively.

But that's the point of what we're gonna be doing today. The ramification, how a right view of God affects the way we approach everything that we do at church. All right. Before we get to that. So today, if you look at your handouts, there's a, the way I'm gonna do it is, you're just gonna have to fill out, so the red parts are the parts that you're supposed to fill out.

So if you don't have a handout sheet with those open, it's still in the back. So the first thing is, our worship must be God-centered and not man-centered. So before we even get to that, as an introduction, I would say, if there's one particular doctrine that has affected the way I read scripture, the way I view church worship, evangelism, more than any other doctrine, is a doctrine that we've been talking about.

I remember early on in ministry as a youth pastor, and then an EM pastor at Irvine Baptist. I preached topically because that's all I knew how to do. That's, you know, that's how I heard the messages, and then out of necessity, I started preaching out of, preaching systematically through the Bible.

So the first book that I started preaching out of, I think I was a youth pastor when I started, it was the Book of John. And then I moved on to Philippians, and then I started teaching Thessalonians, and then after that, it's a blur. And I remember doing Romans at some point back then.

I went through the Romans about three times. By the time I got to about three or four books, and going to the fifth book, I began to see a pattern in certain things that I saw in scripture that didn't match how I understood God, how I understood church. And the central thing that I started to see was a very, very high view of God.

His holiness just kept on popping up, Old and the New Testament. So I decided to give a topical message on this topic of holiness, which I've never given before. I've kind of mentioned it before. How can you read the Bible without coming across passages where holiness is mentioned? But I decided to give a message, and one particular message on this holiness.

So I spent several weeks preparing for this. And as a result of preparation for this one particular message I was gonna give, it really changed my paradigm. And again, I've shared this before with our church many times. I was literally shaking as I was preparing that this was central to everything that I knew about God.

And it caused me to change the way I view church, fellowship, everything. So from that moment on, it kind of pushed me toward a trajectory, the way I understood scripture. Again, so when this church was planted, that was the fundamental. That was kind of like the foundation upon which we were building everything.

So I can't emphasize enough that the first two days of teaching in this class, if that's just kind of a blur, and you didn't really get the weight of what was taught in the first two classes, then again, everything that we're gonna be teaching is you're gonna get bits and pieces, but you're really not gonna get the weightiness of why it was so important, okay?

So again, I wanted to set that as a foundation just to let you know that this is not just one of many things that are important in the church. This is the central thing that, again, if you know it superficially, or you just kind of passively, like, "Oh, I know this," and just kind of dismiss it, it will affect the way you understand scripture and salvation and everything else, okay?

First thing that we know is if we understand that God is a holy, holy, holy God, that we were saved from a sin that you and I could not possibly work toward, and if we have a proper understanding of God, the first thing that it affects is the way that we worship, right?

That's why our very first vision in our church is to establish God-centered worship and not man-centered. Now, that may seem kind of obvious, maybe, to some of you, but I'm gonna explain the difference between the two, when it's not God-centered, when it's man-centered, when, especially in our generation, where market-driven churches, where if you do this and if you tweak the church this way and if you have small groups this way, more people will come and more people will be happy at church.

First and foremost, if it is a God-centered, God-honoring church, the first question we need to ask is is God honored by doing that, right? So, right worship begins with the right understanding of who God is. That's at the center of what we do, right? So, we can't say that we're come to worship God and not know the God that you're worshiping.

And of the things that we know of who God is, God is not, again, if you have a picture of God as a grandfather that just kinda is okay with sin, if he's kinda like Santa Claus that answers any prayers that you have, then yeah, it's gonna affect the way you understand.

There's gonna be a lot of frustration because your foundation is wrong, right? So, first and foremost, our whole purpose of gathering in our personal being is to give God the glory and give him worship. So, right understanding of God is at the center of that. King David, having a right perspective of God, asked the question, "Why are you so mindful of men?" Modern day, when it's not God-centered, the question we ask is if God is so loving, why does he do this, right?

If God cares, why doesn't he prove it? So, we're always like kinda testing God to see, you know, to live up to it. If he loves me so much, why doesn't he do this for me? If he loves me so much, why doesn't he answer my prayer? But when we have a proper understanding of who God is, the right question that we ought to be asking every single day is, why does he even care, right?

Why does he even care? Who are we and who is God, right? In comparison to knowing who God is, the Bible oftentimes describes us as worm. We're just like a mist that comes and goes, right? Only reason why we're precious is because God chose to make us precious. But independent of that, I mean, if you really think about it, objectively, who are we?

I mean, we're just a mist. Why does he even care? So, the greatest question that any sinner who's saved by the grace of God should be asking all the time is, why does he care? Why does he care to send his only begotten son, right? And that should be the foundation upon everything that we do.

That's the beginning point of true worship. I don't understand why he did what he did for me, but the scripture says he did it and I believe in it, I accept it, and therefore I worship him, right? So, from that moment on, even if you're homeless and sick and hungry for the rest of your lives, you have salvation, correct?

So, our worship should not be contingent upon your bills being paid, having many friends, have been in a certain type of a church. If our worship is contingent upon Jesus and anything else, you've really missed the whole point of worship, right? He gave his only begotten son. Why would a God who is holy, holy, holy send his only begotten son to save a sinner like me?

And then to say, I believe that, and then spend the rest of the time complaining about the bike you didn't get, or car, or the promotion you didn't get, and the people you didn't like. It just kind of doesn't make sense. Something is kind of off, right? So, the very beginning of our relationship with God and at the church, at the core of why we exist is to celebrate this holy, holy God who sent his only begotten son, right?

So, even the very word for worship in English is from a Latin word, we are scipe, which means to give value to something, right? To give value to something. So, by that very definition, we come and worship him because he is worthy. Not necessarily simply because, well, he did, he answered my prayers, and this and that, but by very nature of who he is and who we are, our relationship with creation and creator is to give worship, right?

And J.I. Packer, in his book, Knowing God, says, "Ancient paganism thought of each god "as a bound to his worshippers by bonds of self-interest, "because he depended on their service "and gifts for his welfare. "Modern paganism has at the back of its mind "a similar feeling that God is somehow obliged to love "and help us, little though we deserve it." So, again, our very approach to God, right?

Does it reflect paganism, where it said, well, you know, we're doing this to get something from God, but at the core of our worship is recognizing who he is and that he is worthy of worship, okay? So, again, the definition of worship is something that happens when we encounter something greater than us.

So, if we have a very trivial view of who God is, it will directly affect the way you worship God, right? Worship, by definition, is being in awe in the presence of something mightier and holier than you. So, we worship things that we value. So, if you value basketball superstars, you end up worshiping that.

If you value money, you end up worshiping that. Whatever you think that you give value to is what you end up worshiping, right? So, at the core of what worship means is to recognize the value of who God is, right? So, if the picture of God that we have is a servant running around, like doing whatever we ask him to do, by nature, you're not worshiping him, right?

So, again, why a correct understanding of God is at the core of true worship. Without it, you can't really worship God, right? Again, the greater the object that is being encountered, greater the response in worship, and we are creatures created for this very purpose. So, this is the first, first vision of our church, is that more important than anything else at church, that we want to exalt who he is, and we want people who are coming to church for this reason, right?

Our primary reason why we make decisions on certain things is not so that we can get most people into the door. We are interested in saving souls. We want to encourage people, we want to properly train, all of those things are of interest, but never to do that with this as a compromise, right?

So, our greatest concern week after week is God being exalted, and our people recognizing the God that they worship, right? That our worship is not centered around you, it's not centered around me, it's centered around who he is. So, whatever decisions we make, philosophical things that we change, it's primarily because we think it'll honor God, even if it drives people away, right?

So, again, that's at the core of why we do what we do. By definition of what worship is, it must be God-centered, since God is the one we are coming to encounter. We're not coming to encounter music, we're not coming to encounter the band, or even people, right? And I think it is important, community is very, very important, right?

But I would say that the greatest thing that you should be looking for, let's say you just like, okay, you know, I'm going out of town and I need to look for a church, you know, in Florida or something, like what is the primary thing that you should be looking for?

Is worship, a place where you can go to worship, right? First, that should be your first and foremost, a place where God is exalted, where people see God as the most, very, very high view of God, and then in that context, you wanna find fellowship, who are seeking God in the same manner, right?

But if you go the other way and say, oh, I wanna find friends or community where I can connect with people, and then hopefully those group of friends that I find will be exalting God at the same time, I mean, you're gonna be frustrated because fellowship is linked to this, okay?

So again, I wanted to, again, for those of you who have been at our church for a while and new to the church, you know, again, to, I mean, I wish I could just spend the whole day just talking about the importance of this and why this is so important, but because we are in a market-driven culture, we're growing the church and making it big, and even if it's not making it big, it's just satisfying the needs of the people, right?

Like, what do you need? And then survey the church and see, well, who's unhappy and what are you unhappy about? And then we survey the people, and then we try to fix things so that more people can be happy in the church. That is not our goal in the church, right?

As leaders and as one of the teachers in the church, our primary goal is a lot of times you're unsatisfied because there's something wrong in your heart, right? You might be desiring something that God may not be offering you, right? So I'm not saying that that's always the case, the leaders are not always right, right?

But our primary concern is making sure that we're discipling the church to bring them to Christ first before we're concerned about anything else, okay? So the second vision of our church is to equip the church with God's inerrant word, and so I worded it a different way for the sake of this class, is that we want a God-centered biblical interpretation and application.

We're not going into scripture doing eisegesis, meaning like, what do I want? Like, I want to find comfort, so you look for scripture that's gonna bring comfort, right? I survey our church, and a lot of people are struggling with raising children, so now I'm gonna go look for passages so that I can encourage you in raising children, right?

That's not how we interpret the scripture. Even the way we study the Bible is God-centered, okay? So let me explain to you what that means. The scripture says the word of God is God-breathed. In 2 Timothy 3, 16, all scripture is breathed out by God, right, all scripture is breathed out by God.

It means that his very breath is in his word. So what is the primary way that we encounter this God? Primary way that we encounter this God that we worship is through the scripture, the primary way. Does it mean that God can't reveal himself through circumstances and things that happen in our life?

He can, but the scripture clearly says the avenue in which we encounter God is through his word, right, so remember, again, I'm not gonna go too deep into this because Pastor Mark is gonna cover it next week, but remember Peter, James, and John, when they have an encounter with God at the transfiguration, right, God says, "This is my son in whom I am well pleased," and then when he sees the glory of Christ, what happens to him, right?

They all fall down in fear. Remember we talked about that, the first act of worship when you encounter God, there's trembling and fear, they recognize their sin. Well, that's what happened to the three of them, and afterwards, they're warned. Remember what they were warned not to do? Anybody remember?

After they encounter God, you would expect God to say, "Go tell everybody." Is that what God tells them? He said, "Don't tell anybody," right? He said, "'Cause it wasn't time yet. "It wasn't time to go and exalt him yet." So he kinda keeps it quiet, and then later on in 2 Peter, Peter talks about how his testimony and what he was saying wasn't made up, that he was eyewitness of God saying that, "This is my son," because it was time to exalt him.

But then if you know that passage, again, I should've written it down, but if you look at that passage, the passage says, "But I have something more sure "than the testimony in me hearing his voice." Remember what he says about that? Maybe we should go there. Turn to 2 Peter, okay?

Again, I didn't wanna spend too much time here, 'cause Pastor Mark is gonna talk about this. 2 Peter 1, verse 16. For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, for we were eyewitnesses of his majesty, talking about the transfiguration.

For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was born to him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved son, with him I am well pleased. We ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.

So stop right there. I mean, what can be more reassuring than to know that they're talking to somebody who actually saw and heard this transfiguration? But the interesting thing is, right after that it says, and we have something more sure than what he heard, his own eyes and his own ears.

The prophetic word to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your heart. So I'm just gonna stop right there, because again, like I said, Pastor Mark's gonna spend a little bit more time talking about that next week.

So the primary way that God has ordained for us to encounter this God that we worship is his word. So if you have people who are in the church and fellowshipping and doing all this stuff, but it's not regularly in the word of God, right? You cannot be encountering God, because that's his primary way that God called us to encounter him, right?

That's why it is essential for us. If we're gonna have a God-centered worship, one of the first things that we need to do and recognize is to honor God by having high view of his word, right? His word is lifted up. So that's what we're trying to do at church.

It's not because, well, this church is about missions, this church is about discipleship, this church is about his word. The reason why the word is emphasized in our church is because we're trying to put Christ and God at the center of the church, right? And so we have high view of God, because it is his very breath that it says.

The goal of the church is to make his voice clear and not man's. So I can stand here and talk to you about how to be a good father and how to do this and how to do that. There's nothing necessarily innately wrong with that, but the primary goal of the church, primary goal of the pulpit ought to be to make his voice clear, right?

What does God say? What does the scripture say? He says in John 10, 27, "My sheep hear my voice "and they follow me," right? "My sheep hear my voice and they follow me." So every part of that sentence is about Christ, right? So as ambassadors of Christ, our primary job is to make sure that if you hear anything from the pulpit and from the Bible study, that you hear his voice, that you don't go and say, "That's his opinion or someone else's opinion." And if I say anything that contradicts the scripture, right, we're Bereans, we're supposed to test it, right?

So your confidence doesn't come from certain men or women that you have confidence in, but it's in God's word, right? Why do we do expository preaching? Again, versus topical preaching at church. We wanna make sure that we understand what God's intent in the passage is, not to add our own meaning, okay?

And when we do expository preaching, we're going verse by verse, and we're looking at the context and historical context, that we're trying to understand the meaning behind how they heard it, right? And not to see it as a mystical book that just kind of whatever you get out of it.

And that's the problem that we have with our generation. You have, you know, I hear Donald Trump and Barack Obama and Clinton, like all of them quoting scripture has nothing to do with what that passage says. Because the way that, you know, a lot of the churches approach scripture is, you know, what does it mean for you?

Doesn't matter what it means for you, it matters what did he mean, right? So that's why we do expository preaching, that we wanna first know what did Paul mean? What did God mean when he said this? How did they understand it? And that's why we do it, we teach expository, instead of just topic, you say, I wanna talk about this, and then just pick certain verses.

We also go through scripture, systematically, because we want to make sure that the whole counsel of God is taught and not just select subjects, right? Now, I can honestly tell you, there are certain subjects that I prefer not to talk about. And there are certain things that I'm afraid that if I say it up in the pulpits, some people are gonna interpret it the wrong way.

And there are some times when I would have a conversation, or may have had a heated conversation for many weeks, and then that subject comes up, and I gotta talk about it, you know? Or there are certain sensitive subjects in our culture, in our generation, that I know if I say these things, or if I get on the subject, it's gonna cause a stir in the church, or maybe an outsider may hear it wrong.

But by teaching systematically, I don't have a choice. And for the sake of time, I'm not gonna give you any examples, but I've been preaching on this pulpit, the same pulpit for almost 20 years, and there have been many Sundays, I dreaded, because I saw it coming. Okay, and again, for the sake of time, I will tell you in private, but I'm not gonna say it in public, okay?

There have been times when I saw that coming, and I was kinda like, oh my gosh, when that's coming, what am I gonna say? That person sitting in the room, how are they gonna interpret this, or she's gonna think that I'm talking to her. And then that subject came, and I just had to preach it, because it was coming, unless I just skipped over it.

And there have been many times, and I can honestly tell you, the benefit of doing that is, because I'm a man too, and I have fear, I don't wanna cause controversy, but by preaching and teaching systematically, it forces us to deal with everything. Things that I like, things that I'm good at, things that I'm not good at, so that we get the whole counsel of God.

To make sure that, again, we're exalting Christ, and his word, and not man. And finally, the word of God has final authority in our personal lives, as well as the corporate life of the church. If you ever want to get my attention about something that you really feel dire need to address in the church, Pastor Peter is so stubborn, he won't listen to anything, which may be true, but if you really want to get my attention, bring your Bible, bring your Bible, and show me what convicted you.

If you come to me with your opinions, you're one of 500 other people with opinions, right? And so, you come with your fist shaking, it's like, "Oh, why don't we do this? "How come we don't do this?" Well, I heard you, and I heard another guy who told me exactly the opposite, right?

So, I'm always kinda hearing opinions and voices constantly, so if you really want me to pay attention, you have to open up the Bible and tell me what convicted you to say, or, "Hey, we really need "to address this issue according to Scripture," right? Otherwise, your voice is gonna be just one of many opinions.

Everybody has opinions. You have opinions, I have opinions, person down the street has opinions, right? I've had sermons that I preached, and that same week, sat down with somebody, telling me that our church is gonna be ruined because of the way I preach, and then I had another person sit me down, literally two days later, raving about how they were blessed in that same message, okay?

So, at the end of the day, I have to just keep going. I have to make sure, like, this is what I'm convicted in, and as long as I don't see what you're telling me through Scripture, you're probably not gonna get my attention, 'cause the final authority in my life is the Word of God, and the final authority in our church life is the Word of God, right?

So, if you don't bring the Word of God, all it'll sound like is, I know better than you, I'm smarter than you, and I have everybody else telling me the same thing. So, it's very difficult to pay attention to a lot of people telling me that they're smarter, because I just want to put you guys together, and then figure it out, and then one person represent the church and come to me, right?

But if you really want to get the ear of the leaders, you have to go through the Word of God, because the final authority is His Word. So, as long as you can point to me in Scripture, and point to the leaders in the Scripture, this is what we need to do, then there's nothing that we're doing that can't be changed, if we're doing it wrong, right?

If we're contradicting Scripture, right? And this is true, like, you know, whether it's an issue of homosexuality, women in ministry, there's a lot of topics that are not popular in our generation, and we're becoming more and more of a minority every year, but again, we are not going to move, as long as the Scripture is clear on this subject, right?

We say what we say, because this is what we see in Scripture, and so, if you have any questions about why does our church do this, why does our church do that, first thing I'm gonna do is open up the Scripture and tell you, right? So, if you have a rebuttal to that, that's Scriptural, not cultural, not opinion, not your insight, but Scriptural, then we'll have a good conversation.

Otherwise, I'm just gonna say, that's what the Bible says, okay? (audience member applauds) Church life is also God-centered, so we have God-centered worship, God-centered Bible study, God-centered church, right? Again, the first thing that I wanna emphasize is the gathering of the church is a holy community, because we are the body of Christ, so we have to have a high view of God, high view of Scripture, and high view of the church, right?

So, God doesn't serve us, we serve the church. The church isn't, the Scripture isn't twisted to serve me. I submit to the Scripture. Church does not exist to serve you. We exist to establish the church, okay? Let's make that very clear. The church is a gathering of people who've been saved, who belong to Christ, whose ownership is Christ, and this is where he reigns, right?

This is where he reigns. So, again, the adjustment in attitude that we need to have if we have the wrong attitude toward churches, because we live in a generation where we have every church down the street, it's kinda like a smorgasbord. I like this about this church, so I go there, and if I like it, I serve it for a while, and if I don't like it, I just move on, and then I just, you know, just kinda going through a buffet line, and then you just kinda pick and choose what you want, and then, you know, and I'm kinda exaggerating, but we do live in a generation where the view of the church is like, because everybody's competing to get people to come to their church, so as consumers, we're kinda like, okay, what do you have to offer?

What does this church have to offer? And then it ruins worship, and then it causes the church to be just another avenue for me to get what I want. So if this church doesn't have friends my age, or that church doesn't have this, and then we just go shopping, right?

So if we have a high view of God, high view of His word, the scripture teaches us to have a high view of His church. Right? 1 Corinthians 3, 16, and 17, there was a division in the Corinthians church, and so Paul is dealing with this division, and he says, "Do you not know that you," and the you here is in plural, referring to the body of Christ, okay?

"Do you not know that you are God's temple, "and that God's Spirit dwells in you?" So let me stop right here. What did the temple mean to a Jew? It was the most sacred place, right? It was the most sacred place that you couldn't just enter in and out.

There are certain people, if you had any kind of defect, if you were a Gentile, if you had any kind of disease, if you were on your monthly flow, I mean, all kinds of things, you couldn't enter the temple. So the temple to a Jew was the most holiest of place.

So when Paul says to the Corinthians, "That you, your body now, not the physical temple, "but your gathering, your church, is the temple of God," immediately, any Jew would have understood this as sacred. Where does the sacredness first appear in the scripture to teach us about the sacredness of the church?

In the book of Acts. Anybody? What does it appear? Ananias and Sapphira, right? In Acts chapter, I'm not gonna read the whole thing, but basically they lie to the church, and Peter condemns them, and they fall down and die. Right? I mean, it's like, oh my gosh, what's the sacredness of the church, right?

And as a result of the capital punishment that comes upon this couple, it says that all the disciples were afraid to be around the apostles. So you're talking about a seeker-friendly church, I mean, these guys were exactly the opposite, right? They put fear in the people. And we don't have apostles today, so you don't have to worry about people dying, you know, at least not in that way.

But they put fear in the people because they were trying to teach the early church the sacredness of the gathering. And so when that came upon them, it says people were so afraid that they wouldn't want to associate with the apostles, and yet the Lord was adding to the number.

Daily, those were being saved, right? So they weren't coming to church because it was safe. They were coming to church because they recognized that that's where the Spirit of God dwelt, right? And so that church that was established and built in the early church, we are connected to that church.

So obviously, the sacredness of the church is extremely important, right? 1 Peter 2.9, "You are a chosen race, "a royal priesthood, a holy nation." And again, understand that word holy as we learned it from Scripture. "A people for his own possession, "that you may proclaim the excellencies of him "who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." So it's not just the pastor, it's not just the Bible, but it's the church itself, right?

You and I have become holy, right? Individually, we have become holy. 1 Corinthians 6.19 also talks about us being the temple, but again, in 1 Corinthians 3.16, he's talking about the body of Christ. So high view of the church, right? And this is why we practice church membership. Again, I'm not gonna read that.

You can just jot that down. 1 Corinthians 12.12-15, "Just as the body is one "and has many members, and all of the members of the body, "though many are one body, so it is with Christ." So this, again, is the body of Christ. And the reason why we practice membership is because a church should not be a place where you just come in and out, right?

Saying, "I wanna be part of this body one day, "and that body the next day, "and then the body down the street the other day." So we practice membership to recognize that these are the people who have committed to the local body of Christ, right? Now, I didn't put it down here because, again, we're gonna go into a little bit more detail later on when we're on the subject of the church.

But there's a universal church, the unseen church, and then the local church, right? Universal church is the unseen church of all believers. Everywhere, that's the universal church. That's the true church. But that universal church is expressed through the local church. We don't have membership in the universal church other than our belief in Christ, right?

But the actual living out and obedience in that universal church is always expressed through the local church. So Ephesians 4, 15 to 16, "From him the whole body joined and held together "by every supporting ligament grows "and builds itself up in love "as each part does its work." So God has gifted every single person so that we may use that for what purpose?

To exalt yourself? To exalt God by yourself? No. He said each gift was given so that you can play your part in building the body of Christ. So you're only playing a part, right? Whatever part that may be, whether you're a foot or your hand, you're playing a part.

So if you're not part of the church, you can be doing stuff, but you're not building the church, right? Again, I just took some sample verses and I'm not gonna read it all out to you, but it says Romans 12, "To be devoted to one another, "live in harmony with one another, "instruct one another, serve one another, "submit to one another, teach one another, "encourage one another, spur on one another, "show hospitality toward one another, "clothe yourself with humility toward one another, "love one another." So everything that we see in scripture is to be practiced with one another.

And the one another, every one of these letters are written to who? Right? With the, to churches. Not universal church, but to local churches, right? Typically it was delivered to the elder and the elder would read it to the church that he's with. Right? So you can't practice Christianity outside of the church.

There is no one another. You don't know what your gift is outside the church, right? You can go outside the church and say, my gift is in singing, but if the church doesn't confirm that that's your gift, you can say whatever you want. Right? You can say, you know, I'm so good with hospitality.

And everybody around you say, no. (audience laughing) You know what I mean? I'm so humble, no. (audience laughing) You know, I really love to give, no. Right? How do we know what kind of gifts God has given us and what we're good at, what we're not good at, or even our weaknesses?

You know, most of what is taught about choosing elders, being hospitable, and not being a drunkard, all of that stuff is tested in the community that you belong. Right? So let me say this on a side note. If you have been getting consistent complaints from various people about the same thing, and every time you hear it, you're always saying those people are unfair, right?

There's a great chance that that's your blind spot. There's a great chance that there is an issue with you that you just refuse, your pride just would not allow it to yield, right? So sanctification oftentimes happens in the context of a community. In fact, not often, all the time, right?

That's why when people come to church, initially they love it because everybody's so nice and you don't know each other's sin. But real sanctification happens when you're sick of each other, right? No, that's when sanctification happens. Real sanctification happens when all of a sudden it's hard to love these people.

There's certain people that rub you the wrong way, there's certain people who don't behave the way that you want them to behave. That's when your graciousness, that's when your patience, your temperance, that's when hospitality, your love, all of that, that's when it's tested, right? Sanctification happens when you're rubbing each other.

So tell me somebody who doesn't know how to love somebody who's lovable. Right? I mean, you're just a miserable fool if that's the case. I mean, Christians and non-Christians alike, if you have somebody lovable at work, I bet you they receive a lot of love, right? Somebody who's gracious and loving, I mean, everybody knows how to do that.

It's the love that Christ calls us to love is unlike the love of the world. That's why he puts us in the context of a church. And again, if you're in a habit of running from people that rub you the wrong way because of certain things, then there's a huge blind spot even in your life, right?

There's an area that you're not growing in and you refuse to grow in because you refuse to submit to that. So the body of Christ is given to us, again, ultimately for the worship of God, but for our own sanctification, right? 'Cause I guarantee you, if you're around people and they know you long enough, they're gonna know your weak spot.

And if they know your weak spot, they're sinners, so they're gonna point at that too, right? But that's what causes us to grow. Okay, we practice accountability, right? Again, several scriptures, I'm not gonna go through all of them, it talks about purging the evil person from among you. Again, in our generation, the idea of church discipline is so foreign because we've taught and preached grace to the point where the holiness of God sounds very strange in the church, right?

But again, when you see it from top down, when God-centered worship, God-centered scripture, God-centered church, high view of the church, then we can understand why God tells us to keep the church holy, right? And again, this is not to say, go around and point out everybody's sin. When a sin is elevated to the extent that it's not only harmful to them, it starts to be harmful to the church and they're unrepentant, then it is elevated to church discipline, right?

So we practice accountability in the church. And this, again, accountability happens two ways. One is when it's elevated to that extent and the church leaders need to get involved officially, but the real accountability on the day-to-day basis where we don't just sweep sin under the rug, right? Like if somebody sins, it's pretty obvious, and you're concerned for them, it is not loving to just turn the other way, right?

If you have somebody you care about, your son or daughter or your brother or sister or mom or dad, is headed down the path that's destructive to them, it is not loving to look the other way and pretend like that's not happening, right? And typically in a church like this, you can feel safe, like, oh, I'm glad that the leaders practice church discipline.

There's only about five or six of us, right? If the church is going to be viewed highly, the church members have to practice accountability in love, right? If you practice accountability with people you don't like, that's not accountability. That's vengeance, right? That's judgmentalism, that's gossip, right? We're talking about people that are close to you, they're your friends, the people that are very awkward for you to bring up, right?

Especially those people, those are the people that you need to keep accountable because everybody has blind spots. So if the community is only dependent on the leaders to point out sin, there's no way that the church is gonna remain holy, right? So there needs to be accountability in the lives of the people when you see it.

Again, when you point out sin, the purpose of this is not to say, hey, you're sinning, I pointed out, I did my job, right? The purpose of that is to turn them from their sin and then point them back to Christ, and that we have a community of believers that actually try to practice that.

Again, there's a fine line between being judgmental and practicing grace and love by speaking the truth in love, but that's part of sanctification, learning how to do that and do that well, right? (pages rustling) Okay, so we are accountable to each other, Joshua 7, 16 to 18, okay? You can just write it down, look at it later.

This is where God is judging the nation of Israel because of a man named Achan. He took certain things that God told him not to touch in the city of Jericho, and as a result of that, they get judged. And so when God is ready to judge him, he doesn't just say, "Achan, you come out." If you notice, he goes through, he brings the whole nation of Israel out, right?

It's because of this one guy's sin. One guy's sin, over a million people have to stand in line, and then out of all of Israel, he calls out Judah because that's the tribe he comes from, and then from there, he calls the clan of the Zerrites, and then from there, he calls the family of Zimri, and then from there, he calls the family, and then ultimately, he gets to Achan.

So why does he go through all of that drama, a million people to call out this one guy, right? And we see this consistently throughout scripture because God sees us in communities, right? Are we our brother's keepers? Yes, we're accountable to each other. If somebody is living in sin and you choose to ignore that, right?

That's just like if something is happening to, like my children are doing something and the older brother and younger brother, and you say, "Ah, it's his problem, he doesn't care." There's some responsibility to the older brother for not caring enough to say something or do something, right, it's because we see, there's a perfect illustration of this in how God deals with sin of Achan in this particular passage.

And this is, again, why biblical leadership is so important, right? In 1 Timothy 3, two, and Titus gives a list of qualifications of an elder. Obviously, he must be a Christian, right? That's a given. But there's all these other, like he must be above reproach, basically meaning that there's no accusation that can be brought against him.

Husband of one wife, that he needs to be proven at home. And so all these other qualities. And then he says, "Make sure that he's not a recent convert "because the greatest concern of leadership "that he may become puffed up and conceited "and fall into condemnation of the devil." Right?

So one of the most important qualification of an elder that he is not going to get to his head because once it gets to his head, what happens? His whole calling is to serve the church and to magnify Christ. But if somebody stands in between pointing to Christ and then he wants some of the glory, right, what happens?

He can't do his job, right? So one of the greatest, he said, "You don't put in newcomers because the greatest fear "is that he may become conceited and become proud." And then that in and of itself would disqualify all of this because he's doing all of this for his own glory, right?

So if a church is to glorify God, we need men who are gonna be humbled and not take the glory and give the glory to God, right? And that's why we follow biblical mandate of leadership. No matter how gifted you are or talented or how respected you are in society, if we are first and foremost, like we're talking about on Sunday, not broken, not humbled, and not compassionate, right?

At some point, that's gonna manifest in the leadership. So that's the first thing that, again, in order to glorify God. Communion, baptism. Just shout it down. I'm just gonna pass by this for the sake of time. Okay. God-centered evangelism, and I'm gonna talk about this and then we'll end it tonight, okay?

God-centered evangelism and not man-centered. Man-centered evangelism attempts to make the gospel the most attractive to the most people. God-centered evangelism focuses on representing God and his message accurately, right? So we don't change the message, we don't change the method, simply because it works, right? Our primary goal is to make sure that what he meant in the scripture is presented accurately, right?

What happens when you have evangelism that's man-centered? Highlight the positive and kind of sweep under the rug the negative, and so what's the negative? Judgment, right? Commitment. Anything that you think a modern man would not be interested in talking about hell, right? Things that are hard to explain, so we just kind of dummy those things down and then just kind of highlight the good stuff, right?

God loves you, you know, like God loves you unconditionally. So we end up highlighting, and all of that is true, but we end up kind of taking certain things out, taking the edges of the gospel away, and then so they hear a partial gospel, right? So the goal of evangelism, again, in me speaking, God-centered, not man-centered, right?

Man-centered evangelism ends justify any means, right? So they'll use all kinds of means. If that's gonna get people to church, we'll try it, right? If we do this and tweak this and do this, and if we have the right people here doing that, if we had enough money, right?

And the God-centered evangelism emphasizes the fact that God has ordained the means as well as the ends, and that's why in John chapter 15, he said, if you wanna bear fruit, what does he say? Remain in me, abide in me, right? So when the Holy Spirit, when we abide in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is gonna cause us to bear fruit, right?

So it is not by being clever, by new methods, and I'm always weary when I get invitations to either conferences or some seminar, and they found a new way. I mean, it's the old way, the way we used to do evangelism 20 years ago is no longer relevant today, and now we have a new relevant thing, and then another 15 years later, they're gonna find another new relevant thing that we're gonna do, you know?

If you look at scripture, God constantly points backward. He doesn't point forward. The only time he points forward is to tell us that end's coming, right? That Jesus is gonna come and judgment is gonna come and heaven is gonna come. That's the only time he points forward. Every time he points backwards to show, remember, remember who I am, remember what I did, remember how I delivered Egypt, not Egypt, but Israel, right?

Remember when I was faithful to you, remember. So our means in bringing people to Christ should be no different than what the apostles did. Our message should be no different than the early church, right? And I know that, again, humanly speaking, we think like, well, you know, we have people with MBAs and marketing degrees and all this stuff and contract people.

Yes, do those things work? It works, right? If you have a master's in marketing, those techniques will work to bring people to church, but it's absolutely useless to bring people to Christ. It's absolutely useless to bring people to Christ. There's no, God wasn't waiting for people to get an MBA so that we can do evangelism effectively, right?

He says when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will be my witnesses, right? That's why these fishermen who knew nothing, who were uneducated, was able to rock the world because the Holy Spirit was upon them and they were remaining in Christ. So why is that any different today, right?

Why do we all of a sudden, 2,000 years later, that we found something new, right? And again, I'm not saying that we shouldn't be sophisticated. I'm not saying that all of that stuff is absolutely useless, but at the core of how we understand bare fruit, that ultimately, God gets the glory, right?

It wasn't because, you know, got a doctor of ministry and how to do ministry and learned all the new techniques that all the great churches are doing, and if we applied that, that our church is gonna be greater. Yeah, it may help you feel better. It may help to bring maybe cohesiveness and help us to communicate better, and none of that is evil, none of that is bad, but it's absolutely useless to bring people to Christ, right?

Because the only thing God has ordained to bring people to Christ is to preach Christ crucified, in season and out of season, okay? Man-centered evangelism focuses on profession. If they say they accept, that's enough. God-centered evangelism focuses on conversion, right? When people encounter God and there's an actual conversion.

And when I say conversion, I'm talking about not just your thoughts, your life, your profession, your affection, your love, what you pursue, there's actual conversion that takes place. Man-centered evangelism focus on a better life here. If you believe in God, you know, these things will happen, God will answer your prayer, maybe he'll bless your family and your business, but God-centered evangelism always focuses on a better eternity.

But like I said, every time God points to the future, it's always to tell us that there's hope at the end, right? And so the purpose of preaching the gospel and being Christ-centered and God-exalting is that we wanna make sure that, one, that in the church that God is exalted, not man, right?

But secondly, whatever fruit that we bear, that we want that to be true fruit, right? We don't want that to be kind of fruit that church is growing because of these methods that we're implementing in the church, right? Again, don't get me wrong, I don't have any problem with methods.

Some of you are much better at communication and all this stuff, and I hope that you would use your gifts to help the church, but at the core, if you're asking me, like I have so many hours of the week, how to invest my time, I will always invest my time to His word, right, to His word and what the word of God says, right?

Instead of running around trying to attend seminars to see the latest method, whatever it is working, right? 'Cause like I said, I think I've shared this so many times, I figured out very early on how to grow a church, right? And you can disagree with me, but it's pretty simple.

It's pretty simple, right? Make sure you have the best looking people at the welcome tables, right? If you want a young, single crowd that want to come and get hit, make sure you have all the nicest and the welcoming people at the welcome table when they come in. And then what kind of sermon I give, that sermons have to be simple, it has to be funny, it has to be encouraging, right?

And if I stick to that principle, keep the sermon short, keep the sermon simple and keep it funny, funny like so that people, "Oh, I love it, "I want to hear him again," right? And then keep them coming, right? And the church will grow, like in number, it'll grow, right?

But all it is doing is attracting nominal people to the church, right? They're gonna have to put in their time anyway, it's just like going to traffic school. I gotta do it anyway, might as well go to a comedy one. You know what I mean? I have to go to church anyway, might as well go to one that I like the people, and the sermons are short, you know what I mean?

And it's encouraging. So it's not drawing people who wants to meet Christ, right? It's not, so we don't want to have a church where we're drawing people. If people are coming because they love Christ and that's the primary reason why they come, right? Then yes, it should grow. It should grow in the hundreds and thousands and even beyond, right?

But only if it's because they're coming to meet Christ. All right, I'm gonna end it here, and then Pastor Mark is gonna take it over for us. So this just kinda is, this is the kind of like the pattern that we're gonna have. We're gonna teach the core lesson and then the ramification of that in the church.

And so part of the reason why we're having this class is so that we can bring everybody on the same page and realize like, oh, okay, this is why we do what we do. So next one that we're gonna be covering is the Word. And we're gonna get into a little bit more of hermeneutics and how to study the Bible.

How do we, if we're going to make it God-centered, like how do we understand what God is saying? And again, it may be review for a lot of you, but we wanna make sure that not just the elders and the staff is studying the Bible. We want the whole church to be able to go into the Word and study it themselves as well.