You didn't bring like a phone with you or have a peripheral. We sent the handout via electronic copy on the email. But if you want to write on something, I placed some blank pieces of paper on the back table and you guys can get up and get those now.

Or if you're near the front on this table in the front, I have some blank pieces of paper too. And while you guys get a little bit situated, it's a good opportunity to kind of highlight some of our announcements that we have for this week. For those of you who are new to the church or you have friends who are, our membership class, the basis of Christianity is starting this Sunday.

Okay, so 930. All they have to do is bring their Bible and pen and meet in the back room of the office. Also for the new visitors, we have a welcome lunch this Sunday after church at one. So again, if you have friends who are new to the church, encourage them to come.

I just want to also highlight that two things, the Thanksgiving potluck is taking place on the 20th, so please make sure you mark your calendars and that you sign up to bring something. The signup is going to go out on email, but it's also on our Facebook site as well.

And lastly, as you know, the holiday outreach ministries are happening. If you have any questions about those things, please contact Grace Kim. And there's like a list of those things also on the Facebook as well. Okay. All right. So again, apologies for not having the handout. We had some technical issues with the printer.

So okay. So, so far, um, the, this, the series of classes that we've been taking, we've been talking about a high view of God initially. Remember and recall that we talked about the greatness of his power, the greatness of his majesty, the greatness of his glory to the degree that in so many occasions through the, throughout history, mankind would be in fear of him.

They'd have experiences where if people approached him, however they wanted, there would be consequences for those things. Right? So we learned about the greatness of God. And then underneath that, it was the idea then if God is so holy, then his word that proceeds from him is holy as well.

That the word of God then is deserving of the kind of attention, right? The kind of clarity, the desire to obey just as God himself is deserving because of his greatness. Well, today as we kind of follow along with that, we're going to jump now into a new topic about the church.

That namely, if God being so holy and for lack of better words, like God being so great, if he is so great, then so is the place where he desires to be present, namely the church. Right? If God is so great, then anything that is his is great as his word is and so is his church.

And so as we talk about transitioning into the next couple of series, I wanted to make that connection that appropriately when we think about the church, we have to think about it appropriately in light of God because this is his church. Amen? Now in thinking about the church, we want to title today's lesson, the right view of his church, a high view.

Okay? And the reason why I thought of it like that, because I could have just said a high view is I didn't want to, I wanted to make the case in point that we're not just trying to elevate and push this as like, hey, this is something that our church has as one theological point that we always push.

My point with that and entitling this the right view, the high view is to say that what is appropriate, clear, and correct is to have a high view of God's church, right? That what is appropriate, clear, and correct is to have a high view of the church. Now I want to begin with a little bit of a participation with us.

There are many metaphors in the Bible for the church, right? Metaphors meaning naming out one, a family, okay? That the collective believers that are assembled together, that they're called various things in an illustrative way using metaphors. If you guys can just throw out whatever comes to mind right now, okay?

Let's just throw them out and list the various metaphors that the Bible uses to describe the church. So we have got the family, what else? The bride of Christ, what else? The body of Christ, what else? There's a bunch more. The temple, excellent. Connected to the Old Testament, God calls the church the temple.

In fact, he makes it a point to say you are the temple, right? And it shall be holy. What else? There's more, there's lots more. So what was that? Children? Building, excellent. Building, okay, definitely. In the book of Ephesians, it talks about this building that's being pieced together, okay?

And the chief cornerstone being Christ. There's other illustrations between our relationship and Christ and how it describes the New Testament body of believers. Excellent, Jesus is the good and great shepherd and we are his sheep. Connected to the temple, those who are serving are the priests, right? We're called a priesthood.

Think about this, we're even called like a nation, so to speak. We are a people, right? We're even called in a sense a kingdom, where Christ is the king and we are his kingdom. And the list could actually go on in the way that the scriptures describes the church, the New Testament body of believers.

Now some of these metaphors can be applied to, again, the collective body of believers in the New Testament as a whole, but then other of these metaphors really speak highly of the local community, the church, right? Now all of this coming together gives us a very vibrant and dynamic picture of the church.

So by way of application, when you see something described, not in just one way, but not in just two, three ways, but you see something described in so many illustrative terms, you realize that this is incredibly important, right? So I want to make an application to you that there are things in the Bible to which God wanted to make so clear, so emphatic, that he doesn't just repeat it in redundancy, he gives vibrant illustration.

And so what we're supposed to do by application is we're supposed to appreciate the beauty, the richness of the church, right? You're supposed to look into the depths of the church. You're supposed to be engaged and involved in the life of the church. So what I'm saying is, think about this for a moment.

What else in our modern day do we give lots of different terms and illustrations and maybe even more like slang words for? In my mind, when I was asking myself that question, there's only two things that come to mind. Love and money, okay? Love and money. Where money can be talking like cheddar, you know, the dough, whatever it may be.

You have all these like different terms for money. And then with love, there's all these different terms, right? And especially with different songs. Your love is like this, like a river. Your love is like that. Your love is like the morning sunrise. And then we have terms for the one that we love, you know?

Shall I compare thee to a midsummer day or whatever it may be, right? Or mid-November day. It's like crazy hot out these days. All I'm saying is, when there's something that is very important, especially important to us, we tend to illustrate and use so many terminologies. My point is to God, the church is so important.

It's His, it is His love. It's described as His bride. And so therefore, I want to reiterate that point, is do you have an appreciation for the New Testament church as God would, right? Or as God views the church? And so I want to start off there and say this.

So when something is precious, when something is valuable, what ends up happening is there's a weightiness, okay? There's a weightiness. So on the outline, the first point should have been the metaphors of the church, application is we appreciate the richness, and now we're coming to this idea that when it's rich like that, when it's precious like that, there is a weightiness.

There is a weightiness. Do you guys remember that when we were studying the doctrines of God, we said that God was glorious, right? And some of these terms are really big and lofty, and sometimes it's hard for us to grasp. What does that mean? Like glory, you know? And the thing about it is, in the Hebrew term, it meant weighty, weighty, right?

And so I want us to think about that, that there is a sense to which the New Testament church, the local church, has a weightiness about it because of its preciousness. Weightiness referring to its great value. Weightiness referring to its kind of, you know, the way that we should approach it, right?

Where it's not just a common thing. Common things like, for example, the pens that you have. Seriously, people, like, they buy boxes of pens and they go through it like nothing. Why? Because it's so common. But then there are things where we don't treat it as common. It's not your everyday thing.

Likewise, the church is described that way. Okay? So, one of the passages that I would like us to turn to, we're going to flip to a lot of passages as we're doing kind of a topical study here. Please turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 16 through 17. 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 16 through 17.

This passage to us teaches us that there is this weightiness about the church. Okay? Now, as you guys turn there, you guys know that there has, the church in Corinth, although it was a rapidly growing church in a really, like, a pivotal location, it had lots of problems. And a lot of the problems began with, there were divisions and there were, you know, fractions within the church.

And then this is what Apostle Paul says, verse 16 through 17. Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him for God's temple is holy and you are that temple. Right? So when you look at that passage, do you feel a sense of weightiness even in the tone?

In that passage, it gives a definition, almost a definition describing the essence of the church. You are a temple. And the essence of it is that you are a temple having the spirit, the presence of the spirit in you and you are holy. You are to be holy. But what's contained in it also in that little phrase or in that little verse is also a warning, right?

There's a warning of, and you better not seek to diminish or destroy this temple. Otherwise, what? I will destroy you. And so within that, there's almost a heavy weightiness. Now in order for us just to kind of get the sense of it for the sense of effect, I want to share with you that sometimes I have fantasies and I think a lot of the guys might relate to this.

I don't know if the sisters might, but I have what's called a hero fantasy. Have you ever shared that? The hero fantasy where essentially like as I'm driving or something and I kind of get lost in daydreaming, I started imagining that there's this goon, you know, it's like, I don't know, like an eye patch or something coming after my family.

And he's like, I'm going to come get you, you know, or it's just some guy who's happened to threaten my, the wellbeing of my wife. Maybe he's hitting on her or maybe he's, you know, acting all, acting up in front of her and whatnot. And then my hero fantasy comes in.

You know what I'm talking about? Where it's just like, he didn't see me coming, but all of a sudden I come in like, that's my wife. And then, and then like in my fantasy, like the brothers all of a sudden jump in and they're holding me back. It's like, you better not let me see you here, man.

And then like in my fantasy, I'm the, I'm the hero. You guys never, ever. I have those hero fantasies a lot when I'm saving my kids or I'm saving my wife, that kind of thing. You know, I don't know, you know, if that, that verse should be taken in that way, but there's definitely a sense of all the metaphors that we're talking about.

He talks about the church as his precious children. He talks about as his household, right? He says he uses even that term household. And then he talks about the church as his bride and apostle Paul says this bride should be kept pure for God, right? Then do we dare test whether God's threat, you know what I mean?

Is real. Do we dare test whether that's actually a serious thing or not? And that's what I'm talking about here is the church is precious in God's eyes and we should have a high view then of what is God's, right? We should have a high view of what is God's.

So therefore when you, when you think about it that way, that this is, this is God's thing described in so many different metaphors, household, children, flock, all that kind of stuff. And then you realize that all of this is a love service terms. It is incredibly precious to the eyes of God.

And then we're supposed to have likewise that weightiness when you approach it. Like somebody who passes you, recently there's been so many newborn babies and they pass it to you. It's like, Oh, she's so cute. You know, like you don't handle like that. Why? Because obviously in the immediate context, it's a precious baby.

So you approach it. If you're six, like, Oh, I'm sick. I shouldn't even be near that. Right? So that's the kind of thing that we want to talk about here in application. Then when you realize that the church is God's designed, you know, God ordained precious entity, then how should we approach it in application?

Well, there's tons, there's tons of application, right? Let me hear some real quick. If we're supposed to have a high view of the local church, what are some applications that just automatically come from that automatically flow from a high view of the church? You guys can just kind of yell it out.

You should go there. What else? Serve. Excellent. Even dress, how you approach it externally, expression wise. What else? Yes. We're talking about the body. Okay. Let me highlight a couple that I wrote down. Obviously there again, there's tons of applications, but let me highlight a couple. I share this sometimes in BCC class and you guys might have heard me say it, but we should be careful about just criticizing the church brazenly.

Right? And I highlight that a little bit because there was a time when I was learning like, Oh, this is biblical ministry. And then all of a sudden I found myself like, and that church and that church and that church like, you know, and then you realize, imagine this, there are a lot of new parents, you know, in our church and stuff like that.

And sometimes babies cry. And then you look over, it's like, why are they crying, spoiled brat? And you just like say stuff like that without thinking about what the parents are thinking. Right? And you might have this attitude of like, well, what? He's crying. You know? But is that actually mature?

No, it's not a right understanding. It's not a right understanding of who the parent is, who the baby is to that parent. Likewise, we shouldn't be just outlandishly criticizing the church, this and that and this and that, because every church has problems and we are a work in progress that God is building in this mysterious way.

God is building the church and he's given it time to develop and mature with all of its faults. Another one, there's a passage in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 10 to 13. You guys should be already kind of close to there, right? Let me read it for us. 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 10 to 13 says this, "According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation and someone else is building upon it.

Let's each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become manifest, for the day will disclose it because it will be revealed by fire and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done." Okay?

So here, the admonition is really clear, right? Let's be very careful how we build this church. Now in more modern days, in recent times, there have been so many conferences and so many opinions. "Hey everybody, every pastor, let's get together and let's talk about how to make this thing work.

Let's talk about what are some innovative ways that we can do X, Y, and Z. Is that bad and wrong? No it's not." But why is that the first thought? Shouldn't the first thought be, "How does God want this thing to function? What does God desire? What kind of body does He desire and want?

What kind of bride is He building us to be?" Why is the first question like, "Hey, let's make this thing work somehow." And in all my honest opinion, I mean, I think people should just stop kind of thinking that they want to do grand, innovative stuff like, "Hey, we just need to move this into another era." Because essentially, the church has been trying to do the same thing for hundreds and hundreds of years.

Glorify and love God. Now again, are some of those questions wrong or wicked or something? No. But upon the wrong priority and wrong sequence, it can lead you astray. Here's another one. We definitely have to desire to keep the church pure. To keep the church as pure as possible.

If you flip over to 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 15 through 16. Okay, 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 15 through 16. Apostle Paul is addressing the issue of sexual immorality. And then he says this, "Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?

Do you not know that he who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her?" Now he is talking about the individual sin of eliciting prostitution. But then the metaphor that he's using is, "Do you not realize that you are one member of the collective body?" That the individual sin of sexual immorality is what is causing the church as a collective body to be sexually immoral, right?

And he's saying, "How can this be in the body of Christ?" And so I want us to realize that our individual sin is contributing to the purity of the whole, right? And so we have to make sure that we keep those things in mind. Now again, those are just some of the things that I'm highlighting.

But the applications can keep going on. If we view the church in a high light, you know, in the kind of appropriate way, there are tons of applications that we can think of. Now I want to switch gears here and say this. We're talking a little bit about how God has designed things to be.

What is his intention for the church, right? Well I want to say this statement, I'm going to repeat it twice. God's design is that through the church, the fullness of Christ would be proclaimed. God's design is that through the church, the fullness of Christ would be proclaimed. This is summarized in Ephesians chapter 3, verses 7 through 13.

Ephesians chapter 3, verses 7 through 13. I'm going to read this for us here, Ephesians 3, verses 7 through 13, and it says this. Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given me by the working of his power. To me though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to bring to life for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things so that, look at this, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers, the authorities, and the heavenly places.

This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory. So when I said that there's a purpose in the church to proclaim, this passage summarized that beautifully.

That through the church God is making known the mysteries and the wisdom of God, not just to the four nations, but to the whole universe. And this was the plan of God from the beginning, he says. This was eternally his plan. Does that not up the kind of value and weightiness of the church?

That God has this intricate, long, and vast plan to use the church to proclaim his glory, right? Here's another verse that you guys should turn to. It comes from Ephesians chapter one, verses 15 through 23. Okay? It's a little bit longer paragraph, but let's read that. Ephesians chapter one, verses 15 through 23, and it says this, "For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love towards all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom, of revelation, and the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you.

What are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us who believe, according to the working of his great might, that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at the right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come.

And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. And the reason why I pulled together that entire paragraph is because he's praying that we understand the depth of God's redemptive plan.

He wants to understand the depth of the blessing that is in Christ. And then he says this church is the fullness of Christ. He says essentially here that all things have been given over to him, and then he says all things, he is head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him.

Right? So earlier when I say that God's meticulous plan is to proclaim the fullness of Christ, right? You see that he almost identifies one and one that the church is the fullness. It's expression, but because we are fully under his reign, because we're fully under his grace, because everything we are is saturated with who he is and our entire identity is wrapped up in him, the church collectively is proclaiming Christ's work, Christ being, his nature, his hope, everything found in Christ.

Here is where that is expressed. So what am I saying? So therefore you do realize that what we are participating in has an incredible high calling. I want to remind us about Moses, who we recalled before. Moses was a spokesperson for God, and as he was delivering the nation of Israel out of Egypt, he spoke as God's representative.

So God told Moses, "You will be like God to them." Meaning, you're going to carry God's word to these people and lead them. You're going to show them God's way. Now remember, when they were whining and griping, Moses would pray, then Moses would deliver the word. But that one time when Moses was supposed to talk to the rock so that people would have refreshing water, she got angry and he took the stick and he slapped the stick.

And then remember those words when God says, "You did not regard me as holy." That whole drama of water pouring out from the rock, God could have made water gush out from Moses' mouth. God could have just filled everybody's mouth with water like this, and be like, "Oop." Or God could have just hydrated their bodies.

God could have done a million things. But God made a representation of how he was going to provide living water for them. In messing up the glorious representation, Moses was judged. What am I saying? The church has a huge calling to proclaim the fullness of Christ. The fullness of him.

And so when we haphazardly, "I don't care. I don't know. Everybody in the church is doing this, but I don't care. Whatever this is my sin, you shouldn't care this is me." None of those attitudes call into recollection what God is doing through his church. Does that make sense?

And so we have to remember that God, because of the proclaiming and what work he is doing through the church, that there is something vital going on. We have to have a high view of the calling we have when we are a church. So therefore, as application. Application of that.

So when we have worship services, when we have baptism services, when we have communion services, you do realize that these things that we do together, these are corporate times of worship unto God. And as we do that, we're both giving God an offering corporately together. But we're also expressing the spiritual truth.

God is deserving of all our worship. And so when it comes down to worship services, yeah, we're going to try to be as intentional as possible that the message that is given to you is very clearly from God. And what we're doing as a church expresses this is what we believe about God.

And now sometimes, let's think about this for a moment. You guys have probably heard some people say like, "Hey, you know, we're a no-frills church." No-frills meaning we don't have like crazy ornaments and we don't have like crazy like color mood changing backdrops and all that kind of stuff.

Maybe we'll get it one day. I don't know. The thing about it is, are we dedicated to no-frills? Like, is that what, you know, the elders and the leadership at this church like, "Hey, our ambition was to be plain because we just like vanilla." You know? We don't want like strawberry shortcake and stuff.

We just want vanilla because, you know, I don't know. Is that what you or anybody think of why we are the way we are? And obviously the answer is no. Because primarily speaking, it's not about the flavor of anybody, right? That worship, part of the reason why sometimes we don't do other stuff is because if we believe that it's going to take away or detract from the attention of stuff, if it's going to take away from the core, what's central, meeting with God, praising, listening to His Word and worshiping, then we don't need it.

Right? And so I'm going to tell you honestly, sometimes what's really annoying is people always wanting to do other stuff with church. When people ask, "Why don't we do this? Why don't we do that? Why don't we do this?" It's like, okay, I mean, if that's promoting what we believe to be biblically sound for the church, what's promoting faith, love and affection for Christ, then amen.

But if we're just doing that because we want to be like another church, we're just doing that because it's not palatable to the flavor desire of our generation and the millennials or whatever it may be, it just doesn't matter. You know? And I know right now maybe I'm sounding a little bit like I'm frustrated by that, but I'm going to be honest, when I try these days to read up on articles where like, and I try to read up on, let's say, blogs by guys who are young and like guys who are like in growing churches and stuff, just so I know what's going on.

And then I find myself frustrated. I find myself frustrated because as I see their mentality, I almost wonder like, do you forget who the boss of this church is? Whoever walks into somebody else's company and says, "Let's do this, this, and this." Or walks into somebody's house and says, "Let's paint that wall purple because I love purple." Nobody does that.

You see what I'm saying? And so you can expect, you can expect that for the church in terms of its services, what's happening in the church is not going to be simply, as Apostle Paul put it, the foundations of gold, silver, wood, and hay. It's going to be the foundations of Christ.

And likewise with baptisms and communions, the baptisms have to represent this focus on the unity with Christ, being buried with him and resurrected. It's a celebration of a new identity. The communion should celebrate, or like remember the work of Christ and celebrate his coming. It should be a feast, right?

And all these things should be done intentionally, not haphazardly, not just because like, "Mm, you're turning about 16, let's get you dunked." I mean, that's, I feel like, I feel kind of sad. I kind of like grieve over the fact that some people have those experiences. It shouldn't be practiced that way, but rather intentionally expressing the truth behind them.

Those practices should be done with a reverence for God, for the church, and the message that it preaches. Amen? The next, how much time do we have here? Okay, in the next 10 minutes, we're going to hit a last point. Okay? So, as you see that, there's a passage that I want to share with you that's given me a lot of conviction and sobriety that as the church is so important, right?

And that we should have this appropriate view of the church. Apostle Paul then calls upon leaders to take care of the flock. For the sake of time, I'm just going to read it for us here. It says in Acts chapter 20, verse 26 through 28. Okay, Acts 20, 26 through 28.

"Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. 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 with his own blood." I love that passage.

If you ever get a chance, read Acts 20. Apostle Paul is about to leave Ephesus. And so, the people are crying. They're like broken over it and they're like, you know, crying over each other. And Apostle Paul gives an exhortation to the leaders of that church as he departs.

And that's what he says. And in it, you find several things. In it, Apostle Paul says, "I literally gave everything. I gave it all." When he says, "I am clean of everyone's blood," that's what he's saying. It's like, "I made sure I gave it all." What's more, he says, "I made sure I gave everything God desired." So I gave the whole counsel of God.

I didn't just choose. I didn't just pick and choose what I wanted to say. I gave it all, right? And within that, he says this, "But make sure you pay careful attention." And then he ups the ante, so to speak, and makes it even more serious by saying, "This is the church that Christ shed his blood for." If earlier we were talking about how precious, right, how precious is the church, the body, we got to think on that level.

This is the flock for which Christ shed his blood and sacrificed, right? And it shouldn't be handled haphazardly, but rather with care and concern. And he admonishes the elders, "You bear that responsibility." So I want to say this. At Berean, and I believe at every church, that because you have a high view of God, you have a high view of His Word, and you have a high view of the church, the flock of God, and therefore you have to have a high view of leadership.

Those who are entrusted with the responsibility of shepherding and oversight over the church, right? And the way I would like to define it is that biblical and good leadership has a high view of the responsibility of shepherding, right? Now that's not necessarily like a profound thing that I'm saying, but I mean in contrast again to what's common.

Many people think of leadership as something just simply to aspire to because that's on the next step to maturity. Like I'm not mature yet because I'm not leading anybody, or something like that. Or young men who really feel like, "I do want to exercise my strengths." So they see it as what?

Opportunities. And there is another frustration all the times when I do see that some of my friends read articles and these articles say something to the extent of like, "You gotta raise up these young guys and girls and you gotta equip them and then give them opportunity and release them and see what happens." You know?

Now, again, I'm going to say again and caveat that by saying, "Is giving people opportunities like wicked and evil?" No. People should have opportunities. But is that the way the scripture described leadership and church? Right? Is that the way scripture described a few of those who have responsibility over the well-being of God's precious flock, the church?

God's precious body? God's precious bride? Is that the way the Bible described it? Is that the way Apostle Paul described it? Is that the way Jesus described it? No. It is not at all. There's a passage I want to turn, for all of us to turn to. It comes from 1 Peter chapter 5 verse 1 through 4.

1 Peter chapter 5 verse 1 through 4. Okay. So here in this passage is talking, again, giving another exhortation to the leadership in the church. And this passage says this. So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you, not for shameful gain, but eagerly, not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock.

And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. Right? There is much to be said from that passage. There is a lot to be said. We can talk about how leadership, again, is it the kind of leadership the world practices? I mean, Jesus even talks about it.

You know, the people who are authoritative over you, they lord it over you. Do this, do that. What's wrong with you? You know? If you can't do it, get out of here. That kind of thing. And he says, the people over in this generation, you know, they exercise their authority over you and that position, position of leadership is more of simply just power.

And so people want leadership sometimes because they want power and influence. But then Jesus teaches, this is not how the body of Christ practices leadership. So we can talk about responsibility, and again, I'm not going into super depth about it, but the responsibilities for the leadership of the church, it's not simply about tasks.

Right? It's not simply about, hey, we have an agenda, we have a goal, let's get to it. You drive people to do it. The leadership that Apostle Peter says in this passage, he talks about motive. Right? That it should be pure. He talks about this desire. If you guys ever had those people, I'm going to be honest, even, you know, over at my seminary at Masters, I remember this one guy, he came over and he was like kind of sharing, because we all did this thing like, oh, how did you get to seminary?

He was like, I've got the Jonah complex where I really was running, running, running, and then God slapped me and I really felt like I just needed to be here. So I'm here, you know, and everyone's kind of like, maybe we shouldn't be here. Because this passage is like, you should not be under like forced compulsion, but you should be willing when you have this hard desire.

Right? And I'm going to give a free tip to all you single ladies. To me, what defines a man is a man who wants responsibility. It's not a guy who's just like burly, like hairy and muscular or something like that. A man desires responsibility and he will bear the burden on his back of your well-being, future family well-being.

So if you see brothers who are able to carry the burden and responsibility of others versus those who are like, that's not my problem. You know the difference between child and adult, boy and man. Right? So here it says, when an individual has this desire, not for power, influence, and opportunities to go, you know, spread my wings or something like that, but rather I see the needs of the people and I desire to take care of the people.

I have Christ-like love for them and I'm willing to sacrifice for them. That's the kind of responsibility this passage says. So what's that all pointing to when we're talking about motive, their character? Realize that leadership is not so much about, man, that guy is proficient, man, that guy has all his capacities, but rather it's about character.

The character of the individual. Right? And why? Why would leadership be about character more so than just ability, proficiency, eloquence or something like that? Because it comes back to this idea, the church is weighty. God's flock is precious. God's children are a jewel in his eyes. The people he's going to give leadership to is the people he will trust.

Did you know that there is this element of trust, both on a humanistic level and on a vertical level with God and man? If you'll read through the book of Acts, you'll see that term used very, multiple times. This idea of trustworthy. Apostle Paul says it, "Blessed be God, what a grace that God would consider me trustworthy, entrusted with this, entrusted with that, entrusted with this, entrusted with that." Do you realize that Christ even gave this principle?

Christ said this, "The good servant, even if he has a little, he will be faithful with little." And when he is faithful with little, what will happen? More will be added. But if you're not faithful even with a little, what will happen? Even the little that you have will be taken away.

That is God's process of leadership. Let's see how trustworthy you are. Why? Because what I'm about to trust you with is an incredible responsibility. As weighty. How weighty is it? Remember that in the book of James chapter three, verse one, this is what the apostle said, "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness." There is a seriousness.

There's consequences to these things. So the attitude, again, when I read in the articles, like, "Give those guys some opportunities and let them free." It's like, man, what about the well-being of the flock? Are you guys like test subjects? You know? It's like, "Ah, let's try it out." Are you guys like, you know, the guppies you play with or whatever it may be?

I mean, no. You're precious flock. Precious children. And the metaphors just keep going on. And so those who would be leaders must be entrusted. To the degree that if you actually look, number one, the scriptures is chock full of qualifications. Not only in the New Testament, but the Old Testament as well.

You guys remember the whole idea of Stephen? The apostle said to the church, "Select those individuals who are clearly, like evidently filled with the Spirit, that it's recognizable by the congregation." Remember in the Timothys, how it says, "The elder must be like this, and he must be trustworthy, he must be able to do this, he's self-controlled, respectable, hospitable," and the list goes on.

Again, character upon character. But here's an interesting passage I want to read to you. In 1 Timothy chapter 3 verse 10, it says this, "And let them also be tested first. Then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless." That's really interesting. And I find that verse to be very contrary to modern practice.

Right? Modern practice. I find it really scary sometimes. I go visit, and just even this past Sunday I went to visit another church at night, and then I sometimes go visit, and they don't even know me, but they're like, "Hey, you should come over and preach." Modern practice has with it kind of a backwards way.

Let's just see by trial and error. But I'm going to say this, that the scripture calls for a high view of leadership, where one individual is given time. And there has to be a proving of that individual's character. There has to be an observation of the fruitfulness in that person's life, and the fact that there is actually the working of the Spirit and the Word of God in that individual.

Right? And again, I want to come back to this idea. To me, I think it's a very interesting thing that we see. That this church that we have, to a lot of people, to a lot of people, this is an incredibly imperfect science. You know? This is an incredibly imperfect process.

And many people might be frustrated by this. But then on another sense, I want you to just take a moment to think about how meticulously, how intricately, how much in detail, how much in broad overview has God designed and given care to this church? I pray that every single one of us aligns our thinking and our vision for the church as God would see it.

Not our ambitions, not our visions, not our projected objectives, but God's visions. If you do not have God's vision for this church and the churches around, you will forever be frustrated. You're just going to be frustrated. And every time maybe you suggest something or you expect something from the church, you're just going to be frustrated because you are not aligned with the trajectory of where God is building this thing.

Right? So I want to conclude by giving this general call. Do you personally feel like you have a grasp of God's overarching vision for the church? Do you also have a feel for a grasp of the details of that architectural plan? Because scripture would have it and say in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, that God has orchestrated this church and God has so designed that even the smallest pieces of the church we join together that we would truly be the body of Christ.

It's on us to study the scriptures and to realize, wow, this is a beautiful design. Let's take a moment to pray. Heavenly Father, Lord God, we want to thank you so much. We want to thank you that God, you are revealing to us the greatness of your wisdom, the greatness greatness of your plans.

God there's a sense in which