Alright, could we find our way to our seats? We'll get started shortly. I'll just open up with a word of prayer real quick. Father, we just thank you once again for this time to just come together as a church to just lift the praise to you with song through the study of your word, through the study through this book, and especially this week's study of your word and the covenant Bible study.

We just come before you, Lord, just holding you with reverence, with true humility, just wanting to lift up our praise to you. We pray that these songs will be just a joyful noise to you here, and that these songs will just glorify you, Lord. We pray all this in Christ's name.

Amen. Father, we just thank you for this time of worship. These songs that we sing, Lord, are just our prayers as well. We ask that you would take your truth, Lord, plant it deep in us, that it would shape and fashion us in your likeness to just show the light of Christ through us, that, God, you would teach us full obedience, your reverence, your humility, that it would truly test our thoughts and our attitudes and cause our faith to rise, Lord, and cause our eyes to see, God, that your words of power will never fail.

And ultimately, Lord, we pray that as we go through your Bible study that it would just fulfill in us all your purposes for your glory, just like we sing, God. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Good evening, everybody. We do have a lot of stuff going on this weekend.

I'd like to highlight for you guys some of the announcements here. First, our youth group is going to be doing a fundraiser lunch after second and third services. It's just $10 a bowl for some delicious Mediterranean chicken. There will also be Kids Bowls for $5. You can pay either through the Subsplash app or by cash.

That Sunday we have Members Meeting and Service Fair, so please make sure that you show up promptly at 2 to the main sanctuary for that. You've got some QR codes up here. If you've moved and you need to update your address, please send that into the form so that we can update the information.

Also, if you're going to be absent, please make sure that you submit an entry into that form. On Sunday, October 20th, there's going to be a child safety training. With events like Reformation Night, anything where we are spending the extended time at an event with the children, we want all our volunteers to be safety trained, so please make sure that you show up at 1.30 p.m.

in the main sanctuary for child safety training. You can sign up using that link there. If you have any questions, you can send over to Alex Coe there. His email is on the screen. For the Family Ministry, that Sunday, Sunday the 20th, there is an extended time of fellowship at Bill Barber Park for a picnic from 11 a.m.

to 3 p.m. Both members and non-members are welcome, so if you're in the Family Ministry, please come out, and we'd love to see you and fellowship with you there. An important one for you guys is that for all the men, anybody who is from youth group and up, we're going to be having a Men's Ministry Fellowship November 9th.

So it is a little bit away, several weeks out, but we want to give you guys a heads-up to save that time. It's a sweet time of fellowship for the guys to come together and learn. It's just $10 a person. There's going to be lunch provided, so please make sure you sign up for that as well for all the guys.

And then we have our regional Thanksgiving fellowship dinner taking place November 24th. We, again, ask all of you guys to check your calendars and sign up early because trying to make assignments and pull groups together for that many people is tough, tough, big bear, so please make sure to sign up early.

And the last thing is just keep in mind the various ministry Christmas parties that will be happening. There is an all-family ministry Christmas party on December 7th, so please mark your calendar for that. It's going to take place at 5 p.m. Just going to give you guys a big heads-up.

All right, please go straight into your discussion time. We'll be back at 8 p.m. All right, if we can start to make your way back into the room. We're going to get started in a minute. All right, if the people who are in the rooms begin to get back into your seats, we're going to get started real quick.

All right, so as they're coming in, before I get started, you guys read the chapter on the elders and deacons, right? Yeah. So I know there's a lot of question, and I'm not going to be addressing that tonight, but I'm going to answer just a few questions, the common questions that come up.

So if you're not in the room, you're going to have to listen to it later, okay? So first of all, as you guys know, we are an elder-run church. Typically, a Baptist church is not an elder-run church. It's a congregational church, but our church is more of a Reformed Baptist church, so we are an elder-run church.

What that means is the role of the elders are to govern the church, to teach the church. So basically, the leaders of the church are the elders. And then the deacons serve to help the elders do their work and to assist, and that's the role of a deacon. And so one common question people ask is what is the difference between an elder and a pastor, right?

The Bible does not distinguish between an elder and a pastor. The word "elder," "shepherd," and "overseer" are all the same titles that are used in the Bible. Now, the Bible gives general outlines of what to do, like the qualification of an elder. But how it ought to be, ought to be practiced, in what context, it doesn't give you the specifics.

It just gives you the qualification of an elder, but not to lay hands hastily. These are the qualities of an elder, right? And so at our church specifically, the elders of the church are the ones who make decisions, doctrinal statements, handle finances, and govern the church. Not all pastors are elders.

And the reason why is pastors are ordained, and they may, you know, whether it's a year or two, just like PPC, they can always go to another church. Elders are elders and leaders specific for this church only, so they don't go down the street as an elder. They're elders specifically for this particular church.

The distinction between, within the elders, the elders who are primarily teaching versus elders who are governing, the Bible distinguishes between the two, right? So at our church, an elder who is teaching needs to have seminary education, needs to be properly ordained, and so that's how those are things that are in our bylaw.

Our pastors will most likely at some point become elders of our church. But again, the reason why we distinguish that is because we can't have, let's say, if we end up hiring 15 staff at our church, we can't have our youth pastor, our elementary director, our college director, and every pastor that comes into our church have equal say as to what our doctrines are going to be.

Does that make sense? Because those pastors may be here in two years and maybe go out to mission field or something, but we can't have leadership in the church that's going to lay foundations in the church who are not long-term committed here. So for practical reasons, we make that distinction.

So when we recognize that a pastor seems to be more permanent than not, then all the other qualifications obviously they need to have to be a pastor, and at some point we will consider making them an elder. So those are common questions that we get. Another question we get is how come we don't practice deaconship?

At one point we did, and I don't want to get into the long story behind that, but deacons basically, some people think that deaconship is like the government. You have the executive branch, you have the legislative branch, you have the judicial branch, and so you have different branches in the church for checks and balances.

It's completely not from the Bible. Not a single sentence of that I said is from the Bible. So if you have that kind of thinking, you got it from somewhere, but it's not from the Bible. Deacons were created in the scripture to assist the elders so that the elders can focus on prayer and teaching.

That's where it comes from. So when people say how come we don't have deacons, the term deacon is basically a servant. So when you say how come we don't have deacons, how come we don't have servants, our church is filled with servants, right? Every month we have a servant leaders meeting at church.

So the proper question is how come we don't use the term deacon? So we have many deacons at church, but we haven't used the term deacon. We haven't given the title deacon, and part of the reason why we haven't given the title deacon is because we're trying to distinguish what is the difference when we give a title to a deacon versus others who are serving.

How are we going to distinguish that? So what is the distinction between a service team leader who is serving faithfully, like anybody else, between somebody who's given a title deacon? And so we haven't come to a biblical conclusion on that other than we need to give a title because we should practice deaconship.

So in every way at our church we practice deaconship, we just haven't come to a good reason why the title needs to be used, at least at this point, right? So hopefully that answers your question. Today we're going to be going into the covenant number five, and hopefully at some point we have an open Q&A where you guys can ask more detailed questions about that.

But for now, because you read that chapter, I wanted to give you a brief answer. So let me pray for us, and then we'll jump in. Father, I pray for deeper understanding as we wrestle over the covenant number five and what it means for our church as we continue to grow and add souls to our church, help us to grow purposefully.

Whether we've been here for many years or whether we are new to the church, I pray that you would continue to strengthen us, that we may be united as one, that we may have clear understanding of what it is that we are trying to build at this church. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

All right, so the covenant number five is, "I commit to attending and preparing for weekday Bible studies to the best of my ability for the purpose of building up the body of Christ at Berean." So when you become a member of our church, we require this, and we go over this covenant and ask you to fulfill this every year.

So if we have people at our church who are members of our church and who's consistently not taking the Bible study seriously, obviously you will eventually get an email or some sort of follow-up saying, "Hey, are you planning to take the covenant seriously?" And I'm going to be explaining why we do this, because every part of the tenfold covenant in our church is the bare minimum.

And I don't know what your Christian life was before you came to this church, but this is the bare minimum. We didn't add anything in the tenfold covenant that you do not see, at least different teachings of it, all over Scripture. A Christian cannot be a serious Christian if he is not regularly in the Word of God, individually and corporately.

You cannot be growing, you cannot be maturing, you cannot be participating. So this idea of, "I want to go to church, I want to worship God, but I want to worship God on my terms, when it's convenient for me. So if it's not convenient for me, then I don't need to go.

So I want to go to a church where everybody just comes and goes as they please, and that's free worship, and that's what grace means." No, that's not what that means. So that's what I want to explain, why this covenant is here. When we said, "To the best of your ability," obviously we understand that work, there's family stuff going on, there's different things that may happen that is beyond your control, but we're asking to the best of your ability to commit to your faith.

We're not saying just to bring in, "Commit to your faith," where your faith is not just, "I feel this for my Jesus." What does that mean? Part of it means to participate in building and growing your faith. The philosophy behind the preaching and teaching on Sunday and weekday Bible study is different at our church.

Sunday is to get the Word of God in you. Sunday is to get the Word of God in you. I'm sharing something very specific. Can you even see? I made it too small. So if Jubilee can see, then everybody can see. All right. I want you to understand, at least in my ministry philosophy, of the distinction between Sunday philosophy and weekday philosophy.

Sunday teaching philosophy is to get the Word of God in you. Weekday philosophy is to get you into the Word. Now, what does that mean? Sunday sermons are geared toward proclamation, preaching. There is a distinction between preaching and teaching. Let me share what I mean by that. Jesus says that he's looking for people who will worship him in spirit and in truth, meaning your heart condition, your life, your intention, and your application of the things that you're learning is just as important as what you are learning.

So the purpose of Sunday preaching is for the purpose of proclamation. You can learn every aspect of that passage and never come out with any conclusion, any application. So Sunday sermons are for the purpose of proclaiming so that those who hear may be convicted and apply what they are learning.

That's the purpose of Sunday. I'm going to share with you the distinction between proclaiming and teaching. Because that's the goal, when we are studying through a text, it is not my goal to get everything that is in the text to you. So there might be a text where there's five separate points, and my goal in preaching on Sunday is not to make sure that every part of that text is dissected and you understand all of it because the themes are different.

There may be different things that don't fit in. So as I do the study, there's huge chunks of the study that sometimes I may not put in because the main point of it is obedience. Because Christ's main point in that text is to pick up your cross. So I don't feel the need to sit there and explain to you every aspect of that cross in order for you to understand that text because that's not the philosophy behind Sunday.

It's for proclamation and for obedience. So there are some things that will be put in and some things that will be left out. That's on Sunday. The Word of God is being taught, but it's for the purpose of proclaiming. Now, weekday Bible study is to get you into the Word.

So to get you into the Word, you need to understand the text. So the purpose of weekday Bible study is so that you understand all that is in the text. And the theme may not be cohesive sometimes. Paul may have five different points or three different points or various different points that may not be all easily identifiably connected.

But the goal of the weekday Bible study is so that you would learn how to get into the Bible yourself. Does that make sense? Is the AC on? Yeah, it doesn't feel like it's on. Can somebody go touch the AC? Somebody who knows how to touch the AC? Okay.

Was it off? It was on? If it was on, can you turn the fan? If you're hot over there, it's much hotter over here. Okay. All right. I don't want you falling asleep. All right. So weekday Bible study is to get you into the Bible, right? Where Sunday's philosophy is to get the Bible into you.

And so the philosophy is give a man a fish, he'll be satisfied. But teach a man to fish, he'll be set for life, right? And so the philosophy behind Sunday is to feed you the fish. The philosophy behind weekday Bible study is to get you to learn how to fish.

And that's why we have emphasis on hermeneutics, okay? Now, I put all these different groups here because the Mormons, Catholics, the local church, the Seventh-day Adventist, when you first talk to them, they seem like they know the Bible well, right? But everything they know about the Bible is from either Joseph Smith, whether it's from the Pope or the priest, or the local church from Witness Lee, or the Seventh-day Adventist from Ellen G.

White. And so when your intake of the Bible is coming from one person or Bible study material, everything that they believe, you're going to end up believing because you're going to study that like you study the Bible. That's why I don't think it's wise to study the Bible with a study Bible, okay?

Study Bible is a commentary where somebody's thoughts and theology has been poured into it, so when you read it, you think that's exactly what it says. So if they happen to be Calvinist, you're going to be a Calvinist. If they're Armenian, you're going to be an Armenian. If they believe whatever is theology that they have, you're not going to be able to discern if what they're saying is their opinion or if it's the Word of God.

That's why we don't want you first. You can use the commentary to compare your studies, but you cannot study the Bible through the commentary because commentaries is just like listening to a sermon. Somebody else did the study and spoon-feeding you. Now, that may be useful when you're young, spiritually, but if all your life you're dependent upon somebody else to tell you what the Bible says, that's how the Catholics had all the Christians captivated for so long.

That's why so many bad doctrines came in and people were not able to discern whether this was from God or not because the Bible was not taught. Just trust the priest. They're the ones who are educated. They're the ones who study. If they say it, it must be from God.

Until it got so ridiculous, they said, "This can't be from God." Our weekday philosophy, the emphasis is on hermeneutics, how to interpret the Bible. What did the author mean and how did the first recipients understand it? That's the question that we need to constantly ask when we're studying the Bible.

We try not to let theology dictate interpretation, but let interpretation dictate theology. Sometimes, because you've committed to a set of theology, you look at text and you try to make it fit. This is the truth of God, and you've been taught theology, and then from that point on, everything you're looking at, you're looking at through that lens.

You're proof-texting theology that you've already committed to. "I'm a Baptist. I'm a Presbyterian. I'm a Calvinist. I'm this. I'm that." Once you have that, everything is tested by, "Does it fit this theology that I committed to?" But why did you commit to that theology? Did you commit to that theology from your careful study of the Word of God and the theology was formulated as a result of studying and handling the Word of God?

Or was a theology given to you, and once you put that on, everything that you hear and learn has to be through that lens? I would say most Christians, if they're honest with themselves, does the latter. It's not safe, especially today. It is not safe that you do not learn how to discern truth for yourself, because so many bad doctrines, so many bad theologies, so many pastors and seminaries who have perverted the Word of God, that if you don't learn to discern, you will be deceived.

Remember what it says in Matthew 24, "In the last times, the deception is going to be so great that if possible, even the elect will be deceived." That's how powerful the deception is going to be. If you don't learn to test and discern the truth for yourself, how do you know if I'm not?

How do you know because you just happen to be, "I think he's a good guy"? That's not enough to be able to discern truth. You must practice exegesis versus eisegesis. Exegesis is basically studying the text, asking the questions, applying hermeneutics, and then extrapolating what it says in the text.

Eisegesis is you have an agenda. This is what the Bible should say. This is how things ought to be, and you're looking for something because you've already committed to something because somebody told you, or you read something, or you happen to go to this church, or you grew up a Baptist, you grew up a Presbyterian, and so now you're using that lens.

Your litmus test is your theology. Your litmus test needs to be the Word of God, not your theology or whatever bent that you may have. That's what I mean by exegesis rather than eisegesis. That's why at Church Our Size, we have so many people coming from all different backgrounds, and they'll say, "Oh, how come our church doesn't do this?

How come our church doesn't do that?" Well, where did you get that from Scripture? My old church, my old pastor. Okay, so your whole faith is based upon your old church then, and your whole faith is based upon your old pastor. No, then where did you get it? What were you reading?

What text were you wrestling with that caused you to say, "This is the way it should be"? Because that happens so often in the church, I always test you. If you are going to ask me a question and you're going to challenge me, the next question you're going to receive is, "Where did you get that?" I want to challenge you to make sure that it's not eisegesis but exegesis.

You have to let the Word of God judge your thoughts and intentions and let your thoughts dictate your interpretation. So that's our philosophy of weekday Bible study. Why is this important? Making disciples requires consistent and regular Bible study. The Great Commission says to go, baptize, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

Obedience to Scripture is commanded, a part of discipleship. It's not just, "You know what? Here's a set of doctrines. Jesus loved me, died for me because I could not, and I accept that. If I keep repeating that to myself, then that's what discipleship is. Just repeat the first phase of Christ died for me, Christ died for me, my salvation is secure." No.

He says, "Go, baptize, teach them to observe all that I have commanded you." But discipleship is not simply disseminating the Gospel. It's living the Gospel. Now that you've accepted the Gospel, now that you're a Christian, what does that mean for you in your life? That's why Bible study always ends with application.

That's why teaching always ends in application. What does that mean for you? How are you going to apply that? Discipleship is not just proclaiming the Gospel, but also teaching how you ought to live your life. Discipleship begins with teaching how we ought to think, but must move to how those thoughts move to practice.

So if all you do is study and get all the right understanding of the Scripture, but there was no change in your life, you're not growing in your faith. It doesn't matter how much knowledge you have. In fact, it's probably doing more damage than good. All right, for the sake of time, I'm not going to go through this.

Just briefly, how can a young man keep his way pure? The word "pure" typically, people think that that word talks about sexual purity. It's a much more general word than that, sexual purity obviously included. The word "pure" basically means moral, righteousness. How can a young man keep his way righteous before God, holy?

By keeping it according to your word. Holiness and intake of the word is directly related. With all my heart, I have sought you. The purpose of studying the word of God is not simply to know what the word of God says, but through the word of God to seek Him, to seek Christ.

At the end of your study, if you do not come nearer to Christ, you have not done anything other than added knowledge. The goal of the study is to seek Him. Do not let me wander from your commandment. Your word I have treasured in my heart that I may not sin against you.

Teach me your statutes with my lips. I have told of all the ordinances of your mouth. So not only did I learn, I opened my mouth to teach others. I have rejoiced in the way of the testimonies as much as in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts and regard your ways.

I shall delight in your study. I shall not forget your words. So all of it is that how can a young man keep his way pure, be righteous and holy? By keeping it according to the word. Through the word, I have sought you. I've meditated. I learned, and then I taught so that I would not forget.

And I would treasure this in my heart, and it would end in delight. So all of that is what Bible study is for. We're not simply studying so that you can have a better understanding of Philippians or Philemon or who was Paul and what was his theology. The purpose of all of that is so that we may live holy and godly lives, honoring God and loving Christ.

So if the deep study of the word of God doesn't cause you to have deeper affection for Christ, then you missed the whole point of the Bible study. The strength and health of the church is directly linked to the members being able to test what they are hearing and accept what they are learning is ultimately from God.

Like I said, it is not enough that the elders are testing, right? Because the elders are human beings. We can be an error, right? In my lifetime, I've seen three or four major, major cultural things that came in. Again, I mentioned to you up in the pulpit, I got saved at the tail end of the Jesus movement.

And then the holiness discipleship movement came in. And then after that, the charismatic movement came in. After the charismatic movement came in, the seeker-friendly movement came in. After the seeker-friendly, the young restless and reform movement came in. After that movement came in, the gospel-centered movement came in. And then recently, all this, you know, the political stuff, you know, that movement came in.

So every one of these things, I've seen people get swept up in that. All of a sudden, they were doing fine, and then all of a sudden, with a snap of a finger, how they determine what was right and wrong, what they need to do, how churches need to change.

Every time a movement came in, and usually with young people, and they get swept, it means that all this time I was wrong, and all of a sudden, they opened their eyes, and then they started to see the whole world through that lens. And Satan has a way of using movements to get you off your track.

And that's why we have to keep our eyes on Scripture, right? Movement at the core is correcting what's wrong. But typically, what happens with young people, they almost always overcorrect because they don't know where the center is. So if you are not grounded and anchored in the Word of God, whatever movement comes in, you're going to get swept away because you're going to see a tide.

You're going to see a movement. It's going to be popular to hold on to certain views. So the only way to survive these things is to be anchored in the Bible. You have to be able to discern. How do you test if you've gone too far? How do you test if this is biblical or not biblical?

You have to be able to discern, right? Thessalonians 2.13, for this reason, we also constantly thank God that when you receive the Word of God, you heard it from us, you accepted it not as the Word of men, but for what it really is, the Word of God, which also performs its work.

So it says Thessalonians were a model church because they received the Word of God as God's Word. But then Acts 17.11, it says they were more noble. The Bereans were nobleminded than the Thessalonians because when they received it, they tested it by the Word of God. So here's a model church, but here's a church that he said commends even further because they didn't just accept it, they tested it with the Word of God.

All right, this I'm not going to read for the sake of time. It says, "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world." So this has been true from the beginning, but I believe today we're in much more danger than they were in the early church.

So many bad doctrines, so many bad teaching has gone out that even in a biblical church, what is and isn't from the Bible, we have to constantly test, where did you get that from the Bible? How do we test it? How do we test the spirits? I'm going to give you some things not to do.

Don't test it by how it makes you feel. Oh, you said this and I felt this way. That's not a good test. Your feeling can change because of the weather. Your feeling can change because somebody said something not nice to you. That's how fickle our feelings are. You watch a romantic movie and all of a sudden you love everybody.

You can't trust your feelings. Feelings are not bad when it comes along with truth, but feelings are not a good test of what is right and wrong. So don't say, "Oh, it made me feel this way. I don't like it. I prefer this." Well, what's that based on? It's just, "I just prefer this." That's your feeling.

Don't test it by your feeling. Don't test it by what consequences may come from it. If I believe this, then what about this? What if it divides? What if they don't like it? What if people get offended? That's not a good litmus test, whether it's truth. And sometimes speaking the truth and holding on to the truth will divide.

People will be offended. The Bible says they will. You don't need to be offensive. You don't need to cling to be offensive or divisive or be a jerk. But if you speak the truth, it will always divide. Don't test it by what you have become accustomed to. This is what I was taught.

This is what I always knew. That's from my church. This is from my parents. It's not safe simply to test something based upon the set of facts that you've already received. Where did that come from? Why do we do that? Where is that based on? Is it coming from Scripture or is it coming from tradition?

Don't test it by popular opinion just because everybody embraces it. There's a movement that came in and all the popular pastors, all the mega church pastors, they're doing this. All the Bible teaching pastors, they're holding on to this. It's good to compare. It's always to see, but it's not safe.

You don't test truth based upon how many people agree with you. Think about that. Even Apostle Peter and Barnabas had to be rebuked. The first apostles. It's not safe simply to say because they believe it, because this is my tradition. Where did you get that from the Bible? Where in the Bible did you get that?

Don't test it by a leader that you admire. It's good to ask. It's good to compare. But that's not where your final conclusion should be coming from. It should be coming from Scripture. Don't simply test it by a system of theology you have come to accept. I'm a Calvinist, so I must believe this.

I'm a dispensation or I'm a covenant, so I believe this because of that. Well, where did you get that? Where in the Scripture did you come to that conviction? What are some ways that bad doctrine comes into the church? The most obvious, men ordained into ministry without proper testing.

People who had laid hands hastily. Today, in our environment, if you want to be a pastor, just go sign up at some seminary. Maybe do it online. And then when you see a job opportunity that's open, send in your resume. If you speak English and you give somewhat coherent of a message, and you make eye contact with people when you talk, you're hired.

You can find a job somewhere. Once you get in, you're a pastor. And how dare any other pastor question you? Because that's how you get in. You're not going to get in here like that in our church. But that's how I got in. That door was wide open. I didn't get tested.

I was 19 years old. They told me to go teach these kids. I said, "Okay, they're going to pay me? Sure." I felt weird in the beginning, but they're going to pay me. Either that or I'd be a janitor for 10 hours a week. I'm being silly, but it's not that far from the truth.

You have people who may, for whatever the reason, they're coming in, and maybe they started out with a good reason, and they got corrupt after they got in. But the primary reason why the church has become corrupt is there's people who came into the ministry who shouldn't have been.

They haven't been tested. The Bible and I have been having a high place in teaching in the church. Now, why is that? Because the people who came in were more concerned about opinions of men. They're servants of men rather than servants of God, so they didn't put the Bible high priority because the people weren't coming.

This generation of people don't seem interested in the Bible, so in order for my church to succeed, I've got to lessen this, and I have to be more receiving of people. So the Bible slowly started leaking out of the church. I've heard pastors just straight up say, "We don't do Bible study because if we do Bible study, people are going to leave." Where is the "preach the word in season and out of season"?

That these men should not be in there. Ignorance of the congregation of the Bible to discern what is biblical or not biblical. So you have a church filled with people who idolizes an individual or a megachurch pastor or somebody that they love, and then they start going astray, you start going astray.

They start saying weird things, and you start accepting weird things. And then when they fall apart, you fall apart, because your whole faith was based upon somebody that you idolized. It's not safe to do that. So I will never tell you to trust me. I will ask you to test me, but test me with the word.

Don't test me with your opinion. Don't test me with your experience. Don't test me with your tradition. Test me with the word of God. If you see something off, tell me where it's off. What is it that you're studying that caused you to see that this is something that maybe needs to be tested?

We should be tested. I don't want to build a church based upon my strong opinion. I want to build a church based upon His word. So if there's a blind spot that we don't see based upon the word of God, the church would be healthier if the whole church is able to test the word of God and to be able to correct and challenge the leaders in the church with the word, not your opinion.

Not taking doctrine seriously. Now, there is, because people handle the word of God and doctrine to point and to divide and to judge other people, the doctrine kind of has taken a bad hit. Doctrine basically is a study of God. And so the system of theology came as people started to accumulate their knowledge about who God is.

That's where we get Trinity, right? That's where we get election. That's where we get predestination. So doctrine doesn't divide. Doctrine unites. When doctrine is handled by fleshly men, it divides. But the word of God actually unites. Every time I run into whoever it is, whatever background it is, and they study the Bible passage to passage with learning the context, I don't even have to ask them.

We're almost in full agreement, almost in full agreement. We didn't go to the same theology. We grew up in different churches, different background. But if they handle the word of God the same way I handle the word of God, I find, man, the word of God is not as complex and divisive as people think it is.

It's not. Careful study of the word of God actually brings the church together. All right, that was it. Let me finish. The discussion question for today. How faithful do you think you've been in fulfilling the fifth covenant of the church? Attending the Bible study faithfully. Do you have a tendency to kind of, you know, whenever something comes up, it's only out of convenience do you come, or are you committed to this?

The reason why I--again, I'm not going to do this for the other ones. The reason why this is being emphasized is because if you're living by the flesh, then whatever flesh--like your flesh doesn't desire today. Your flesh wants to do this today. You think it's better if you go to a church where you don't feel guilty.

I'm just going to go when I feel like it, and I'm not going to go when I don't feel like it. You think allowing your flesh to dictate what you're committed to, what you prioritize, is actually a good thing. It is not a good thing. Paul says, "I buff in my body and make it my slave.

After I preach to others that I may be disqualified." So if we believe that the Word of God has high priority, the discipline to get the Word of God in us and us into the Bible should be high priority. Shouldn't it? And so that's all we're saying. That's all we're saying.

We're asking you to take this covenant seriously because the Bible has placed this as high priority in every Christian's life. How much of your current knowledge of the Bible do you think you've attained through someone teaching you versus you searching the Word of God for yourself? This is not to make you feel guilty.

It's just to examine where you are and make your personal intake of the Word of God a goal in your life. So we would have less and less of this. If the Bible is outlawed in the United States, how much of the Bible do you think you will be able to retain from memory even if it is not word for word?

How much of the Bible do you think you have a grasp of that even if you are not able to jot it down word for word, that you'll be able to retain that? Or if the Bible is outlawed, how many years would it take before the Word of God is completely eliminated in your personal life if you didn't have other people around you?

And then finally, application. What is the passage of the Bible that you've recently studied caused you to think differently about God and yourself and what applications were made in practice as a result of that? Let me pray for us and then we'll finish. Father, we thank you for your living Word.

I pray that as a church that you would help us to build a church, Lord God, purposefully according to your commands, according to your Word. Help us simply not to be a hearer, not to depend on others, Lord God, not to study and to feed us. Help us to learn, Father, to handle your Word of God, that not only that we would seek you through it, that we would learn, Father God, to live holy lives, that we would ultimately be able to teach others and learn to delight in it day and night and meditate on it.

So we pray for that end, that whether we are this number, whether we grow or whether we even decrease, help us, Lord God, to take seriously where the Word of God stands with us and that we would be the light that you called us to be. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.