our 23rd meeting of Intermediate Biblical Counseling. Trust that you're doing well and trust that your Thanksgiving break was a happy one. It's great to have you back on this class. As you know, we're moving our way to the end of this class and this year and heading to our final two meetings of 2020.

We'll be looking at tonight Theology exam number 23, and then next Sunday, we'll be looking at Theology exam number 24. We will get through the Theology exams by the end of this year, and then we'll wait until January to do the counseling exams. But I do hope that your study has been a blessed one, and that you've been encouraged as you've been looking at these wonderful topics from the ACBC Theology exams, and just encouraged by your faithfulness and your love for God's word.

Thank you for being with us this year and for continuing in our study together. Well, tonight we are looking at Theology exam number 23, and we're looking at the doctrine of the church. If you remember from your last two Theology exams, we left off studying the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the last two weeks of our class together, and now we are making a transition from the doctrine of the Holy Spirit to the doctrine of the church in theological terms.

We're moving from pneumatology to ecclesiology, and that transition shouldn't be a difficult one to make. If you understand that we as believers have been baptized into the Holy Spirit of God, that we have been filled with the Holy Spirit, and that we have been given the gifts of the Holy Spirit, then it's a natural transition to look at who we are corporately as a church, that the church is the new spiritual organism in the New Testament age that has been birthed by the power of the Holy Spirit, and that proclaims the gospel to the world in the power and in the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

We are transitioning from pneumatology to ecclesiology, from the doctrine of the Holy Spirit to the doctrine of the church, and I can't think of any better way to spend an hour tonight than in talking through the doctrine of the church. This is a doctrine that I love. This is a doctrine that I trust you will love.

This is a doctrine that is near and dear to the heart of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors, ACBC. In fact, this is probably one of the distinctives of ACBC that I love and that I treasure, is the fact that not only does ACBC hold to the doctrine of sufficiency as it relates to Scripture's role in counseling, but also holds to a view of the local church that sees counseling as an expression of the church's ministry.

This is a distinctive. Most counseling organizations see counseling as an activity that happens outside of the local church and not inside of the local church. What you'll see in most counseling approaches in our world today is that people are promoting an idea that in order to do effective counseling, we need to refer people outside of the local church, and it's when they go outside the church, that is when they're going to get the most help for their problems.

As you know, ACBC holds to a high view of the local church that sees counseling as a ministry of the church, that the most effective help that people are going to get for their problems happens inside the church, and so the church ought to embrace the ministry of counseling as part of the ministry of the church.

ACBC promotes that view of counseling. ACBC has a high view of the local church. In fact, you cannot get certified as a biblical counselor with ACBC without being a member of a local church, without having a recommendation and affirmation of your counseling ministry from the pastors and the elders of your local church.

In fact, ACBC is so intent on getting the affirmation of the local church that they require a yearly annual reaffirmation of a counselor's ministry, and so I need to as a pastor in my local church, sign off on the counselors in our church and their ministry on an annual basis, because we do see that people want to become counselors and they actually do become certified counselors, and then they may leave their local church and be operating outside of the authority of the local church, and so ACBC, if they see that happen, that person will not be renewed in their certification.

All that to say that we take that very seriously. We take the local church's role in counseling very seriously, and what you have in ACBC is an organization that is very devoted to holding a high view of the local church in counseling ministry. So I do hope that's something you'll embrace.

I hope that as I stated in year one of our training, that you as a counselor will be committed to your church, that you will have a reputation in your local church to uphold the ministry of the pastors and the elders of the church, that you will become known in your church, that you will serve in your church.

One of the questions that ACBC has us write out for our counselors is on an annual basis, is does this person uphold the elders and the pastors of the local church? Are they submissive and supportive of the leadership of the local church? So I always tell my counselors, you guys better be nice to me throughout the year because the annual review is coming, and they are more than exemplary in supporting the leaders of their local church.

But I hope it's something you'll embrace, that you will be known for this, that you will be church people, that you will be known not only for your love for Christ and his word, but also for your commitment to your church. So with that preamble, let me get into our study for tonight, and I do pray that each of you will be encouraged.

I do thank God for each of you. Thank you so much for your encouragement as we've worked our way through this year, and just to know that you're showing up every Sunday, desiring to be equipped for counseling ministry. There is no greater joy than to see people love the word of God, and desire to learn the word of God, and just encouraged by each of you joining us on this webinar for this class.

So let me pray for us, and let's dive right in. Well, Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the privilege of studying your word, and we thank you so much for the privilege of not only belonging to Christ, but the privilege of belonging to the local church. We thank you for the church, for this is the church which Christ has purchased with his own blood, and we thank you that the church is the very body and the bride of Christ, and that your word teaches us to love Christ is to love the church, and to love the church is to love Christ, for the church lives in vital spiritual union with Christ.

And so we just thank you for how the local church is a means of blessing to each of our lives. We thank you for the gatherings of the church. We thank you for the songs of the church. We thank you for the ordinances of the church, baptism and the Lord's Supper.

We thank you for the fellowship of the church, for the teaching ministry of the church. We thank you that the church is the environment in which we grow spiritually, and that it is the most precious institution on the earth today. We thank you that Christ has promised to build his church.

And so Father, we pray that you would help us in these last two weeks to develop a robust ecclesiology, that we would understand what your word teaches about the church, and that we would see counseling ministry as an extension and as an expression of the local church's ministry. And may many come to our churches and receive help and hope from your word, and be ministered to by the body of Christ, and have lives that are changed for your glory, we pray as a result of our study together.

We pray your spirit would work in us tonight, and we pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Well, let's read the theology exam question together. We were looking at the doctrine of the church in theology exam number 23. The question is provide a biblical description of the church. Now that, as you note, will be a very general prompt for an essay dealing with what is the church and what does the Bible say about the church?

Just note that in theology exam number 24, you're going to get more specific about how counseling ministry relates to the church. This week's exam question really is a general prompt. It's a general question asking you to describe just the general descriptions of what the Bible says about the church.

And I do pray that you will write a good essay on this topic. A number of helpful resources on page one of your handout, you have the usual selections from the standard resources. We have Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, Paul Enns, The Moody Handbook of Theology, Charles Ryrie, Basic Theology, and then Heath Lamberts, A Theology of Biblical Counseling.

I would also recommend to you a selection from the Journal of Biblical Counseling, David Powelson's Counseling is the Church. I believe that can be purchased from the CCEF website. Just a really good resource thinking through how counseling relates to the local church. And then a really good resource that you want to have on your bookshelf is Robert Soce's The Church in God's Program.

Now, if I had one book that I would recommend to put in a person's hands to give them a solid, comprehensive overview of what the Bible teaches about the church, it would be Robert Soce's The Church in God's Program. You'll find that much of my material is at least inspired by or prompted by Soce's study, especially his summary of the biblical illustrations of the church.

And so if you want a resource that you can easily footnote in your essays, you can pick up Robert Soce's work and you can take your quotations from his material. I do encourage people not to quote from my lecture notes because my lecture notes are not published material. But you'll find that if you want to quote from a good published resource, Robert Soce's The Church in God's Program is a helpful and very readable study as well.

So I highly recommend you to have that on your bookshelf. Let's move in our study to page two of your notes, and we're looking at the topic of the doctrine of the church. If you get a chance, take a look at the ACBC Standards of Doctrine. Those can be found at the ACBC website at biblicalcounseling.com.

By the way, ACBC has a brand new website that has been launched. You can find that at biblicalcounseling.com. It's a beautiful website and very well done by the folks at ACBC. But on the ACBC Standards of Doctrine, we have a section on the doctrine of the church, and it states that the church is the bride of Christ called to proclaim the word of God, administer baptism and the Lord's Supper, and exercise church discipline.

The church is the organism through which God accomplishes his mission in the world. It is the main agent for all ministry of the word, including the ministry of counseling and discipleship. And again, if you want a resource that is easily quotable for your essays, you can never go wrong by quoting from the ACBC Standards of Doctrine.

That is a very good statement that summarizes what the Bible teaches about the church. Just on a devotional, practical, personal note, we want to be reminded that as believers, we are meant to live with a passion for the local church. God has called us to love the church and not only to love the universal church, the worldwide body of Christ, but to love our local church, which is an expression of the worldwide body of Christ.

If I wanted to say I want to esteem and love the institution of marriage, I want to esteem the marital covenant in general and uphold the institution of marriage, then one of the best ways I can do that is by loving my wife and being faithful in my own marriage.

And in a similar way, we can express our love for the universal church, the worldwide body of Christ, by loving our local church, the particular local expression of the body of Christ, which is found in every nation and in every continent. A helpful distinction between these two ideas, you have the universal church, which is the theological term we use to describe the church worldwide.

Henry Thiessen defines this as all those who in this age have been born of the spirit of God and have by that same spirit been baptized into the body of Christ. So when we refer to the universal church, we're speaking of the worldwide body of Christ. And just I do encourage you to have a passion for the church universal, to have a passion for the church in Australia, the church in Japan, the church in Italy, the church in Russia, the worldwide body of Christ.

There ought to be a global passion that we have for the church, that as we see the church built up in any nation and in every nation, that we would rejoice and that we would be in prayer for the universal church. But what a joy it is to know that the universal church has particular local expressions.

The local church is defined as a group of believers that is identified as a local assembly or congregation. That would be the definition by Paul Enns in the Moody Handbook of Theology. We express our esteem for the universal church by being faithful in our local church. Now, if you've been committed to your local church for any length of time, you know that being committed to the local church is not always glamorous.

Being committed to a local church means that we show up every Sunday to the same church and we see the same people, we hear preaching from the same pastor, and we do that Sunday after Sunday, year after year, and we just desire to be faithful to those things. It's not so much a glamorous commitment, and all church people will be able to tell you the same.

It's serving in the nursery, it's serving refreshments to the saints, it's opening the same Bible, sitting in the same seat many times, if you're in a routine of sitting in the same location in your particular assembly, and it's just doing that week after week, Sunday after Sunday, year after year, just being faithful to your local church, and yet it is through this commitment of being faithful to my local church that we express our love and our esteem for the church universal.

We are part of what God is doing in building up his church worldwide as we show up in our local congregations day after day and week after week. By committing ourselves to some very small things, we become part of the great and the glorious work of God that he is doing in building his church around the world.

You see that scripture refers to the universal church in Ephesians 5, verse 25, where Paul says, "Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." That's referring to the church universal. All those who have been born by the Spirit of God, Christ loved the church.

But then you'll find in other passages, references to the local church. For instance, in Acts 8, verse 1, "There arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem." That's referring to the particular expression of the universal church in the particular city of Jerusalem. You'll find that throughout the New Testament scriptures.

Scripture refers to the church in 1 Corinthians 1, verse 2. The churches of Galatia in Galatians 1, verse 2. The church of the Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians 1, verse 1. You have these local expressions of a worldwide or universal reality. This concept of universal church and local church is found in the New Testament scriptures.

By the way, when you're looking at those two concepts of universal church versus local church, it may surprise you to see how much Scripture emphasizes the second aspect, the local church. In fact, I think this is in your notes, the term ecclesia is the common New Testament word referring to the church.

Out of 114 occurrences in the New Testament, at least 90 times it refers to the local church. There is a high priority in Scripture that is placed upon a commitment to a local church. Now, in our day, we find that the priority of the local church really is being diminished and I don't mean to be critical here, but I do want to be true to life.

We do see a lot of church hopping in people's lives. People do float from church to church or they're around one church long enough to see its flaws and then they move to another church. We just do see a lot of a low commitment to a particular local church.

I always tell a humorous example of one person goes to one church because they like the worship team there, and then they go to another church because they like the preaching there. They go to a third church because they like the donuts there and they're moving from church to church.

That's a little bit of an exaggeration, but not so much of an exaggeration. We do see that people tend to have a low view of a steady commitment to the local church. We do find on a very practical note that many of the people that we counsel have problems in their lives because they have no regular faithful involvement with a local church.

Either they haven't become members of a church or maybe they are members, but they're not engaged on a weekly basis in the ministry of the church. They don't have relationships in their church. They're not part of a small group. No one's praying for them. They're not praying for anyone.

There isn't this mutual one-anothering that is part of the body life that's happening in their lives and we do find that many of our counselees are really struggling with a lot of spiritual baggage, a lot of spiritual struggles because they don't have a robust commitment to their local church and part of counseling ministry is helping our counselees see their need for involvement in a local church and helping them to take those next steps to become faithful participants of the local church.

But there is a heavy emphasis in scripture on the local church. Dr. Larry Pettigrew writes this, that the local church is intended to be a local reflection of the body of Christ. The local is simply the active, working, visible counterpart of the universal. A very good way of relating the two concepts of universal church and local church.

Earl Rodmacher has put it this way in his book, The Nature of the Church. He writes that the working method of God in the world at any given time is to carry out his purpose through the members of the body of Christ, who are living in the world at that time.

The New Testament always views these members of the body as banded together in groups known as local churches. Thus, the church is in the world in the form of local churches, which are physical organizations with physical relationships and definite physical responsibilities. I love this statement. The local church is God's agency in the world, transacting God's business.

Now, just think through the implications of that statement. I think John MacArthur has put it this way, that God is really only doing one thing in the world today, and that is he is building Christ Church. Everything else going on in the world is just background and backdrop to the great story of how Christ is building his church in the New Testament era, and the church will be presented to Christ at the marriage supper of the Lamb, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.

The very bride of Christ that will one day be glorified. God is doing only really one thing in the world today, and he is building his church, and everything else just provides the environment or the context in which that is happening. The local church is God's agency in the world, transacting God's business.

So I tell young people this, I say if you want to be something big, give your heart and your life to the church. This is where it's at. This is where the action is happening. This is where God is changing lives. This is where God is doing his business in the world.

It's not in the government. It's not in the corporations. I mean, all of that is good and well, and all of that has its place, but all of that is just backdrop and background to what God is doing in building his church. If you want to be in the middle of the greatest work that God is doing in the world today, then give your heart and your life to your local church.

Be there. Be there when the church meets. Be there when the word is taught. Be there when relationships are formed, when the church prays together. Be committed to your local church, and I'll tell you on the backside of some of you know, I have young adult children, and my wife and I have always sought to instill in our children, the priority of the local church.

There were always things that they weren't able to do, because we always said that we're going to be there when the church meets, that our children are going to be there when the church meets, and if that means they can't go to a soccer game, or they can't be part of another extracurricular activity, then that was going to be the price that we were going to pay, and I'll tell you on the end of that journey, or the beginning of the end of that journey is, we have no regrets that our children were not always able to do all of the things that all children do or the society tells you that they need to do, but they have grown up with a love for the local church, and we have no regrets in making that a priority.

The church is where it's at, and so Wayne Mack has put it this way in his excellent work, Life in the Father's House. He says, at the primary context, and by the way, you need to have that book, Life in the Father's House by Wayne Mack at my previous church.

We used to make that book required reading for anyone who wants to become a church member, because it was just so helpful in thinking through what is the church, and what does it mean to be part of the local church, and Wayne Mack writes this, the primary context in which God wants this involvement to take place is the local body of believers, and so the commitment called for is also a commitment to the church.

Almost all of the one another's of the New Testament are given directly to local churches and are intended to help those churches be what God wants them to be. It is not enough for us to say that we are merely a part of the universal or invisible church. We must also commit ourselves to a local or visible group of God's people.

That's a great statement and worthy of our careful attention. So let me move to the next page of your handout, and let me make a point here that maybe at the risk of restating the obvious, but that's okay because I think we need to at times restate the obvious.

The statement is this, that Christians are meant to have a definite relationship to a defined local church with a definite structure under a definitive authority. I'll just repeat that again. Christians are meant to have a definite relationship, that's church membership, to a defined local church, that's a particular local assembly with a definite structure, that's an organized local assembly of believers under a definitive authority, that's a plurality of elders.

We could go through each of those components, but just as a brief summary, I would highlight two points here that the definite relationship that we're talking about really can be defined as church membership. Every church does membership a little bit differently, but the concept of church membership is thoroughly biblical.

I've taught church membership classes here at Kinder Community Church over the last five years and people have asked me, "Well, Dan, where does it say that I need to become a church member in the Bible? Where is church membership found in the Bible?" I've always responded to that by saying, "Where is the concept of a believer being able to grow without a definite relationship to the local church?

Where is that concept found in the Bible that you just have individual believers doing whatever they please and not gathering in local assemblies and being accountable and known in that assembly?" The concept of church membership is thoroughly biblical. The concept of a believer being placed in a local assembly, being accountable to that assembly, being submissive to the elders and the pastors of that assembly, being governed by a particular church governance structure, being into the one another life of that local church and partaking of the ordinances that are given by that church.

That concept is thoroughly biblical that a believer is known in that local assembly, that there is a definite relationship that each believer needs to have with a particular local church. So that is just something that we need to promote and that we need to be a part of, is this idea of having a known public relationship that says, in church membership, that's what it is.

It's a public relationship where you publicly identify yourself as being accountable to a particular local assembly to the point that if you were, God forbid, ever to go astray in doctrine or in terms of your personal holiness, if you're ever to go astray and fall into sin, that there would be a particular local assembly that would have the right and the responsibility of shepherding you, disciplining you, and bringing you back, restoring you back into the fellowship.

That is talking about a definite relationship. Then another point here I would highlight is that this local assembly is governed under definitive authority. I believe Titus 1 and 1 Timothy 3, as well as 1 Timothy 5, would call for a plurality of elders which govern a local assembly that shepherd the local church and that are responsible to give an account for that church.

So as an elder of my church, I live under the burden and I mean that as a joyful burden, but it is a burden too that one day I will give an account for the sheep who are members of my church. Hebrews 13 is very clear that one day elders will give an account for the members in their church.

That is a joy and it's a glad burden, but I live under that responsibility that I will give an account. I need to know where the sheep are. I need to know who's going astray. I need to know who's struggling, who needs prayer, who's in the hospital. I need to know those things because that is the responsibility of an elder in the church.

Now, I cannot know or give an account for sheep if they have never identified themselves as belonging to my church. I cannot account for their spiritual life if they have never even identified themselves and let us know what their names are. I say to the members of my church, please make my life easier on the day when I will give an account to the Lord by being easy to give an account for.

Make it easy for your elders to give an account for your soul. Be there on Sunday, be there in classes, be there in small groups so that we know where you are, we know how you're doing, make it easy for us, and church membership is part of that process.

Christians are meant to live in this way. It's very important that we understand that. Now, because I do belong to a local church, I'm going to brag on the pastor of my church, Pastor Philip DeCourcy, who was on a discussion panel with some leading national counseling figures, and these leading national figures held to an integrationist view of counseling.

If I told you who they were, you would know who they are because they're nationally known. What these leaders were essentially saying is that the church doesn't have the resources to counsel their members, and what the church needs to do is to refer their members out to "professional counselors" in order to receive real help for their problems.

Those of us who know Pastor Philip, we could see his body language on this Q&A panel. We could see that he had a little righteous indignation at what the people were saying. I love so much what Pastor Philip said that I transcribed that and put that on your handout, and I won't be able to recreate the Irish accent, but he said this on the panel, "I just get a little unsettled when we use the term 'professional counselor' because every one of my pastors are professional, competent, capable, theological, and godly.

I just get a little disturbed when we use this term as if you could go to your pastor who is not a professional and then you could go to the professional counselor. When I talk about being with my elders, these men are counselors. They've got years of walking with Christ.

They've seen life in the raw. They can handle the word of God. I'm not ruling out going to a doctor or a psychiatrist in some cases, but today in the church, we have so elevated psychiatry side of the fence, and the professional medical side of things, it demotes the pastor." The Puritans called pastors physicians of the soul.

Just historically, pastors were the counselors in the congregations, the physicians of the soul. While the doctor has a role to play in the physical side, if a man knows the word, he can address the issue of anger, eating habits, because that's an issue of self-control. He can make that a gospel issue.

I want my people to know that the first port of call is the church. The first port of call is your pastors who can handle God's word. Then a wise pastor won't rule out in the common grace of God and in the providence of God. That person might need something, but I just think we tend to run to that too quickly.

At our church, we train our people to counsel from the word of God so that we address those issues that families are going through. At this point in the dialogue, one of the leading integrationist counselors said something to the effect of, "You don't really mean to say that the church has the ability to help someone with a cutting issue or an eating problem, an eating disorder." Pastor Philip responded, "I feel any pastor should feel qualified to address the cutting issue.

At the end of the day, that's an image problem. It's a self-control problem. It's a body image problem, and that's a biblical issue. You take a young girl to Psalm 139, you take a young guy, you say your identity is in Christ and you work theologically and biblically at that.

I think those are theological issues. The New Testament addressed, I would assume, all issues, all sins. There's nothing new under the sun, and it seems they didn't have this third group. It was pastors, it was God's people taking the word of God, which is sufficient to equip us onto every good work.

Now, we in the office, we were listening to this Q&A live, and then we all started high-fiving each other and texting each other because we were so pumped by what Pastor Philip has said, and I think he lost some friends probably as he made this statement, but he also gained the loyalty of many who are loyal to scripture.

The point is this, that the church is central in counseling ministry, and I hope you will indeed embrace that. At the bottom of page 3, let's look at the nature of the church, and we'll just walk through this together. I have this summary statement, this definition that the church is a unique spiritual organism empowered by the ministry of the Holy Spirit, made up of believers, both Jew and Gentile, connected to the head who is the Lord Jesus Christ, and given the mission to make disciples of all the nations.

I know that's a handful. You could also pick through each of those components in that definition and find a rich understanding of the church, but just a couple of elements here. It is a spiritual organism. The church was birthed on the day of Pentecost on Acts 2, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The church has been baptized into the person and the power of the Holy Spirit and proclaims the gospel because of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Just again at the statement, at the risk of overstating the obvious, the church is made up of believers. The church is made up of believers in Christ.

You would think we wouldn't need to restate that point today, but actually we do, because people are promoting this view of the church that says that the church is just a gathering of people with varying levels of interest in Jesus. We need to go back to the basic idea here that the church is made up of believers.

The church is the ecclesia, the called out ones, those who've been called out of the world and called into a relationship with Jesus Christ and into a relationship with those who belong to Jesus Christ. On page 4 of your handout, you have that great statement by Jesus in Matthew 16, verse 18.

I tell you, you are Peter and on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Now, what I want to do at this point is give you five illustrations or descriptions of the church that are found in scripture. I'm going to run through these briefly in our time remaining.

You can do much study on each of these illustrations or descriptions. You would do well to choose three or four of these descriptions, and do your own study, put it in your own words. Again, you're communicating in your essay, you're writing as if you are communicating these concepts to a counselee, and so you're putting it in your own language.

How would you communicate this concept to someone who you're trying to minister to? But you would do well to find at least three of these descriptions and develop a full paragraph on each of them. If you want to go and do all five, you're certainly welcome to do that.

I'm not sure if you could get all of that in to a page and a half, but at least three or four of these illustrations would be the basis for a good essay on this topic. I'm going to run through these briefly and try to resist the temptation to belabor the point here.

But illustration number 1 is that the church is the beloved bride of Christ. Ephesians 5, verse 25, "Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." The key idea here is one of spiritual union. Ephesians 5, verse 31, "Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This mystery is profound, and I'm saying that refers to Christ and the church.

Paul is saying there in Ephesians 5 that the unity that exists between husband and wife in the one flesh relationship is an illustration of the union between Christ and the church. The church is the beloved bride of Christ. Now, this will drive your own passion for the church. That Christ loves the church and considers the church to be the very bride of Christ.

So a number of scriptures there that you could think through. But I just bring to you a simple application of this truth. How we treat the local church is how we treat Jesus Christ. I'm sure someone could say, "Well, Dan, I really don't like your wife, but I really love you.

I really want a relationship with you, but I don't want a relationship with your wife." I would say, "We are one flesh, we're one, we're in the covenant of marriage, and if you want a relationship with me, it means that you're going to have a relationship with my wife as well.

You can't say you love me and that you don't love my wife because we're one." In a similar way, there are many who say, "Well, I really love Jesus, but I just can't stand his church. I really love Jesus, but I can't stand the people of the church." Biblically, that is really an impossible concept.

How you treat the church is how you treat Christ because the church is the beloved bride of Christ. Matthew 10, verse 40 says, "Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me." That'll radically change your relationship with your church. When you realize theologically speaking that how you treat the members of your church is how you are treating Jesus Christ himself, because the church is the very bride of Christ, it will change how you relate to the people of your church, and how you serve, and how you support your church.

Let me move to the second illustration here and say that the church is the body of Christ. Again, the main idea here is one of unity, that Christ is the head and we are the body of Christ. Again, a simple illustration. Someone, I suppose, might say, "Well, Dan, I'm just going to punch you in the arm, but don't worry, don't take offense.

I'm not punching you, I'm just punching your arm." I would say, "Well, if you're punching my arm, you're punching me because this is my body. My arm is part of my body and you can't separate my body from me." The similar truth is true of Christ's relationship with the church.

How you treat the body of Christ is how you treat Christ himself. How you treat the members of the body of Christ is how you treat the head who is Christ. First Corinthians 12, verse 12, "For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many are one body, so it is with Christ." Now, verse 27 says, "You are the body of Christ and individually members of it." Paul's point in that passage is that you cannot affect one part of the body without affecting the entire body.

When one member hurts, the entire body hurts, and each member of the body is necessary for the proper functioning of the body. The body has different parts and all of them function differently from each other. When people say to me, "Dan, I don't feel like I'm part of this church because I'm different from everyone else in this church.

Maybe I'm a different ethnicity, or I'm a different age and stage in life, or I have different hobbies, or I have different interests, or just a different personality. I don't feel like I fit in," and I say to them, "If you feel like you're different from everyone else in this church, that is all the more reason why we need you here." Because the whole point of the body of Christ is we are made up of members who are different from one another.

We don't need 100 ears in the church. We don't need 100 eyes in the church. We don't need five livers or five hearts. We need each member of the body functioning exactly how God has designed them to function. So that is the point of the church being the very body of Christ.

So just a wonderful concept that the church is the body of Christ. The third illustration at the bottom of page 5 of your handout, the church is the flock of Christ. John 10, verse 11, Jesus says, "I'm the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." Admittedly, as I've said in other classes, this is not the most flattering metaphor to compare believers to the sheep of God and compare the church to being the flock of God.

Sheep are the dumbest and the dirtiest of all the animals in the world. They can't kick, they can't bite, they can't scratch, they can't claw, they can't defend themselves. They're easy prey for savage wolves. They need constant care and constant protection. Sheep are always getting lost. They're always going astray.

Believe me, if you have a heart of a shepherd, you will never lack sheep who need your shepherding care. And if your counseling ministry at your church has the heartbeat of a shepherd, then you will always be pulling sheep out of a whole lot of trouble. The church is not an organization that needs to be managed.

The church is a flock that needs to be shepherded. And by the way, I would just say this on a personal note. This is why I am a biblical counselor. This is why I got trained to be a biblical counselor and got into the organization ACBC. It is not so much that I'm passionate about counseling ministry in and of itself, but it really is that I'm passionate about being a shepherd, that God has called me to be a shepherd, and that God has called all of us to have the heartbeat of a shepherd, because Jesus is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the flock.

And counseling is a means to express shepherding care. Counseling is a means of rescuing lost sheep. Counseling is a means of protecting straying sheep. Counseling is a means of restoring wounded sheep. In fact, it is an incredibly effective way of expressing the shepherding care of Christ. When else do you get this opportunity to express shepherding care into people's lives when they come to you with their problems and their spiritual struggles?

And so I'm passionate about shepherding because I serve the good shepherd who is Christ. And counseling is one means to express that shepherding care. And that is why I'm passionate about counseling because that is what the church is. We are shepherds who give shepherding care to the flock of God.

And we always need more shepherds because there's always more straying sheep than there are shepherds who are capable and willing to go after those sheep. And so we need counselors who reflect the character of the great shepherd. And Jesus said, if you have a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, you're not happy with the 99 sheep that you have.

You leave the 99, you go after the one, and you bring that one sheep back into the fold. Each sheep in the flock of God is worthy of shepherding care. Jesus said to Peter three times in John chapter 21, when he restored him into ministry, Peter, do you love me?

And Peter said, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. And he said to him, feed my sheep. This is what the church is. And this is why we must have more biblical counselors. Illustration number four, the church is the family of God. When you become a Christian, you lose the world, you gain a family.

We're adopted as the children of God by our father in heaven. We cry out to him, Abba, Father. And if we are all children of God in Christ, and what that makes us is a spiritual family. We treat in the words of first Timothy five verse one, older men as fathers, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters in all purity.

First Timothy three verse four says that the qualification of an elder is he must manage his own household well, with all dignity, keeping his children submissive. For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? The church implication, the church is the household of God, made up of the family of God, and the church needs to be managed.

And if an elder can't manage his own children, then how is he going to manage the household of God? First Timothy three verse 15, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God. So we're the family of God, and that's a wonderful concept, but it also means that each of us need to learn how to behave in the family of God.

If I have one word to say to church members, it would be behave, because you're part of the household of God. Learn how to act within this family, and that requires learning to know that you're not always the most important person in the room on any given ministry event.

And so this is the family of God. We are brothers and sisters in Christ, and that makes a huge difference in counseling. When I meet with a believer, when I say to that believer, "I'm your brother in Christ," it isn't the professional clinical model of a top-down type of dispensing of advice, but it is one brother coming alongside of another and giving encouragement and hope and help from God's word.

And then a final illustration, illustration number five is that the church is the dwelling place of God. In the Old Testament, you have the tabernacle, which was a temporary tent, and it says in Exodus 40, verse 34, that the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Later on in Old Testament history, the temple was built and a permanent structure was given, which was the center of the life of the nation of Israel, and it says that the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord.

We know that God is omniscient and God is omnipresent. He is everywhere at all times, and yet in a special way, the tabernacle and the temple were the dwelling place of God. And in the New Testament era, that temple or the temple is the church. The church is not a physical temple made by hands, but the church is a spiritual temple made up of living stones that are perfectly fit together, founded on the cornerstone of the temple, who is Christ, and as Ephesians 2, verse 22 says, in him that is Christ, you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the spirit.

I'll just end with this. Biblical counseling, that is an expression of the local church's ministry, offers to the world what no secular resource could ever offer, which is the very presence of God through his Holy Spirit, the very blessing of God upon each of the counseling meetings of the church.

No secular resource can offer this. A counselor who is part of the New Testament temple, which is being built by God into the dwelling place of God, no secular counselor can bring into a counseling session the very presence and the blessing and the ministry of the Holy Spirit, who uses his word to change lives for his glory.

No secular counseling system can offer a counselor who is filled with the scriptures, who is part of the bride and the body of Christ, and who is filled with the Holy Spirit of God. And that is why we love the ministry of biblical counseling. That is why we approach this ministry with joy and anticipation.

That is why, although we deal with a lot of different problems, that we are excited about this ministry. We believe that God will bless this ministry because we are an extension of the church, which is the body and the bride of Christ, the very dwelling place of God. And we know that we offer to our counselees and to the world what the world could never offer.

And so do a good study. I just encourage you to do a good study on this subject, not only for the sake of writing an essay, but for the sake of enriching your own understanding of the church, of being more committed to your own church, for being more passionate about the ministry of your church.

And we trust that God will use this topic in your life to launch counseling ministry, to be a catalyst for counseling ministry to take place in the local church for God's glory. So I trust that you'll be encouraged as you study this topic. We are going to conclude our class next week with the final topic of the year, Theology Exam number 24, where we'll take this broad understanding of the church and then apply it specifically to how does counseling ministry work in this church.

But you'll see that these are very critical topics, and I trust that they will be a blessing to your life. So thank you again for joining us tonight on the live stream. We hope you will have a safe and a blessed week. And let me close this tonight in a word of prayer, and then we'll be dismissed.

Let's pray. Father, we do thank you for the church. Thank you for this study. Thank you for this hour that we've spent just reminding ourselves of what the church is. And we thank you that this is the church that Christ has purchased with his own blood. Help us to love the church because Christ loves the church, and we pray that you would develop in us a conviction that counseling ministry does belong in the church.

Help us to, in our own lives, echo not only the teaching of Scripture, but also the sentiments of Pastor DeCourcy, who so well said that the church ought to be the first port of call. The church ought to be the first place that people seek help for their problems, and that we do have the resources to help people through your word.

So bless each of my brothers and sisters here, and give us a great week of study, and bring us back together next Sunday to continue and to conclude our study of these topics.