Gospel Churchmanship

Turn in your Bibles. To, Ephesians chapter 5 for a time of study in God's word, this morning. We're, for the month of December, with the exception of next Sunday, where we're focusing on Christmas. we are putting our focus on the church and trying to see the church through, through Jesus' eyes, and as we've looked at all the things that we wanted to cover this month, both in Sunday school and in our, preaching time.

the topic fell to me today that we're going to call gospel churchmanship. OK, gospel, churchmanship, what God wants from Christians with regard to the church. Now, I know that churchmanship is not that familiar of a word. I doubt that any of you use that term, this week.

or even in the last year or probably your lifetime, but it's actually a good word, and I want to introduce the word churchmen to you, and I have some definitions here on the screen behind me. Back 100 years ago, 200 years ago, this was a more common word. There were certain individuals, certain men that were called churchmen. And these were not necessarily pastors.

A lot of times it was, it was laypeople. A churchman is basically a passionate adherent or active supporter of a church or the, church and back, a century or two ago there were individuals that just basically they were, they were flaming passionate about the church and whatever intellect, writing abilities that they had, whatever skills, gifts and talents they had, and even some laypeople, whatever resources they had from the wealth that they generated from whatever business enterprise that they had succeeded at.

There were individuals that just rose up and said, we're going to give the very best of what we have by the grace of God in service to the Church of Jesus Christ. And those individuals were described by other people as churchmen.

Someone was a great churchman who was just a really passionate advocate who had a very high view of the, the church and gave it his all in terms of serving and benefiting the church in any way. He could. Gospel churchmanship is gospel motivated, passionate adherence to an active support of the Church of Jesus Christ. It's someone who's a churchman or a church person, if you're a lady, and they're motivated to that passion for the church by the gospel that raises the question of what is the church.

And let me give you two definitions because in the in the New Testament there are at times where there's references to the church universal that includes all those that have truly believed in Jesus. Look at this definition the universal assembly of truly saved believers in Jesus who put their trust in Him. On this side of the cross, and around the world today, alive today, and even those who have put their trust in Christ to have gone home to be with the Lord. That's, that's the church universal.

But there are many passages in the New Testament where the word church is used Speak of a particular local assembly of believers, and we can define that as a local assembly of truly saved believers in Jesus who are seeking to conduct themselves together in accordance with the teaching of Christ and his apostles. So what we're going to focus on when we talk about gospel churchmanship, We're talking about someone who's motivated by the gospel to be a really passionate supporter of, and, an advocate for, the church universal and the church local and all of these manifestations.

Now as we look at these things, I want to start off by just real quickly contemplating four different levels of relationship to the church, both universal and local. There, there are those that are completely non-churched people, and most of these individuals don't even profess faith in Christ, and to them.

church is a waste of time. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, said, and I quote, just in terms of allocation of time, resources, religion is not very efficient. There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning, unquote. So he's, he's a non-church, person.

Then there's even people that do profess faith in Christ, but they don't want anything to do with, a local. Church or organized religion and so they would consider themselves non-church. These are definitely not people who are characterized by gospel churchmanship. and then there are people that do have some affiliation with the church, with the local church or a number of them, but they're basically attenders.

they don't want to take the step of really making a commitment to, a local body of believers, but they're happy to attend. And a lot of people attend churches, and if you're an attender at Cornerstone and you're not a member, I'm not. I'm not ripping on you here at all, because sometimes people in their journey, they sometimes people have come to Cornerstone, they've attended two Sundays and they're like, Where do I sign up? How do I become a member?

There are other people that have attended for years just because of some past experiences. It's taken them time to reach that point where they were willing to make that commitment. And so we we understand all of that. I'm mostly speaking of those that are lifelong attenders only.

And they have no intention of ever entering into a committed relationship with the local body of believers. Such individuals often will find something attractive about a church they'll attend for a while because of the things they like about that church, but eventually they will begin to see flaws in the leadership or in the believers. that are in in that church and they will leave and begin attending another church, and they will attend that church until of course they find out some imperfections that bother them enough and then they'll they'll move on and they're individuals that sadly they just go from one uncommitted relationship to another in terms of Relationships with local churches, I like how Joshua Harris expresses their mindset.

Their mindset is basically this, they say to a church, I'm here, tentatively, at least for the immediate future, I think.

These are attenders only. Then there are those that are uncommitted members. Maybe at one point they were committed and gung ho about being involved in the local church, but maybe they've strayed away from the Lord. Maybe there have been hurts that they've experienced and they just pulled out, and now they're just simply attenders, practically speaking.

They're not passionate about the church maybe the way that they once were. They're not. They're not committed, they don't display that commitment in their actions and in their attitudes, with regard to the church. And then, of course, there's 1/4 category of relationship to the church, and that is those that are passionate and committed to the church universal and the church, local.

and this is obviously, I think, where God wants, all believers ultimately, to be. So with the time that we have, what I want to do is, try to deliver to you 7 pieces of counsel to help you to know what God expects from you with regard to his church. It's interesting, when you get saved, you enter into a relationship with Jesus, and you might give a lot of thought to that. And there's a lot of people that have, they think about Jesus and their relationship with him, but they don't give any significant thought to what should my relationship be.

To the church, and they have a relationship with Jesus, but they don't want anything to do with Jesus' body. And so there's a disconnect there. And what we're going to see this morning is if you really want to enjoy the fullness of a relationship with Jesus, you're going to have to relate yourself to his body as well. So this is just a help to to all of you and to me also just to think through what the Bible says.

says about what our relationship to Christ's body or to the church, should be. And the very first piece of counsel, as we do with almost every point, we start with the gospel. If you really want to know what your attitude, disposition, relationship should be, to, the Church of Jesus Christ. Here's my first piece of counsel, study.

Or just watch Jesus, study the way Jesus loves the church, and then imitate him. OK, go to Jesus, go to the foot of the cross, and watch him, and study the way that he chose to go about loving the church. And then as we're all commanded to do in the New Testament, be an imitator of Jesus. How many of you raise your hands?

How many of you want to be like Jesus? OK, that's very encouraging. And if we want to be like Jesus, then we would want to study. Well, what does Jesus think of the church?

How does, what does he do for the church? What is his attitude or disposition toward the church? Because whatever that is, I want to imitate that. I love what Joshua Harris says in his book, Stop Dating the Church.

The book that we're featuring this month is the book of the month. He says this the strongest argument I know for why you and I should love and care about the church is that Jesus does. The greatest motivation we could ever find for being passionately committed to the church is that Jesus is passionately committed to The church. He goes on to say, as Christians, we are called to be imitators of God.

We are to be conformed to the image of His Son. Can there be any question that part of being like Jesus is to love what he loves? Christians often speak of wanting God's heart for the poor or the lost, and these are good desires. But shouldn't we also want God's heart for the church?

If Jesus loves the church, you and I should too. It's that simple. Well, how does Jesus love the church? Let's let Paul tell us this.

In Ephesians 5, Paul is speaking to husbands, and he's trying to tell husbands how to love their wives. And we're not going to focus on that aspect of Ephesians 5 this morning. but what we'll focus on is this in telling husbands how to love their wives, Paul points to Jesus and the way he loved the church. We'll focus for the next couple of minutes on what Paul's pointing to, OK.

The statements he makes about how Jesus loves the church. Look at this in Ephesians 5. verse 25, he says, Christ loved the church past tense, and that doesn't mean he loved the church. Past tense, but he doesn't anymore.

He's pointing to something in the past, and what he's pointing to is the cross. Look what he says, Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church and all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless. Speaking of Christ, present love for the church and how he shows that he tells us later that Christ nourishes and he cherishes the church because we are members of his body.

We could spend a whole message on this, but let me just list off a few quick things that we can draw from this passage in terms of how Christ loves the church.

Number one, we see Christ gave himself up in death for the church. He died for the church. That's an amazing thing. He gave up his life.

He gave himself. That's what the passage literally says. He gave his whole self. He didn't just give some of the wealth that he had, say, Hey, what?

Here's a donation to help, the church become what God wants it to become. No. He gave himself, his entire self to the point of surrender and death for the good of the church. Another thing we observed from this passage is that Christ died to be the one to take care of the church's imperfections.

the picture is not of Christ doing some church shopping. and he's like, man, I, I want to die for something beautiful. And so, and then he, and then he lands upon the church and he's like, wow, she is amazing. what?

I'll die for her. That's not what Paul is saying in Ephesians 5. When Jesus laid eyes on the church, the church was a filthy, defiled, repulsive mess. And Jesus died for the church in that state, and he died in order to be the one who gets to clean up the church's mess and help the church be transformed.

Away from its imperfections. That Paul describes in Ephesians 5. We need to ponder that because a lot of times people, they're in a local church and or maybe they're just checking out a church and they start seeing imperfections and their instinct is, I'm going to turn around and go as far away from this church as I can. Jesus looked at the church.

In its worst state, and he moved towards the church in love and died for the church. In fact, he died in order to be the one who gets to help the church with its imperfections. That's like such a beautiful picture. It encourages me as a pastor.

there's so many things about Cornerstone that that I thank God for and that God should be praised and glorified for, but we just had an elders retreat the last two days, and, I'm overwhelmed with how far I have to go as a pastor, and there's a lot of things that we're doing well, and then there are things that we're not doing as well as we could be doing, and there's a lot of imperfections here and if you've been coming the last week or two and you don't see them, just stick around and those things will become evident to you and I am so thankful.

That Jesus doesn't turn and go the opposite direction away from us. Others may, there are people that may come to Cornerstone and check us out and they're like, I'm getting away from these people as fast as I can. Jesus, though, in the meantime, is moving towards us and love.

In fact, he died. He got crucified to be the one to get to clean up the church's mess. And help her with her imperfections. We also see in this passage that Christ did not just see the church in that moment for what it was at that time, nor does he presently only see the church for what it is now.

But even now he sees the church for what it will be. When you look around, both at yourself and at your Brothers and sisters, when you look at Cornerstone for example now, yes, you do need to see this church for what it is right now, but at the same time you also need to see the church for what it's going to be in glory, and I'm telling you, I'm promising you in glory we're going to be absolutely ravishingly beautiful, and we're going to be the perfect church. Amen. so let's, let's keep an eye on the present just like Jesus does, but at the same time, Jesus has an eye towards the future.

He knows what we're going to look like in the end, and he's readying us for that. We also see that Christ in an ongoing way is nourishing and cherishing the church. That word nourish means to feed, cherish. I love this word.

It literally means to warm. And it's not the warm like if I see Jeff Van Savage, hey Jeff, if, if I see that Jeff is cold, and I'm like, well, he's cold, I got to take care of that. I'll throw him a blanket to warm him. That's not what this word means.

All right. The idea of this word is a more accurate illustration would be when, when my kids were younger at times during this time of year, like during the winter. they'd get up and it'd be cold in the house and they're shivering. And so there were times where I would just come over to them and I would gather them into my arms and I would just hold them until they stop shivering.

You ever done that as, as a parent? And in that moment what I'm doing is what this word means. I see them shivering and I know they're cold, and I say I'm not going to throw them a blanket. I've got something that they need and that is warmth.

So I will give them my warmth and in order to transfer my warmth from me to them, I need to draw them close to me. That's what Jesus does with you and I. That's what he does with the church. And as he draws us close, what is in Him.

is passed from him to us little by little. This is a cherishing type of ministry as he warms and loves and nourishes the church, very tender terminology here. So if, if, if you're wrapping this up here, if you, if you are wanting to know what your relationship to the church should be, you're wanting to investigate that, I think God would first say watch Jesus, just watch him. And then do what he does.

Watch the way Jesus is with the church, and then you love the church sacrificially. You be willing to lay down your life for the church. You look at the church, not just for what she is now, but for what she will be, and you invest yourself in the power of Jesus and nourishing and drawing close to and cherishing the church. There's a second piece of counsel that I would commend to you if you want to know what God expects from you with regard to His church, and that is see the church as a primary location where God wants to glorify Himself through you.

And there's many places where God wants to glorify Himself through you. And if you're taking notes, just write this word down everywhere, OK? Workplace in the home, on the freeway, everywhere. He wants to glorify Himself through you.

But there's a special place where God wants to glorify Himself through you, and that is in the church. We see this expressed by Paul in Ephesians chapter 3. Look what he says. He says now to him speaking of God who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think.

Paul is just being excessive in his terminology here. God can do all that we ask. Not only that, he Do all that we don't even think to ask. Maybe we think it, but we don't dare ask it.

God can do all that. And not only can he do all of that, he can do beyond all that. Not only can he do beyond all that, but abundantly beyond all that. And not only can he do abundantly beyond all that, but far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think.

And then he says, according to the power that works inside of us, so we're like, Whoa, yeah, God, you can do that. I believe, I believe. And then God says, I can do all of that according to the power that right now is operating inside of you. And now listen to what the Spirit of God is speaking through Paul.

This isn't just Paul's desire. This is God the Holy Spirit expressing through Paul what the heart of God is in terms of where he wants to glorify Himself. Look at this verse 21 to him, to this powerful God whose power works inside of us, to him be the glory in the church. And in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever.

The church is a prime location where God wants through the power that He has working inside of you, to glorify Himself, to show forth His power and His glory. In your life and through your life as it's planted and located inside the church. That leads us to a third piece of counsel, and that is, if you want to know what God wants of every believer with regard to the, the church, I believe this is very easily demonstrable from scripture. Make a decision to conduct yourself in a particular local church.

Whether it's Cornerstone or some other Bible believing church here in this city, and there's a number of them, or elsewhere if you're visiting from out of the city or state, make a decision, go somewhere to a Bible believing church that's glorifying Jesus and decide that you will locate yourself in a particular local church and you will conduct yourself. In other words, you will live your life there. In 1 Timothy 3:15. Paul's been talking about qualifications for elders and what elders do, qualifications for deacons, what deacons do, and he also was talking about men in the church and what men are supposed to do and women in the church and what they're supposed to do.

He's dealing with all of these very practical issues of leadership and ministry and male female roles, and he's still got some distance to travel about meeting the needs of widows and so forth. helping Timothy with the specific issues regarding the local church in the city of Ephesus. And he pauses in the middle of all this to say, Here's, here's what I'm doing, Timothy. He says, I write, I'm writing so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God.

Now what's a household? A household is brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers. It's family members that are under the same roof. You understand that.

for example, my parents live in Indianapolis. I've got a sister that lives in Indianapolis, about, I don't know, 10 or so miles from them. I've got a younger brother in South Carolina and an older brother in Atlanta, Georgia. We are family, but we're not household.

We're not living together. Under the same roof, Paul, in using this word is meaning more than just family relations. He's talking about a family of brothers and sisters brought together in Christ that are living under the same roof. He's talking about a local church, not just the church.

Universal. And if someone only came to this verse and he read nothing yet of First Timothy, he would read this verse and come to this conclusion. He would say, Based on what I'm reading here, Paul is going to tell me how to conduct myself in the church, in a local church, but I don't even know what those details are yet. But I do know from this passage that as a Christian, I should be conducting myself in the local church.

Does that make sense? Am I stretching anything? A believer should read this and say, according to this, I ought to be located in a household. I should be living my life and conducting myself in a local church.

And now I'll read the rest of First Timothy to find out how to conduct myself, but I I know from this alone that I should be conducting myself in a local church and so I would encourage you to make that decision or if you're not ready to make that decision at this point, there's a lot of legitimate reasons for that as you're getting to know a church whether it's Cornerstone or another church. Just put yourself on a path to where that's where you're heading, that you're going to, you're going to take steps that ultimately will answer that question of should I settle at this church or not, but ultimately I want to come to a place where I make a decision to conduct myself, where I say, from this day forward, as long as God allows me and as long as I'm here, I will conduct myself in this local church.

Alright, there is a 4th piece of counsel that emerges from that in terms of how to conduct yourself. Well, you can infer a lot of things from 1 Timothy, which is the book that we're studying., the church has elders and deacons, and so obviously there's authority, there's leadership, and there's submission, and there's teaching that goes on and, we won't get into all that because that's what our whole series over this past year and a half has been about.

But let's jump to Hebrews for 1/4 piece of counsel, and that is at the very least, if you want to know how to, here I am in a local church. I'm conducting myself here. What do I do though? How do I conduct myself?

At the very least you can know this, that you should assemble with that church in order to perform acts of premeditated ministry to other people. Look what the writer of Hebrews says. He says, Let us hold fast the confession of our hope, and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. Look what he says.

Consider. Let us consider. Let us be thinking about. Let us be premeditating.

In on how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own synagoguing or assembling together, as is the habit of some to forsake that, but assembling together and encouraging one another. daily So you look at this passage and there's a number of people that go to this passage in order to make the point you have to attend church. Alright, the Bible says it right here, you have to assemble, you have to attend. And my, what I want to say this morning is this passage is saying so much more than that.

In fact, this passage is a huge argument against mayor attendance. At a local church, when one gathers with brothers and sisters. This is talking about prepared attendance, where you are preparing yourself, you are premeditating ministry. To where when you do assemble you've already been praying about asking God for opportunities and asking God to give you insight and God's giving you that insight and it's like, what, I need to seek this person out and deliver a word of encouragement.

I want to pray with this person over here and I know this person is really battling with some temptations. I want to find out how they're doing and just try to help them. Let them know that I'm, that I care about them, whatever it may be, where you premeditate ministry to other people. Now this isn't really that complicated.

Like for me, I don't just attend Cornerstone, right? I can't. It's my job and I don't just get up on Sunday morning. It's like, oh, it's church today, great.

And then, oh, greeting time's over. I have to preach and OK, let's open up our Bible. What should I say? I would, I would lose my job if I didn't premeditate, what?

But I have to, I have to spend hours thinking about how do I minister to God's people, how can I help them and bless them in the most effective way with the time that I have. There's Sunday school teachers that that show up on Sunday. They've been praying, they've been working on their lesson through the week, just trying to understand God's word and then thinking through how they can communicate it in a way that's understandable and that keeps the interest of Of those that are listening to the truth being taught.

Our worship team, they don't just get up here on Sunday, they have to premeditate.

They're, they're here most of the time on Wednesday nights and, and they're rehearsing. And I'm usually down in my office, which is like probably right below here, this spot doing counseling, and I can hear them rehearsing through the floor and they're just working sometimes they're just going through a song over and over again or a particular part of the song. What they're doing is they're premeditating how they can best minister to you. and getting prepared for, for that on Tuesdays, Mike is thinking what would be the right songs, and we're talking about it as a staff as we're premeditating all of these things and my dream for Cornerstone is that all 400 of us, not just those who teach and lead worship or preach or whatever, but imagine if all 400 of us every Sunday through the week are preparing for our time of assembly.

And we all have ministry. We're coming to church to minister and we're prepared. We've prayed up. God's given us insight and, and I'm here to bless.

I'm here to carry out these ministries that I've been thinking about and praying about and premeditating on. If we did that, then Imagine what God can do. 12, if we all had that mindset, I think we would show up and not just do a thing or two. To where, we're driving away and it's like, well, how did you bless anyone today?

Like, I don't know, I think, what, I smiled at someone. I hugged somebody and it seemed to make them happy and yeah, I did this or this, so yes, it was a profitable time at church. What God wants is for us to abound in ministry. look what Paul says to the Corinthians.

He says, so also you, since you are zealous of spiritual gifts, he's talking about whatever gifts God gives you, whatever abilities, endowments that God gives to you, seek to abound for the edification. Church, don't just edify, which means to minister to help make the church a better place. Your brothers and sisters better off than they were before they encountered you. Don't just edify.

He's saying abound, overflow in edification. All of us, we show up at whatever times of assembly and we're prepared to minister. Tied to that is a 5th piece of counsel. And this is coming back the other way now, and that is a symbol with that particular local church in order to be thoughtfully ministered to by others., let me just say this, when you see, the reciprocal pronoun, the words one another in the New Testament, Whatever command precedes that, you can always split that command in two.

When you see one another, that means whatever verb, whatever command preceded it, is actually two commands in one. All right. For example, love one another. When you read the words love one another, you should think this means two things.

Number 1, I need to love my brothers and sisters in the Lord. Number 2, I need to allow them to love me. You guys understand that? So it's a two-way street, admonish one another.

That means that I need to be willing to admonish my brothers and sisters, and I need to allow them to admonish me. It's not just a one-way street. And so you don't just assemble because man, the church really needs me. And needs my ministry, and I don't need anything from anybody.

There's some people, they have a hard time receiving ministry, although they can more freely give ministry. But we need to attend church. We need to gather together with our brothers and sisters, prepared for allowing our brothers and sisters to minister to us. Hebrews 10, let's read this again.

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope. Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. That means you need to think about your brothers and sisters and how God might want to minister to them through you. It also means that you want to be in relationship with your brothers and sisters to where they know you well enough to where they can be thinking about you.

And contemplating how they can in very specific ways stimulate and motivate you to greater love and Good deeds. He says not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another. There's that pronoun again. Which means that this word means encouraging means to come alongside of in part.

So it means that you come alongside of your brothers, but also you gather together with your brothers and sisters in a local church so that they can come alongside of you and minister encouragement to you as well. So there's just give and take. We all should be going home from our times of assembly, having abounded in ministry to one another and Having received that abundance of ministry from our brothers and sisters in the Lord. So don't make the mistake of showing up and you're doing all the ministering and no one can minister to you.

Also, don't make the mistake of showing up because I want to get ministered to, and I got needs, and it's always all about me. You've met people like that, and they're just taking, taking, taking. And it's evident they're not giving any thought to how anyone else is doing, what anyone else may need, and how they might be able to minister to them. I want to challenge you guys that, just in a message like this, pick one thing that you can apply at the very least and just, just pray about this, that whether it's next Sunday when we reassemble.

Or I know there's Bible studies and things like that. There's other opportunities where we assemble together and there's even tonight where we assemble together. Take time before you show up, whatever that setting is. Pray, ask God, Lord, give me insight and lay something on my heart and I, I wanna minister, what can I do?

and premeditate that. And then when you do show up, then be ready to render that. I just, I'm, I'm excited about the image of 400 people doing that. It just really makes me excited as one of the pastors here at Cornerstone.

But let's move on. A 6th piece of counsel, if you want to. be rightly related to the local church or even the church universal, is to embrace the church as a primary means of experiencing God. Man, a lot of people don't think about this.

Everyone wants to experience God. That is a good and noble biblical desire. And we do experience God when we're by ourselves reading the word. We do experience God.

We're, we're in our, we're privately praying. to God, we experience God in profound ways, and those disciplines privately are absolutely vital, and you never want to sacrifice them for any reason. But if that's all that you did, is privately read the word and privately prayed, You would cheat yourself out of huge dimensions of God and His love that He wants you to experience. And of the fullness that he makes available to you in the church in a unique way.

Look at this. Ephesians 1. Look at how Paul speaks about the church, and he, God, put all things in subjection under His Christ's feet and gave Christ as the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. He says two things about the church.

Number one, it's the body of Christ. Do you want to experience Jesus? If you do, you probably want to have something to do with his body, I would think. Also, Paul describes the church as the fullness of him.

The church is the fullness of God. And what is stunning to me about this description of Paul, of the church is that Paul knew the churches he's talking about. Paul had a realistic idea of what he's talking about when he makes reference to the church. Paul dealt with messed up Christians.

Paul had been wounded. He had been hurt. He had lost sleep over the behavior of believers and entire churches. Almost the Corinthians gave him fits.

They're saying Paul is not even fit to be called an apostle. He His speech is contemptible and his physical presence when he speaks and shows up is unimpressive. They wouldn't even provide for him financially. if there's anyone in the history of the church that has seen the imperfections and the messes of church life, it's Paul.

If there's anyone in church history, I who's been wounded by more churches was probably the apostle Paul. If there's anyone in history that had every excuse to turn and run away from the church and say, I don't want anything more to do with this, it was Paul. If anyone in church history had any excuse to speak lowly of the church, And even cynically, it would be Paul. And yet this guy, with all these experiences describes the church as the body of Christ, and it is the fullness of God.

what that means. That means that a church doesn't have to be perfect. To merit the title, the fullness of God. Paul would say, in spite of all the mess and all the imperfections that still pervade church life, it is the best thing going on planet Earth.

Amen. And if you want to experience the fullness of God, in its entirety, you experience that in the context of the church. Paul, in Ephesians 2 talks about how the special presence of God resides in the church. He says to the Ephesians, you are of God's household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole building being fitted, that's, that's you and I, that's all of us.

Our lives are being fitted and joined together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, and a temple is where God dwells, and he elaborates on this. The next verse in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in one spirit. God brings us all together in order to house his special presence. God is everywhere, but in a special, unique way.

His presence resides in the church. And so if you're at all thirsty for the experience of the fullness of God, You will experience that in the context of church life. And what, probably all of us can give testimony to this to one degree or another. That, that even the wounds that we experience, Cornerstone's not a perfect church.

And, and, you stick around long enough, no doubt you're going to hurt people, they're going to hurt you, there's going to be disappointments and, and so forth. But even through that, even through those imperfections, God displays his fullness. And provides opportunity for you to enter into his fullness in ways that maybe you would not have experienced were it not for those imperfections that you encountered in the church. I can't help but think of Noah's ark when I think about the statement by Paul.

I've heard writers, I've read writers who talk about this, that I am, the ark, no doubt. Many days into the flood experience began to smell pretty bad. Right?. And yet I think everyone was pretty happy to be in there, right, and they wouldn't have wanted to have been anywhere else.

And in the church, There's a lot of mess, but it is the best thing going, and anyone who wants to experience God's fullness will experience dimensions of that in the church in certain ways that cannot be fully duplicated through any other means. Then lastly, let's close with this, and we're out of time. A 7th piece of counsel is to embrace the church as a primary means by which God puts His gospel on display before a watching world. as we come together, even with our imperfections and maybe we sin against each other and, and we seek forgiveness and we grant forgiveness and we continue journeying on and we're laboring together, we're accomplishing things and, the, the different ethnicities come together and display the oneness of Christ and old hostilities, both economic and maybe racial or ethnic, the cross obliterates those and And here we are walking together, living together as a community in Christ.

Paul says that in doing that, we as the church serve as the podium upon which God sets the gospel on display for the principalities and powers and also before a watching world. He says in 1 Timothy 3. 15. In case I am delayed, I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and the support of the truth and the truth is what it's the gospel.

It is the pillar. It is the podium. It is the platform on which the gospel, the truth of the gospel, is set. To be on display before a watching world.

Jesus says, what? By this all men are going to know that you're my disciples. If you are loving each other. John 17, Jesus is like, Man, if you guys are unified with the Father and I and with each other, he expresses this in his high priestly prayer.

He says, Father, if this happens, then all will know that you sent me. Jesus says. Jesus is anticipating. the effect that our loving unity will have upon a watching world and what that will display to them of the truth of Jesus Christ.

Let me ask you to bow your heads. We're going to take up an offering in just a moment. We would encourage you to give as the Lord leads you to, to give. And there's comment cards that are in your bulletins.

You're welcome to fill those out if you need to. Prayer requests, praises, put those on the back. We'll take those before the throne and our staff meeting on Tuesday. But let's, let's pray together.

Father, we thank you for your Son and for the cross. We thank you also just as much for the Spirit, because if your spirit did not come and open our eyes to the glories of these things, then We would not be saved. We thank you also for the church. A precious gift, a wonderful gift.

that you give to us. A gift that often we Might think too little of not take full advantage of. Help us to think carefully about our relationship with the church. Universal and local.

And that we might experience you and the gospel in all of its fullness. And that others may experience you and your fullness through us. We have much to learn, Lord, as a church. Thank you for how far you've taken us.

Thank you for being our best friend. And being willing to take us further, Lord, we're ready to go. Just show us from your word, open your heart to us, Lord. We, we just, we want to please you.

I ask this for my sake. I ask this for the sake of every person gathered here today. We thank you for the opportunity to give of these offerings to you. Receive these funds, Lord, and glorify Yourself with every penny that is given.

In the name of Christ we pray, and all God's people said,