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Be therefore followers of God as dear children and walk in love as Christ also hath loved us and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour. A fornication in all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not once be named among you as becometh saints. Neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor jesting, which are not convenient, but rather giving of thanks. For this ye know, that no whoremonger nor unclean person nor covetous man who is an idolater hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them, for ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord. Walk as children of the light, for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth, proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. And I have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light, but whatsoever doth make manifest is light. Wherefore, he saith, Awake thou that sleepest and ariseth from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. See them that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore, be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. Be not drunk with wine, where in his excess, but be filled with the Spirit. Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Submit yourselves one to another in the fear of God. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the Savior of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word. That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it, even as the Lord the church. But we are the members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. But this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they too shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular so love his wife, even as himself, and the wife see that she reverence her husband. Let's pray. Dear God, thank you again for this opportunity to assemble here for the preaching of your word. I just ask that you would be with Pastor Mahia now. Please strengthen him, fill him with your Holy Spirit, and I just ask that you would bless the preaching, and please use it to edify us and equip us to be better Christians, and in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Okay, we're in Ephesians chapter 5 this morning, and the title of my sermon this morning is Requirements for Church Membership. Requirements for Church Membership. In the age of the internet, people just have a lot of weird ideas of what it means to be a member of a church. And of course social media makes people think that, you know, being an online listener or something like that means that they're entitled to the same privileges as the actual members who attend the physical church. And so it's important for us to kind of reiterate what it means to be a member of a church, what is church membership, and what it's not. Now obviously this is a problem that has stemmed for many years. Even in the old IFB they kind of had somewhat of a misconstrued conception of what it means to be a church member. And not just old IFB, just churches in general, they would often have these church membership covenants. How many have ever signed a covenant before? Anybody's ever signed a covenant? Okay, we've got a couple old IFB'ers here. They would have this thing where they would give you, essentially, a contract. And once you were a part of the church, they wouldn't call it a contract, they call it a covenant. But a covenant is a contract. And so they would give that to you, and it has all of these requirements that you have to fulfill as a church member. They would say, you know, you've got to tithe, and you have to be a faithful member, attend faithfully to that church, and you've got to make sure you're going soul-winning, attending Sunday school. So they would have all of these requirements, even things like, hey, you can't be worldly, you can't be involved in sin. And when you look at that, you think to yourself, well, I mean, those are good things, right? Isn't that what we require of our church members? Isn't that what God requires? And the answer is absolutely yes. However, to sign something that says that you're going to commit to that, and if you don't, then you're no longer a church member, if you're violating that covenant, is not biblical. You know, there's no verse or passage in the Bible that tells people or churches, hey, make sure they sign this particular covenant to be a part of this local congregation. And so you have loads of people attending churches, and sometimes they don't even read the contract. I mean, most people don't read contracts, and they don't read the covenant. They fill it out, and then, you know, a couple weeks down the road or whatever, a couple months or even years, they get out of church, they violated that covenant, that contract. You know what? That's not something that God takes lightly. You know, God wants us to perform our oaths. He wants us to follow through on whatever covenant we make and not just be a bunch of covenant breakers, right? But the point is, is that how about we just throw out the whole idea just in general of covenants and contracts when people become members of a church. Now, I do believe that the concept of church membership is biblical, and the reason we refer to it as members of a church is because of the fact that once we get saved, we become a part of what? The body of Christ. And when we become a part of the body of Christ, we join and assemble ourselves to a local New Testament church. The members are essentially part of the body of Christ, right? The hands are the members. The feet are the members. It's essentially referring to the body parts of that particular body. Look at Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 30. It says, For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they too shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. And this is something that you will consistently see in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul addressing churches and individuals in that churches as being the members of the body of Christ, the local New Testament church. Go to Acts chapter 2, if you would. Acts chapter 2, while you're turning there, I'm going to read to you from Romans chapter 12 and verse number 4. It says, For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office, so we being many are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. We will visit 1 Corinthians 12 where it talks about this more extensively in a little bit, but let me give you a couple points regarding the requirements for church membership. Now I just mentioned that a lot of churches require you to sign a physical covenant in order for you to join the church. And sometimes they'll even have like people come up to the front of the church members or the church. I don't know if you guys have ever seen something like that. Like, oh, you know, they'll bring the entire family and they'll put them like right in front. And they're like, these people have finally decided to become members of a church. And they're just kind of like standing. You know, it's kind of awkward. It's like when people sing happy birthday to you, right? But, you know, I think that's kind of weird. I think that would be embarrassing to a lot of people, especially in the day and age where we have a lot of introverts, you know, in this world. It would probably drive them crazy to do something like that. Now, I do think that you have to agree to a covenant, though, in order to be a part of a church. You say, why is that? Well, number one regarding requirements for church membership is church membership requires you to be saved and baptized. You see, the only covenant you need to sign, so to speak, in order to be a part of a church is the new covenant, which is by your faith in Jesus Christ. The Bible talks about old covenant, new covenant, Old Testament, New Testament. And in order to be considered part of God's chosen people to be a considered a believer, according to the biblical standard, you have to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, which ultimately puts you into that new covenant. Look at Acts chapter 2, verse 41. It says, Then they that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day they were added unto them about 3,000 souls. Now, I want to make something clear here regarding verse 41. When it says they that gladly received his word, let me just tell you that that is another way of saying that those who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, obviously, every time someone gets saved in the New Testament, it's not going to word it exactly the same when it's doctrinally being explained to us as the reader, right? But when it's saying here they that gladly received his word, it is referring to salvation. And the reason we know that is because what comes after that? It says they were baptized. Well, the doctrinal teaching on baptism, physical water baptism is that people are supposed to be immersed in water after they get saved. You see, the Bible tells us in Matthew chapter 28, Go ye therefore and teach all nations, referring to salvation, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And when you look at the biblical model throughout the Book of Acts, because the reason it's called that is because it's highlighting the actions of the apostles. You see that people would get saved, they would believe on the Lord, and then what would happen? Then they would get baptized. And so in order for you to become a member of our church or any church for that matter, but of course, we're going to uphold this standard. Number one, you have to be saved. And number two, you have to be baptized. Now, it doesn't have to be by me. It doesn't have to be by Brother Hernandez. You could have gotten baptized somewhere else as long as the chronology is correct, though. Because sometimes you have people who recently get saved and then you approach them about baptism and they're like, Oh, I already did that when I was like five or six or whatever. And it's just like in a Catholic church. And they're like, Yeah, I got baptized. Well, that's not baptized. That's sprinkling water on your head with like germs and diseases and stuff like that. You know, and you just got your hair wet, you know, or they got baptized in some Pentecostal church. Or maybe they even got baptized in a church that preaches the right gospel, but they weren't saved there. They got saved afterwards. You know, you can't use you can't redeem that coupon or whatever of your previous baptism and apply it to yourself now because it doesn't mean anything. OK, and, you know, the baptism salvation can be a contentious subject for people to discuss if they don't agree with with, you know, the doctrine of salvation. But, you know, baptism is also contentious sometimes, too, because it requires some humility to say, you know, I've been in this church for X amount of time or I've been a Christian for so long. I've been saved for so long. And they find it hard to just humble themselves to get baptized. But it's still a commandment of God. It's the first command that God gives after salvation. We often say that it's the first step of obedience after salvation. Right. And so in order for you to be a member of a local New Testament church, you have to be saved and baptized. Now, I know that there's people in our church or maybe other churches that have been saved that have not been scripturally baptized and they would consider themselves to be a member of our church, whatever. But if you were to come and ask me and say, hey, well, I haven't been baptized. Am I a member of the church? I would say, no, you're not. You attend our church. You know, you might be a fan of our church. But if we're to just kind of like look at this according to the Bible, though, you're not officially a member of our church because of the not because you haven't signed a covenant. You haven't signed a contract. You didn't go through, you know, six weeks of church membership, explain to you what our church is about before you sign that thing. It's because you just have not yet been baptized. Now, if you're not saved, then you should get saved first and foremost, because forget being a member of a church. Just how about being a member of the New Jerusalem, you know, the family of God through faith in Jesus Christ. But if you're already saved, you've already believed on the Lord. And if you have not been baptized, just humble yourself and follow the biblical model of getting baptized after salvation. OK, well, it's kind of embarrassing. Well, then, you know, it shows a little humility on your part that you're willing to do it, even though you have not yet been baptized for quite some time or whatever. And so you would have to point out a verse to me that says that you don't have to be baptized. Well, I can point out a verse that says you don't have to be baptized to be saved. But the question is not whether you're saved or not. The question is, should you be baptized after salvation? And this is something that I have to consistently talk about because we are a Baptist church. Baptism is definitely necessary. So if you've already been saved, you've believed on the Lord. Now it's time for you to make a public profession of your faith in Jesus Christ through water baptism. It's right there. I think it's warm. Don't quote me on that. We're kind of inconsistent in that area, but whatever. So it says they that gladly received this word, I believe that is referring to salvation, were baptized the same day that were added unto them about 3000 souls. I believe that's referring to that church membership. People that are added to the church there are those who have been saved and baptized. Look at verse 42. So how do you know that? Well, they did and they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship. So what happens when you join a church? Well, number one, you receive doctrine. Why? Because in a local New Testament church, you hear the preaching of God's word. You are giving attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. You're learning what the word of God says. That's what doctrine is. It's teaching. Right. But then it says also fellowship. So a local New Testament church is responsible for providing biblical leadership, biblical doctrine. But it's also responsible for providing, you know, social gatherings and fellowship, having friends. This is very much an element that's very much important in a church. And one point that I want to make about that is that, you know, I'm glad you're here to hear doctrine. And I'm glad you're here because you believe in believing the right doctrine and you want to read the Bible. But here's another reason why God wants you to be in church. And that is to socialize. You say, why? Well, because if you don't socialize here, you're probably going to socialize with people you're not supposed to be socializing with. God wants you to have friends in a local New Testament church. And he wants our friendships, our relationships, listen to this, to be centered around the same beliefs. Because how can two walk together except they be agreed? You know, God definitely expects a level of separation from the world, not so much that we're just in the middle of nowhere. Like, you know, Amish people and not reaching people. Obviously, we live in the world and we're supposed to be reaching the world. But when it comes to the closest relationships that we have, they should be believers. Why? Because there is a level of unity there that exists that God wants us to have. And this is what the Bible defines as having fellowship. OK. This is why a church should be filled with all types of races. I didn't say racists. Races, right? In other words, we should have Mexicans, Asians, black people, even the minorities referring to the white people, you know. You know, you should have all different types. Why? Because the thing that we have in common the most is what? Salvation. Like, well, I just prefer to go to a church where people just look exactly like me. And you have the wrong stipulations for what to look for in a church. And that's not found in the Bible. What's found in the Bible is being joined with people of the same faith, regardless of what they look like. OK. And the reason I support is because you have churches out there is like, well, this is an all black church or this is an all Mexican church or something like that. This is an all Hispanic church. And you have that all Korean church. And you know what? I'm not saying they're not a legitimate church, because obviously they are if they're following the biblical guidelines. But if they're kind of ostracizing people and not welcoming people into the congregation because they're a certain race, then that's wrong because of the fact that in the Bible, God loves all races. In fact, he loves the human race. And I don't know if you know this, but in heaven, there's going to be all types of tongues and tribes and, you know, all different types of nationalities. That's important. And so, you know, put your political views aside. Well, I'm just against immigration. Well, you know what? I probably have more in common with these immigrants who are saved and those who are here in America who are not saved there. I said it. And you know what? I know there's people in here just like, yeah, but you should you should support immigration. I support the Lord Jesus Christ and I support people getting saved who are coming from different countries. And I want them to believe on the Lord. And if there's someone out there who does not speak English, but he's a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, he has the right doctrine. He loves the Lord. And, you know, that's my brother in Christ. I don't care if he's Mexican. He said, aren't you Mexican? I mean, technically, yes. But I mean, I grew up here. I'm probably more Americanized than most Mexicans are. But, you know, I don't really care. And so people need to put their political ideologies aside, especially this year, and focus on the fact that souls matter. Oh, we need to build a wall. Well, why don't you build a spiritual wall instead? And to keep out all the political ideologies out of your brain. So you actually, you know, are paying attention to what the Bible says. And, you know, why don't you tear down the strongholds? How about that? Of political ideologies instead. I know that's not popular. I know I got some white people mad at me right now and, you know, some Trumpsters or whatever. That's too bad. This is a church. This is not Republican Baptist Church. It's not conservative Baptist Church. It's not Trump Baptist Church either. And I'm not for Kamala either, by the way. OK. It's like, you know, well, I just think, well, I hope that your thoughts just line up with the Bible, though. And don't try to misconstrue, manipulate the Bible to fit your ideology either. OK. We need to go with what the New Testament model is. And the last time I checked, you know, the Apostle Paul wasn't going around converting people to become Roman or something. He was going around converting people to become Christian and believers, and he didn't care who they were. And so the point that I'm making here, I chased a rabbit. But, you know, the closer we get to election, I got to talk about these things in order to keep everyone's mind straight about what the Bible actually says. Church membership requires you to be saved and baptized. It says in verse 42, they continue steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship and in breaking in bread and in prayers. So essentially, this is referring to the fact that when you have a community of believers, what's known as the local New Testament church, these are the activities that typically take place in a church. Prayers, the breaking of bread, fellowship, continuing in the apostles doctrine, essentially learning the Bible. Look at verse 46, if you would. It says in the continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved. Essentially referring to this concept of what? Church membership. They're becoming part members of the body of Christ. The Bible tells us that Jesus said in Matthew Chapter 16, upon this rock, I will build my church. And he's addressing Peter. OK. And the reason I believe he's addressing Peter is because Peter is a believer and believers in the New Testament are often referred to as stones. OK. And so when he says upon this rock, I will build my church, he's essentially saying that upon believers is what the church is made up of. Right. People who have believed on Christ. And this is why Peter later on in First Peter Chapter two, verse five, he says this. Ye referring to those in Cappadocia, Galatia, Bithynia, Pontius. Ye also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Now, this is a pretty obvious point. I know that most people know this, but it's good to reiterate the fact that, hey, our church should be made up of primarily saved and baptized people. Now, we're going to have people who walk in and stay in our church, maybe for a time, maybe they're not saved. Yes, of course. I'm sure there's people who come to our church and they're not saved and they're just kind of like they're kind of like Herod. They're just kind of like enjoying the preaching for whatever reason. And the goal would be obviously that that person would get saved. OK. And they're not going to get excommunicated because they're not saved. But church, we're not we're also not going to tailor the service for that unsafe person, though, because church is for believers. Preaching is for believers. And so if you have unsafe people coming to church, you know, they're probably not going to last very long because they're going to hear things that are very much contrary to their belief system. If they're not subjecting their minds to the doctrines of Christ in the Bible, they're not going to want to be here. And if they want to continue to be here, then that's kind of weird. You know, but in either case, it doesn't change the dynamics of our church having one or two unsafe people. The bigger our church gets, the more likely it is that you will have unregenerated people joining our church, thinking that they're church members. I'm just making it clear that our church, in order to become a member of it, you need to be saved and baptized. You say, well, when do you consider someone to be a member of the church? Well, once they get saved and they get baptized. Plain and simple. Well, how many times do they have to attend? Well, the first time is fine. And if they never come back after that, I guess we're not really a church member then. But if they continue to come back, then I consider them a church member. Now, obviously, I'm not saying that we don't keep track of people, because we have a church role that we keep, or we keep all your credit card information, Social Security, just, you know, minor things. Just things to keep track of people. I'm joking about that. I hope you know that. You know, we keep track of people because we want to know the state of the flock. And we want to keep track of people. We want to make sure sometimes people need more accountability than others. People need to be followed up on. People need to be reminded to be in church. People need to know that they're missed, believe it or not. Okay? And so it's important to have that role, but that's not necessarily a membership where people have signed this covenant contract to be a member of our church. Once you've gotten saved, once you got baptized, you join our church, and you're here, we consider you to be a member of the church. Now, you say, when are they removed from being a church member? Well, obviously, if they just stop coming for months on end, they're just considered an inactive member. That's what I consider them to be. Because sometimes, you know, people go out, they just go on a hiatus, or they backslide for, like, six months or something like that, and then they come back. Guess what? Their membership is reinstated. Okay? But it's all, like, invisible, you know, stuff. Like, we don't, there's no contract that you have to re-sign or anything like that. Talk about church membership here. Go to Colossians chapter one. Colossians chapter one, if you would. So, first of all, church membership requires you to be saved and baptized. Number two, church membership requires having a head. Okay? You say, what do you mean by a head? I'm referring to a leader. Okay? Now, the reason this point is very much important is because of the fact that people have this idea that they can have church just anywhere. Okay? You know, oh, you know, we have church at our house. That's not church. Well, yeah, but we listen to you online, and, you know, we just sit there. Sorry, I'm glad you're listening, but that's not church. You know, the Bible doesn't say that Jesus Christ died for your house. He said he died for the church, right? He gave his blood, he purchased it with his own blood, the Bible tells us. Okay? And so, first and foremost, you need to congregate with a body of believers that has Christ as the head. Look at Colossians 1 17, it says, he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence. So, two things I want to mention in this regard. Okay? Number one, this 100% eradicates many churches on your list of where you might be attending. For example, if people say that, you know, they're going to go to a Catholic church and they're congregating there to worship the Lord, well, that's automatically disqualified, because the Catholic church does not have Jesus Christ as its head. He said, who's the head? Mary is. Mary is the head of that church. Okay? And obviously, physically speaking, it's the vicar of hell, the pope who's the head, but from a spiritual perspective, it's Mary. And look, Mary doesn't even know this stuff is going on either. Mary's in heaven enjoying eternity, you know, she's there with all believers. Just wait till we get there and tell her what's been happening over the last 2,000 years. Like an entire religion just worships her and she's going to be like... And then you have all these people praying to Mary. Folks, no believer in heaven can hear your prayers. You say, why? Because we're not omniscient. We're not omnipotent. We're not omnipresent. Only God can hear all the prayers of all the saints. And so automatically, the Catholic church would be disqualified as being a church. We call it the Catholic church only because that's like a title, but it's not a church of God though, because the church of God requires Jesus Christ to be the head. Okay? Who's the head of this church? Jesus Christ is. How do we know that? Because we're abiding by the words of Christ. We are adhering to what the word of God says, not some tradition, not some weird church practice that you can't find in the Bible, not because the church father said so, but because what the Bible says. In other words, the Bible is the final authority. And I don't know if you know this, Jesus Christ is the word of God. Okay? So a church has to have Jesus Christ as its head. That would disqualify the Catholic church. That would disqualify Mormonism. That would disqualify Jehovah's Witnesses. That would disqualify any so-called church that does not adhere to the word of God, does not have Christ as its head, does not follow the dictates of the word of God, especially when it comes to the New Testament. Turn with me if you would to go to Acts 11, if you would, Acts chapter 11. Now, another thing that I want to mention regarding church membership is that not only does it have to have a right spiritual head referring to Jesus Christ, it actually has to have a physical leader as well, meaning you should join a church that has a pastor. This would automatically disqualify house churches as being legitimate churches. Now, let me explain to you something about house churches that people often get mixed up because I'm not criticizing a legitimate church that happens to operate in a house because sometimes the church gets started and they don't necessarily have a building that they can meet in. Therefore, they meet in someone's house and then obviously they begin to grow. They can rent out a building, buy a building, whatever it is. I'm not referring to that. When I say house church, I'm referring to that which is associated with not having an actual leader, but everyone's kind of like the leader. And these individuals are typically people who have not been sent out of another local New Testament church. They do not like church authority. They think the Bible's open for interpretation for anybody in that church. It's like a big, huge Bible study with people who just don't know the Bible. You know, they pass around a verse and say, now, what do you think about this first means, you know? What do you think? Is salvation by grace through faith alone or do you think it's by repenting of your sins or something? And they kind of leave it open for interpretation whereas what you need is one leader telling you this is what the Bible says. You're like, well, what if I don't agree though of what your interpretation of the Bible though? Then what? Well, then you can go find another church, right? It's pretty easy. It's not like we keep people here. That's why you join a church where you agree with the doctrines there. But how can you join a house church when everyone has a different interpretation of the Bible? You need someone to actually, this is why the Bible tells us that he gives spiritual leaders, apostles, prophets, evangelists, and teachers for the edifying of the body of Christ, for the work of the ministry that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro, cared about with every wind of doctrine. In other words, God wants you to have spiritual leaders to make proper interpretations of not just basic Bible doctrines, but just even in-depth things so that you don't get off spiritually and get into heresy and start believing weird things, which quite frankly, a lot of these house churches do believe weird stuff. They're not qualified. They don't have any sanction from any legitimate pastor or local New Testament church. In order to be a member of a church, you should have a church that actually has a leader. Now, obviously, there are also churches out there that are satellite ministries of other legitimate churches, right? Lord willing, we'll do that one day where we'll start a church plant somewhere, and I can't be in two places at once, so someone will be able to head that ministry up, and they are essentially the person who's in charge of that ministry, you know, while in my absence. But here's the thing, though, is that that person is still operating under the authority of the pastor of the home church, okay? And it shouldn't always remain that way. Eventually, the umbilical cord should be cut off, and that person needs to be independent, that church. Let me read to you a couple of verses here before we get into the next passage. Acts 20, verse 28 says, "'Take heed, therefore, unto yourselves and to all the flock.'" Flock is referring to the members of the church. "'Over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you.'" Listen to this. "'Overseers to feed the church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood.'" So the Bible says that a church should have an overseer, someone who looks over the church doctrinally, spiritually, through prayer, and also through church discipline, through just the regular functions of a church, they need an overseer. And another word for overseer in the Bible is this term bishop. We don't really use bishop today. You know, people don't call me Bishop Mejia. And that's not a necessary tradition that we carry with us today because, unfortunately, that term has been misconstrued by other false religions, hijacked by other false religions like the Catholics and, you know, some even black churches, right? They're just like bishop, reverend, whatever. You know, I think pastor is just a good title. Hebrews 13, verse 7 says, "'Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God, whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation.'" And I'm not gonna belabor this point, but obviously, there are qualifications of a pastor as well, right? So it's not just any church that has a head. The head has to be a qualified pastor, according to 1 Timothy chapter 3 and Titus chapter 1 as well. Now, you're in Acts chapter 11. Let me give you another point here regarding church membership. And that is that church membership requires, I don't know if you know this, assembling with other believers in person, meaning you have to be here. And I know a lot of people are here with us in spirit. But you know what? In spirit ain't enough. We wanna see the whole body. Church membership, in order for you to be a member of our...most people in here are not gonna get upset at this because you're here. But a lot of online listeners will probably get mad at this. But you know what? This is true. It's a fact. The church is not made up of online listeners. This is not...I'm not Robert Breaker with the cloud church, with absolutely no physical members in his church, but a ton of listeners online. That's not a church. Jesus Christ did not die for the cloud. Okay. He didn't give his blood for the cloud, for the internet. Church members are people who are literally in church. Now, let me just say this, and this is probably make them even more mad. I would even say that the church, physical church members are more important than those who are online. It's not to say they have no value because there's people online that don't have a local New Testament church. They don't have a new IFP church. They don't have any churches in their area. There's parts of the world that are just, you know, they just don't have a man of God to lead that place. And I get it. And this is the best option for them, absolutely. But here's the thing is that it still doesn't mean that they're members of the church. They can get fed spiritually. They can listen to godly sermons. But let me just remind you is that preaching is a very small percentage of what takes place in the church. It's one of the most important things. And we want to discredit it or discard it as though it's not important. But you know what? There's a lot more that goes on in a physical church than just the preaching of God's Word. And if you're only receiving just the preaching, you're going to be a very unbalanced Christian, plain and simple. Now, the reason I want to say this because I heard someone online say something really foolish. And they claim that just because they're listeners online and because there's more listeners online than in someone's church, that somehow they implied that they're, it's just more important or something like that. But let me just explain something to you regarding online listeners. And we have a lot of online listeners, and I communicate with them regularly. We're great friends, and they consider me to be like their spiritual leader. And some of them would even consider me to be like their pastor. Some of them even consider me in our church to be like their church. Some of them even consider them to be like best friends with you, even though you've like never met before. And I get it. You don't have anything. You're just kind of grasping over whatever you can take, right? But here's the thing to imply that just because there's more online listeners, because obviously, for example, let me give you an example. The Rumble channel has like 1,200 subscribers. I don't have a church of 1,200. And at the peak of my YouTube channel, I had 112,000 subscribers. I definitely didn't have a church of 112,000 subscribers or a church members. But let me say this, though, okay? If everyone in my church decided to just no longer come to my church, I would no longer have a church. I mean, it would just be like me and my family if she even wants to come, you know? She's like, we need a head, you know? If everyone just left the church, physically speaking, I would no longer have a church. But let's just say this. Let's say everyone online just stopped listening to me. I would still have a church, because people are still coming physically, showing me that this is more important. And I don't need that as proof to say that this is more important. I'm just making a point here that quantity online means nothing, because at the end of the day, the most important thing are the physical members of this church. Because let's just be honest, the physical members of this church decided on a Sunday morning to get their rear ends out of bed, get all dolled up, and come listen to me scream at them for an hour, in some cases two hours, if you come Sunday night. And then sometimes they even decide to stay longer than that. You know, graveyard shifters, church graveyard shifters, you know, they come and we're here till like 10 o'clock at night. They're literally here for just hours on end. I would consider that to be just a little bit more important than a person online. You know, the fact that they spent the gas to come here, and some people are traveling from like far and wide. They're like the Ethiopian eunuch, you know, just coming from far and wide. They spent hours in traffic, and then they come on Thursday. And Thursday is just like, I mean the traffic on Thursday is ridiculous, especially if you're coming from like LA or beyond. You know, that's crazy. I mean, for a while we had a couple who would come here from Utah every week. That's another state, did you know that? They would travel states to come here. You know, I would consider that to be, that couple, or the people who do that, more important than the online listeners. This is not taken away from online listeners, because obviously maybe there's people who live in other states, other countries, and different parts of the world that can't make the drive. They would be here if they could, blah, blah, blah. But hold on a second, what about people who just live right around the corner? Or they live like 30 minutes away or something like that. And you know, sometimes people come to me and they'll say, yeah, I'd come more often, but I just, it's like a 40 minute drive, and I'm like, brother, should we, and I'm thinking to myself, should I tell him? Should I tell him what people do to get here? You know, should I shame him? You know, if you live nearby, you should be in church, and you're not a member of our church if you're not here. Yeah, but I listen to every sermon. I hit the thumbs up every time. I even sing along with you guys. I know the lady who laughs in the front. You know, I know all the readers. I know the song leaders. I know the people you call out all the time. Like, I know everything about your church. Yeah, but if you're not physically here, you're not really a member, sorry. And I'm thankful that people listen online because it makes the word of God spread more. You know, I want the word of God to reach many hundreds of thousands, Lord willing, millions of people online and on Instagram and on YouTube, but obviously I'm not allowed on there, on Rumble. I want the message to spread as much as possible, but let's say it just never did, and I just never... I could literally delete all of my social media platforms, Rumble and everything, and our church would continue to thrive, it'll continue to reach people, it'll continue to succeed and go forward and grow because of the people who are actually here. The point that I'm making here is that don't get this weird idea that just because people are listening online, that somehow that means they're a part of our church or something like that. And I've had sincere people tell me like, yeah, when we had the YouTube channel, I think we had like 5,000 subscribers at the time, they said, well, you pretty much have like a church of like 5,000 because of those subscribers, and I'm like, no, I don't, 5,000 subscribers is 5,000 subscribers. And many of them are just kind of like listening vicariously or just kind of like listening on the side or something, they just want white noise in the background, they're not necessarily... How many people do you think actually, and I'm sure they're out there, how many people actually like treat the preaching as though they're in church in their home, you know? Like they're sitting down, listening, they're singing. A lot of people don't, maybe some do, but I guarantee you the vast majority don't. I'm not downplaying the importance of reaching people online, I'm just reminding online listeners that just because you gave me your ear for an hour and you're listening online, that somehow that means you hold as much of a privilege or importance as the people who are physically here listening to me right now. It's not the case, get that out of your mind. Social media and 2020 with COVID has caused people to think that way, because you know, obviously live stream existed before that, but 2020 caused live stream to spread even more and people just got really into live stream. And you know, now that COVID is over, people just kind of stayed in that rut of staying home because they could just listen to the preaching online. Look at Acts 11 verse 25, it says, then departed Barnabas to Tarsus for to seek Saul. And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass that a whole year, listen to this, they watched online, or they just read all the letters. No, they assembled themselves with the church and taught much people and the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch. I want you to notice that it says assembled, meaning you are physically there. And in fact, church literally means what? Congregation. Now, here's what's funny about that word, because you have a weird doctrine out there that teaches that we're part of a what? A universal church, the invisible church. Oh, all believers are just part of the what? The church. Well, that's really stupid. I'm gonna explain to you why. It's because of the fact that church also means congregation. And what does it mean to congregate? It means to assemble. We are not assembled. We're not congregating with people outside of these walls at this point. And so they assembled themselves with the church, meaning they became members of that church for an entire year. They're essentially helping people. And you know what? We might even through our history, we've had people move out here because of a particular job and maybe they're a member of a different church and they assemble with us for a certain time. They become members of our church for a particular time and then they got to go or whatever. But that is considered church membership because they're assembling there. They're making that local church to be their church and serving in that church. So church membership requires assembling with other believers in person. And don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying that if you're sick or something, you stay home and you watch online, you're no longer like a member of our church or something. I'm talking about people who are only online listeners and that's the only option they got and praise God for that. I'm all for it. That's why we're providing that service because at any time we can just say, forget it. This is too much stress. This is too much problems, too much trouble. We always have technical issues. Let's just kill the online ministry and you know what, it would just not affect our church at all whatsoever. Did you know that? Whatever goes online actually does not affect churches at all whatsoever. It just never does. You say, why? Well, first of all, there's people in our church who just don't go online. They don't even know what's going on online. Secondly, a greater noise is made online than in churches. People who are in church listening to reason and to the preaching of God's word are better mentally, they're more stable here than people who are online. Why? Because online you're just listening to all kinds of garbage and nonsense. It's important for us to realize that you need to assemble with the believers. Go to Ephesians chapter four, if you would, Ephesians four, I'm going to move on from this point in just a bit, Ephesians chapter number four. Look at verse 13 of Ephesians four regarding assembling with the church. It tells us here, and I quoted the verses regarding not being tossed to and fro, that's in this context. Verse 13 says, till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the son of God into a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Skip down to verse 16, from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplyeth, according to the effectual working and the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. What this is saying is that the reason we grow in grace, the reason we don't want to remain spiritual babes is because we want to actually improve the quality of the congregation that we're in. When we're fitly joined together, one member actually ends up strengthening the body. So the more you mature, the more Bible you know, the more you love the Lord, the more sowing you do, the stronger that piece of body ends up becoming in the local New Testament church. You understand? Well, how can people strengthen us online as a church physically if they're not here physically, right? It's not going to happen. Now let me also say this is that sometimes in regards to church membership, there needs to be an amputation of members. You think of like real life, you know, frostbite, for example, right? People go to Mount Everest and then their nose freezes off, it gets all black and their fingers get all black and it needs to be, they need to cut it off at times, right? Or diabetes. You know, some Christians, spiritually speaking, they're just filled with so much sin and, you know, filth and nonsense that they actually have to be excommunicated from the church because they're unwilling to get right with God. And you know, that foot needs to be cut off. Now why? Because if not, the diabetes will begin to spread, right? Now frostbite does not spread, it just makes that particular part of the body inactive. Whereas diabetes does spread. And if you don't nip it at the bud, pun intended, then it can spread, it can cause more problems in the body. Well, in like manner, you know, sometimes church membership needs to be dwindled a little bit. Why? Because of the fact that if there's Christians in the church who are not willing to get right with God, they're involved in fornication, they're involved in drunkenness, they're involved in extortion, they're involved in railing, they're involved in heresy, they're involved in these wicked sins the Bible talks about, then they need to be cut off. You say, well, how can you grow your church membership like that? Well, first and foremost, our priority as a church is not necessary to grow. Our priority as a church is to keep the integrity of the church going to please the Lord Jesus Christ. And a byproduct of that obedience is that we grow spiritually. And I can't tell you how many times this has happened where either we have to cut someone off or someone, you know, gets frostbitten because they become cold towards the things of God. Huh? You know, they get a little apathetic towards the things of God, they become a little inactive in the things of God, right? And you know, as a pastor, I'm just like, that's sad, you know, this person is no longer in a church or this person is not willing to get right with God or this family's gone or whatever. But you know what? God ends up bringing more people, ends up growing more. And it just reinforces this idea that at the end of the day, God is the one who builds the church. We need to make sure that we just keep it clean. Okay. And so sometimes you need to amputate certain members of the church. And this will continue to happen as the years go by. You know, people just get involved in fornication sometimes that's a very common sin. I wouldn't say idolatry is a very common sin, it probably would be if we're in a different part of the world. But I would say one of the most common sins that people get thrown out for people are unwilling to repent of is fornication, drunkenness, and I would say even railing as well. You know, whether in person or online. You know, where people just want to run their mouths online and maintain their position as a church member, but they have all these opinions and they want to say all these things online. Well, you know what? At the end of the day, their manifest, their follies shall be made manifest because God doesn't tolerate that stuff. He doesn't want any schisms in the body. And so I'm going to move on from that because I got more to say on that later. Number four, we're going to talk about church membership. Go to 1 Corinthians chapter 12, if you would, 1 Corinthians chapter 12. We are definitely believers in member amputation, just got to cut it off sometimes and get rid of it. Okay. If it's an offense to the body, if it's not, if it's spreading leaven and sin and they're not willing to rehabilitate, they're not willing to get their diet right, spiritually speaking to fix that. Okay. Then it needs to be cut off. That purple toe needs to go. You know, that rigor mortis looking leg you got going on there needs to be cut off because we don't want it to affect the rest of the body. Well, that's not very loving. Well, actually it's very loving to the rest of the church, actually. So what do you mean? Number four, church membership requires, listen to this, fulfilling a function. Members of a body have a purpose. My fingers have a purpose. My feet have a purpose. Everything that's on my body has a particular purpose that God created it for. And in fact, I remember a couple of years ago, I had torn some ligaments in my middle finger. They sabotaged me and I'm not going to point any fingers or anything like that, but I'll just point an elbow right there. No, I'm just kidding. Gio and I crashed in a basketball game and I tore my ligaments in my finger. And it just took me out of lifting for like six months because I couldn't bend my finger. My finger was perpetually up. And that's dangerous to have the middle finger up all the time. People might get the wrong idea sometimes. But it had a function because I thought, well, I can still live. I got four other fingers. I got another hand. But then I realized how important that member was in my body because I literally was just impeded from doing so many things because I could not bend my finger and I had to keep it like in a splint for like six months or something like that until it finally recovered. The point that I'm making here is that every member has a function. And you know what? Every member, members of the body of Christ, each and every one of you needs to have a function, a purpose. I mean, think about, you know, from a spiritual perspective, hands, right? The church should be characterized by labor, putting the hands of the plow and not looking back. You think about the feet. The Bible says, how beautiful are the feet of them to preach glad tidings of great joy, meaning that our feet as a church should take us to the lost, to go preach the gospel to them, to get them saved. How about this? You know, a body has eyes. And our job as a church is to be vigilant, not to fall asleep spiritually speaking. And you know, the Bible commands us to awake and sin not, for some have not the knowledge of God and speak this to your shame. How about the mouth? God commands us also to preach the word of God, not just the gospel, but the entire counsel of God. And a body has ears, meaning that we should be ready to come and hear the preaching of God's word, and put everything else outside, and ignore every, compartmentalize whatever it is that you're going through, and prioritize the preaching of God's word when you're here. Okay? So there's functions and it shows, look at 1 Corinthians chapter 12, and verse number four, it says, now there are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit. There are differences of administration, but the same Lord. There are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the spirit is given to every man, listen to this, to profit with all. Now there's this idea out there, the church should only provide social gatherings, it's only for fellowship, it's only for activities. And there's literally churches that are centered around only socializing, right? Maybe they might have like 15, 20 at the most, like 30 minutes of preaching, but it's just a TED Talk, it's a motivational speech. But the rest of it is just activity, worship, quote, unquote, and fellowship. But here's the problem though, is that God actually created the church to work, to labor. And he's saying that he's provided these diversities of gifts so that we may profit with all, meaning that you're here to be a blessing to someone. The purpose of your life, you know, God's will is for your life to be a blessing to someone. And obviously people come to our church because they want to be blessed, but eventually you should get to a point where you want to be a blessing to someone else. Where the cup is filled to the point where you're like, you know what, I'm ready to like serve others, as unto Christ, I want to profit someone else, I want my life to improve someone else's life, okay? Skip down to verse 12, it says, So if you esteem one position in the church over yourself, you don't really have the right perspective of what it is to be a part of the body. Like, well, I'm not the pastor, so I'm not that important. No, but you still serve a function though. Well, I'm not the piano player, I don't play in the orchestra or something, and so I'm not that important. No, you still serve a function to profit with all. You can't say, well, I'm not the foot, so therefore I'm not important. No, you serve a function still. God, the Bible says that we are as workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them. You know, I know it's cliche, but let me just say this, God has a purpose for your life. He has a plan for your life. He actually has works for you to do. It goes on to say, verse 16, And if they were all one member, where were the body? But now are they many members, yet but one body? And the eye cannot say into the hand, I have no need of thee, nor again to the head, to the feet. I have no need of you. What does this mean? It's telling us we all need each other. I need you, you need me, you need each other. This is your community. We need each other no matter what, and this is why it's important that we exhort one another daily to remain steadfast and unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. We need the encouragement from others. We need a word of exhortation from others. We need to give a word of exhortation to others as well. You may not know this, but people depend on you in our church. They may not verbalize it to you, but I guarantee you there's people in our church that depend on your presence. There's some people in the church that depend on you just being here, believe it or not, because you're an example unto them. But we can't say like, oh, I don't need so-and-so, we don't need this person, we don't need ... No, and I say this as kindly as I possibly can to the online listeners, we don't need them. I know that sounds cold, but it's true. As a church, we don't necessarily need them. Now I want them to listen, of course, because I think they'll be blessed by the preaching. And quite frankly, anybody who's listening to me online who has a proper biblical perspective agrees with what I'm saying right now. And anybody who's offended by it, I'm the person that ... They're the person I'm talking about in the previous points. But you know what? You don't need the online listeners either. Guess what? You don't need social media. You don't need followers. You don't need subscribers. You don't need people looking at your stories. You don't need the likes. You don't need the thumbs up unless this is your vocation that obviously you need. That's a different story. You don't need the affirmations and acclamations of whatever's going on online, especially if you're already in the local New Testament church. You don't need any outside organization necessarily either. So what do I need? Well, I don't know. God kind of gave you something called the church where you can receive all those things. And this is not to say you can't be a part of other organizations. The point that I'm making here is that in context of a church, God is saying here, you need one another. He's set forth. He's given you specific gifts, abilities, and look, let me just say this. Some people in our church are just more eloquent speaking, meaning that when you talk to them, you walk away like, wow, that really helped. I mean, how many of you have ever talked to someone in our church and you're probably going through a hard time, maybe they know you're going through a hard time and you said something and you're just like, man, I really need that. Other people are not very eloquent in our church. Some people make things worse. But, you know, sometimes you need that too, though. I don't know how, but I'm just saying, you know, it's free to profit with us somehow. There's little profit, but there's profit, okay? But there's people here that can benefit your life, that can make your life better, that can make your Christian life better. It says in verse, let me see here, look at verse 23, and those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, upon these we bestow more abundant honor and our uncle in parts have more abundant comeliness. Now, let me just say this last thing regarding this point and that is that, you know, let's say you feel like you don't really serve a function in our church. Well, I'm not a song leader, I'm not the pastor, I'm not an evangelist, I'm not a cleaner, I'm not, you know, whatever, I'm not part of the PA group, the team, I'm not doing parking ministry, I'm not doing anything. What can I do? Because I'm not talented in any of those areas. You can preach the gospel. You can get people saving. Guess what? That's super honorable. Like if all you did was preach the gospel in our church, you wouldn't be a major profitable person in our church. You'd be an asset in our church if all you did is just get along with everyone in our church and be a soul winner, you would be absolutely 100% a profitable person in our church. Okay? And let me say this, you know, the soul winners in our church encourage me. I'm encouraged by soul winners in our church. And I'll give you an example, you know, earlier this week, we're out soul winning. I was out soul winning with my family and brother Ulysses and his family. And we're knocking on some doors and this guy kind of walks by, we're at like an apartment complex or something. This guy walks by and I'm just like, hey, I want to give you this invite to our church. And you know, you go to church anywhere and he's like, yeah, I used to go to the St. Joseph, you know, one of those pagan temples or, you know, St. Joseph, whatever. And I said, okay, well, you know, more important than church is knowing where you're going to go when you die. Are you 100% sure that if you die today? And he said, I would go to heaven. And you know, I always do the follow up, okay, great. How do you know? And they said this, someone from your church already asked me that. I already talked to someone, I'm saved. It's by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, you can't lose your salvation and if I could, God would be a liar. I'm like, dang. I'm like, all right, bro, chill, you know. And he's just like, in fact, he gave me this exact same invitation, like three weeks ago, and he got me saved. And this is what he said, he's like, and he basically made my day. That's what he said, okay. And you know, I tried to like dig into who he was or whatever and ended up finding out his brother John, brother John Sieber. And you know, man, I was ecstatic about that. I was so happy. And you know, I asked him his name and I remember just walking away thinking to myself like, that is such a blessing. Like, it's a blessing to get people saved, but it's also a blessing to run into people who are saved, who got saved through the efforts of some of your church members. And to give such a clear presentation of like their salvation, he was like preaching to me. He was like, you can't lose it, if you could, God would be a liar, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you can, you know, he's just going off and I'm just like, whoa, this guy got a clear presentation. And so, you know, that was an encouragement to me. And obviously John performs other duties here, but let's say he just didn't do anything. Let's say he was just like a lazy bum and I'm just kidding. Let's say he did a song lead and he does a lot, you know, let's say he did a song lead, never played an instrument or whatever, you know, just that alone was an amazing thing for me to hear. And you know what, you know, for that guy to say, he literally said like, that made my day. He's like, he, he made my day and he was very sincere. That was a blessing for me to hear and obviously I'm going to be so waiting for the rest of my life because I'm a Christian and I'm a pastor. But that kind of gave me some more encouragement to go out there because you just never know. Because you know what, he would have never known that that guy felt that way or would remember those things and would have those things in his heart unless I ran into him. How many people out there that you've won to Christ and you've just never meet again who feel the same exact way? That's an encouragement. The point that I'm making here is that you have a function. And you know what, some people are a five talented Christian, four talented, three talented. You're able to do multiple things in a local New Testament church, but let's just say you're a one talented Christian. That's okay. You can win souls to Christ and change people's eternity for the rest of your life. It's a very valuable, honorable, necessary function. But the point that I'm making is you better start functioning. Be a functioning member of our church by at least going out and preaching the gospel. Okay. Don't be this diabetes type of member in our church where you got frostbite and you're just completely just don't do anything. Get fed, get encouraged, get excited, get on fire and go win someone to Christ. Go get someone saved. Go preach the gospel to someone. Go with your teams and go preach the gospel and pray that God will lead someone to you to get someone saved and ask God, God, give me someone like that that John got. I want a story like that. I want to know that I'm making a difference like that. I know that I am, but I want to see that. I want to be a functioning member of our church, okay. And lastly here, here's my last point, I'm done. And we're talking about church membership and that is church membership requires unity. Okay. The reason you come to our church is because you like me, hopefully. And another reason you come to our church is because you like the people in our church. Another reason you like our church is because you agree with the beliefs of this church. You stand with this church. Now if you don't like those things, then leave. Get out of here. What are you doing here? I would not be a part of our church where I did not like the leader, the beliefs, the practices, the people, but just dragged myself to church on a sunny morning to just experience everything that I hate over and over again. That's insanity. You're a psycho. It's weird. People only go to churches that they actually like. People go to churches to listen to a pastor they actually like. But if you don't, then hit the road, Jack. Don't let the door hit you where the Lord split you. You know, you're not welcome here. You say, why? Because of the fact that a church requires unity. I want to have union with you. Church members here want to have unity with you. We don't want to be wondering like if you hate us or something like that. It's weird. You're a weirdo for that, if that's you. Look at 1 Corinthians 12 24 says, For our comely parts have no need, but God tempered the body together, hath given more abundant honor to that part which lacked, that there be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it, or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are the body of Christ and members in particular. What is it saying? You know, the unity that we experience in our church is that if someone goes through a trial in our church, it's like we're all going through that trial. Someone's child is suffering in the hospital. It's like all of our children are suffering in the hospital. Mothers have sleepless nights because they're going through a hard time. All the mothers in our church are having sleepless nights because of that. That's called unity. That's how God made the church. You suffer, I suffer too. You got bad things happening in your life, then I'm inheriting those bad things as well because I love you and I want you to make it through. It's not like, well, sucks for you. We'll see how that goes for you. It's going great for me though. Everything's on the up and up. No, it's more like sorrow, grief. How can we fix this? Why? Because we're a part of the same body. You know, my other four fingers are like, man, it sucks that the middle finger is just not operating well, you know? And we can't function properly, you know, and it's causing hurt in the other fingers as well for picking up the slack for that middle finger. It's the same thing with us. When there's schisms in the body, when there's people who do not agree, when there's people who just don't want to be here, then at the end of the day, you are in disunity. Go to a church where you can't agree with someone and don't refer to us as a cult when you're the one like literally making yourself stay here. You're the cult. We do have a cult in our church if there's someone in here like that, and the cult is that one person who won't leave because that's weird. It's like a stalker or something, like a stalker girlfriend, ex-girlfriend or something. It's just like, why? Why are you doing that? Just go somewhere else. And look, we're not in like some European country where there's like one Baptist church that teaches a repent of your sins or something that's the best you got. There's so many churches here. There's a lot of fundamental Baptist churches here that you would probably like. There's fundamental Baptist churches all over California. Go to those. You say, are you willing to lose people and tell people to go to different churches? Yeah, if they don't like it here, because it's important to have unity in our church. Yeah, but you're wrong about certain things. Then go somewhere where you think the pastor's right. Because when one person tells me I'm wrong, sorry, I'm not convinced. Go to Romans 16 and we're done. Let me read you a couple of verses here. Philippians 2, 1 says, if there be any therefore any consolation in Christ, any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, fulfill ye my joy that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord of one mind. Listen to this, let nothing be done through strife and vainglory. But in lowliness of mind, let each esteem other better than themselves, not slandering themselves, others, not slandering others, putting down others, gossiping about others. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Ephesians 4, 1, the Bible says, I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love, listen to this, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. What does endeavoring mean? It means you're just trying hard to keep unity. You know what? Obviously I'm not saying everyone's going to be best friends here, you're not going to be best buddies. It might be people in here that you don't necessarily get along with 100%, but can I ask something of you? In fact, let me just say this, the Bible's asking this of you, endeavor to keep the Spirit of unity though. Because you can be diplomatic with people in our church even if you don't like them. But if you have this vitriol against our church, against me or the members of our church, endeavor to leave. Do your best to just get out of here, because we don't want you here. Look at Romans 16 verse 17, now I beseech your brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. Well you know, I'm not causing division or anything like that, I'm just bitter towards you or towards the church or whatever, then go somewhere where you don't have to be bitter. Simple solutions. I got the solution for you. This is what will fix you right away. After the service today, leave and just never come back and the bitterness, you don't have to see my face like three times a week or whatever, how many times you come. You don't have to see anybody's face, it's easy. You know, people I don't like, I don't hang around with. I know that sounds like really simple, but you know what, sometimes simple questions require simple answers. And here's the simplicity of it, you don't like it, then leave. And I'm not saying that you have to be in lockstep, don't misquote me and say, oh we have to agree with you 110%, not true, not true. But here's the thing folks, there should be enough agreement that we can walk together. And there should be enough in common that we can call it unity. And there should be enough in common where you're not causing divisions. Because if you decide to continue to stay in our church in spite of all that, you're a psycho. And I'm not even joking about that, you're a weirdo, you're a psycho, you're freaking weird. And it's weird that you would impose us being a cult when you're literally the one forcing yourself to stay here. When the general consensus of our church, like raise your hand if you think if you don't like it, just go somewhere else, raise your hand if that's what you believe. Yeah, it seems like pretty much everyone agrees with that. That's not a weird thing to say. That should be expected of any organization. Any organization would believe that. What's the point? The point that I'm making here is these are the requirements for church membership. You don't got to sign your life away, you don't got to sign a contract, you don't got to sign a covenant, got to be saved, got to be baptized, you have to actually be here in person unless you're projectile vomiting then there's the life for you, stay home. But you have to, you know, be a functioning member of our church and I'm not asking you to be a skilled singer, a skilled musician, a skilled leader, but you know what? You can do whatever one has done for the last 2000 years and even before that and that is you can be a preacher of the gospel. And also endeavor to keep the unity of our church, like the church, like me, like the people in our church so you can enjoy the church, that's what church is for. Let's pray. Thank you so much for your word and thank you for our church, Lord. I love our church and I always look forward to coming here and seeing your people, Lord. There's anticipation before I come to church to see my brothers and sisters in Christ. There's anticipation on Thursday. There's anticipation even tonight to see them because I think it's wonderful to have fellowship with people who are like-minded and not just like-minded in doctrines, but I actually like these people. I like being around them and I'm sure they can attest the same for me and for others in our church and we're thankful that we have a place where we can unify and spend time with one another, exhort one another daily. And Lord, help us to continue to be unified, of course, around the truth more than anything. And I pray that you bless us as a church and help us and we're thankful for the online listeners as well. Of course, we're thankful that they listen, but may we never become so diluted in this area that we begin to blur the lines between online listeners and people who are actually in church. And I'm thankful for those who come here in person who sacrifice that in order to do so, Lord. And I pray that you bless us as we go on our way. We love you. We thank you. Pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Please turn your songbooks to song number 316.