Introduction to Knowing and Growing
Vern Peterman · Jan 8, 2017
Knowing & Growing, No. 01
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926544588062

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

So this elective on knowing and growing, we have the broad outline looks like this. Knowing the Lord from January through March. And there may be some adjustment to that with things like snow days or whatever that has to come up. But January through March roughly is the time frame for that.

And this, we'll start off with next week anyway, covering what's the gospel and what's the content of the gospel to be believed, and then in contrast to that, what's not the gospel. And then we'll talk about, once a person's a believer, then what does the Bible say about knowing the Lord. So that's initially what we'll look at.

Then for April through September, what God is doing in the life of the believer, what are the processes that God has in place for the believer. And then thirdly, the last quarter of the year, October through December, what God is doing in the life of the church body. What is God's intent for the church? So those three subjects.

So this title, Knowing and Growing, is kind of a summary. Instead of making something so long they can't quite fit it on the signs, they can't quite fit it on the computer, on the web page. But really, and we were just kind of joking about this first hand, we're not going to cover everything because in reality these things are lifelong, aren't they? These things are lifelong. If God intends for you to grow, that doesn't happen just over a three-month or six-month period of time.

So we're gaining insights for things that essentially last for a lifetime. And we're going to be looking at the Word of God. There's really not too much value in just my telling you what I think, so it will all be a matter of looking at scripture passages as we go all the way through here. So in the first quarter, where we're summarizing as knowing the Lord, We're going to be going first this next Sunday on the gospel. What is it? What's the content to be believed? What's not the gospel? Because unfortunately there's an awful lot of what's not the gospel being put out there.

So then you've got in the bottom of page one, hopefully you've got a handout you've grabbed. At the bottom of page one we have a table here that has the scripture passages we'll be going through. And the first one, John 14, 16, and 17, and John 17, 1 through 5, kind of the core message in there is the spirit of truth, and you know him, right? And then as Jesus is praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, he says, and this is eternal life that they may know you. So this is Jesus.

They may know you. Who is He talking about? They may know you. Who's you? The Father. He's praying to the Father, right? So that's another thing for us to take a look at. Is it knowing only one person of the Trinity? No. And as we'll see here as we go through them all, all three persons of the Trinity is what we're talking about when we say, know the Lord. Philippians 3, 7-11, that's Paul's own statement, that I may know him. Let's ask this question. Did Paul know the Lord on the road to Damascus? In other words, at first what happened is the Lord asked Paul what? Why are you persecuting? And notice, he didn't say, why are you persecuting those believers? He said, why are you persecuting me?

He takes it personally. And that's important for us to remember when we're going through something tough. The Lord isn't just out there, and he's up there having a great time, and I'm down here going through what I'm going through. But the Lord takes it very personally when we're going through something. But Paul says that I may know Him. He knew Him from the very beginning when he believed. But there is also a continuing to know Him. So there's both.

So John 15, 1-9, that's where Jesus says, I'm the vine, my Father is the vinedresser, abide in me. Anybody seen a vineyard where the branches keep jumping off of the vine and then jump back on and jump back off? Ever see that? So it'll be really interesting for us to take a look at here. How many times does the vine have to say, branches, abide in me, right? That doesn't happen in a real vineyard. Okay, in 1 Corinthians 1, 4-9, to me this is a fascinating verse.

Was the Corinthian church, did they have it all together? Not even sort of. A really messed up church with all kinds of problems. I mean, they had problems on their problems, right? It was really bad, and yet he writes to them right off at the very beginning and tells them in the perfect tense, you've been sanctified.

But then, what we see there, you are called into fellowship with His Son. Then, 2 Corinthians 3, 12-18, and by the way, that's a passage we're going to revisit again in the second topic there, what God's doing in the life of the believer. But initially, they're focused on beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord. It's knowing Him. And then Galatians 2, 19-21, this is the one that the passage starts off with, I've died to the law, and then I've been crucified with Christ, it's no longer I who do the living, but Christ does the living in me. I live by faith in the Son of God. So that passage, we'll be taking a look at that. Galatians 5, 16-26, it says walk by the Spirit twice in that passage, first at the beginning and then again at the end, and the two words for walk are not the same.

So we'll be taking a look at why are those different, and there's a reason why they're different, and so we'll be taking a look at why are those words different, and what's the significance of it. So, Ephesians 4, 11-16, it talks about the knowledge of the Son of God, and that together, as believers, we pursue that. This is interesting because it's not just individual knowledge, but together we share a knowledge of the Son of God. This is a different insight. Then, 2 Peter 1, 1-3 and 2 Peter 3, 17-18. both at the end and the beginning of 2 Peter.

It has knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord at the beginning and at the end, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And by the way, that grow, it's an imperative. Very interesting. It's an imperative. Anyway, we'll take a look at that.

And then 1 John 5.20, that we may know him who is true. That we may know him who is true.

So anyway, that's kind of the outline of some of the passages we'll be looking at. Have we covered all of the passages that we could cover? No, certainly not. But these are some, I think, some key ones for us to take a look at, and they'll have multiple insights with each passage. Let's take a look at the top of page two.

So one of the points to make is that we'll find that all of these passages are describing different aspects of the same thing. What does that mean? Our ongoing fellowship with and dependence upon and intimacy with the Lord In these things, we are progressively coming to know the Lord more and more. And they're all different aspects of the exact same thing.

When Jesus says, abide in me, that's about relationship with who? With Christ, right? But then he prayed, just two chapters later, that they may know you, the Father. So very interesting, the insights we're going to gain here. There are different aspects of the same thing. Knowing the Lord. Progressively knowing the Lord. So one of the questions is, is there ever a point where we're done?

I've been a Christian for 60 years. Believe it or not, a quarter of that has been here at Holly Hills. But I've been a Christian for 60 years, Well, I can remember at age two being spiritually interested. I can remember at age four and a half, I told my parents, I asked, how do you become a Christian? And they said, you should wait. And that night I woke my mom up and I said, I've waited long enough. I've been a Christian for 60 years.

Am I done? No. And what you find is, here's the Apostle Paul. He had face-to-face lessons from Christ. Was he done? Here he is in Philippians. In Philippians, he's been a believer for over 25 years. Had face-to-face lessons with the Lord, and what does he say? That I may know him. There's still something going on. The guy's not done. As a matter of fact, you could probably say, just barely scratched the surface.

And so let's go through this. There are several reasons for answering no to, you know, am I done? Or is there some place where I'm already through? So number one, the Apostle Paul, who wrote many of the passages we'll be examining, put it this way when he wrote to the church at Philippi.

Philippians 3.10, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings.

Face-to-face lessons with the Lord, been a believer for a quarter of a century. He got converted not because of a Christian evangelist, but because Jesus Christ showed up face to face with the guy. Isn't that amazing? And the Lord appointed a guy to get him started. Still, he said, I've got a ways to go. I'm not there yet. In fact, that's the next passage. So if he, after 25 years of being a believer and having met the Lord personally multiple times, including the Lord Jesus himself evangelizing him, If he says he's not there yet, then none of the rest of us are either.

Number two, once this life is over and we've passed into eternity, God will show us his multiple, massive magnitudes of grace on into the rolling ages to come. And do you know why he'll do that and we won't be bored? We won't be looking down at our watches in heaven and saying, when's the coffee break? Why won't we be bored? Because He will continue to show us new aspects of His grace that will have us gasping in awe. That's why. Not only is there not a place here where we say, well, I'm really done, I've kind of arrived. There never is that place. But on into eternity, there's never a place. So we're just scratching the surface here.

But God being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, for by grace you've been saved, perfect tense, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the surpassing riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus."

So that's something to think about. Both Jesus and Paul wrote about age, that word age, in this way. They had the same pattern. There's this present age, sometimes this present evil age, which goes back and it starts with Adam, and it goes until Christ comes again. That's the present evil age. And the age to come is the Messiah's age, that's the thousand year reign of Christ. Beyond that is the ages to come. So it's been a long time since Adam fell. up until now, but this age is not over, this present evil age is not over until Christ comes again.

And when Christ comes again, you'll have a thousand years, that's the Messiah's age, that's just one. We're talking about thousands and thousands and thousands of years if that number means anything at all. with rolling ages, one after the next, after the next, He'll be showing us His grace, and 10,000 years from now, we'll still be gasping in awe, because there's that much to grow in, forever. Okay, now, number three, God is an infinite God, so that while He has revealed to us things that are indeed true, we can experience his truth as we live life in fellowship with the Lord, and we can never exhaust coming to know him. So what we have is not what we are learning about somehow morphs into, oh, he's not the God I thought he was, but in fact what it means is truth, but greater and greater depth, because there's no exhausting it.

That's cool. It's not because God changes. It's not because He's deceived us. And no, He's not really that way. He's this way. But we continue to find greater and greater depth in who He is. Because He's an infinite God. And that's why His grace is never going to be boring. We won't be looking down at our watches asking for, you know, when's the coffee break? And this is cool, but I'm kind of getting tired and my seat's getting sore. None of that.

Alright, so those would be a few reasons why there's never a place where somebody has arrived. And by the way, I can make some contrasts here with some of the other great religions, so to speak. In Hinduism, you try to attain moksha, that's the arrival. spiritual arrival experience, you actually have arrived. In Buddhism, you try to reach Nirvana, where you actually have arrived, and you follow the Eightfold Path to Enlightenment. And so this is sharply in contrast to that, where there is no arrival on into eternity. We will never get to a place where we say, well, I'm done, God's through. There will always, eternally, be a growing into God's grace.

Another contrast I could make, in Islam, God is unknowable. So we're spending several months here studying knowing the Lord. In Islam, you can't do that. God is unknowable. He has not revealed himself. He has only revealed what you're supposed to do and not do. But God, you can't know him.

We have something sharply in contrast here. The knowing is something that begins by belief, but it continues on into eternity, and we never arrive, there is continual growth on into eternity, and our getting to know Him continues on into eternity. So that makes Christianity radically different. Radically different. And it's different forever. It's different forever.

So what God is doing in the life of the believer. So starting in April, or thereabouts, we'll examine what the Bible says about the spiritual anatomy of a believer compared to an unbeliever. Now when I say that, some people will say, Vern, what spiritual anatomy? Have I got a spiritual liver? So let's take a look at page 3. I'll give you a very quick introduction so that it doesn't just leave question marks in your head. It's at the top of page 3. One of the things we went through as we were proceeding through the book of Hebrews, we discovered that the Bible, including especially the book of Hebrews, talks about five senses corresponding to our classical five physical senses in the spiritual realm.

So, for example, in Hebrews 2.9 and 12.2, we see him looking unto Jesus. So what does that mean? He was writing to people when he said, we see him. They weren't looking at Jesus as he was on the earth. They were looking at Jesus, spiritually speaking. We see him and looking unto Jesus, spiritually speaking.

So that means that the believer has the capacity to see into the spiritual realm. In contrast, the unbeliever does not have the capacity to look into the spiritual realm. It says Satan has blinded the minds of the unbeliever. So they don't have the capacity.

In Ephesians chapter 1, A lot of times the translations will say, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be opened. It's actually in the perfect tense. I pray that the eyes of your heart, having been already opened, that you might see. So the believer has spiritual senses turned on.

But it's only a question of whether we use that. Similarly, there is the sense of hearing, and in fact the Hebrews were told that they had become dull of hearing. So there is an ability of the believer to not use or employ or train these physical senses, excuse me, spiritual senses, those senses in the spiritual realm. So hearing, and by the way, I've got other quotes in there in brackets, not specific to that, but also make reference to hearing and seeing and that kind of thing.

Thirdly, tasting. It's from Hebrews 6, 4, and 5, but also verse 9 in chapter 2. Tasted a heavenly gift, tasted the good word of God. Smelling. 2 Corinthians 2, 14-16, the sweet aroma of the knowledge of him. By the way, do unbelievers have a sense of smell?

Yes they do. Okay, and you say yes they do? Because it says that we are in a life to life on death. Ah, very interesting. So, interesting that they have a sense of smell, but what's wrong with it is what ought to smell good to them, spiritually speaking, smells like death. So very interesting.

Now, a sense of feeling, and this is a negative expression, Ephesians 4.19, it talks about the unbeliever being past feeling, no sensation in the spiritual realm. So there is either a tendency to have no sensation, blindness being past feeling, for the unbeliever, or the opposite, to have a sensation but to interpret what ought to be good in a negative way. So that's an interesting phenomenon.

So what we have is five senses in the physical realm, and we have corresponding to each one of those, seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, feeling, in the spiritual realm as well. We have also in the physical realm, we have a physical body, and a part of that body is a brain. We have in the spiritual realm a spirit, a human spirit, and we also have a soul. Between those two you have the physical brain and the soul have mind, emotions, and will. Mind, emotions, and will. So it's very interesting, it appears that the brain and the soul have an interface.

Is it possible that someone has some kind of damage to the brain that reduces their capacity, but their soul is at complete capacity? Remains at complete capacity? Yes, that can be. I could have, as I experienced with Lyme disease, it actually impacted my brain in various ways.

But nothing was diminished in the spiritual realm. I told Doug Hallam when Frances was in the Alzheimer's unit, I said, she on the physical side is certainly diminished. On the spiritual side, she's all there. There's nothing been touched. So anyway, this is a sense of a physical, spiritual anatomy and putting those two together. It'll be one of the things that we'll spend more time on. Because one of the interesting things here is, if a doctor gives me a medication that impacts me physically, or even impacts my brain, Has my spirit been touched? No. And that's one thing. There's nothing the doctor can do that will go that deep. It stops at the physical realm.

But, God's Word, Hebrews 4.12, penetrates to the dividing line between soul and spirit. It goes that deep. So here we have books sitting here in the pew rack that are in the physical realm. but they touch us deeply. So that's where I think it's useful to understand what the Bible says about our spiritual anatomy.

And so we'll be taking some time to look at that. Okay, we'll be looking at what it means to be an Adam, what it means to be in Christ, and also what part of us is saved and what part is not. So if a person becomes a believer after having been an unbeliever, if a person becomes a believer, is everything about what that person was saved? No. So we'll be taking a look at that. From May through September, we'll examine carefully the processes God intends for the believer to go through for the course of life. throughout the course of life.

One is being conformed. Being conformed. God works all things together to the end that we are conformed to what? To who? To the image of Christ. So that's one process and it will take a month to look at that. And there's a reason why we'll take a month to look at it.

The next one is being transformed, and this is the 2 Corinthians 3.18 passage, this is looking at it a second time, to look at what's the process that God has in place. And by the way, transformed into who or what? into the image of Christ. So what you have there, and we'll examine, is two different, entirely different processes, both of which are aimed to make us into the image of Christ. But they happen in two entirely different ways.

So we'll be taking a look at that. We'll be looking at growing. And we put 1 Peter 2.2 and 2 Peter 3.18 as significant in that.

And 1 Peter 2.2, it has an imperative, and then it says that by it you may grow. Long for the pure milk of the Word, there's the imperative, that by it you may grow.

And then, 2 Peter 3.18, but grow imperative in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. And by the way, the grow is the same word, it's just a different form. Yeah, Stan? I'm interested in that 1st and 2nd Peter for that one. Yeah. Because it is a process of growing. Yep. So, amazing. And here's Peter. Think about Peter. What are some of the things that come to mind when you think about Peter back in the Gospels? His denial. His denial was a biggie, right? Did the Lord forgive him for that? Did he forgive himself? That's something we'll explore when we get there. As a matter of fact, is forgiving ourselves the issue?

That'll be a good one for us to look at. So when Peter writes about growing, he is a guy that we can look at and say, this guy has really grown. And so he's not being hypothetical here. But he's a fellow you can look back and say, wow, this guy has really grown. Do you think he's one that thought he had arrived?

Yeah. Yeah. He probably early on thought he'd arrived. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah. If you say you've arrived, you probably haven't. Right? Okay. Yeah, if you think you've arrived, you probably have not. Almost certainly have not. The next one is sanctification.

Hebrews 10.14 has an interesting thing to reveal. It uses sanctified as something already done, and then it talks about sanctified as a process still in progress. It's very interesting, all in one verse. And there's other places. So we'll take a look at that. Sanctification. By the way, what's sanctification? Just to avoid using buzzwords, because, you know, we don't have anything sanctified in our refrigerators or our homes or anything. So what does sanctified mean? Set apart. Made holy, right?

Okay, then we have discipleship. And this will go back to John 15, 1 through 9, because we'll want to revisit the same passage to talk about what discipleship is. Discipleship is one of the most misunderstood processes in all of Christendom. Let me quickly say there are four kinds of discipleship and it's only the fourth one that God intends for us in the church.

First kind, the word disciples in the Greek actually came started 500 BC and it was to train up somebody in the pagan religion to be a priest in the pagan temple. That's where the word came from. Before the time of Christ it began to be used among the Jews because They had Alexander the Great come in, and here's the language you're going to use. So it began to be used among the Jews, and they developed a tradition of disciples and rabbis. That's what you see largely reflected in the Gospels.

But then Jesus goes and tells the disciples right towards the end, you're not supposed to have any rabbis. None of you is going to be a rabbi. That was shocking, because the idea of being a disciple is to be like your rabbi, and then turn around and rabbi somebody else, right? And he says, no, no rabbis.

OK, so that's number two. Number three is the word disciple, and disciples, and discipleship, whatnot, making disciples, that starts in Acts chapter 6. And as we'll see, it ends in Acts 21, and is never used again. In the book of Acts, or any of the New Testament books. But, in the ultimate, and this is the fourth thing, in the ultimate, the disciples of Christ, knowing Him, And disciples of Christ is not disciples like in the Gospels.

This is knowing Him personally, spiritually. So it's number four of what God intends for us. The first three definitions, uh-uh. Okay, so we'll be going through those. The general pattern that we're going to do is first to introduce each process, being conformed, transformed, growing, sanctification, discipleship. We'll introduce it in big picture.

Next, the second week, we will explain God's part. What is God's part in being conformed? What's God's part in being transformed? What's God's part in growing sanctification and discipleship? Third week, explain the believer's part. Why do we explain the believer's part after seeing what God's part is? Exactly.

The tendency for people, if they don't understand what God is doing, what's God's part? He's talking about you have to have God's part first before you can understand our part. We need to know what God is doing first so that we don't try to duplicate it. Or go off the wrong track. Or, so my tendency is to either go in and try to do what God's already doing. And by the way, does God need help?

No. I am the vine, the Father is the vinedresser. So, do I need to do any vinedressing? No. And this is a biggie. A lot of the things that Christians wrestle with are because they don't understand the vine and the vinedresser. They get into the self-improvement plan. Yeah, I'm going to self-improve or even some corrupt way. A lot of the things people struggle with, with addiction, bulimia, anorexia, cutting, beating themselves up, they're trying to be the vinedresser.

Not our job. The Father is the vinedresser. I don't need to do His job. Once I understand what God's part is, then I can look at what my part is, biblically, without trying to do God's part, or thinking God's doing it all and I don't have to do anything.

Because that's not biblical either, as we'll see. So that's why we have this sequence. We introduce what it is, we talk about God's part, then we talk about what's our part. First understanding God's part, and then we come back and look at it all again.

So we want to take a real thorough look at each one of these processes, because we don't want to step into what God's already doing. By the way, if God's already doing something, is there a good chance I'll mess it up? I'll mess up if I try to do what God's already doing, right? Is it my job to be holy? So we look at God's part, we look at what God's already done, and God is already doing, and then we look at our part, and we pull that together.

Stan? I was going to say that it would be a good thing if people would look at that before they go to a certain church. See what the church goals and direction, and it would be the same thing as if you had a job in a corporation. What's the corporation's goals? What direction are they going? What do they do? Your part really makes more sense when you see it in the scope of a bigger picture.

I recall a pastor, this is not even in Denver area, this is back in Carson City, I recall a pastor kind of going down the list. A good Christian will da-da-da-da-da. A good Christian will da-da-da-da-da. And also just acting, you know, a pastor's will very commonly.

You know, do this, don't do that. You know the Bible says you can't do that? Galatians 5, 16 and 17 say you cannot just simply will to do the right thing. Don't try this at home or anywhere else for that matter. The same message comes out of Romans chapter 7. You cannot simply will to do the right thing and not to do the wrong thing.

The Bible says you can't do that, but a whole bunch of pastors will tell you that's what you ought to do. And people say, well, I tried Christianity. No, you haven't. The pastor isn't even talking about Christianity, right? So, anyway, so that's what we're going to do. We're going to look at what does the Bible say. And you know what?

The Bible's clear. It's amazing. The Bible is clear. It's real clear. It's not confusing at all. But you do have to read it. Okay, so we'll have that, I think it's really, to me it's just immensely freeing to know here is exactly what God is doing, here is exactly what He has done and what He is doing on His part, here is exactly what He expects me to do on my part. And also to see where is it headed? All the being conformed, all the being transformed, all the growing, all the being sanctified, all of the discipleship, everything is headed towards making me like Him and knowing Him. That's it. Isn't that cool? That's really cool. Okay.

By the way, anybody ever feel guilty? God doesn't want to make you feel guilty, by the way. He never has that in mind. Just never. It's not the way He does things. So what God is doing in the life of the church body. There are some things that are very similar to what we have talked about here. Does God want us individually to know Him? The answer is yes. Does God want us corporately together to know him? Yes.

The Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, he talks about you as a church body are indwelt by the Holy Spirit of your temple. In chapter 6, he talks about you individually are indwelt by the Holy Spirit of your temple. So there are things that are true of us as a church body together that are also true of us individually. There is to be growth individually, and he also intends growth as a church body.

Both of those. There are some unique things that he does in the church body, however. It's a different process. So we'll look at both of those kinds of things. What does God intend that's the same both individually and corporately? And what are the things that are specifically different about the way He works in the church body? It's different from the way He works in the individual. So we'll look at both. So we're going to be looking at some different things, the universal church and the local church. A quick answer to that, what's the universal church?

All believers, and by the way, let's say, how far does that go back? All believers alive now? All the way back to Acts 2. So all church age believers from Acts 2, from the day of Pentecost, will be there in the Acts study this next Sunday. From the day of Pentecost up to when? The rapture, and I hope it's today. So from the day of Pentecost all the way up to the rapture, that's the universal body of Christ. We have here the local body of Christ at Holly Hills. Does this represent all of the body of Christ here at Holly Hills in the state of Colorado, for example? No. There are others. And there were others in the past. There were others in the past.

So then the purpose of the church. Is the purpose of the church to go out and impact the world for Christ? Is the purpose of the local church to make sure that every single sermon is entered with an evangelistic appeal? Apostle Paul writes to the church of Corinth, 1 Corinthians chapter 14, if an unbeliever should come among you. Not assuming that you always have unbelievers among you.

So anyway, what is the purpose? What are we doing here? Yes, yes. In all these we're assuming what's biblical, but the reality is not getting these things right, biblically, creates problems. And even if I could come up here at the end of every service, you know, I'm pounding and you've got to come to the Lord and all that. You know why I don't do that? There's a few different reasons. One reason is because in most cases I look at it and say, okay, these people know the Lord already, so why am I wasting their time and mine?

Elders and deacons. One of the reasons why we go over that, what are the different ways that churches are governed? What's that? A board? A lot of them have a board as kind of a corporate model. And along with that, if they have one pastor, he acts as the president, right? And then if they have more than one pastor, then you get all these titles like associate pastor, head pastor, assistant pastor, youth pastor, you know, have all this kind of a corporate structure, and you just get corporate titles that they give to it, and a board, right? Is that what God has in mind? Not so much, right? Any other structures that churches can have? The people?

Everybody votes on anything critical, right? We're going to get new hymn books because the old ones are getting a little tired, and so we've got to vote on which one. And the majority vote wins, and if we can't get a majority decision on it, then we have a big squabble. And the losers get up and leave, right? They're just furious. By the way, Nancy and I will use six or eight hymnals in order to pick all the different songs, because you can't get one that has everything that you'd like in there.

Another model is the Apostolic Succession Model, which began about the same time John wrote Revelation. It was begun by Clement. He considered himself Bishop of Rome, he wrote a letter to the Church of Corinth, about the same time John wrote Revelation, and scolded them about everything except Thomas. It was in 1 Corinthians. Went down the list, and it was all the same stuff.

Yeah? And there are some churches, I'm not saying they're correct, but they have prophetic rulers or leaders? Ah, yes. Generally in the College area? Yeah, you'll have... cultish, and also like Mormons still have apostles, and you get in some kind of prophetic line and what not. That's apostolic succession where you have essentially the Pope and then you get on down to archbishops and then bishops. So you've got that model and that's used similarly or with some variation in a lot of other traditional churches. Orthodox on into Anglican and Methodist and whatnot.

Next we have spiritual gifts. We'll take a look at those. There are spiritual gifts that were intended for the apostolic era. that are not intended for now. And here's an example. Here's Peter and John. They go into the temple and there's a guy who has a problem. He's lame.

So what do they do? Heal. And notice what they don't do is they don't get up and get some big emotional push. They don't get up and say, well, I'll pray for you and we'll see whether the Lord will heal you. They are able to go in and say, in the name of Jesus Christ, stand up and walk. Boom. And there isn't any question about what will happen. The crowd didn't come until afterwards. Pardon? The crowd didn't come until afterwards. Yeah. Right. Let's see what was going on.

These days the Lord can heal, and I won't mind in the midst of that to share several different accounts. where I know the person or knew the person or had some connection and even pictures and what not. The Lord can heal, but that doesn't mean that the gift of healing is still active. Anyway, we'll talk about the spiritual gifts.

Then church discipline, that's what we went over just several weeks ago. The goal of love is restoration. in the main service. Biblical worship, what does the Bible say about what's biblical worship and what's its purpose and those kinds of things. Christian education, and that's a sum total of all the different teachings and what not that we offer here. And then one of the questions, we do hold a children's Sunday school Does that mean the church is ultimately responsible for the education of the children?

It shouldn't be the last of it. And then finally, selecting a church, why stay at a church and when to leave it. So anyway, those are some topics we'll be covering in the last quarter. So if those are really interesting to you, sorry we have to wait a few months. Anyway, any questions, comments, thoughts? Going over this, kind of looking ahead here. I've either completely baffled you, or I've answered all of your questions. This is just amazing. Yeah?

In one of the creeds that we used to recite in the Methodist Church, there was a comment about the Holy Catholic Church. Is that a universal church? Yeah, the word Catholic simply means universal. And of course, it's taken on a tone of its own. That's the underlying meaning is universal. So in, for example, the title, the Roman Catholic Church, that ultimately meant universal. But what they take it to mean is this is the only path by which salvation can be had. Any other thoughts, questions? Yeah. You mentioned Philippians, the fellowship, the fellowship of Christ's suffering. Could you expand on that?

It's more than we can cover right now, but let's look at it this way. Our tendency is to say, well, the Lord's up there, He's having a great time, and I'm down here and I'm miserable. And so there's a tendency to kind of look at things that way, rather than, as the Lord sees it, if you're persecuting believers, you're persecuting me. He takes it personally. At the same time, there's also the concept of completing the sufferings, and our co-participation in His sufferings.

So it has elements that are not necessarily obvious, and we have to put those together in order to get a full understanding of what this means. It's more than we go through now, but we will go through it in depth when we go through that passage. So that's the quick answer. So we'll deal with it more thoroughly. Other thoughts, questions, comments? Let's pray. Lord, we thank you.

This is an exciting set of things to be going through and this is not just hypothetical. These are things that have to do with our knowing you and our intimacy with you and everything that comes from that. And we thank you for just what you have revealed and that you've made it clear. Let us know because you love us and you care for us and you want us to understand these things. So we thank you for the opportunity lying before us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.