People of God 5 Robert F Turner

The speaker discusses the character of God's people and the concept of the local church as an entity. They emphasize individual responsibility to God and fellow believers, highlighting the need to address issues personally rather than relying solely on the church. The importance of maintaining focus on Christ rather than the institution of the church is stressed. Individual accountability is crucial, and neglecting this can fuel objections to the church. The speaker also explores the multiple uses of the term "church," citing a biblical example from Matthew 18 to illustrate addressing conflicts within the church. Personal engagement and mutual support within the church community are emphasized throughout the discussion. This being the last day of our morning service, I have a number of things I want to try to get before you, and I'm going to use some outlines here so that I can move rapidly from point to point, or at least hopefully I can do that. Hopefully. Sometimes I get bogged down and don't do what I start out to do. But I want to talk with you about something that really is in addition to what we've been saying through the week. We've been talking about the character of God's people. The character of God's people. The Church from the standpoint of the quality, rather than quantity, or rather than organization, rather than work. We've simply been talking about the kind of people that make up this ecclesia, this called-out body of people. But I told you on the first morning of our study that somewhere down the line I would like also to discuss some of the problems that have come up of recent date, and they're not all that recent, they're actually revivals of problems of old, about the very organization of the Church, the very idea of a local church as an entity. Is it valid to speak of the Church when you're talking about the body as a body? And when you're dealing with something that that body does as a body, rather than individually. But I haven't discussed that, and now we're here at the last period, and if I'm going to get it in at all, I'm going to have to do something about it today. Although it leaves us, kind of takes off a bit from our study of the character of His people, I believe it's in order to do so. I kind of halfway promised it anyhow at the first. I want to keep my promise. Then I think it's needed. I want to talk with you for a while about the local church as a working entity. And let me first say that a great deal of the problems that have come up about the Church as an entity or a functioning body of people have come up because we have abused some principles that we should have adhered to. We have, to a great extent, tended to lose sight of the center theme of our preaching, that is, that it should be Christ. Of course, I've been emphasizing that. We have a tendency to preach Church instead of Christ. And we talk about going out. I don't know how we would have said it if we were writing the 11th chapter of Acts, but we might have said that some people came down to Antioch and they preached the Church of Christ. They taught people about the Church of Christ down there. And people believed and turned to the Church of Christ. Of course, it doesn't say that, you understand. But it's very possible that someone might have said that in our day. And then they believed and turned to the Church, and then they were told, Now, you've got to be faithful to the Church. That's not what it says. It says, Be faithful to the Lord. But we have a tendency to emphasize faithfulness to the Church. In fact, sometimes when someone goes astray, when they're not being faithful, we'll say, They're not faithful to the Church. Well, it may be that they aren't. It may be that they're not measuring up to their responsibilities that they have as members of a collective body. It may be that they're not measuring up to their responsibilities as part of a team that's supposed to be functioning in the work of the Lord. But really, that's not the way to say it. Basically, fundamentally, they're not faithful to the Lord. It's the Lord that they're turning away from. And we ought not let them forget that, and we ought not forget it ourselves. Another thing that we tend to do is to lose sight of the importance of the individual. We can get wrapped up in the idea of collective action and working as a team, and that's all well and good, but lose sight of the fact that every one of those people that make up that team have an individual responsibility to the Lord. That when you become a member of the Body of Christ, you pledge to the Lord Jesus Christ that you will be faithful to Him and that you will do His work no matter whether others do it or not. Now, this is a thing we tend to forget. We have a tendency to say, well, they are not doing the way they should do down there. They are not being faithful as they should be. And we seem to take that as an excuse. Therefore, we don't have to do anything about it. But there are some people down there that are just not living right, and the Church is not doing anything about it. So that's just not right. What are you doing about it? I am constantly seeing this sort of a situation. Someone will go and report, let's say to one of the elders, that brother so-and-so or sister so-and-so, they've been out drinking or carousing or whatever, and they'll have something to say about them. Well, here's the position that puts that elder in. The elder hasn't seen it. The elder doesn't know anything about it. It's absolutely anew. Now, he either has to become a kind of a detective, so the elders have to become detectives and begin sneaking around and trying to find out whether they did it or not, and spy on them a little bit to see if they can catch them at it before they can do anything. When the truth of the matter is, if you saw a brother or a sister doing something or living in a way they should not live, you should go to that brother and sister as a brother, as a sister, and sit down and talk with them about it. And tell them, I'm concerned. It seems to me that this, I know that this is not right. I believe that you know it isn't right, and I'm concerned about you. And especially if it's someone that you know personally, many times someone else in the congregation could do a much better job than I could in going and talking to somebody, because they have some immediate and imminent connection with them, some relationship. And I'm not talking about relation in the family, because a lot of times that's the hardest one in the world to talk about. But some close ties socially or in their association that makes them capable of handling the affair much better. When I first went to Burnet, Texas years ago, 25, whatever it was, I was new, of course, up there, didn't know anybody much. And in one of the early business meetings, hadn't been with them for just a short time, I don't know, two or three months. And one of the elders brought up the fact, say, I understand that, and I'll not call his name, but he called a man's name, I understand he's kind of gone back to his drinking habits. And that really shocked me, you know. Oh, going back to drinking habits, yes, and once in a while he gets into drinking. Well, I said, Would you all like for me to go and see him, talk to him? And one of the elders spoke up and said, No, Brother Turner, you're not the one to talk to him. He said, I'm the one to talk to him, but I used to drink with him. So that shocked me, too. But you know, he was just as right as he could be. He was just as right as he could be. It turns out that way back, see, they'd known one another from childhood. They'd known one another as children growing up together, and they'd caroused around together. And then way on down the line, this man that was now an elder had become a Christian. He wasn't even a Christian when he was carousing around with him. But the thing is, he had a close knowledge of that man and could talk with him as a friend and as someone that had grown up with him. And I'm afraid that we're forgetting that individual responsibility. And what we're doing, I'll get it, here's my point, what we're doing, we are fueling these objections to the local church. We're giving them ammunition. Whenever we as individuals forget our responsibility to God directly, direct responsibility, I am responsible to God to serve him faithfully, no matter what anybody else does, whenever I forget that. Whenever I forget my responsibility to my brothers and sisters as an individual, to sit down and talk with them and to try to help them, we are to lean on one another. If I understand the idea of brethren and their fellowship together, it's a mutual assistance society, I suppose you could call it, a kind of a mutual assistance that we ought to render to one another. And whenever we forget that and turn it over to the church, see the idea? Let the church do it. Well, who is the church? Well, basically, fundamentally it comes back, we are the church. And despite the fact that local church is, that's us, working collectively, despite the fact that there is such a thing as saints working as a team, and I'm going to discuss that more in detail, we never lose our individual responsibility. Never. Always your responsibility as an individual to God and to your brothers and sisters must be recognized. And we're doing a disservice ourselves, and we're giving the ammunition for people who are objecting to the church. But now let's pick it up a little bit further. What makes the church? Well, some are telling us that the word church is never used in any sense except just to refer to all the saints, and that it's always used this way. Well, of course, I believe that it's true that the word church can be used distributively. But there is something more. There is another use of church that must be recognized. For example, in the 18th chapter of Matthew, this first statement about such a matter, verse 15, Matthew 18, 15, Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone. Do you see that? If thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church. Now let's look at that carefully. You've got one brother talking to another brother. Some personal problem they've got there. One brother talking to another brother. Then you've got two or three witnesses there. That means at least two more. So you've got at least four brothers talking about the matter. And then it says, If he will not hear them, tell it to the church. If church is used only in the distributive sense, and used only to refer to a plurality of saints, you've already got a plurality of saints. You had the plurality of saints talking about it in the second place, in the second instance. But that's not the way this Scripture indicates it. This Scripture indicates that those four brethren could be talking about it, working together, and then if that didn't work, tell it to the church. Well, somebody says, That just means all the other brethren. But now look here. The church in this case is something that can hear, and it's something that can speak. But if he neglect to hear the church, the church can speak. There is a sense in which the term church can be used collectively. And of course, it's always a collective word. The word church ecclesia itself is a collective word. That is, it groups metaphorically all those who have come to God in Christ. When Jesus said, On this rock I will build my church, or that he died for the church, purchased the church with his own blood, Acts 20, and cleanses the church by the washing of water in the Word, Ephesians 5, church is all the saints metaphorically collected. It's just a way of collecting or considering as one all the individuals who have been bought by the blood of Christ, all of the individuals who have been built upon the foundation, all of the individuals who have been so considered. That is, Jesus Christ sees all these people out there, and he puts them together in this term church. It's like a word herd, or flock, or covey. The covey fleshes, and yet if you just, unless you shoot it to quail, you're not going to get any meat. There is no covey that's separate or apart from the quail, I'll put it that way. Or if you're going to vaccinate a herd of cattle, you've got to vaccinate the cattle. You can't vaccinate the herd and then put the herd out in the field and then put the cattle in the herd, or something like that. If you've got a hundred cows in your herd and it takes a hundred shots to vaccinate them, it doesn't take a hundred and one. A hundred shots for the cow and then one shot for the herd. There's no herd to put the shot in, do you get the point? When you dip sheep and you dip the flock, you dip the flock by taking the sheep one at a time and dipping the sheep. When the sheep are dipped, the flock has been dipped. In other words, the collective word is not something apart from the brethren. But on the other hand, an error is made, and I see it made in articles now that are becoming more and more prominent. An error is made in saying that the Church is nothing but the saint. Well, it's the saint considered collectively. You've got to add that on there. There is either the Church, if you're talking about the whole body of Christians and consider them distributively, that's all right, you can do that. You can take a collective word and consider it distributively. But in the scriptures, you'll find it sometimes considered collectively. Let's look at a few cases like that. For example, in Philippians 4, the Philippian letter begins like this, "...Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons." All right, now that tells us something. Number one, he's writing to the saints in Christ Jesus. And if you put a period after that, to all the saints in Christ Jesus period, then you'd just say he's writing to brethren everywhere. That would be Church in its universal application, the saints wherever they might be. But of course, he doesn't put a period there. "...to the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi." That tends it down somewhat in a geographic way. It says, I'm talking about the saints in this location. But he goes further than that, "...with the bishops," or overseers, "...and deacons," or servants, "...with the overseers and servants." That tells us that he has reference to a body of saints that are at Philippi who have some sort of directors or guides, the oversight, and who can act by way of servants. And that's exactly how the Church does a great deal of its action. It acts by way of someone who acts on its behalf. And when, well, I might give you some examples of that right here in the Philippian letter. In the second chapter of the Philippian letter, Paul writes to the brethren at Philippi, and he says, "...I suppose it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and companion in labor and fellow soldier, but your messenger, and he that ministered to my want." In other words, the brethren at Philippi had sent someone over there to Paul, and he was a messenger from that group of people, and he ministered to Paul in their behalf. In fact, a little bit later, in the 30th verse, he says, "...because for the work of Christ he was nigh unto death, not regarding his life, to supply your lack of service toward me." A servant, a deacon of the Church. In and of itself, if you stop and consider the work of a deacon, you are seeing a group of people acting as a team through a representative worker. This representative worker acting on behalf of the team, and usually with things supplied by the team so that they can co-act. We'll get to that in a moment. They do something on behalf of these brethren. But there's more to it. In the 4th chapter of the Philippian letter, you've got this sort of thing. Let's see if we can illustrate it on the board. This is in the 15th verse. Now ye Philippians know there is a plurality of saints at Philippi. And the ye, if you understand a little bit about the Greek language, the ye is either plural or singular. In this case it's plural. Ye. And of course it's plural, because it's referring to a plurality of saints. Ye Philippians, that's also plural. Know, the word know, that's a verb. But it's also plural. Ye know, ye Philippians know, he says, also that in the beginning of the gospel when I departed from Macedonia, no church. Now he pulls those individuals together in this term. He pulls together in one term all of these saints. The saints at Philippi are pulled together in the term church. It's a collective term. And now it takes a singular verb. That next word, communicate, no church communicated with me as concerning giving and receiving, but ye only. What I'm trying to get you to see here is that when Paul says the church communicated with him, he used a singular verb when he said the church sent to him, because he is talking about all of those saints considered as one. This is not distributive use of the word church. This is collective use of the word church. And so when someone tells you the word church always just simply means all the saints, that's just not so. It means all the saints. Sometimes it means all the saints considered as one. That is, treated as one with respect to their function, not just metaphorically as Christ says, on this rock I'll build my church. That considers all the saints as one. But it doesn't consider them all as one as a functional institution. But when he says here, no church communicated with me, and used the singular verb, he's considering those saints as one with reference to their function, to what they did. They acted as one in sending unto Paul. Well, there are other ways to look at the matter. In Romans 16, 16, the church can salute, you're all familiar with this, the churches of Christ salute you. Now, whenever you've got the expression churches, the churches of Christ, when you've got the word church, you might argue, as some do, of course, that the word church breaks down into its component, namely its saints. But whenever you've got the word churches, plural, the least common denominator for churches is church. You can't break churches down into saints, it breaks down into church. That's as far down as it'll go. And you've got a number of places where the expression churches is used with reference to function. In this case, the churches of Christ salute you. That is, this church sent its salutation, this church sent its salutation, another church sent its salutation, and another church sent its salutation. In fact, if you read carefully in the context, he mentions a group, a number of groups. Then in 1 Corinthians 16, and the first few verses, Paul had given order to the churches of Galatia. He had said something to a group considered as one. Churches, churches of Galatia. He didn't say to the saints of Galatia, he said to the churches of Galatia. And his instructions show, right here in the context, that he's expecting the saints of a church to put together their funds so that that fund, and incidentally this word in the King James Version, your liberality is, this is in the 3rd verse, "...when I come, whomsoever ye shall approve by your letters them will I send to bring your liberality unto Jerusalem." That word liberality is c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h- c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h- c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h- c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n, c-h-a-r-i-n. That doesn't break down the saints. You say, but the saints had to put up the money. Oh, I understand that the saints put up the money. But they put that money up and pooled it. They put that money into a collection that was then pooled and represented something from the group as a whole. And that's the thing that people are today denying. They're denying that such a thing as that exists. Well, all right, churches paid wages, churches saluted, churches can obey orders, churches can choose messengers, and so on. The churches act through servants. We've already seen, like Phoebe, the servant of the church at Sincreia. Paul commended Phoebe as a servant of the church at Sincreia. And he said, whatsoever she hath need of you, you know, assist her in this matter. I don't know what Phoebe was doing, but whatever she was doing, she was doing it on behalf of the church at Sincreia. There was something that the brethren in Sincreia, acting as a team, that they wanted done, and it was something a woman could do, and they sent this woman over there to do it. She was a servant of the church at Sincreia. The church chose servants, and we've already read these passages from the Philippian letter, and there's also in the Colossian letter, Colossians, the first chapter, I think it's the seventh verse, he speaks of Epaphras, who is hupere, on your behalf, a minister. He is on your behalf, a minister. Hupere is the word. We need to take it a little further than that, though. We need to try and get as clear an understanding of what makes this team. And I want us to deal with that just a little bit. You cannot have a one-man team. Whenever you talk about a covey, you're talking about more than one quail. It takes more than one quail to make a covey. It takes more than one cow to make a herd. Although they tell me back in real depression times and real drought times that the cattlemen in Texas kept selling off their cattle, selling off their cattle, and the herd got smaller and smaller and smaller. And finally they said it got so bad that there were some ranches that didn't have any cows at all in their herd. That's a little hard to believe. That sounds like a Texas story to me. There had to be some cows in there, and there had to be more than one cow for it to be a herd. You can't have a herd with only one cow. And you can't have church. And now we're talking about local church. We're talking about church used with reference to a team. You can't have a one-member church. There's no such thing as a one-member church. Now there might be one member of the church God's people considered as a whole, but there's no one-member church. You start out with a plurality of saints. And there's something else about this plurality of saints. That plurality of saints must agree to act as one. I think we tend to overlook that. And maybe this is where we are failing to impress upon members of a local church their responsibility. I can remember back many years ago, I've only seen this a few times, so it evidently was passing out of popularity by the time I was a young man. But I have been at several places where when someone was baptized, or someone placed membership, as we say, that they would have them stand up and have them come down to the front and stand up. I've seen it happen two or three times. And then the whole membership, all the people, came around and shook hands with them. They called that giving them the right hand of fellowship. But what they were doing, there was a tacit agreement being made here, that is, this individual was saying, I want to be a part of the team. I want to work on this team. And these people were saying, welcome to the team. I'm trying to emphasize something here that I think we have tended to neglect. That is, that when we form ourselves together in a congregation, we accept the responsibilities of team action. Whenever you enter onto, let's say you get onto a football team, and most of you here, I'm sure, do that just every day or so. Whenever you get onto some sort of a teamwork, you agree to act as a team. When the quarterback calls the signal and it calls for blocking to the right and a pass out on that side, well, then you block to the right and the passer gets off down there on that side. Same way with any kind of team activity. Acting as a team involves the giving up of a certain amount of your own individuality in order that you might function in keeping with some sort of common direction and guidance. And that's the next thing we need to see about a team. Not only do they agree to act as one, but in order to act as one, they accept some common direction or guide. And that's overseers. It's overseers where there are people qualified to so serve, but in the absence of qualified men, you're going to have to have the common direction and guidance anyhow. There is no way you're going to avoid that. For example, if this group that's assembled here this morning, if we should decide that we're going to form a congregation, let's say we didn't have anything like that, but we're all assembled to talk about it, and incidentally I have met with people like this. I have gone into communities. I went into the community of Tolleson one time. My father and I spent several days rounding up, finding people that had been baptized into Christ that were living in Tolleson, but they weren't worshiping anywhere. And we rounded them up and finally got them together and got them to meet together in a home. And I made a talk to them about their responsibilities to work as a team, and we discussed this whole matter. And they agreed, one and all, they agreed, we will do that. We pledge ourselves to work together as a team here, to begin worshiping and working together. Now, when you do that, you've got to have some sort of common guidance in matters of judgment. I say in matters of judgment because God is already prescribed for us. The Lord's Supper on the first day of the week, for example. That's already prescribed. There's nothing we have to do about that. We can't decide, well, I believe we'll take the Lord's Supper on Thursday, or we'll believe we'll take the Lord's Supper on Tuesday. That's already determined for us by the example that's found in Acts 20. And so the disciples met together on the first day of the week to break bread. If we're paying any attention at all to that, then that's not a thing for us to decide. But what time of day? What time of day? What time shall we meet for worship, let's say? Shall it be at 9 o'clock in the morning, 9.30, 10, 10.30, 11? What time? One in the afternoon, two, three, all this is on the first day of the week. Well, somebody has to decide that. And that's where oversight comes in. I believe that God has prescribed that men with the experience and who are recognized by the congregation, I'm not discussing the qualifications here, that's not my purpose, but men with the experience and who have met these qualifications are to be selected and recognized on the part of the congregation to do this very thing, to make matters of judgment that must be made in order that the brethren function as a team. But in the absence of qualified overseers, you've got to have that decision anyhow. You can't do without that decision. I'll illustrate it for you in a moment. Well, we might as well just do that right now. Suppose this was a real heavy piece of equipment here, some sort of a heavy object that I wanted to move. Maybe I felt like it was in my way and I wanted to get it out of my way. Well, if I can't move it myself, I'm going to have to have help. So I look out over the audience and try to pick out strong men, Brother Haley and Brother Clayton, and a few of these fellows have got good strong backs, and I say, Now, come on, fellas, help me. Help me move this. Not a soul move. Nobody move. Come on, somebody help me move this thing. I want to move this and I've got to have help. Not a soul. All right, then I've got no team action. No team activity because I can't get an agreement, I can't get an agreement of a plurality to work as one. See? So I've got no team action. But let's suppose that they come. Suppose I get several that come up here. They're willing to come. And so they say, All right, we'll come. We'll enter into this with you. But now once we get up here, Brother Haley says, Let's set it right over there. No, no. Brother Clayton says, No, no, that's not the place for it. Let's put it over here. And then I say, No, no. Well, that's the worst place in the world. The thing to do is set it back here. I've seen churches like that. I've seen them just like that. No, can't come to any kind of decision and won't let anybody set up a plan to which they will all agree. But I think you can see that we'll get nowhere moving this object until there can be a suggestion made, someone can propose an action with respect to moving this to which the rest of us will agree. See there? There must be the agreement to act as one. And to that end, we must accept some sort of common direction and guidance. If somebody said, Yes, well, let's just set it right over there. And the rest of us say, That's fine with us. Great, we can get somewhere now. But you know we haven't moved it yet. It's still sitting there. We have agreed to act as one. We have agreed to accept some sort of common direction and guidance to the end that we move it as one. But we've got to do something more than that. We've got to act as one. And we do that through a pooling of means and or ability. Have you ever known congregations that would agree on what ought to be done, but nobody does anything? I've known them like that. Now let me see if I can't point out that this is where the treasury comes into the picture. In the case of moving this, we would have some men, one over there, one over here, one here, let's say. And somebody suggests, Let's move it over there. All right. And then we all put our strength into it. I lift on this side. Brother Haley lifts over there. Brother Clayton lifts over here. And together we lift this thing up and put it over in this place. Now what we've done, we have pooled our means and ability to act on this single suggestion to which we have agreed. There has been an acceptance of a common mind, and now we have pooled our means in order to carry that suggestion out. Now that can be done in the church. For example, if this building needed painting, every member of the church could simply bring a paintbrush and some paint down here, and everybody would get to paint it. Of course, they'd probably end up with a psychedelic effect, but it could be done that way. Everybody could just sit in the painting and they could paint the building. But one of the ways to act, and I think this is, we recognize today especially, and this was true even in New Testament times, you put together means, a medium of exchange. I chip into the pot. Brother Haley chips into the pot. Brother Clayton chips into the pot. Put the credit card in there too. Put it all in there. All right, we put together our means. What is a church treasury? What is a church treasury? The truth of the matter is it's nothing more nor less than the pooled means of the members of the team so that it can be exchanged for some function if we put together our means and then take this money and buy a paint job, then these people who put together their means have painted the church building. If you had a preacher out here that needed support and everybody chips in, they put together their means and then this money that they've chipped in together, they give it to the preacher for his support, then the brethren that put that money together have supported the preacher and they've done so as a team. That's exactly what a treasury is. Now we tended to ignore that. Several years ago I was out for a walk and I came across a little frame building, a little white frame building. It had a sign out front, Church of Christ. But I'd never seen it before and didn't know what it was all about. And I was walking with an elderly gentleman. We just met up together walking down the street together. And I said, there's a building, Church of Christ. I said, do you know anything about that? He said, well, yes, I know about that. And he said, I worship there. That's where I go. Well, I said, you're just the fellow I want to see. I said, what is that? I said, I'm a member of the Church of Christ and I'm interested in that. Oh, he said, you're a member of the Church of Christ? Yes. Where do you worship? Well, I said, I worship at 9th Avenue in Madison. That's when I was in Phoenix. Oh, he said, this is different. This is different. Well, I said, how is it different? Well, he said, you all take up a treasure. You have a treasure. You take up a collection for the treasure. I said, you mean you don't do that? No, no, we don't do that. I said, well, how did you get the building? I don't see how you do anything if you don't take up a collection. Oh, he says, if there's something comes up that needs to be done, now he says, for example, several weeks ago we had a little hailstorm and it broke out a couple of windows back here. And he said, we all chipped in and took the money and had the windows fixed, repaired the windows. I said, that's just exactly the way we do it down at 9th Avenue in Madison. No, he says, that's not the way you do it. I said, yes, it is. I said, the only difference that I can see is that we think there's something to be done every week and you just think there's something to be done when the hail breaks the windows. I said, I don't see any other difference. But he said, you don't give that. You don't give for a purpose. I said, oh, yes, we do. We give for a purpose. And the truth of the matter was I had not given it serious thought up until that point. But he kind of shook me off. He made me realize that when we really give of our means, it should be with the end in view to carry out specific functions that God has given the church to do. In other words, involved in determining the work of the church, involved in that is also determining what you're going to do with the treasury, if you want to call it that, the funds that the brethren put together. In reality, when you get right to the bottom of it, we chip in, we pool our means and ability in this team so that those means can be used to carry out the functions that we believe God wants His saints to do as a team. That's really what the treasury is all about. If there were nothing for this church to do, if they had nothing that they needed funds for, legitimately nothing that they needed funds for, there would be no point in taking up a collection. Ah, that doesn't set well with some people. I'm aware of that. Because we have sort of pushed the idea that, well, this is a sort of a giving unto God affair, you know, and you give, no matter, it's not your responsibility, whatever they do with it. I don't buy that. I don't buy that. It is your responsibility. When I go to the church in Burnet and I say, there, I'll put that into it, that says in essence, it says in essence, I want to share in what these saints are doing as a team. You are taking care of this needy family, I want to share in taking care of that needy family. You're taking care of the support of a preacher in about five or six different places, I want to share in that support of the preaching of the gospel. And you're doing this and that, whatever it might be, I want to share in that. You do have a responsibility. And there is purpose. Now, lots of times people will read that passage in 1 Corinthians and draw the conclusion, the only thing that you can give money for, put it together for, is to take care of the needy saints. That's because in that specific occasion or occurrence, that's what that money was used for. Well, I don't mind acknowledging that. I freely admit that in 1 Corinthians 16, that when Paul called for them to buy and store on the first day of the week that there be no gathering when I come, that he was talking about getting funds together to take care of these needy saints over there in Jerusalem, Judea. I don't see any reason not to acknowledge that. But all you have to do to get something else out of that same kind of collection is to look through the Scriptures and find out what brethren did as a team. And whatever brethren did as a team, that's exactly what you can take a collection for. Because it's nothing more than calling for the brethren to tip in and lend their power, their means and abilities to carrying out the work God has given you to do. Let me see if I can deal with the work of the Church in a hurried manner here. Number one, there is self-maintenance. Self-maintenance. That is, our worship, self-edification, care of the needy saints, our own needy saints. Now, these are things that are necessary simply to maintain ourselves. Whatever it takes, and incidentally this is where your building comes into it. Maybe I ought to take just a moment to talk about the building because there's a lot of discussion about that. As to what kind of a building, as to whether you need a building, and if you do need it, as to what kind it is, and how much money you should put into it, these are matters of judgment. The principle is that brethren are to assemble together and exhort and encourage one another and edify one another. I think that's the purpose of our coming together. I don't see our coming together as a fetish thing. I don't see it as a liturgical system of worship. One, two, three, four, five. You do this, you do that, you do the other, you do this, you do that, and when you've done all five items, you've worshipped. Not necessarily. Not necessarily. You may have done all five items and not worshipped at all. Now, we've talked about that, so I won't go back over that. But the coming together, there is a reason for being together. To lean on one another. To assist one another. The passage over in Hebrews 10, which we refer to so frequently, emphasizes that very point. Let us consider one another. Let us consider one another. To provoke unto love and to good works. Not forsaking the assembling. It doesn't say not forsaking the assembly. That's not what it says. It doesn't say not forsaking the assembly. It says not forsaking the assembling. That's an active verb. Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is. But exhorting one another. So much the more as you see the day approaching. You can get all kinds of ideas about what the day is, but I don't think it's the first day of the week. That's not the point. He is saying, you come together and encourage one another and help one another and assist one another with a view to the ends on down the line. There's a reason for it. You need to be working together. You need to encourage one another. And there are some who are neglecting this. Of course, that's the Hebrew letters written to brethren because they were neglecting, falling short. And he's trying to encourage them. And he says, Don't forsake the assembling because in the assembling you provoke one another to love and good works and you encourage one another. All right. Now what I'm getting at is a place of assembly is therefore necessary. It can be out under a tree. It could be. It could be out under a tree. It could be at any place. You don't even have to have a tree. But it's got to be a designated place. People will know to come together there. It can be in someone's home. And this becomes a matter of judgment. And it's very possible that, again, kind of like I said at the opening of our lesson, it's very possible that people have used poor judgment here and have given fuel to those who say that we're only interested in a pretty building and something that's magnificent and makes a big impression and therefore that's wrong. Well, now what they're doing is throwing out the baby with the wash water. In other words, they're saying, well, people are making poor judgments about a place of meeting. They're making poor judgments about how much money they're putting into it. They're making poor judgments about where to locate it and all. And therefore we draw the conclusion you shouldn't have any such thing as a place of meeting anyhow. That just doesn't follow. That just doesn't follow. That is, as I say, ignoring the principle because of the abuses. Now, I cannot make your judgments for you. It may be that your judgment about a building is different than mine, but I can't make your judgments for you. Each congregation is going to have to make their own judgments in these matters. They're going to have to come to some conclusion, but don't let the conclusion, whatever it may be, poor or good judgment, don't let it cast out the principle. You still need to be together. You still need to come together to encourage one another. You still need to function as a team. All these passages that are spoken of, the Church is doing something, the Church is paying wages, the Church is supporting the needy saints, the Church is taking care of Paul, and so on. All those passages indicate that the Scriptures clearly teach saints may work together as a team and are so considered. And to that end, they must have means and abilities. And they pool those means and abilities so they can function as a team. That's self-maintenance. But then there is an obligation to the world. That is, to people outside of our, maybe I'm using the word world a little differently here, but people outside of ourselves. We have obligations outside of ourselves. Maybe that's the way I ought to put it. I don't want to mislead you. Outside the local team. Those obligations are two in number. To preach the Word, of course, is very obvious. Preach the Word to the world and to care for a needy. Well, saints elsewhere. That's not the hospital, saints elsewhere. That's not what I'm talking about. All right. You see, what I'm trying to do here is group, just put into a real simple grouping, the work of the Church. The work of the Church readily divides itself into two main groups. There is some portions of the work of the Church that are simply involved in maintaining ourselves as a team. Worshiping, working together, providing a place for that, providing the equipment that goes with it, whatever is necessary. That's what I'm talking about, self-maintenance. And incidentally, how do you tell when a church is in need? How can you tell when a church is in need? Well, you don't tell whether a church is in need by whether it can do this work or not. You tell how a church is in need when it is unable to do this work. If a church is unable to maintain itself, then it has some needs. Now, judgment again enters into the picture. But if Brother Haley and I were walking down the street and a fellow tips us up, he says, I'm a needy fellow, I need assistance, assist me. Well, one of us may decide that he really does need assistance and give him assistance. The other may decide he doesn't need assistance and not give him assistance. Both of us are doing what we've got the right to do, make that decision and that judgment. But our judgments may differ. But both of us agree that if he is in need, we ought to try to assist him. We ought to try to help him. Both of us agree to that. Now, the same thing can be used in talking about the work of the church. The church has certain obligations. We may differ in our judgments as to when that need should be met and as to how it should be met. But we should be in perfect agreement on the principles involved in maintaining ourselves as a unit, to function as a team, self-edifying and caring for our own, and then above and beyond that, reaching outside to take the Word to someone else and to take care of needy Saints elsewhere. I probably am not hitting all the points I wanted to hit. I had a little special section here to point out that New Testament Saints gave for specific purposes. Benevolence at home, Acts 4, where they laid at the Apostles' feet and took care of their own members. 1 Corinthians 16, 1-3, benevolence away from home. 2 Corinthians 11, 8, support of Paul at Corinth when he was working at Corinth, a support of Paul there, robbed other churches, taking wages. Philippians 4, 15, supporting him as an evangelist as he went about preaching the Word initially in places where the Word had not been preached. That's specific purposes for our giving, specific purposes for a treasury. And I don't see anything wrong in calling it a treasury. But if you don't like to call it a treasury, just call it putting your money together. I don't care. It doesn't make a bit of difference in the world. Just so you put together your efforts so that you can function and carry on the work that God has given you to do. It may be that there are other things I should have discussed, but those are the things that I tried to put together. And I want to emphasize in closing that our primary function as Christians is to glorify God. Our primary function is to glorify God. When we obey the gospel of Christ, are forgiven of our sins, we come to him, then the life ahead of us should be a life by which we glorify our Heavenly Father. You can glorify God individually, and you must do so. In activities that have to do only with the social world, for example. First Corinthians 10, if you'd be invited to meet with a brother or with a stranger, a person, not a member, and he put feet before you, he says, eat. Ask no question for conscience sake. Only if he says, this was offered in sacrifice to idols, then, then, then you can question. Eat not. But he goes on to tell you why. Because he says that you are to glorify God, whatever you do. Whatever you do, glorify God. And then you glorify God when you work as a team in the work that God has given you to do. Paul commended the Thessalonians in that way, for the word had gone forth from them and spread abroad. Glorify God. Make it a point to glorify God in your life, in every activity of your life. As an individual, father, mother, parent, as a workman on the job, whatsoever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord. We discussed that. And then glorify God when you join with other saints and form a team and function under oversight, direction and guidance and pool your means and abilities. Make sure that you're glorifying God. Make sure that what those funds are used for is something God has authorized. Make sure that you work together to assist one another and help one another get to heaven. Because if we miss heaven, we've missed it all. We've missed it all. If you are present here this morning and are in any way subject to a gospel invitation, we want to invite you to come. I appreciate the attention that you've given, and I know that we've wandered about somewhat today in trying to discuss this matter. But I'm wanting to encourage you to get to heaven. If there's any way possible that I can say something that will encourage you to understand the character of your life, how it should be, and urge you to improve that character, to become more godlike, if there's any way I can encourage you as brothers and sisters in team, in the team of the Lord, to do the work that God gave us to do, that's what we're here to do. Won't you come as we stand to sing the Song of Invitations?