Speaker 1: 0:06

I want to continue through our Membership Matters series this week and next because membership matters. And so I say that, because the church is important to God and one of the things I want to emphasize today is that very fact to God, and one of the things I want to emphasize today is that very fact. We live in a world where many people do not know their ultimate purpose. You could probably go out on the streets of Tampa and ask a thousand people on the sidewalk what's your purpose for living? And I bet you many people could give you purposes this and that and the other and the other. But what's the purpose for your life? What purpose does it have? That's going to transcend you, even time itself. And, of course, in our culture we try not to think about death and all that that calls into question. We try not to think about death and all that that calls into question that has a way of pressing eternity upon us. But as Christians, our purpose is clear. Our purpose is clear. It's defined by what God is doing in the world. It's revealed in his word what he's doing in the world. The risen Lord Jesus Christ put it like this, matthew 16, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. So what's God doing in the world? He's building this church through his son, by the power of the spirit, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Aren't you glad he wins, because he wins, we win. So that's what he's doing. God in Christ, the risen Lord, he's building his church and this has profound implications for the life of God's people.

Speaker 1: 1:59

There's a wonderful late theologian, ed Clowney. He said to ignore the purpose of Jesus is to deny his lordship. That's a very powerful statement. To deny the purpose of Jesus, which is building his church, is to deny the lordship of Christ. To honor God and the lordship of Christ, the Bible says we must join Him and with Him in building His church. For that's what God is doing in the world, of course by the power and the grace of the Holy Spirit. So, church membership.

Speaker 1: 2:38

Vows four and five we've already looked at the first three. These last two vows give particular attention to our corporate responsibilities in the life of God's church and our responsibility to strengthen the church of the risen Lord. Jesus Christ, if you've been with us, we looked at the first three vows and the first three, in fact the very first. One acknowledges our sin. The second one acknowledges that God has given us a Savior. The third one is about us growing to be more like Christ by the grace of the Holy Spirit. It's called sanctification. So sin and Savior and sanctification. And now we come to the fourth vow, which is support, the support of the church.

Speaker 1: 3:26

Here's what it sounds like and, by the way, these five vows, as I've said all along, are just. It's what New Testament Christianity is. It's not really unique to the PCA or our denomination or to Westtown Church. This is just what you'll see in the scripture. Do you promise to support the church in its worship and work to the best of your ability? That's the vow.

Speaker 1: 3:48

So, with that brief introduction, I'd like, if you're able, to stand, I'd like to invite you to stand, and I'm going to read God's inerrant, infallible holy word. He sends it to us in love, and I'm going to read three short verses or passages. The first one comes from Matthew, chapter 16. It's the words of Christ. Verse 18 says and I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. The second passage I want to read to you comes from the book of Hebrews, the 10th chapter, beginning with verse 19. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful, and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near. And last, 1 Timothy 3, verses 14 and 15.

Speaker 1: 5:17

The Apostle Paul writes to the young minister Timothy I hope to come to you soon. Timothy was in Ephesus. I hope to come to you soon, but I'm writing these things to you so that, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of the Lord endures forever. God's people said amen, you may be seated. Thank you, heavenly Father. We come to your word and we ask that you would help us understand the importance of your church to the glory of your son, jesus Christ. Help us see by the power of the Holy Spirit. In Jesus name, amen.

Speaker 1: 6:02

The way I'm going to approach this is I'm going to start it with a question and then I'm going to unfold the two aspects of the church. So the question is what is the church? If we're called to support the church in its worship and work? Well, it's really good to be clear on what the church is. So I'm going to spend a little bit of time flushing that out from a biblical point of view. A little bit of time flushing that out from a biblical point of view. The simplest answer to that is the church at its most basic level is God's people. It's God's people.

Speaker 1: 6:35

Oftentimes we say we're going to go to church, let's go to church, and there's no objection from this pastor in saying that. But it is interesting that the Puritans, the old Puritans, they wanted to make sure that the biblical point was not missed of what the church was, and so they didn't call. They wouldn't say let's go to church, they'd say let's go to the meeting house. And the reason they would say that is because they wanted to be clear we are the church, we are the church. Now, of course, we can call this the church because this is where God's people gather. But what makes this a church is that God's people gather here, not just the existence of the building itself, at least biblically speaking. And so the church is the people of God, and that's important, because what that means is is the church is a living thing means is is the church is a living thing, the church is a living thing. The apostle Paul, 1 Timothy 3.15,. He calls the church the household of God. It's the family of God, the family of God.

Speaker 1: 7:36

Think about how the Bible speaks about the church in different ways. One of the ways that it speaks about the church is it speaks about this term God's elect. And so obviously in the Old Testament, when you read there, you see how God chose the Israelites out of all the peoples of the earth, and even in a more narrow sense of God's election, we see in the New Testament Romans and Ephesians and first Peter. Those ideas are there, but what it's getting at is those who have been, are now or will be gathered into God's eternal family. Those who have been, are now or will be gathered by the sovereign grace of God into God's family, and so we can speak about the church being universal, the universal church.

Speaker 1: 8:22

The Bible speaks of it in broad terms. What do we mean by universal? If you've ever confessed the Apostles' Creed which is good from time to time, I believe in the Catholic Church it says small c. We don't mean Roman Catholic, we're talking about Catholic in the sense of universal, and so it includes God's people, or Christ's sheep, or God's elect, from every age, going back all the way to the beginning of time, all the way back to Adam and Eve. It's worldwide in scope. You remember? It went from Adam to Abraham, and so it was broadening into a family, and then it became a nation, israel, and now it's going to all the nations of the world. It just broadened out to encompass the whole world, and it includes this idea of the universal church, or we could say the Catholic church, the church who's gathered in heaven right now, at least, their souls are there and so it takes in also all of God's people that will come to true faith in the future. So it's a very wide understanding.

Speaker 1: 9:29

It's one reason we sing not only contemporary songs in God's church but we sing, like we did this morning hymns and I'm even glad to say, as a pastor, I'm glad the Psalms are making a comeback. I think the music is getting so much better for the Psalms. In our day there's a lot of Psalms projects with guitars and other things going on. I'm encouraged by that. Why do we do that? Why does the church always sung music from its own day and from previous periods? And the reason is is that church history is our church, it's our history, it's our family history and we're connected to something bigger than just a narrow few years of our own time. So it's a reflection of that that we gather with them to praise, just like we did holy, holy, holy, that song there. Next year it'll be 200 years old. So we joined with the saints back in the early 1800s to sing about God's holiness, and some of the Psalms go many of them go to a thousand years before Christ. It's an amazing thing when you open up a hymn and you say, well, in 400, they were singing this and you join the saints of that era. So it's just, there's something much bigger than just what's going on in our narrow time.

Speaker 1: 10:46

So we can speak about the church being universal or Catholic, but the church is also spoken about in the Bible as those who gather in a specific house or location. So, for example, when you read the New Testament letters, what do you see there? To the saints in particular location, like Rome or Corinth or Ephesus. And in the book of Acts, which one of Paul's helpers, dr Luke, wrote, you see there that he points out that the church that meets in the home of Priscilla and Aquila. So you can get very specific about which churches you're speaking about. So the Bible speaks about the church in the broad sense, in the universal sense and also in a particular sense. And when we remember, the particular churches are linked into something much bigger and broader, including heaven itself. Westtown Church is an outpost of heaven. That's a remarkable thing, isn't it? An outpost of heaven? That's a remarkable thing, isn't it? The local church is an outpost of heaven. We are the local expression in Northwest Tampa in this particular church, linked to the saints of heaven and the saints throughout the ages.

Speaker 1: 11:58

It's an awesome thing to think about. And so the church is not just any family, it's God's family, and God has adopted us, by grace, into His family. There are many people who adopt children. Pastor Morgan and his family have gone through that, and I've known one of my brothers adopted a couple children and so forth. Many people do and not everybody's a Rockefeller, so you know most people that adopt. They raise money from others who are willing to pay. But think about what it costs God to adopt you into his family, and it costs the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, his Holy Son. Think about how precious, therefore, you are in the eyes of God, dear Christian, he sees you in Christ. You're the apple of his eye. It's a marvelous, marvelous thing.

Speaker 1: 12:55

Paul says here in 1 Timothy the church, she's a pillar and buttress of the truth. She's a pillar and buttress of the truth. Now it's important to realize that the church is created by the word of God. The word of God is not created by the church. The church is created by the word of God. God brings us into the church. He creates it by speaking and he brings us into the church, and that's very important. And it cuts what the church does or what the important, and it cuts what the church does, is or what the Bible does is. It cuts people to the heart and it transforms them into a relationship with God, and as it does that, it takes us out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. The Bible is called the sword of the spirit. That's where the power comes from. The Bible's called the sword of the spirit. That's where the power comes from. God's spirit works in and through the word of God to create a Christian, and so the church is called the pillar and buttress of the truth, and so it also speaks of this gospel that we have as this treasure. This treasure, that's what Paul calls it in 2 Corinthians 4.

Speaker 1: 14:07

Jude, our Lord's brother, calls it the faith once for all delivered to the saints. Well, where was the faith once for all delivered to the saints? Right here in this book. It's been delivered to us in this book. And then Jude goes on to say we're to contend for this faith. We're to contend for the truth that's in this word, because we live in a world of lies. Why is that important to God? Because it's through this book that reveals who God is. It's through this book that we come to understand God's holy character. We come to understand in this book, the glory of his son. It's through this book that we come to see his excellent grace in the gospel, his glorious, sovereign grace.

Speaker 1: 14:55

And so, when we contend for the truth of the gospel and the truth of the Christian faith against all falsehood, what are we fighting to do? We're fighting to uphold the honor of God's word. We're fighting to uphold the honor of His Son and the honor of His gospel. Hopefully we do that in humility, but that's what we're contending for. And so we're God's family. And when we come together, what do we do? We sing the Bible, pray the Bible, preach the Bible, confess the Bible, hear the Bible, obey the Bible, or at least resolve to. And then we go out and share the Bible into the community and we anchor and align our whole life, every area of our life, to this book, because this is the will of God revealed.

Speaker 1: 15:48

And so, in that sense, the Westminster Confession of Faith, our confession that summarizes the basics of the Christian faith, it speaks about the church is the kingdom of God. The church is the kingdom of God. The church is the kingdom of God. What does that mean? It means that the church is where, in the hearts and lives of God's people. That's where God has established his rule and his reign, where it's taken root, like it's supposed to, not yet in perfection, but in great substance. And so where is God's rule and reign? In the hearts and minds and lives of people. It's concentrated in the church, so much so the theologians speak about the church is the kingdom of God. It's where King Jesus rules and reigns in the most powerful way in terms of the will of God, his moral will.

Speaker 1: 16:48

It's also important to understand that the church takes in Jews and Gentiles and people from every tribe, tongue, nation and language. Why is that important? Because what that does is it puts a check and it tempers our patriotism in the good kind of way. There are some people that are frankly ungrateful brats who don't appreciate what our forefathers have done for them, and it's kind of ugly to see, to be honest, you know, but you can go the other direction too. We always can fall off one side of the horse or the other, and if some people are very ungrateful and despise our country because it's not far from you know, it's far from perfect On the other hand, you have people that elevate the patriotism so high that God's church and kingdom is second or ignored. And you see, that's no good either. That's not good.

Speaker 1: 17:48

You know, when the Roman Empire collapsed in 410 AD, the great theologian St Augustine had to write the city of God to remind God's people the Roman Empire is not the kingdom of God. You don't have to despair, god's not done. He will build his church and the gates of hell should not prevail against it. Aren't you glad for that? And what has happened for these 1600 years since Christ has built his church? Kingdoms rise, kingdoms fall. The church endures forever, and so we need to remember that.

Speaker 1: 18:29

And listen. I'm a vet. I love our country. It makes me sick when I see people doing things to our flag and so forth. I understand the sins and flaws of our country, but I love our country. I want us to appreciate our forefathers and foremothers and all they sacrificed. But as Christians we have to realize America is not the kingdom of God. The church is where the kingdom of God is concentrated, the church. Why is this important for us? Because it helps us, as the church, bring wisdom into the political discourse.

Speaker 1: 19:08

You know, there's coming a day where we'll be in heaven with our Arab brothers and sisters. We'll be in heaven with our Iranian brothers and sisters, who are probably suffering greatly right now for their commitment to Christ. We'll be in heaven with our Russian brothers and sisters, our Chinese brothers and sisters, our European, our South American, our African and so on, our Indian brothers and sisters. And so the kingdom of God is international in scope, and we just need to remember that and let it inform our patriotism. Let us love our country well, but just remember our highest allegiance has to be to Christ and his kingdom.

Speaker 1: 19:54

Seek first what the kingdom of God and all these other things that are legitimate concerns will be given unto you. God will take care of it, don't worry, jesus is saying. And so, simply put, the church is God's people. It's gathered by and entrusted with the Holy Word. You see, the Word of God creates the church by the Spirit and then gathers the church around the Word, and then we're called to preserve this scripture and contend for the truth of this word in every age and to share it. That's how God continues to build his church. So that's what the church is.

Speaker 1: 20:32

I just want to spend the remaining time just kind of on the two sides of the coin, if I could put it that way, the two aspects of the church of Christ. What does it mean to support the church? Well, the first aspects of this is to support the church, is to support God's people, is to support the organism. It's a living thing, it's a living body. And now, in saying that, we need to remember the church is both an organization as well as an organism. And when I say it's an organization, what do I mean? It has to be formally organized, for we see God instituted the church in the scriptures to be led formally by pastors and elders and deacons, by pastors and elders and deacons, and so everything Paul says to the Corinthians to be done decently and in order. And so in the Presbyterian Church in America, the PCA, the denomination that Westtown is a part of, we have what we call the Book of Church Order.

Speaker 1: 21:38

Most of you probably don't use it for your devotional reading on the bed stand at night. I understand that, but it has hundreds of years of wisdom of God's leaders taking the principles from the Bible and applying it to the life of the church. And it's not a perfect document, far from it, but it's a very, very helpful one. Why is that? Because the church is an organization. We strive to do it, order it decently and put it in right order.

Speaker 1: 22:07

So it's critical we understand the church at its heart is a living organism. It's a body, it's a family, and a family without love is what it's a family of misery and pain. That's what a family without love is. So think about also this idea of the Christ speaks about the church as his body. It's his body, paul speaks to it, and all the parts have to be functioning right for the body to be everything it can be. The heart's not pumping, the body's not going to live. If the ear is not passing on the information, the body's going to be hindered. If the eye doesn't pass on to the brain what it sees, you can see the problems there. And so you need all the various parts of the body for it to function well. And it's the same in God's church.

Speaker 1: 23:05

And so what does it mean to support God's church, to support the body? It means to love and serve God's people, to love and serve them. We're going to have a ministry fair February 23rd and March 2nd here at the church, and between now and then we're going to begin to at the church, and between now and then we're going to begin to. I'd love it and in fact it's my goal for all of us to identify our spiritual gifts. And the point isn't to guilt you into serving. The point is to try to help you understand how God has gifted you so you can serve with the greatest joy and to the best effect. And that's what we want to do. It's a great privilege to be a part of God's church, and so this love for God's people and this desire to serve them, it begins in the heart, but it shows itself with our mouth, it shows itself with our hands and feet, with our time and even our wallets. And so love involves the affections of the heart, but it moves not only the heart. It involves the mind, with a certain thoughtfulness about how we can serve our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. We have to think about it and take notice. And then it involves the hands. We put things into action.

Speaker 1: 24:24

The New Testament has a lot of one another verses in it. I read somewhere somebody described the church as a place where they're one anothering one another, and the reason for that is is there's almost 60 references to one another in the New Testament. That's a lot, and so one third of those verses focus on the unity of the church. One third focus on loving one another in various ways. And then the last third is divided up between doing it with humility, in deference to our brothers and sisters' needs and preferences, to the best of our ability, as well as encouraging and edifying them or building them up the best that we can.

Speaker 1: 25:11

Here's how Hebrews puts it. Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near. So it's calling us to a holy life in the church. In the church, it's calling us to be an active, devoted member of God's local church. We can't serve in every church, but we can serve in our local church, and if you're a member of Westtown, you can serve here. God realizes we only have two hands and two feet and so much time, and so he calls us to serve his whole church by serving in the local church.

Speaker 1: 26:00

What are we to do when we gather? Why do we gather? Did you hear how the author of Hebrews put it? To stir one another up to love and good works. You've heard this example before. I'm sure you've heard this example before. I'm sure you know the deal. You take a charcoal out of the grill, a hot charcoal, a piece of charcoal out of the grill, and you put it over in the yard and what happens? It gets cold and pretty quick. But what happens with all the rest of the bricks that hung together? They stay warm, they feed on one another, it stays hot.

Speaker 1: 26:37

And our spiritual life is just like that when we're engaged in the life of the church. It helps us stay stirred up, it helps us encourage us, because living in this world, this fallen world, can be very difficult at times. And we need one another. Amen, we need one another, I need you and you need me, and we need one another if we're going to be everything God has called us to be, and so encouragement is an important word.

Speaker 1: 27:07

Encouraging one another is one of the main emphases of the New Testament. And so he tells us remember the day's coming. Christ is coming back, judgment day is coming, the day of rewards for God's people is coming. There's going to come a day when all the struggle's over. There's going to come a day where it's going to just be pure joy. So press on in between that time, in this time, when we need encouragement.

Speaker 1: 27:35

You know, when we get to heaven, I'm not sure heaven's a place where we'll need any encouragement. That's a strange thought, isn't it? Everything will be perfect. Think about heaven this morning. You know there's perfect peace in heaven right now. Love it's a place of perfect love, overflowing joy, and that's our home. That's where we're going, and our job as Westtown Church is to give this community just a little foretaste, to show them that we are an outpost of heaven.

Speaker 1: 28:11

Yeah, we're far from perfect and God's not done with us yet. But you can see something different here. The church is holy. There's something different about those people and there's something different even when they fail one another, they handle their failure to one another different, and so God's calling us to that. We're a family, so we confess our sins to one another. We're going to mess it up sometimes. We ask for forgiveness and we forgive one another. We're willing to correct others, yes, but we overlook much. But we have to address it. When do you address it? When it's affecting your relationships, that's when you address it. But when we do that, we want to do it in a caring spirit as we can.

Speaker 1: 28:55

I've learned through the years as a pastor that I can tell people almost anything if they know I love them. A father can tell his son or daughter just about anything if it's done in love and they know that they are loved. And that's the way in the church. And so it's not enough for us in the church just to speak the truth. Have you ever heard anybody say well, at least I'm honest. Yeah, and you're a wrecking ball too. Right, it's not a virtue just to be honest. What is the Bible standard? Speak the truth in love. Now, we all fail at that sometimes, right, but that's what we're growing into, that's what we're trying to become more and more mature in these things. And so we're called to serve one another, encourage one another and use our gifts to one another.

Speaker 1: 29:53

Paul talks a lot about the gifts. I want to encourage you to take that spiritual gift test. I'll be poking you a little bit. I want to know what all your gifts are. You know some around here serve meals. Some are willing to vacuum, take out the garbage. Others teach our kids, our youth. Some teach Sunday school. Some, honestly, they're in a life right now where their work is so overwhelming, they can't give a lot of time, but you know what they do. They quietly give behind the scenes and you may not know that, but they're supporting God's church. Some play an instrument, some beautify the campus, some plant flowers, some wash windows, some send cards of encouragement, some are just constant with their intercession, praying for God's people and for God's leaders and the staff, and so forth.

Speaker 1: 30:48

And the missionaries. Some are great with mercy outreach. Have you noticed? Some are just so good at that. Some have a huge heart for missions, and we need it all. We need it all. We need to work together. And notice that phrase at the end of this vow to the best of your ability, to the best of your ability, right? So God uses jars of clay, like us, to build his kingdom. And so, secondly, not only is a call to support the church a call to support the organism, this living thing, this body, this family, but it's a call when we support the church, it's a call to support the organization in its worship and work.

Speaker 1: 31:36

Now, apart from the shut-ins and the shut-ins, you know I'm glad that we can broadcast or, you know, stream our services online. That's a wonderful thing of our age, but it's really important that we're here in the body with one another, because if we're sitting at home watching it on TV, we're not encouraging our brothers sitting next to us. I don't know if you realize it, but this morning, by the very, some of you may have been arguing on the way to church. I have a family too. You know, I have four kids.

Speaker 1: 32:13

I know how it works, but you know what you get here and you got all that muck in you and you come in here and your spirit may not be everything you want it to be for that particular Sunday, but your presence, sitting in front or next to your Christian brother or sister, just by your presence you are blessing your brothers and sisters. I hope you realize that. Doesn't it encourage you? When you walk in and you see God's house full, who was here at Christmas when people were falling out of the windows trying to because we right, does that encourage you? It's not that the numbers are so important, but every person is a soul and just by our presence we're saying I'm committed to God, yes, but I'm also committed to you and to you and to you, and I'm here to sing with you, right, so we're to stir one another up. That's what the writer of Hebrews says. We have to stir one another up because we grow cold, don't we? How do I know, because I'm a Christian too.

Speaker 1: 33:18

We have to keep our hearts warm and worship is ground zero for what it means to support the institution of the church. Everything in the church flows out of our corporate worship. It's not that other things aren't important. They are important, very important. But can you imagine what our church would be if we didn't have corporate worship? Think about it. It'd be like taking the heart out of right. I'm not saying my foot's not important, other things we do in the church, I'm not saying my leg's not important, but to take the worship out of a church is like to take the heart right out of it. To take our education of discipleship ministries out of the church would be like taking our brain out. You know we have to worship God because everything flows from that. Thankfulness God. He deserves our thanks and praise. Do you know heaven is absolutely bursting and overflowing with thanks and praise. Do you know not one single person has ever grumbled in glory.

Speaker 1: 34:21

And I can look back over the last week and I think, corey, shut your mouth, be quiet, stop you ever talk to yourself like that, just stop it. You ever talk to yourself like that Just stop it. I know what you're thinking about, those drivers out there in Tampa. How do I know? Because I'm out there too and I got a dent in the back of my car. I know what you're thinking.

Speaker 1: 34:53

But we need to think about these things. We need one another. We need to come in here and just take a spiritual bath. You ever fight going to church and then you get here and you're like you get home and you're like what was I fighting that for Goodness? I just feel like I needed that so bad. And let me tell you, I need it too. I need it too. I need to be with you and you need to be with you and you need to be with me and we need to be with each other In our work.

Speaker 1: 35:21

Part of it's not just worship, but letting other people know about Christ and what he's done for you. You know praying for one another. I'll tell you, till the day I die, full-orbed prayer is the hardest thing in the Christian life. Every Christian prays to one degree, but I'm talking about consistent, disciplined prayer. That's where you have a life of prayer. That's hard, so we need one another to stir one another up to prayer, to be mindful of what each one another's needs are. We need this, so pray for one another. I know that we have last year, I think we averaged around 400 people a week.

Speaker 1: 36:09

Okay, I know you're not going to know everybody here, but get to know some people and you know what. In that foyer, when you're holding your coffee, say how can I pray for you this week? And if you don't know their name, ask them their name, say hi, I'm whatever your name is, and start talking to them and just say is there a way I can pray for you? Pray for them and then come back to them. It will encourage them. Think about the shut-in you can send a note of encouragement to and pray for them. Do you know? Your ministry of prayer will exceed your time on this earth. We may pass on to glory, but God still has our prayers and he's going to take our prayers and use them. So pray while you have breath on this earth for your children, your grandchildren, for this church, for the kingdom, for our nation, for God's people all over the world, for the conversion of the multitudes. It's a glorious thought to think about that. Well, I could say a lot more but I'm not going to. You've got to park the bus sometime.

Speaker 1: 37:18

Don't forget your neighbors. Be on the lookout with your neighbors for how you can just do little touches of kindness. I think it's one of the most underrated things in the Christian life. A little kindness If you find out one of your neighbors is sick, see if you can. I don't know. Like I told the first serves, if you can't cook, go buy them. Publix has great apple pies, you know. Maybe you can do a little something, for I don't know what it is. Just ask God, help me be creative. Just a little kindness. A little kindness. Get to know them. You cook out on your grill, throw a few extra on there and walk it over to your neighbor, say I know you've been smelling this for the past two hours, but you know we thought we'd share some. You know God uses things like that. Don't make them a project. Just be kind as a fellow human being and leave the results to God. Be kind.

Speaker 1: 38:22

Well, what am I saying? Be committed to the church, because it's the apple of God's eye. It's bought with the precious blood of Christ. It will endure forever and it's both God's be devoted to God's people and to it as an institution, and God will be pleased. I think I told you a few weeks ago when Jim Baird, a great man in our denomination, had retired after 40 years of ministry, what would you do different, dr Baird? I'd love people more. That was his answer. I'd love people more. I have to believe that in that answer was I'd love people more in my church. So let's remember the vows we've made to God and let's strive to the best of our ability to grow into them and long for those words. Well done, good and faithful servant, because the day's coming and God is good, amen. Would you stand? I have a question for you, westtown Church. Do you promise to support the church in its worship and work to the best of your ability? If you do say I do,