Fundamental Belief #17 - The Church

Hello, everyone! On a wonderful day of Pentecost 2021. It's really wonderful to be here after not being here for two years. It's been such a tradition for us every year, and we're just happy to see all the regular people.

I say the people that we served with for many years, and Lafayette, Terre Haute, and also to see the visitors and people that we're beginning to know, and even some people from the past that we haven't seen in a long time. So it's very wonderful to have all of you fellowship with us here on this day of Pentecost.

There were a number of thank-yous made, which I was going to do as well, and I want to underline how much we appreciate the work of Tim and Sam Howie and Mike and Jamie Snyder. I know there were other people very much involved.

I feel very, very reticent sometimes to mention names because there's other people who are working, probably work just as hard, and their names are not mentioned. But these people, I do know, because we've been in contact with them regarding the arrangements here, the music, and other factors. As you know, the music has been phenomenal, and they will take the show on the road next week.

They're coming to the home office, and they'll be singing for morning and afternoon services in Cincinnati next week. So if you're in that area, you may want to have a reprise of today's performance. The fellowship, the music, the visitors, everything has been very wonderful. And the sermons, I've enjoyed everything that was here, that has been stated, and I just appreciated hearing Mr. Clore for the first time. And also, Mr. Arnold for the very first time.

I don't believe that I actually have seen him since he was ordained, and I really appreciated his sermon. In fact, I'm going to do a cover on your sermon today. I had the same notes, but it certainly won't hurt at all. Probably shouldn't have said that. And the one minister, he gave one sermon, one Sabbath, and then he gave exactly the same sermon the next week, with a whole different mood and a whole different approach.

People didn't even notice the different sermon. But that was a great sermon. He didn't even comment about the fact that it was the same exact sermon. So that's a pastoral trick. You know, just change the... just up the volume, change the mood, and give the same thing all over again. I'd like to make mention too, I just want to thank the entire church, you're all part of it, for your financial support for this past year.

Last year, when COVID struck in February, we thought, uh-oh, we're really headed for some bad times. Unemployment, everything, everything's gonna go to pot. We made some severe cutbacks. I haven't traveled since last February. Of course, that's not just a matter of finance, it's a matter of... there's no place to go without masks or a lot of other considerations. But our financial position has been greatly increased, and the treasurer and I have said, what in the world is it coming from?

You know, we're just very, very pleased with the support we have. And we have some plans for some new development that we're going to proceed with, especially in the area of our internet presence. But we have several things that we want to do, and we do appreciate your continual support. I don't know if it's COVID checks or what, you know, people have donated, but people have been very, very generous in supporting the church and our work. So I just wanted to make mention of that. Also, we do correspond quite a bit with our readership. 20% of our income comes from people totally outside the church, and that number is actually...

percentage has been increasing. I write subscriber development letters four times a year, two real big ones to our entire Beyond Today subscriber list, and then two smaller ones just to the co-workers and donors. And the one going out this week is actually interesting because the booklet that we're offering is our new title. It's actually The Road to Eternal Life. It's been changed a little bit to be called What You Need to Know About Water Baptism.

I thought it's interesting that we're sending this booklet out the week that it's Pentecost when there were 3,000 people baptized. I didn't even plan it that way, but that's the week we're sending this booklet out to 233,000 subscribers. We actually send it out to not every subscriber, but to those who have renewed it at least once. I just wanted to have a bit of news here. I keep thinking of new things, and I just want to make sure that I cover it.

The title of my sermon is Fundamental Belief No. 17. I think that sounds very clinical.

Fundamental Belief No. 17. But the title itself is also very, very short. It's The Church.

It's all of our 20 fundamental beliefs. The Church is No. 17 on the list. Let me read you the short version of this fundamental belief. We believe the Church is that body of believers who have received and are being led by the Holy Spirit. The true Church of God is a spiritual organism.

Its biblical name is The Church of God, which Mr. Zollner underscored in his sermonette yesterday. It's used 12 times in the New Testament, The Church of God, and variations of it, but it's The Church of God. The Apostle Paul made it very clear that that was to be the title, not after some event or not after some other personality, but The Church of God.

We believe that the mission of the Church is to preach the gospel, or the good news, of the coming kingdom of God to all nations as a witness and to help reconcile to God such people as are now being called. That is our mission from Matthew 28, verses 18-20, and also 24-14, where to preach the gospel to all the world as a witness, and then the end shall come.

We believe also that it is the mission of The Church of God to strengthen, edify, and nurture the children of God in the love and admonition of the Lord Jesus Christ. So it's not only to preach to the world, but it's also to care for you, to care for all of us, one another, as we prepare and ourselves for the return of Jesus Christ and for our resurrection. I'd like to read more now in our expanded version of what this means about the Church. The word church is translated from the Greek word ekklesia, which is derived from the word verb kaleo, meaning to call, with the prefix ekk, so have ekklesia as a preposition, which means out of.

It means a body of people who have been called out, just as Israel was called out of Egypt to assemble before God in Acts 7, verse 38. I'm going to make a theologian out of you right now.

How many of you have blue-letter Bible? I'd like to see. Blue-letter Bible. Who has BLB? Well, if you don't have blue-letter Bible, write it down. If you have a smartphone on your computer, download BLB. You'll be an instant theologian. You'll be one by next week. You'll be coming to church speaking Greek. And not only that, but you'll be able to explain what that Greek means. If you take a look at the word church in the BLB, I could talk for the rest of the time here about how this works. It's a fantastic Bible aid app for the Bible. It has many, many translations. You can see two at the same time. I have New King James running parallel with another more modern one. Translation I can see what both say. Plus, you can tune into right away with that particular verse with at least 20 other translations. One of the best ways to study the Bible. But it has many other features like the interlinear. Sounds like a scary word, but all it is is just looking at the words originally that were translated into English.

Original words in the New Testament are Greek. So I have a place here of one of the places which the word church is used. And church is used 118 times in the New Testament. So I just took one that's near the top of the chapter. Interlinear. I go to interlinear and I go to eclassia. The word church is eclassia. Sure enough. You click on the word eclassia, then it tells you what it means. Just that simple. See, I'm a theologian right away. I went to Ambassador College a long time ago, but I learned more from this than I did with a professor trying to explain it to me. Okay, so what does this mean? The outline of biblical usage is a gathering of citizens called out from their homes into some public place or an assembly.

Now one thing that strikes you right away is the original meaning of eclassia is not a word that's a religious term. When we say ecclesiastical, the old would start thinking about robes and crowns and all types of paraphernalia from church. It's not. In fact, in other languages, as it's translated, it doesn't have a religious meaning at all. In the Ukrainian language, it's ramada, which means crowd. It means just a bunch of people who are assembled for some purpose. That's all it means. It could be religious. It could even be military. That's what the word eclassia means. Also, it was about the assembly of the Israelites. It's any throng or gathering of men assembled by chance, tumultuously. It sounds like it could even be a protest march of some sort. That could be eclassia of some sorts. In the Christian sense, however, the way that it's used by the apostle Paul or by Peter, is an assembly of Christians gathered for worship in the religion.

That's the way that we normally subscribe to it. It's also a company of Christians or of those hoping for eternal salvation through Jesus Christ. And we could go on through more and more definitions. You could go to Strong's definition. You could go into commentaries, all on your phone, all while you're just doing other things. It's truly amazing. So if you want to be a theologian and really act smart in church next week, get Blue Letter Bible. That's my commercial for this week.

This sermon is sponsored by Blue Letter Bible. But I just love it. I've been using it for the...

I spoke of it a lot last week when I was teaching General Epistle's class. I think I got about 80% of the class to subscribe to it. What happens when students get too many of these Bible aids? They're always fact-checking you, so you have to know what you're talking about.

Okay. The first time that this assembly is used is in Acts 7-38. The congregation or the church in the wilderness. This is Stephen's speech. This is Stephen's indictment of the Jews for which he was martyred. But he talks about that congregation in the wilderness, Acts 7 and 38. It's the first time that we have reference to Israel, church, and that genre being used. But then in the New Testament, the first time that it's used is by Jesus Christ in Matthew 16 and verse 18. This is one I'd like you to turn to. Matthew 16 and verse 18. When he was up there at the headwaters of the Jordan River, I was privileged to be able to stand right about the same place where he said these things. Matthew 16 and verse 18, a long, long time ago, though. And he said to Peter, I say to you, Peter, this is a discussion with one of his chief apostles, and on this rock, I will build my church. I will build this. There was a large rock there at the headwaters. I will build my church. I will build my ecclesia. I will build my crowd. I will build my people.

And the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. So this is the first time that the word church is used. I'd like you to turn now. Let's see here.

Acts chapter 2 and verse 38 is the day that the church began in the New Testament.

We start getting our references, our New Testament references. Acts chapter 2 and verse 38.

Peter said to them, to the people who were assembled, repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for their remission of sins.

This was the largest recorded baptismal event in the Christian history. I'm not sure if there were any larger ones that were not recorded, but to have 3,000 people baptized in one day was certainly a feat. And then there were 2,000 more baptized shortly thereafter.

And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promises to you and to your children and to all who are far off, as many as the Lord will call. And then here in verse 47, just a few verses down the road from what he said in his sermon, he says, praising they were praising God and having favor with all the people and the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.

So the church was growing, but it's interesting what and how this edition process took place, as the Lord added these people to the church daily who were being saved. He was expanding his ecclesia, his ramada, his gathering, his group of people at that time.

In Ephesians 1, verse 22, Ephesians 1, verse 22, we read, and he put, this is probably one of the most inspiring chapters in the New Testament, of those of you who, if you ever get stuck and don't have a sermon, for example, Mr. Claude today told us about having a French sermon that was brought to his attention by an angel. But anyway, he was going to speak to us in French. He says, no worries, everybody will hear him in their own tongue on this day of Pentecost. No problem whatsoever. But he spared us that particular exercise and gave it in the English language, which we really did appreciate.

But if there's anybody here who has to have an instant sermon, this has happened to me.

I actually went to one church one time, that even the Bible was made. And he said, would you give the sermon? And of course, it's easy to cop out and say, hey, no notes. And so, I said, okay, I just took Ephesians, the first chapter, just go through it verse by verse. You have an instant sermon. You have the whole plan of life, of salvation right there, and it ends on beautiful notes about what the church is. Verse 22, he has put all things under his feet, God the Father, and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all and all. Who's the head of the church? Who's the living head of the church right now? Who is it? Jesus Christ. Okay, they're very good.

In Colossians chapter 1 and verse 18, a similar passage is stated, I think even more clearly, although that's clear enough. Colossians chapter 1 and verse 18, he is the head of the body, the church, Jesus Christ. The living Jesus Christ is the head of the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he may have the preeminence.

One time at Ambassador College, we had a visitor from another church. We had some church leaders that came from a church that had similar beliefs. It was a seven-state church. And they did not know who really the head of our church was. They honestly didn't. It was Robert Armstrong at that time. And one of our evangelists was giving a tour to this grouping of people, and they said, who's the head of your church? And this guy said, it's Jesus Christ. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we know that. He said, but who really does the work of the church? Jesus Christ. Yeah, but I mean, who's really behind your church? He said, Jesus Christ. It was said somewhat in a sardonic or a funny way, but it was pointing out the fact that we really look to Jesus Christ as one who is guiding, directing, inspiring, motivating us to do the work that we're doing. And even in my position, in no way do I think that I have the mind, the background. I have good background, but nothing compared to the greater power of the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ, who leads us, guides us, directs us, points us out to where we need to go and what to do. And I look back and shake my head with wonderment and gratitude for how He's living, guiding, and direct, actually guiding and directing the church.

Okay, Ephesians chapter 4. This is what I'm going to cover a little bit over on top of what Mike had. Mike did a very, very good job. I really appreciated it because it was like reviewing my sermon.

Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 11. The Apostle Paul explains about some of the functionality of the church and some of the positions or roles in the church. He himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets. These are positions. We had 12 apostles at the very beginning. We had Judas, you know, who dropped out. He was replaced. We had the Apostle Paul who replaced him. And even Jesus' half-brother may have been an apostle of those who were not fully stated, but he was the chief pastor in Jerusalem. You know, there were probably up to 14, 15, 16 apostles. We don't have record of any more people ordained to that office. Mr. Armstrong, we had, you know, he was an apostle. But nonetheless, you know, nobody is an apostle right now in the church. Some prophets were placed in the church. Some people that were exceptional in preaching, but also people who had a gift of analyzing world news, perhaps. But anyway, there was this position called the prophet. And we had the prophets of the Old Testament. They spoke about future things, and they spoke about cause and effect. But these were some of the roles that were placed in the church. Then there were some evangelists that were put into the church. I'm kind of slowing down and kind of explaining a few things in contemporary terms of how these terms have been applied. When the Church of God, World-by-Church of God started, we didn't have a lot of positions in offices. We had two positions. We had two positions. We had the position of evangelist and local elder. And I remember the very first one, those of you who know some of our history, that Ambassador College, its very first graduate class, ordained, I think it was, seven evangelists. Seven people who were ordained evangelists. Their job, and they were all about like 21 years old, and their job was to go into the world and to evangelize, and to direct evangelism activities around the world. And then there were those who were local church elders. That was a position of your elder who was in your city, who cared for your church pastorally, and those were the only two positions we had. Now, I asked, where'd you get that from? You know, how did you come to that? He said, oh, well that in Church of God's seventh day, that's the way they had it then. You know, they had evangelists who were the fiery speakers, they walked across the stage with the Bible open, you know, they were just very charismatic in how they spoke. They were very good at that, but maybe not very good pastors. Told people crazy. But they did motivate big crowds. So these were people who were evangelists. Then there were people, again, who it says here, some pastors. And these are the people who are day in and day out, solid as can be. They're the ones who will listen to the people in their congregation. They will hear the woes, they will inspire, they will work week in and week out and strengthening and building the church. But they're not evangelists. It's a different function. And some teachers.

We have some phenomenal teachers, but they are not necessarily pastors or have a desire to care for congregations and to hear about the woes in their congregation. They want to be teachers. They're very good teachers. I think of my life at Ambassador College, I had some phenomenal teachers that could explain the epistles of Paul, who could explain, you know, various things so well, but they weren't necessarily gifted at being teachers, being anything else. All these positions have been put into the church for the equipping of the saints, you know, for the training of the saints, for building up everyone here, to train them to speak, to train them to manage, to train them to care. We have, right now, pastoral training classes where we train our pastors even how to visit people in the hospital and how long to stay and just all the etiquette, you know, all the things that are necessary, you know, in doing the pastoral work. For the work of the ministry, and the ministry is work, the job. Believe me, it's a hard job. It's a 24-7 job. You have to be ready at any time to answer the telephone. And especially I find in my work is that I'm oftentimes talking to Africa early in the morning, and I'm talking to Australia at night when these people are getting out of bed. So, you know, it's a job that takes a lot of time, takes the whole clock.

It's the work of the ministry. What's the purpose? For the edifying, which means building up of the body of Christ. And when we look for new ministerial trainees, we're looking for people who will make this a life's mission. We're not looking for people who will ask, what's your retirement program, is the first question. We're looking for people of what is their mission. And right now, we've had some phenomenal trainees that are going to replace us, who are really motivated, directed internationally and domestically as being those suited for this kind of ministry.

Until we come to the unity of the faith—that's one of our jobs, is to come to unity of the faith, which we have failed at. Not done well. But we haven't done well now, but I don't think ever in the history of the Church, you know, have we done well. Until we come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to a mature person. The job of the ministry is to bring up this unity, knowledge of the Son of God, to perfection, to maturity, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. People say, can't do that. The Apostle Paul spoke in terms of ideals, not of what actually practically even could possibly be covered, or that he even achieved himself. That we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine.

This blows through the Church. You know, various things blow through the Church. Sacred names blow through the Church. Calendar issues blow through the Church. They just blow and howl through the Church. They suck up our time as these people are carrying on with their wind of doctrine, and by the trickery of men in the cunningness, cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting.

Boy, there's a lot said right there as to some of the jobs that we have to encounter in our work.

Right now, in last week, we were covering the general epistles. We just did the, I called it the greatest hits of general epistles, because in five days you could hardly cover what I normally cover in 44 class hours about the general epistles. But it talks about the New Testament Church right after Jesus Christ left this earth. General epistles were originally placed right after the book of Acts, not where the book of Romans is. The Catholics put it there because they wanted to emphasize Rome. But the original order of the books of the New Testament had the book of James follow the book of Acts. James was Jesus Christ's half-brother. He was a chief pastor of Jerusalem, and he speaks about faith and explains exactly what faith means, is what you do, how you show your faith, is by your works, etc., etc. But then also there's a lot of interesting history about the New Testament Church in that Peter, at James 2, speak about the hardships that the Church faced in the first century. And until the time of the fall of Jerusalem, which was 70 AD, when Rome came and just destroyed the city of Jerusalem, after 64 AD, when Rome was burned to the ground by Nero, he blamed the Christians for it. There was great persecution on the Church, and there's a lot said about how to conduct yourself in these perilous times.

But then after 70 AD, there's another list of problems. The problems of 1 Peter and the new Church, even starting with Stephen's martyrdom, was persecution from the outside. The problem after the destruction of Jerusalem, through the time of John, to the time when he finished writing in the 90s AD, was internal conflict, internal types of things that were occurring. And the Apostle Paul makes references to that, premonitions of that happening, about winds of doctrine that were blowing. There was Gnosticism, a mixture of philosophy of the Greeks with Christianity, which was very invasive in the Church. And these people came into the Church and confused people to the point of where even true Apostles like John were not even welcome in their home churches. They came and they were told, hey, you can't be here. No, we're in charge now. I said, well, I touched Christ. I was with him out of here. They did not recognize him. And those books were written for the purpose of telling us today about the type of seducing spirits that were there. One well-known scripture, which I really like because it, Jude. Jude is one of my favorite books because it really talks about this invasive spirit that came into the Church. And it's in this book, in the Bible, to really demonstrate the horror of having these people tolerated in the Church. Jude 4. In fact, this is the first time that creeps are mentioned in the Bible. For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked for this condemnation of godly men, who turned the grace of our God into lewdness and denied the only Lord God and the Lord Jesus Christ. And we have people who continually try to infiltrate the Church of God. This is part of the divisive activity that's taken place. Let me give you a few interesting examples. When we've had Kingdom of God seminars, and we invite the public to come to these seminars, what one constituency that we have a lot of is people who want to come and see who else is there.

These are other ministers, and we meet other ministers that come. And I say, at first, you know, I was a sucker for that. Oh, you really are interested in what we have. No, they're passing out their card. They're giving it to other people. They know that this is like a free advertisement for them. They come to a place where people have come to learn about the Kingdom of God, people who already pre-screened, you might say. You don't have to do anything to get these first contacts. You just come there and just pick them off like cherries. And I was amazed, even at the one in Indianapolis, one of the first people I met was a pastor of a church, and I was so impressed. I was so impressed. I wanted to know more about him. I kind of fell for it. I thought out that he wasn't there to learn. He was there to find other people. Whether we did in India a couple years ago, we did three or four Kingdom of God seminars in Andhra Pradesh in the eastern province of India. I would say that half the people to those Kingdom of God seminars were other pastors. There were other pastors. They were there. They were friendly as could be, but they were all looking for connections with the West. And one thing you had to be very careful with them was not to tell them what you believed. Because you said, oh, we believe in the Sabbath, holy days. They said, you know something? We do too! But I didn't realize that they just said that. You know, in fact, we found that some of them were Sunday keepers. So we had to be very, very careful about people who creep in. And whatever evangelistic work that we do is to go into all the world, to preach the gospel as it is, and to be responsive to people who come to understand and to commit their lives to Jesus Christ. We're never trolling. We never want anybody else's people. We are there to preach the gospel to them in this way. But as far as the functionality of the church, we see here that the Apostle Paul, in talking about the church, speaks about these functions and also about what these functions are supposed to perform. And one of them is to have a lid on people who come in with various doctrines and trickery of men. Some of them come in with all kinds of things that they want to deceive you in. And John, when he wrote his letter, he says, I write these things concerning them that seduce you. John 2 and verse 26, I believe. I write these things. He wrote his books, his three letters, maybe even the gospel of John himself, to talk about the real Jesus Christ, what he was like, and also about the inroads that were being made into the church by false teachers. But here's what we do. Verse 15, speaking the truth in love, so that we may grow up in all things unto him who is the head, who is Jesus Christ.

That's what we do. That's our job in the ministry. That's our job as a church, to grow up from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies.

This is part of our vision statement. Our vision statement is composed of two passages. Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 16 and Hebrews 2.10. Our job is to bring along many sons and daughters, many children, to glory. But also, we work together with every part of the body of Christ. All the joints from the head to the extremities to all the functionalities of the body to be able to bring many sons to glory. That is our job in the ministry. That's the mission of the church of God. And by which every part does its share. Some people do various things. Some preach, some sing, some dance. Some people do all types of things to move us forward. Some translate. Some are gifted in marketing. Whatever those gifts are, everybody does their share. Causes growth of the body for the edifying, which means building up of itself in love. So that's our job in the church.

I really wanted to tell you about that because it's part of what we do. It's part of the challenges that we have. These are our strengths, our weaknesses. These are some of the threats that we have. And we have many, many opportunities in the work of God. No one can join the church.

The church is only for those who have been added by the Lord, which we already read in Acts 2, verse 47. Nobody can join the church. But also, the church is individual people in it, but also the church is a building. There are a number of analogies, a number of writers. Paul writes about that, of us being a temple. And also Peter writes about that. I'd like to read Peter's version of that. 1 Peter 2, 1 Peter 2, verse 1. I just might say that I just love the general epistles. I think they should be required reading just at least once through every year, because if you understand the general epistles, you will understand the writings of Paul. It's like a prerequisite class to understand faith, to understand spiritual corruption, to understand our vision of where we're going. Okay, let's go to 1 Peter 2, verse 1. Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, the apostle Peter writes very, very strongly and very directly to the people who were persecuted. This is about the time of Nero's persecution on the church, and there were many Christian martyrs. And believe me, the problems they had in the church were not vaccines or masks. They were whether you're going to leave here and be arrested, impaled, and burned alive. Those are some of the problems that they had to face, you know, in their time. We ain't seen nothing yet. I just know what my parents had gone through as refugees in World War II. And when they came into the church, which was in 1966, 1967, and when the minister visited with them, and they heard sermons about the Great Tribulation, and they heard sermons about what happened in first century Rome, they said, we've already been there.

We've already, we've experienced it. We've experienced it, that persecute. We have gone through the Great Tribulation. And I think that we, as brethren, need to buck up, mature ourselves, and stand up to what are real threats that are coming. And hopefully some of the things that we've had here, I have people always trying to lobby me. Can you make a statement about masks? Can you make a statement about vaccines? I said, I'm not going to, because whatever I say is going to make somebody else mad. And that's not my job. 1 Peter 2. As newborn babes, talking about Christians, desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious, coming to him, to Jesus, as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God, and precious. Quoting here from the Old Testament, you also as living stones, Jesus Christ is a chief cornerstone of the church, but we, you are living stones as part of that building, part of that church, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. That's our job as part of the church of God.

The church is those, as I said at the beginning, are those in whom the Holy Spirit is found. It's the crowd, it's the assembly in whom is the Holy Spirit. That's very simply what the church is.

It's the crowd, it's the assembly who has the Holy Spirit of God. You know, just write down 1 Corinthians chapter 2, the first part of that chapter. We understand spiritual things.

We understand concepts that are spiritual. The world does not understand until you receive the Holy Spirit to be able to talk this talk. Therefore, he quotes, it is also contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect precious, and who he believes on him by will by no means be put to shame. Therefore, to you who believe he is precious, but to those who are disobedient, it's the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone, and a stone of stone in a rock of offense. They stumble, being disobedient to the word, verse 8, to which also they were appointed. But you are a chosen generation, you are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Why would we be so thankful that you have been chosen, that we have been chosen, that we have been given the Holy Spirit? We're the continuation of that excitement that took place on Pentecost in 31 A.D. We've been called out of that darkness in the evil world, who were who once were not a people, but are now the people of God, who would not obtain mercy, but now have obtained mercy, and praise God that we have been put into this status. I think I will read Ephesians 2, verse 18.

For through him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.

Yes, we do. We have the Holy Spirit of God. We have direct access to when we say, Our Father, which art in heaven, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, he hears us.

Now therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, the church of God, the crowd of God, the real in-crowd of in-crowds.

Having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple unto the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. And this is some of the gratitude that we need to be expressing on a day like today about what God is doing for us. Christ is the living head of the church, the preaching work of the church, coupled with a combined testimony of individual lives like you.

It provides a powerful message of hope and illumination to a darkened world, whether it be in your community, in your neighborhood, with whatever you do. One thing I certainly want to see our church be able to do more of, especially with the church in Indianapolis, which has now a very beautiful building and a beautiful facility, to have a place that's a locus from which they can do a local work, where they can be an example to the outside. They can hold seminars to the outside. We have our own place. We're not nomads anymore. We're not just going from one place to another and being bumped continually. But have a place where the public can take note of who we are, what we teach, how we can help. We are to be hope and illumination to a darkened world.

These last few years, we have acquired 14 new buildings in the church, and everyone has been a total success. We've had a history of just being people who rented, rented, rented, rented, you know, because the end was coming. Now we're actually buying, and the end may come by the way.

You know, we're very happy to be able to have the buildings, because the ones that we have have really done a work, been very instrumental in doing a work. I am just really thankful for what I see when I come to Indianapolis, which I did a few times. And what I see is maybe not obvious to you, but to see little children all together. They go from one place to another. There's a movie going on in one room. There's a bible class going in another room. There's adults who are fellowshiping in the fellowship hall. There are people meeting in the main meeting room.

What a joy! What a joy! People say, well, buildings split people. No, people split people. Just like guns don't kill people, people kill people. And so I see that we can use buildings to a great advantage. And we have been able to acquire four properties just this past year. And my goal is to have two new properties, you know, every year. I think this is healthy. This is a healthy mindset. And people do respect people who actually have a place that's their own. The church provides a haven for fellowship. It's a place that we realize in Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 24, a place where we encourage one another. I'm going to keep moving along more quickly. Hebrews 10 and verse 24, where to support the old King James has to provoke one another unto good works.

We are to be people that encourage one another in being with one another. I'll say one of the damaging things of the COVID thing, in spite of the fact that we have all these marvels of Zoom and Skype and, you know, Teams and whatever other method you use for communicating, which are great.

And we have been able to continue Bible studies overseas with Zoom. In fact, the quality of connection has greatly improved. But you know something? Nothing replaces being with you in person here. I feel like that was one of the tools of the devil to separate us one from another.

Masks too, because you can stick your tongue out somebody behind a mask. Nobody will know it.

But when you actually with people and talk to them and see their expressions and be able to relate, there's something about that that is very, very special. Also, they've done some studies showing that a few, you know, people call them a Zoom fatigue. You stare at 28 people. I love staring at an aquarium in a fish tank, you know. There's 28 people who are staring at you. They say that it does something to the way you think. You have 28 people who are looking at you. That's not the way that you normally relate to people. You talk to one or two people at the same time, but you don't talk to 28 people who are just staring all at you. You're all staring at one another. And it's really overall an unhealthy type of thing overall. It's we can't improve on God's way. You know, forsake not the assembly of yourselves. That means bring your body into services. Talk to somebody. Hug somebody. You can't hug somebody on Zoom. You know, you can't really talk to in a very, very special personal way to somebody in that way. There's something about assembly that's very, very important to not only learn things, as we do, but even this weekend, from Friday to right now, there's been a bond that's been built. Some of you will be calling each other, writing to each other, and developing friendships as a result of this. We become disciples of Jesus Christ. We become real learners, practitioners, and applicators of what Christ does. Did you know about the number one word that's used to describe a Christian?

First of all, can anybody tell me how many times the word Christian is used in the New Testament?

Does anybody know? Yes.

Okay, anybody else? Okay. The word Christian is used three times, and two of them are by non-Christians. One of them is by the people of Antioch, who said, hey, we have these people who are Christians in town. In other words, by King Agrippa, who said, I'm all persuaded to be a Christian, and you never got persuaded. So you had two of those references being by non-Christians, and the only reference by a Christian was the apostle Paul Peter, who said, don't suffer, you know, suffer as a Christian. But otherwise, the word that's used most to describe a Christian is disciple. That is used 299 times, almost 300 times, 100 times more than the word Christian. That's the one who is a follower, he's an adherent, he's a promoter, he does all these things as Luke 14 states. What does it take to be a disciple, and Christ lays it all out there.

Christ promised that his church would never die. The gates of hell will not prevail against the church of God. I know that sometimes I get very discouraged by what I see in the Christian community, even in the church of God community, which should never be. And I'm saying this to you as brothers and sisters, that let's make this a year where the word united is used more than anything else, as not a title, but as an action. We're united church of God. Don't do those things that divide or distress people. And one of the things that was brought out by what we have from Peter and Paul both and Jude was the fact that there are people who like to bring in false doctrine into the church. I get a newsletter from one consulting firm that works for pastors.

They actually have some very good newsletters. And one that came last year was the title was, Who is the most dangerous person in your church? Now, who is the most dangerous person in your church? They talked about the guy who was sitting there talking to people about his little ideas.

And then they described them. I thought, well, this is exactly what these people are. You know, they're stuck on some new truth, some new thing about how the calendar is to be calculated.

They start talking to little groups, and the group gets a little bit bigger, then they want them over to their home for dinner, then they show them a PowerPoint, then they do this. And before you know it, you know, you have somebody who is really off the track. When we have a process, how we come about to these truths? That's the most dangerous person. And I thought to myself, here's a Protestant ministry. And you know what they say to do these people? Get rid of them.

They really don't add to your church at all. They hurt your church. They hurt your mission. They hurt people coming along. They confuse people. And we've had people that have some new idea about the nature of Jesus Christ, and they start talking about it, and they talk to others. They get a group by themselves. They get upset because we don't listen to them, and then they don't follow a process. Before long, they leave with about 150 more people, and it just causes a lot of confusion. I'm just being very honest. If we're going to be United Church of God, we've got to be United Church of God. We do have a process for doctrinal new truths. We're not people who are stuck into something that we have. In fact, this day of Pentecost was changed. It changed almost 50 years ago. It was 1974. I was in Pasadena at the time, and I heard it announced that we're going from Monday to Sunday because we miscalculated how we're to calculate.

And so we came about to it in a consensual way with consensus of the ministry. Of course, Mr. Armstrong at that time basically said the way it was, you know, but he had a whole case laid out, and we saw it and was accepted by most everyone. But even this day here is a day that was changed. And if you have or somebody has some new thing that they have come across that we haven't seen, or some language that was misinterpreted or not properly explained in the past, we have a process of writing up a paper showing why what we believe is not correct, showing us why what you believe is correct. Give us supporting evidence. Give it to your pastor. If your pastor doesn't understand it or doesn't want to deal with it, he can send it to the doctrinal committee. And we have projects that are working on it. Right now we're working on a project that's number something like number 52 or whatever project, you know, where we look at these things and things that are not properly explained, whatever are looked at. One was done last week at our council of elders meeting. This is one that I advise you to take a look at yourself. Remember what we've said about born again? You know, this is a very important doctrine. But we have not changed it. We have not changed it at all. Okay? Don't get concerned now. Okay? But we have explained it further as a process that begins with conception. You can't be born without being conceived. So talk about being born again. You can download this paper. Download it today or tomorrow. It's on the members site. ucg.org. Go to members. Go to members resources. Go to papers. Born again. Download it. It's 31 pages long. But if you just read page number two, you'll be okay.

If you want the Reader's Digest version of where the paper is going, of the whole concept of it, of course, you should be the whole thing. But page number two is very, very enlightening about born again. And I'm so thankful to it because John 3-3, unless you're born again, don't hear the kingdom of God, what does it fully mean? So I won't get into that because it's already over time.

So I find these things very interesting. But these are all functions of the Church. I just really wanted to tell you about these things and share with you some of what's happening in the Church, where our mindset is, what some of our strengths are, where some of our threats are, and where God is leading and directing us. I'm very positive and I'm very optimistic about the future of the Church. If I wouldn't be, it's not my Church. I need to be that way. And I truly believe that Jesus Christ is seeing the work that we're doing. He hears our prayers. You know, we have gone through trials. I'm not going to mope about them, but also I'm going to pick up with what we do have, which we do have a lot more than we realize. We have the Holy Spirit of God that will guide us, direct us, and we'll follow Him. So may God bless you in this coming year, and hopefully we'll all be here again in 2022, on a wonderful and beautiful weekend.