What Is the Church?

Good afternoon, everyone. Great to be with all of you here today. I was a little shocked when Mr. Martin's told me that you're the only church congregation that has three-hour church services, so I've tried to lengthen the message as best I could.

So in 1899, a patent diagram was filed with the U.S. Patent Office, and it was for an invention called the Horsey Horseless. And according to Wikipedia, the Horsey Horseless was an early automobile invented in 1899 by Uriah Smith, a Seventh-day Adventist preacher from Battle Creek, Michigan. A wooden horse head and neck were attached to the front to make the Horsey Horseless resemble a horse and carriage, and this was believed to prevent horses on the road from being frightened. The horse head was hollow, and being the kind of invention it was, the horse head was able to also serve as a fuel tank, so you could fill it up with gas.

It's unknown whether or not the Horsey Horseless was ever built, but you'll be shocked to hear that it was included in Time Magazine's 2007 list of the 50 worst cars of all time.

So you're not going to find one on the road in case you're looking.

So this is actually a pretty extreme example of what we do as human beings. We take things that we know and we understand, and we try to use them to understand things that we don't really know, things that are new or different to us. And we think about it, it's even in our language still today. Most of us don't refer to it this way anymore, but early on what were railroads called?

Trains? They were called iron horses because they were iron and they ran across the country like a horse. What about the word movie? We still use that today, don't we? It actually started being referred to moving pictures because people weren't used to pictures that were anything but stationary. And in more recent times we have cellular telephones, although I'm not sure this has much to do with the phone anymore, and digital wallets as a way to explain things that we can't otherwise explain. So while it's funny through today's eyes to poke fun at old Uriah Smith and his horseyy horseless, his design wasn't actually as nutty as we might think. Cars were first described as horseyless carriages because that's what people could think of. And in fact, most of the cars, if you look at it, for the first two decades or so that there were gas vehicles, they actually looked like carriages without the horse on the front. You think about the wheels were big, you didn't sit inside of a cab, you actually sat up elevated like you would on a horse cart, and it actually took, like I said, several decades before car designs started to look anything similar to what we would think of today. So what in the world does that have to do with us? That's what I'd like to spend a few days or a few moments on today.

You like that? Okay.

So the days after the founding of the New Testament Church are actually quite similar. And I don't know if we really think about it that way because, you know, especially in our Western world, the idea of a church is really pretty embedded in our culture, and we have something very specific we think of. But before I go on, what I'd like to do is just pause for a couple minutes, ask everyone, take out a picture or take out a piece of paper, take out your cordless phone, take out whatever you have, and just take a moment to jot two or three notes. What do you think of? Think of an analogy, think of a metaphor, think of a few words that you would use to describe the church. If I'd thought ahead, I would have recorded the Jeopardy music.

I'm not going to torture you by trying to sing it. Just two or three words, two or three phrases that you might think of to describe what the church is. So again, it's kind of hard to imagine it right now, but when you project yourself back, you think, you know, we're just about a week past Pentecost, and a week after that original Pentecost, the New Testament church had been founded. The Holy Spirit had come. But what next? And if you read through Acts, if you read some of the other accounts that are there in the Bible, there's actually evidence that people weren't really quite sure what they should do. And they were trying to figure out what in the world is this church thing.

Not too long ago, I was asked to give a presentation on the church in the second century. And one of the interesting things I found as I was reading up on that was the fact that back at that time in history, back when the church was founded, the idea of religion was not really separated from where a person came from. Your religious beliefs, the gods you believed in, and your family heritage and your cultural heritage were all things that were tied together. And this idea that somebody would give up their family, give up their cultural heritage, and take on a religious faith was just a really bizarre idea. And that's part of the reason why the Roman Empire couldn't understand what in the world this new Christian faith was. They actually had a much easier time with Judaism, and they respected the idea that in Judaism the beliefs went all the way back through a physical lineage of people and could be traced back through their ethnic tradition as part of what they were. But the church wasn't that way, was it? And new words and terminology had to be put together to describe what is a church? How is it supposed to behave? What's its purpose?

Who's even in it? All of that was a blank slate when that first day of Pentecost arrived as far as the individuals were concerned. And the New Testament in many ways is many different things, but in case you haven't thought of it before, one of the things happening in the New Testament is the writers trying to describe what is the church and how should people in the church operate together and behave? What should they be doing? And that's what I'd like to think about today and spend a few minutes on. Let's try to transport ourselves back there a little bit and think about what is the church? And what we're going to find as we look through the New Testament is, just like we do today, things like horseless carriages, there were a lot of metaphors that were used to rely on things that people understood and to try to attach them to the church to bring across lessons of what we should understand, because that's the language that people had to work with. So as we go through here, compare it to the things that you wrote down on your list. Maybe there's a few things that'll come up that you have on your list, a few things that don't. And the purpose today is actually just to walk through a collection of some of the different metaphors that exist in the New Testament to talk about the church and encourage us all to think about them. What lessons do they give to us individually? I'll lay out a few things as we go through each of these as far as what they bring to my mind. But what I encourage everyone to do is write these things down, think about these different metaphors, and consider which ones you want to spend some more time reflecting on and considering as you go through your week.

So the first one I'll look at is the church as a body. We'll turn to 1 Corinthians 12 to talk about this. This is probably nothing earth-shattering. We've all heard this analogy before, but 1 Corinthians 12 will start in verse 12.

Here we read, as Paul's writing to the Corinthians, and he's trying to help them understand this church thing where all kinds of people are being thrown together. Think about it. You had very wealthy people. You had slaves who worked in their households. And you had everything in between coming together in a way that people hadn't before. People from Jewish backgrounds, people from Gentile backgrounds, from all kinds of different places. And here in 1 Corinthians 12, starting in verse 12, Paul writes, As the body is one and has many members, but all the members are of that one body, that many being one, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves are free, and all have been made to drink into one Spirit. For in fact, the body is not one member, but many. So this example, this metaphor of the body, is meant to draw home the fact that the church is two different contrasting things at one time. It's a bunch of really different things, as different as a toenail is from an ear, but at the same time it's one, because it's all part of the same body that has the same purpose and is trying to do the same thing. The emphasis is on this combination of many and one that coexist together. Ephesians 1, verse 22 and 23, lays out one more important element related to the body here, and that's related to the head of the body. And as we, I think, have read many times in verse 22 of Ephesians 1, he, being God, has put all things under his feet and gave him, Jesus, to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

So in this example of the church as a body, this metaphor that's put forward, is this idea of many and one. Even though the differences are obvious, we're all meant to work together under the direction of the head, just as our body works at the direction of our brain.

So as I think about this example, this metaphor, the lesson I take from it is that the working of God's Spirit, which we think about here after Pentecost, I have to respect what every member brings to the function of the body, even when it's very different from what I bring or the way that I would bring it. And that's actually the way God designed it. Even though as human beings we're quick to see differences, God sees design. Again, just like there's a difference between my toenail and my earlobe, it's there for a reason. And when it's all functioning right, it does fantastic things. You should see what my ears can do.

Second metaphor that I'll speak about, the church as a building, specifically as a temple. We'll turn again to Ephesians here, Ephesians 2, and we'll start in verse 19, the metaphor of the church as a building or temple. Ephesians 2 verse 19, Paul says, now therefore you're no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.

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 in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

So several things going on here in this example of the temple. We see the foundation that's there, the connectedness that's put through to what God was doing before Jesus Christ came. We think of the foundation not only of the apostles but of the prophets that was laid, laying that connection all the way back to what God was doing through the old covenant and the times of the Old Testament. The cornerstone, I think, is also incredibly important, very similar to the idea of Christ being the head of the church.

We don't build that much out of stone these days, but in ancient buildings the cornerstone was the most important stone. And why was that? You know, when you think when you're trying to measure, have you ever tried to put a picture up on a wall and you've got one picture on the wall that's a little bit crooked and you have another picture that's next to it?

You don't get out of level and you just sort of start to adjust the pictures and you think you've got it just right and then you stand back and you see how those pictures are hanging compared to the ceilings. Like, how in the world did I ever think that was straight? Because you didn't really have a reference point to measure against. That's what a cornerstone functioned as in the ancient world. So when you think of it, that cornerstone would be set and it had three dimensions. You could measure vertical from it, you could measure horizontal from it, and in all of the different directions that you could go and you could keep everything level.

And so everything that was done in an ancient building like this was done in reference to that cornerstone. It was laid very carefully, it had exactly proper dimensions, and everything could be done in reference against it to make sure that the building was square, the building was level, and it was going up straight.

And that's how Jesus Christ functions relative to us as a church, as we're being built together as this building. There's the foundation of the prophets and the apostles, but He as the chief cornerstone is a reference point that we can measure everything that we're doing against. I also think in this example to places like 1 Kings 6, verse 7, if you want to look there later, which was the fitting together of the physical temple.

And if you remember, the stones for the physical temple, they were hewn off-site. There wasn't supposed to be any sound of metal objects and stonework and those things happening. That happened off-site in a quarry. And the finished stones were brought in. They were pre-fitted. The builders knew exactly where they were going to place them in the temple. And again, very similar to this idea of the body, the fact that we as living stones are placed into this temple. We're being fitted by God through Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, to play the role that we're supposed to play, to be fitted into that temple, and with a reference point to Jesus Christ.

So as I think of this second analogy of a temple or building, to me, a lesson of how the Holy Spirit works with all of us, and as I process it for myself, is to think that I need to keep going back to the foundation, the foundation that's been laid through the apostles and the prophets, and most importantly, Jesus Christ as the most important and the ultimate measure of right and wrong, of conduct, and the way that I should be doing things as I'm fitted as a stone in that temple.

Next analogy I'll point out is family, one that we see also written about quite a bit in the New Testament. We'll go back exactly where we were a few minutes ago to Ephesians 2, verse 19, and we'll read a different part of the passage that I read a moment ago. And here in 19, Paul writes, You are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.

Now, it might not be obvious when we first read that, but this is sort of a progression of distance to closeness. And so this idea of strangers and foreigners in some parts of the ancient world were actually legal terms. So people migrating from country to country was a thing in the ancient world, just like it is today. Strangers and foreigners, strangers would be people who were passing through. They had limited rights, they weren't citizens. Foreigners might be people who had resided in a place for a long time, and they had some level of legal status by paying tax, but didn't have full rights.

And what it's saying in this passage is, we are not, relative to God, strangers and foreigners. We are fellow citizens. When we're called by God, and we're given the Holy Spirit, it doesn't matter who we are and where we came from. We are fully members of that family, of that group, and it lays out here members of the household of God. So you think of how the world functioned at that point in time, very often households, where you had multiple generations in the household, might have servants and others in the household, and they function together.

So it shows this progression of coming from being strangers, people who are just passing through, all the way through to becoming citizens and members of the household, and showing that close relationship that exists as we're called into God's church. If we go on into Romans 8, it shows even a closer relationship in verses 14 through 17. Paul writes here in Romans 8 starting in verse 14, as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. Now we're at the very closest relationship, actually children. For you did not receive the Spirit of bondage again to fear, but a Spirit of adoption.

And we cry out, Abba, Father, that's that term of endearment, something you call your daddy, not something you just some stranger or somebody you're working with. It's a very close relationship. And in verse 17, if children then heirs, heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ, if we suffer with him, that we might be glorified together.

And we don't have time to go deep into it, but this idea of adoption had so much more meaning in that world than it does in our world today. In the Roman world, it wasn't at all unusual for somebody to adopt someone who is completely unrelated in order to pass along their title to them.

In fact, many of the Roman emperors were officially adopted before their predecessor died. And it was a way for their predecessors to show everybody that this is the person who I want to succeed in and to come into power. And so if you look at historically, a number of the Caesars of the Roman Empire were actually adopted. And the Romans used this as a way not to help people who were in need, orphaned children, but actually to find people who were going to rule in their place to take the family name, perhaps to take the family business and fortune, and carry it on into the next generation.

And often people would actually adopt adults for that reason in order to have a specific heir to take something of value that they had built over the course of their lifetime. Think of that when you consider our existence in the Church and the fact that, as Paul writes here in Romans, we have been adopted into the family of God. A very different message that's being sent here, the fact that God saw something and wanted to call us and wanted to give us that inheritance as something that we would take forward.

So as I think about this example, and again apply it to myself, I think of the fact that a family is not like a corporation or a team where those who don't cut it are simply let go or their job is outsourced to somebody half a world away. That might be the way a corporation works. It's not the way a family works. We're not told we've been given a position as a senior vice president in a corporation.

We're told we've been adopted by God. It's a lifelong commitment. He's given us His name, and He's given us to be together as a family, as a commitment that we keep for the rest of our lives. The next example, a very timely one, is a bride.

Look forward to the wedding of Carla and old what's-his-name over there. Revelation 19, verses 7 and 8. The church is compared to a bride. Probably some of you had this one on your list. In Revelation, we see written here starting in verse 7 of Revelation 19, Let us be glad and rejoice, and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife, referring to the church, has made herself ready. And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.

And we reflect here in the wedding ceremonies of that time, a lady might spend six, nine months making this entire dress, a very ornate dress, putting all of the different finishing touches on it that she would. And all kinds of time would be spent on doing that. In our culture, of course, there's all kinds of preparation as well that happens. And it's meant to point out the fact that just as a bride looks forward to the wedding date and makes deliberate preparation for that time, we should be doing the same thing, setting aside other priorities that might get in the way because there's a wedding date out there. We've got to be ready for it. We have to get all of those activities done. And that's the way that we need to think as we're looking forward to the kingdom. That's what God wants the church to be about. And of course, there's also, in this example, the level of devotion that Jesus as the bridegroom has to the church, the care that he has, the love that he has, the devotion and the anticipation that eclipses anything else that's going on.

So as I think of this analogy myself, I think to myself, does my anticipation of the kingdom consume my full attention and animate all of the things going on in my life the way that an impending wedding does for the bride.

The next analogy I'd like to point out is the one of a mother.

The church is referred to as a mother as well. We'll look in Galatians 4 and we'll read verses 19 and 26. So as I mentioned earlier, all kinds of different ways to try to explain something that is really spiritual in nature, something you can't fully nail down. What is the church? Why are all these strangely different people pulled together into one place who might never encounter each other were it not for the calling of God? Galatians 4 verses 19 and 26. In 19, my little children, for whom I labor in birth, again, until Christ is formed in you. And then verse 26, the Jerusalem above, Paul writes to Galatians, is free, which is the mother of us all.

So we think about the loving care, the life-giving, the nurturing, the enabling of growth that happens when a mother is dealing with a child. And we have phrases in the English language for a reason, like the face only a mother could love. But why do we say that? We say it because it's real, because mothers always see good in their kids. They always see promise. They always see something else that can be accomplished in their kids, don't they? And they bring the love, the correction, the instruction, the nurturing, all of those things that go along with it. And there's that deep connectedness, isn't there? That devotion that lasts as long as life itself does.

I reconnected with a friend after going to a high school reunion a few years ago, and I connected with her on Facebook, as we do. She has a son who has Down syndrome. And it's really impressed me as she posts these pictures of her son doing all of these different things. And again, that devotion of a mother, even though this is a child who is unfortunately severely handicapped, the love that she has for him doesn't change. And she's proud of him. And she puts that out there in the pictures that she posts and the way that she speaks about him. And it's really powerful to see and very endearing. And as we think of this analogy of the church as a mother, that's what the church should be doing for us. Always seeing the value in each of us as individuals, nurturing it, hoping and wanting and driving for the best for everybody who's a part of it.

So the lesson that I take from this as I think about the church as a mother is the importance of the church as a place where people experience that same nurturing and that same unconditional and encouraging love that a mother has for her children. And I always have to ask myself, am I demonstrating that same type of love?

Another one that's probably familiar to us is a flock. We as sheep probably comes to mind. We'll turn to John 10. I think this one is probably on some people's lists.

The church has a flock. We'll start in verse 11 of John 10. Here Jesus is speaking. He says, I am the good shepherd, and the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. He continues in verse 14, I'm the good shepherd, and I know my sheep, and I am known by my own. As the father knows me, even so, I know the father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold, them also I must bring, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock and one shepherd. And there could be full sermons given. There have been books written about shepherds and how they work with sheep and all of the rich analogies that go with it. If you've not read or looked for one of those, I would highly encourage it because the way that shepherds dealt with and cared for their sheep in those days, protecting them and guiding them and nurturing them, and the helplessness sometimes of sheep as they tried to make their way is a huge object lesson that's all bound up in this. Luke 15, verse 4, is another scripture that comes to my mind very quickly when I hear these verses where it talks about the shepherd leaving the 99 to go after the one.

So again, setting out the idea that the church as a flock is different than a business or different than a transactional sort of thing. Because what does a person do as a businessman? You got the 99 percent, there's one left. That's a loss. It's okay, we can move on. Because if I've got 99 percent and I'm running my business, no problem. What does Jesus Christ say as a shepherd? One sheep.

You guys stay here. I'm going after that one. Very powerful as an example and as an analogy.

So the lesson I take away from this of the church as a flock is how instinctively the shepherd is known by his sheep. It says they understand his voice, they hear his voice, they know it, they recognize it. And I ask myself then, does my involvement in the church aid in a focus on the shepherd who's above beyond everything else? Do I clearly recognize the shepherd's voice?

Am I helping other people to do the same? The next analogy that I'll mention is that of a garden, vineyard, or fields, the things that are growing, a garden, a vineyard, or a field.

John 15 is where I'll turn for this one. We might recognize this pretty quickly as a scripture that we read during the Passover time. John 15 verses 1 through 5 as Jesus is giving some of his last words to the disciples. John 15 verse 1, he says, I am the true vine and my father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it can bear more fruit. You're already clean because of the word which I've spoken to you. Abide in me and I in you. And as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. And he goes on to say, I am the vine and you are the branches. Again, similar to that cornerstone, helping us to realize he is the source of everything. How many of you worked with vines of one sort or another when you're attending your garden and things? I had a tree. We've got sort of an open marshland behind our house. And when I looked out there, I could see a few years ago that there was just this poison ivy that was growing all the way up through this tree. It was about 40 feet tall. I was actually worried if it got choked off, it could topple, you know, come in towards the house. And so I hiked out there one spring in my boots. And the stalk of this vine, a poison ivy, was this big around. So an inch and a half, two inches in diameter. And I just took a hand saw and I just cut that vine. It wasn't really a vine anymore. It was almost like a tree, a small tree trunk. And I just cut a two-inch section out of that thing. And what do you think happened over the course of the next few months? Of course, that vine that was growing all the way up in the trees, it dried out and it died just from cutting a two-inch section out of it. Because I had separated that vine from the roots that were down below it. It took the life away from it. The tree was able to flourish, no longer being choked off. So we think about how it is that we are enabled. And sometimes as humans, unfortunately, we choke off that vine ourselves through the different things that we do. And so we have to make sure that we're staying fully connected, connected to the right place, and completely connected. And as I reflect in myself on that analogy, I think about, first of all, that a life free of trials is not possible. And it's actually not as desirable as we might sometimes think. It talks about the fact that we're pruned. It talks about the things that we suffer and how we learn through suffering. And as long as we're connected to the vine, those things build even stronger fruit within us. And when times are difficult, it's that much more important to make sure our connectedness to the vine is staying strong. The next analogy, and I am getting close, so Bill doesn't have to sweat too hard here. A city, Jerusalem or Zion, is another metaphor that's used for the church. We'll turn to Hebrews 11 for this one.

Hebrews 11, and we'll start in verse 10. Talking here about the heroes of faith, in Hebrews 11 verse 10 it says, He waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. And then in verse 13 it goes on to say that all of these died in faith, not having received the promises, but seeing them afar off were assured of them, and confessed they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. They seek a homeland, in verse 14. A country, if they, truly if they had called to mind the country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return, but now they desire a better, and that is a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, because He has prepared a city for them. And we read in other places, like Philippians 3 verse 20, that our citizenship is in heaven.

And we know that means that all of the things that have to do with how we live our lives are according to that culture. You know, when you think about cities, you think about countries, what do we know the differences? How do we know the differences between them? Culture. You can often look at people and how they dress. Even how they walk down the street. I live in a neighborhood where we have a lot of people who come from different parts of Asia. And it's not unusual in my neighborhood to see somebody dressed in a sari who's walking perhaps five paces behind her husband as they're going for a walk in the afternoon down the street. It's a cultural thing. You know right away that they come from a certain portion of the world because of the way they act, the way they dress. I grew up in Minnesota. People think it's odd when I talk about ice fishing. It's a cultural thing. It's just something that's done in one part of the world where it's cold in the winter and you got to figure out something to do to be outside that you wouldn't do if you're living in Central America or something. Culture is one of the hallmarks of a country. We live as citizens of a country that's above. And one of the challenges we face every day is we're living physically in this culture, whatever country it is that we live in, but we're all being asked to adhere to the norms and the cultures of God's kingdom. Even though that hasn't fully come, we've been called into that country. And so we have to continually think about, are we living according to the values of the culture that we're in? Are we living according to the values and the norms of the culture that God has called us into? And that's a struggle that we have to work with every day because we're human beings and we do live in this culture and everything that does good and bad. So as I think about this example or metaphor, I think about how do I need to more fully align my values and my culture to the heavenly city and not to the earthly city or state or country that I live in. The last one that I'll refer to is a priesthood. And theremore, that gives us something to talk about after services. If you've got some on your list that I haven't mentioned, I'd love to hear about it. I know for a fact there's several more that I haven't mentioned. But 1 Peter 2 is a set of scriptures you might think of related to the church. We, the called-out ones, as a priesthood. 1 Peter 2, we'll start in verse 5. Here again, also referring to the spiritual house. 1 Peter 2, verse 5, you also as living stones are being built up to a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. And then in verse 9 it goes on again to say, you're a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness to his marvelous light. And one of the privileges of the priesthood was the ability to come in the Old Testament into parts of the tabernacle and ultimately the temple that the people themselves could not. Hebrews 4.16, we won't turn there, but I think you might have heard this scripture before where in Hebrews it says in 4.16, let us come boldly to the throne of grace. So as priests, as part of that royal priesthood through Jesus Christ, we can come directly to God. We can come directly to his throne just as the Old Testament priesthood was able to enter areas of the tabernacle or areas of the temple that the people as a whole could not.

Something else came along with that. If you think about the way the priesthood operated, they had special garments. They had special ways they had to wash things. They had other things that they had to do in order to be in the temple service. And these were all lessons of holiness, lessons of the fact that you didn't just sort of, okay, I've got my shorts and my flip-flops on, hey, time to go to tabernacle for a minute. It was a separate place. It was a different place. You had to bring something different. You had to go there with thought, with preparation, with a different mindset, and as we would know in the New Covenant, a different heart. And that's one of the lessons that we need to learn as a spiritual priesthood. We have been called out. We've been made holy because God has said that, not out of anything that we've done. And he's given us his spirit. We have to act in a different, more conscious way. And we have the opportunity at any time to become before God himself. So as I think about this last example that we'll talk about of a priesthood, I think of, am I dedicating myself daily to living a holy and purified life as part of that holy priesthood of the New Covenant? So we've covered a fair amount of ground here, and hopefully given you one or two things to think about here over the course of the next week. So as we conclude, the writers of the New Testament spent really the remaining years of their lives after Jesus Christ ascended back to heaven after that first Pentecost, working to understand and express what it means for all of us who would come after them. What is the church? How are we supposed to act within it? And they used a wide and often scattered number of metaphors to try to explain this spiritual truth in human words. So for a concise definition, what is the church? It's a bodybuilding temple, family, bride, mother, flock, garden, vineyard, field, city, priesthood. That's all. So at the end of the day, the church is all of these. And like anything spiritual, it's impossible to fully capture it in words. So I'll end where we started after that thought, the horsey horseless, and ask when it comes to the metaphors used for the church. What resonates with you? What bears additional thought based on where you are in your mind, in your walk with God? What's in common between them? What does each deliver as a new or a different facet or insight? And how should it cause all of us to change the way that we think and act in our daily lives and in the way that we deal with one another as brothers and sisters? I've shared a few thoughts of my own as we've run briefly through this wide array of metaphors. And now it's your turn. So I encourage you to think about these things, reflect on them, understand more deeply how the Holy Spirit is working amongst all of us as a church and how it can work even more powerfully in the body, in us as a body, and as individuals.