 Hey everyone, welcome back to the second session of the local church. So we moved to chapter 29, page 171 in your notes. So in section 4, we have covered chapter 23, chapter 24, and chapter 25. In section 4, we've covered systems and process within the local church, nurturing and equipping believers, nurturing and developing leaders. So chapters 26, 27, and 28 will be covered in the course of church and ministry administration. And in section 5, we have four chapters. One is chapter 29, 30, 31, and 32. So chapters 30, 31, and 32 will be covered in course urban church planting in B.C. 309. And so as concluding this course today, we will cover chapter 29 and the last chapter, chapter 33, as closing thoughts. So we are in chapter 29 in page 171. Are you guys with me, Chris? Okay. So chapter 29 is titled, The Local Church in Relation to Other Churches. It says, it is important for the local church to have an outward focus and to be a blessing to other churches, Christian ministries, and to the community, whether it is in its vicinity or regions beyond. Do you think it's crucial, guys, about this for us to have this outward focus? Because the reason I ask this question is it's, and there are a lot of examples that I have seen. So I think it's important for the local church to have an outward focus and be a blessing to the other churches and Christian ministries and to the community, whether it's in your city or regions beyond. And there are a lot of examples that I have seen is so many churches are very too focused only on themselves, right? The inward focus, it's about me, it's about us, it's all about us, me, myself, and the church kind of thing. And no more, it's only about us kind of thing. So that is a very inward focus, which is not appreciated, but we are called to have an outward focus and to be a blessing to the regions, to the nations around us, to the cities around us, isn't it? And multiple examples. So let's look at a few. The church in Jerusalem reached out and ministered to the church at Samaria. So they reached out and ministered to the church at Samaria, and that resulted from the ministry of Philip, which you can read in Acts chapter 8. And then later Peter and John went and ministered to the new believers in Samaria. Okay, so what exactly is happening here is they are fulfilling the Great Commission, isn't it? What Jesus told them, you know, go into all nations and make disciples and baptizing them, right, in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. That's exactly what they're doing, isn't it? So as a local church, when you're having this outward focus, all you're doing is accomplishing and establishing the Great Commission. It's as simple as that. And so we see the church in Jerusalem reached out and ministered to the church in Samaria. The Apostle Peter and John also went and ministered there. And then the church in Jerusalem reached out and ministered to the church in Antioch, right? And then later they sent Barnabas to pastor that church. And then later, the same church, the church in Antioch, sent help to the believers in Judea who were affected by famine during the time. Okay, so you see how beautifully in the New Testament, in the 1st century church, how the churches were blessing and helping one another. Right? And so it's just a very simple pointer here for us to look at the lessons, some of the lessons that we can implement is mature churches can help support and strengthen believers in newer churches spiritually. Okay, so you can ask this question to yourself. I mean, is your church doing that? Is your church helping, supporting and strengthening believers in newer churches? Right? Local churches should relate to one another in sharing material things and being of help to others in time of need. Okay, relationships across local churches can be fostered by local leaders. That's a very crucial point there, please pay attention to it. It says relationships. Okay, guys, I think most of the times what we do is we end up putting ministry above relationships. Okay, and that's when, I mean, you can still get things done, but not as effectively and not as nicely. And I heard this statement from a ministry leader who made this very beautiful statement. There wasn't misunderstanding between two ministry leaders who was leading a church and another ministry between the leaders, but they are good friends. But then this person said, okay, relationships are more important than ministry. My relationship with this church leader is more important than my ministry itself. And that's how they sorted things out. And that statement remained with me, has remained with me till now. The key is relationships, isn't it? Without people, who are you doing ministry for? You are doing ministry to get people to be a blessing. And who are you going to bless when you can't get along with people, isn't it? So relationships across local churches can be fostered by local leaders, right? Relating to one another or through apostles and prophets who help connect these churches through godly relationships. And the next point is we must maintain divine order when working together. We work together while respecting the other local churches' denominations and affiliation. We must respect leadership from each other churches. Local churches believe must be taught to rightly relate to other local churches. As impossible as it may seem, right? All the different denominations are there and to function in unity. Respecting each other's beliefs is very core, right? And that's what I'm talking about. Respecting each other's beliefs is very core, right? So you can be working in an organization, a Christian organization, where there can be people from multiple denominations, different denominations. And it is very easy to get into a conversation where it's like, oh, you're from this denomination. Oh, you don't believe in speaking in tongues. Oh, we do. And then there's the other denominations. Oh, you guys speak in tongues. We don't believe in all of that. It's very easy to put another person down based on their denominational background. And I've seen this. I'm simply not making it up. I don't have to. But a lot can also be avoided by just respecting each other's denominations or whatever it is. The common factor, as long as the common factor is Jesus, and they believe in Jesus that he died and rose again. And I think that should suffice. So as your local church, you can ask yourself, how is your relationship to other churches? What are you doing? Are you being a blessing? Are you an outward focused church as well? And so that's something that you can ask your church yourself. Okay. So that's that chapter. Let's go to the final chapter, chapter 33, Lessons from the Seven Churches, page number 185 in your PDF. It's chapter 33 is titled Pit Falls to Avoid. Lessons from the Seven Churches. Okay. Now, if it's okay, you can turn in your Bibles to Revelation chapter 2. Revelation chapter 2. Just let me know if you're out there. All right. One very simple thing. I mean, so we know it's a letter to the Seven Churches and all of that. What's very interesting is in Revelation chapter 2 verse 2, it starts off by saying, it says, okay, say to the so-and-so church, I know your deeds. All right. Your hard work and your perseverance. So it starts off by saying, I know your deeds. When you come to the next church, verse, let's come down to verse 9, chapter 2 verse 9. It says, I know your afflictions. Okay. And then to the next church, verse 13, chapter 2 verse 13 says, I know where you live. And let's come down to verse 19, chapter 2 verse 19. I know your deeds. Chapter 3 verse 1. And these are the words to him who holds the seven spirits of God and seven stars. I know your deeds. You have a reputation of being alive. And once again, chapter 3 verse 8, I know your deeds. And then the last verse 15, chapter 3 verse 15 to the church in Laudatia. I know your deeds. It's interesting to all these churches. The one thing that Jesus starts off by saying is, I know. I know it. Right. And that simply means he sees. Right. So his eyes are on the churches because church is his idea and it's very close to his heart. And so he sees. And then because he sees, he says, I know. I know your deeds. I have seen it. I see your reflection. I see where you live. I know it. Right. And so it is in that context, we approach these pointers. Right. Lessons that we can learn from these churches. So church of Ephesus. He writes saying, maintain your first love. As a local church, our focus should be on the Lord loving him, worshiping him and ministering to him. Because as human beings, it is possible for us to turn the Lord's house into the den of thieves. It's a possibility, isn't it? So the one lesson that we can learn from the church of Ephesus is to keep our first love, our focus has to be on the Lord. Right. And the church in Smyrna. Be faithful unto death. As a local church, we must be prepared to stand strong through persecutions. That's another lesson. Be faithful unto death. In church in Pergamos, guard against a wrong doctrine. People in the church who has espoused the doctrine of Balaam and the doctrine of Nicolichians. Two groups of people who espoused a lifestyle of idolatry and immorality. As a local church, we must keep God's house people clean. Guard against teaching that permits people to live in idolatry and immorality. Okay. What are the things in your course of our simple, right? Maintain your first love. Be faithful unto death. And guard your congregation with a false doctrine. Right. Guard against teaching that permits people to live in idolatry and immorality. Right. There's this teaching that about say grace that says, okay, you know, you can do whatever you want to do while the actual truth about grace is grace doesn't grace is not a license for us to sin, but it empowers us to live a holy life. Right. And so that's what it is. And so guard against wrong doctrine. That's a lesson that we can learn from a church in Pargamos and a chair from the church in criteria guard against demonic spirits. Permitting a woman, Jezebel, a self-proclaimed prophetess to seduce God's people into immorality and idolatry. Paul warned of a phenomenon in the last days. Right. This is in first Timothy chapter four, verse one. Now the spirit expressly says that in latter times, some will depart from the faith giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons. Okay. So we see a woman identified as Jezebel posing as a prophetess, supposedly proclaiming deeper truths and teach and seduce God's people leading them astray into immorality and idolatry. Right. To seduce simply means to lead into error as it mentioned. So the Jezebel spirit, Jezebel, who was Jezebel, right? It was the queen in the Old Testament led Ahab into worship of false gods. She was a queen who was married to King Ahab. And you can read all about it in first Kings chapter 16, 31 and 21, 25. And so the Jezebel spirit, as it says, can work through a man or a woman. And what is this spirit? It is a spirit that promotes false doctrine, promotes immorality. It promotes idolatry. Right. And so this is what you need to guard your church against. Right. Guard against demonic spirits. Right. And religious spirits, self deceiving, hypocritical, man pleasing. So these are all, these are what's called as the religious spirit. So you are guarding your church against all of them. Right. Church in Sardis is do not be fooled by a reputation. You have a reputation that you are alive, but you are dead. So as a local church, we must ensure that we are right before God. Man's opinion does not matter. What God says about us is important. Right. A lot of us Christians ministers, we fall prey to this word called reputation. Now we hide our sins. We hide our shortcomings. All because of the fear of losing our reputation. Right. A simple example such as it can be as simple as a Christian wanting to go and seek counseling. I can, I can think of so many people who say, you know, I don't want to go for counseling. What if, what will this person think if I go for counseling? I'm, you know, that, that the person could be a pastor's kid or son or a daughter or whatever. Right. The point is they're worried of the reputation. How can I send my son or daughter for counseling? Because they all know me as a pastor. What will they think? Are you with me? I hope you get what I'm saying, isn't it? So don't be fooled by reputation. Don't, you know, man's opinion does not matter what God says about us is important. So that's another lesson that we can learn from the church in Sardis. Don't be fooled by reputation. You may look alive. You may seem, your church may seem like, okay, it's doing everything right on the outside, right? All these worship concerts and lights and everything said beautiful state of the art technology. It looks great and grand and awesome. You have an amazing reputation. It's like, wow, this church has all the latest gears and whatnot. But Jesus goes on to say, you know, you have a reputation that you are alive, but you're dead. Right. So it's very dangerous to function like that. A church in Philadelphia is to persevere and hold on, persevere, hold fast to what you have. And it resonates with being faithful and everything we're doing. And a church in Lava Desha, be red hot on fire. You're neither cold nor hot. Be aware of self-sufficiency or complacency. Complacency will kill our spirit of wanting for more of God. It keeps Jesus out of his house. We must always be hot on fire with passion for the Lord. Right. Be on fire. Compromise. Don't compromise. Chalta hai attitude. As they say in Hindi. Chalta hai. It's okay. It's just one thing. It's just one time. It's okay. That it's okay attitude is what will kill your spirit. And it says, okay, you're not cold nor hot. You're compromised. It's the compromise that killed Israelites. They compromised to the worship of the Canaanites. In Numbers chapter 25, it talks all about it. Numbers 25, they went into sexual immorality. But what led to them there is they began by worshiping their idols, their gods. And that led to all kind of immorality. And so that's compromise. Be aware of that. It will kill. So these are the seven lessons that we can learn. Let's go through them very quickly. First thing is what? Maintain your first love. Be faithful unto death. Guard against wrong doctrine. Guard against demonic spirits. Okay. Don't be fooled by reputation. Persevere and be on fire for the kingdom of God. And let your church, wherever you go, as placed you reflect and resonate all of this and everything that we've learned in this course. Okay. Is all doing all right? Okay. Awesome. Right. I hope you're all out alive. Well, so we've come to the end of this course and of the content. And we will not have classes from the following week. And I hope there was something that you could learn off from this course. All right. Thank you all for joining in and being a lovely, lovely class. God bless you. You will hear about your final assignments exams soon. Watch out for the space. Okay. So that's about it guys. Take care and God bless you all. Thank you, Pastor.