This talk builds on the biblical images for the church discussed in the keynote address.  We will seek to take each of those rich images and draw out some practical applications for how we can better love and serve the church.

Thanks, let's pray together. Father, we thank you for the time that we have to study and to learn more about the church. Grateful, O Lord, for this opportunity. Father, we pray that you'd be glorified in our time together. Lord, help us to meditate deeply and richly on you and on your love for the church, and I pray that you'd just kindle that kind of affection in our own hearts as well.

We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, I hope you got one of the handouts earlier, if not there's some available, but we're going to be continuing to look at these rich metaphors, the image of the church. We already talked this morning about national metaphors in which the people of God are seen to be a chosen people, a called-out assembly, a holy nation, a kingdom, and rulers under Christ. We looked at the religious metaphors also for the church.

Priesthood, a holy temple, and that we are a sacrifice. And we talked about those rich family metaphors as well. We are the household of God and servants of God and family of God as his adopted children, firstborn son that he carried on his shoulders all the way to the Promised land and then beautifully the bride of Christ. Now we're going to be looking at four more clusters of these metaphors and we're going to start with biological metaphors or metaphors in which the church is likened to something alive. Now as I was driving here with my family, I had the ongoing privilege of teaching my daughter biology.

When I first went through biology as a freshman in high school, that was years ago, more and more years as time goes on now. And I realize I don't know that much about biology, so we're just reading through the textbooks and just seeing the marvels of God in living things. You know the scripture says in him was life and all life comes from God and it's just amazingly complex isn't it and they're just certain functions that have to do with life. All living things grow and develop. All living things use energy, they reproduce, they get rid of waste, react to changes in the environment.

All of these are elements of life. And so also there are a number of analogies for the church in which we are likened to something alive. Fundamentally, the church is alive. We were born again, the Bible says in Ephesians that we were dead in our transgressions and sins in which we used to live, but Now God made us alive with Christ. And so beautifully we have images of the church as something living.

Probably the most memorable of these, one of the most memorable anyway, is in John chapter 15, in which Jesus says, I am the true vine and my father is the gardener. All right I am the true vine and my father is the gardener he cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit while every branch that does bear fruity prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. And then he says again in John 15 five, I am the vine and you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I am in him, he will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing.

The picture then here is one of total dependence on Christ for everything. Apart from me, you can do nothing is the lesson. I've thought much about that. I think I realize I can do many things apart from Christ, but none of them are good. I can do all kinds of sin and rebellion and I can waste my time apart from Christ.

But clearly Jesus means, apart from me you can do nothing of eternal value. You can do nothing good, nothing worthwhile. And so we are totally dependent on Christ. Each branch in the vine derives its life from the vine. And the nourishing sap that flows through Christ comes to us.

Jesus did not mean for us ever to be independent of him, but rather he created us to be totally and completely dependent on him. As the Apostle Paul preached, in him we live and move and have our being. And so it is with this image of branches on a vine. And these branches that abide in Christ, he says, those are the ones that are truly my disciples. He says he cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit.

While every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes it so that it will be even more fruitful. Now that verse is troublesome, people, because those branches that are cut off are picked up and thrown in the fire and burned. And burning is always a picture of eternal condemnation. So what does it mean when it says he cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit? What he's saying is, I think, those people that are just hanging on with the church, they are attending church perhaps.

They're surrounded by the people of God. They attend. They're involved. But they're not really alive. And the way that we can know that they're not really alive, according to Jesus, is that they're bearing no fruit.

You get the same image in Hebrews chapter 6. And there it talks about a field that drinks in the rain that falls on it that produces a harvest is blessed by God but the field that produces thorns and thistles is cursed it's worthless it's in danger of being burned and so the same picture it's really the same teaching It is possible to be around the people of God, to be deriving some benefit from it, to be attending church and not really be alive. And so it says he cuts off every branch of me that bears no fruit. What is fruit? Well, I think there are two different categories of fruit.

There's action fruit and attitude fruit. The action fruit are those things that you do in your life. Attitude is that which is characteristic of your heart, your heart dispositions, your thought life. These things are elements of fruit. And if there's no fruit, friends, there's no life.

That's really what Jesus is saying. And so he desires to see fruit, and if we have this fruit, then we prove ourselves to be his disciples. It all comes from abiding in Christ. What does it mean to abide in Christ? I think it's a constant awareness of his presence, a linking to him through consistent prayers.

It says pray without ceasing. It's a mentality of knowing that you are in Christ and Christ is in you, ministered by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ is uniting us with Christ. And so we have a sense of union with him. Another one of these living images is that of a harvest field, a harvest field.

It says in 1 Corinthians 3 6 to 9, I planted the seed, Apollos watered it but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God's fellow workers and you are God's field." So there he's likening the Corinthian church to God's field, a harvest field. Jesus had said earlier in John 4, do you not say four months more and then comes the harvest?

I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields. They are ripe for harvest. Even now the reaper draws his wages. Even now he harvests the crop for eternal life so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying, one sows and another reaps is true.

And so the church is a field ripe for harvest. And I think in the first passage in 1 Corinthians 3, the sense is that the church itself, having already come to Christ, is still a harvest field. There's still a harvest of fruitfulness to come from the church. There's a need for ongoing pastoral ministry. I planted the seed of polished water, but God made it grow.

And so again, with all of these living analogies, there's a sense of a need for growing, a sense of a need for fruitfulness. But the church is God's harvest field, and so God sovereignly uses the ministry of the word of God and other spiritual gift ministries to cause that growth. The passage in John 4, generally we think of in terms of evangelism and outreach. People are to reach out. I sent you to reap what others have labored for.

Others have done the hard work, Jesus said. And you, I sent you to reap their labor. So sometimes in evangelism we're called to go out and break up some hard soil. You have some difficult conversations with some people. And they're not interested, and they may treat you rudely.

But it could be that they're elect and God is using you as a plow to break up some hard soil. That's not a wonderful work, is it? But At the same time, it is wonderful, because you're doing that hard work, and the sower and the reaper together rejoice, and so also those that are working with the plow. All of us have the same end, and what is that? It's a full harvest.

And realize, again, the harvest isn't that they would make it an initial commitment to Christ. We're not looking for them to make an initial commitment to Christ. The one who stands firm to the end will be saved and so we really want the full salvation. We want them to be glorified for those whom God foreknew he predestined to be conformed to the image of his son that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called, and those he called, he also justified.

And those he justified, he also glorified. That's what we want. And only God can bring the people of God, the harvest field, right through to the full harvest. And so both the evangelists and also pastor shepherds and teachers in the ministry, they're all doing the same work. They're working on God's harvest field.

The third living image that we have is that of a vineyard. And this is a very potent image. It comes first from Isaiah chapter five. There the prophet says this. I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard.

My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit. Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard.

What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I look for good grapes, why did it yield only bad? Now I will tell you what I'm going to do to my vineyard. I will take away its hedge and it will be destroyed. I'll break down its wall and it will be trampled.

I'll make it a wasteland, neither prune nor cultivated, and briars and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it." And then it says in Isaiah 5-7, the vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the house of Israel. Jesus, of course, picks up on this image in the New Testament when he tells the parable of the vineyard. In Matthew 21 it says, listen to another parable, there was a landowner who planted a vineyard and he put a wall around it, dug a wine precedent, built a watchtower, then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey. And when harvest time approached He sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit and then at the end of that parable it says therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you the physical descendants of Abraham away from the Jews the nation of Israel and given to a people who will produce its fruit That is the church dear friends.

We are the vineyard of God. We are the ones that God has poured out resources on, that has protected, he has protected us. He's put a wall around us. And he's enriched the soil and he's tended us and he's sent us laborers and he's done all of these things and why, so that we will bear a harvest of righteousness. We are the vineyard of God.

So Jesus said he's gonna take it away from those that are producing no fruit and he's gonna give it to a people who will produce its fruit. A fourth living image is that of a garden again in Isaiah 5 7 It says the vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the house of Israel and the men of Judah are the garden of his delight Says in Isaiah 58 11 the Lord will guide you always he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame you will be like a well watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Now, you might say, well these are all kind of about the same image. Well I actually think of a garden as something different than a harvest field, don't you? I mean, I used to drive from Louisville up to Grand Rapids once a week when I was getting my PhD and drove with a friend of mine and we drove through the corn fields of Indiana and we would see corn as far as the eye could see, I mean, it was to the earth curve you could see corn.

And it was corn and then it was some more corn and then more corn besides. And then after that there'd be some more corn. When I think of a garden I think of variety, don't you? I think of all different kinds of plants. So it's a slightly different image.

There's variety. My family and I have gone to see Jefferson's Monticello And he had an incredible garden, a kitchen garden there, with just literally hundreds and hundreds of different kinds of plants that he experimented with. People have gone through his notebooks and all that. And there are horticultural experts and gardeners there that are trying to reproduce The experiments and the botanical work he was doing there in his kitchen garden. It's a thousand feet long, this kitchen garden.

And you can imagine Jefferson just wandering through and looking for a little of this spice or bending down to smell the fragrance of this beautiful flower or looking at this fruitful tree, maybe a plum tree or an apple tree of different types. The rich and wide variety and so also the church has an incredible variety, doesn't it? We already know that there's gonna be people from every tribe and language and people and nation. People coming from different backgrounds, different socioeconomic backgrounds, people have different personalities. And we know that we are gifted differently too.

We have one, there's one God, one Lord, one faith, one baptism. But to each one of us, different grace has been given according to the measure of Christ. So we have different callings. And there's just an incredible and a beautiful variety in the Church of Jesus Christ and it's a rich and full variety and so we are I love what it says in Isaiah 5 7 the garden of his delight remember how we have sadly in Genesis 3 in judgment but the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden. In the cool of the day, it says.

But I get the sense of God walking through the garden of the church, or Jesus walking through and just smelling the different fragrances and the beautiful variety. And so the church is a garden, and it is to produce a varied crop for God, different types of fruits and vegetables and flowers. Another very important image is that of an olive tree. And here, there are different passages, but the most important is in Romans 11, and verses 17 and 18. There it says, if some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others, and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root.

Do not boast over these branches. If you do consider this, you do not support the root, but the root supports you. Now, it's a very complex thing that the Apostle Paul is saying, but he's talking to Gentile believers in reference to Jewish nonbelievers. And Jewish nonbelievers were stripped off from this Jewish olive tree. The Jewish olive tree has a heritage in the patriarchs, in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

This root system of what God did through them and through the Jewish nation and how God called Israel to be his own people and how God worked in them and gave them promises and blessed them and spoke to them through the prophets but how not all Israel was Israel as he said a few chapters before that and some of these branches have been stripped off, and they are not part of the olive tree, they're laying on the ground. These are unbelieving Jews, these are Jews that have clearly rejected Jesus as their Messiah. They do not believe in Jesus, but they still think to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and it can't be done. And the Apostle Paul, who is Jewish himself, a Pharisee of Pharisees, said, you're on the ground, you're not even connected with the tree, talking to Jews who do not believe in Jesus. But he is also giving a word of warning to Gentiles who do.

And he says, you are like wild olive branches, and you've been grafted in to a cultivated olive tree, and you're now deriving nourishing sap from that cultivated olive tree. Now, I'm a Gentile believer. Probably most of you are as well. I hope you're not offended by being called a wild olive tree. We were taken from a wild tree, who knows where it was growing.

And you were kind of cut off from that, and now you've been grafted into this Jewish tree. And you're deriving nourishing sap from this Jewish heritage. But it's true. We are adopted children of Abraham aren't we? We are sons and daughters of Abraham and so we are deriving this nourishing sap but again it's a living image.

The nourishing sap it's a sense of just life flowing through this through this heritage. A sixth is Oaks of righteousness a beautiful expression again in Isaiah 61, 3, oaks of righteousness a planting for the Lord. They'll be called oaks of righteousness, a planting for the Lord for the display of his splendor. By the way, that last phrase is probably the reason why the church even exists. It's the greatest, I think, single little phrase on why we even exist, for a display of his glory.

That's why the church exists. And so we are to be for a display of his glory. But we are called here oaks of righteousness. Now the image here is one of stability and strength. A mighty oak tree, that's what the church is.

It's powerful and strong and can withstand the storms and stand firm and so we are a planting of the Lord and the Lord will make us stand and we will be able to stand. And so we are called in that way beautiful, beautifully, oaks of righteousness. It is by the righteousness of Christ and by his work of righteousness in our lives that we are mighty and strong. We are oaks of righteousness. And then this one perhaps the most familiar in the Bible and that is that we are a flock of sheep.

We are the Lord's sheep and he is our shepherd. We have this image many, many times. Ezekiel 34, 31. You, my sheep, the sheep of my pasture are people and I am your God, declares the sovereign Lord. And then Jeremiah 23, 3, I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their pasture, where they will be fruitful and increase in number.

The Psalms are also replete with this image. Of course, there's the shepherd Psalm in Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want, he makes me lie down in green pastures he leaves me beside quiet waters he restores my soul God's rod and his staff comfort us well in order to qualify for God to be our shepherd we have to be sheep And so it says in Psalm 95, come let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our maker, for he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, we are the flock under his care. Now, the more you think about it, the more this could be kind of insulting to us as the church. I mean, what does a sheep have to go for it after all?

I think that a sheep may actually disprove survival of the fittest. I mean, here we are. We are slow, we are stupid, we are delicious. That's a bad combination, those three things. How do we survive except by the mercy of the shepherd?

So the sheep following its nose, looking for sweet grass gets into trouble, and the shepherd has to come and get us out of trouble again and again. And so we have this image of Jesus as the good shepherd. I am the good shepherd, I know my sheep. And my sheep know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father and I lay down my life for the sheep. And he says, I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen.

I must bring them also and they too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. So this is a New Testament image as well. We are the sheep under the hand of Jesus, the good shepherd. The basic concept of these biological metaphors is that living things must grow and develop, and so it is with the shepherd and sheep analogy we have to grow we have to develop we have to be fruitful and multiply there have to be more sheep in Acts 20 and verse 28 then the image is transferred over to that of under shepherds elders in the church who are called the shepherds of the flock of God. It says in Acts 20 and verse 28, keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers.

Be shepherds of the church of God which he bought with his own blood. And then in 1 Peter 5 it says to the elders among you I appeal as a fellow elder the shepherds of God's flock that is under your care being examples to the flock he says and when the chief Shepherd appears you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away so elders in the church are called on to shepherd the flock this is a very powerful powerful image and so we are sheep and we live like sheep sometimes And the Lord needs to come and get us, and he needs to discipline us, and he needs to train us. But he will never give us over to our enemies. The eighth, and this is a very powerful one, and that is the body of Christ. The church is a body.

And so in this I think we're always thinking about a human body or physical body like a human being. And I think this is appropriate for us to use this image because The human race, male and female, was originally created in the image of God. And Jesus himself, in his incarnation, took on a human body. And so it's not wrong then for us to think of the church as the body of Christ. Now the body is an elaborate and fruitful image here, a powerful metaphor.

It says in Psalm 139 and verse 14, I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. I know that full well. And so also the body of Christ is complex and wonderful. It's an amazing thing.

The idea of members all being one but having separate function is a powerful image. Now, as I mentioned at the beginning of my talk, biology is a study of living things. The simplest organisms are single-celled organisms. And paradoxically, as cells, they're among the more complicated individual cells, because they have all of those life functions within themselves, but in a whole body then, the cells specialize, So a liver cell does one thing. A bone cell does something else.

A blood cell does something else. These functions are divided up and assigned to different cells. And different systems and organs within the body have different functions. And each of those members or parts of the body have to do its function for the whole body to live. And so it is all one, it's all part of the body.

And yet, it is specialized. And so that's where we get this image of specialization. The specialization of the body is perhaps the main idea, the metaphor of the church, along with the submission of the body to Christ as the head. I think these are all one body, but specialized, submitted to the headship of Christ. That's the power of this image of the body of Christ.

Says in Ephesians 5, 23, The husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body of which he is the savior. So Christ directs the body of Christ. He gives directions and we obey, it's a sense of obedience. In Ephesians 5, 29 and 30 it says, after all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church, for we are members of his body. So there's that sense of submission to the head.

But then, in the other passages that mention, we talk about specialization, that the body, they're different members with different functions. So we get that in Romans 12, four and five. Just as each of us has one body with many members and these members do not all have the same function. So in Christ, we who are many form one body and each member belongs to all the others. And Again, the same teaching in 1 Corinthians 12, 12.

The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts, and though all its parts are many, they form one body, and so it is with Christ. So according to this image, only as the whole body does its work will it grow up into full maturity in Christ. This is really incredibly vital. It is really vital. Listen to what it says in Ephesians 4.

Speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the head, that is Christ. From him, the whole body joined and held together by each supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work. So I think one of the best things a pastor can do is teach on this specialization and say, friends, only as you use your spiritual gift ministry, Only as you do that thing for which you were called by God to do and equipped by God to do that unique, special ministry, will the body of Christ grow up to its full maturity. And so we have got, each of us, we have got to do our work. The teachers have to teach.

Those with the gift of administration, they have to lead well. Those with the gift of giving, they have to give. Those who are prayer warriors, they need to pray. Those with the gift of encouragement, they've got to encourage in order for the body to grow up to its full maturity in Christ. And so In this heading, the Lord has given us a wonderful variety of living metaphors for the church.

As the church is alive, it's growing, it's needy and dependent on Him for life, for sustenance. It is fruitful and it multiplies. And so also the church, like branches on a vine, like an olive tree, a harvest, a walled vineyard, a delightful garden, a flock of sheep, and of course, the body of Christ. It's a powerful set of images. Now what application can we take from this set of analogies?

Well first, we are to grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ. We must be growing. You must be making progress in your Christian life. You must seek to be more like Jesus Christ a year from now than you are now. It's openly taught in 2 Peter 3 18, grow in grace in the knowledge of Christ.

This is not a static thing. You must make progress in the Christian life. You must grow. Secondly, acknowledge total dependence on Christ. Know that he is the vine and you are merely branches in him.

Acknowledge it openly. Say to him, Lord I need you. I am dependent on you. Please stay near me. I want to stay connected to you like a branch on a vine.

I want you to flow through me by the Spirit. Lord, I can't give this talk without your help. Lord, I can't raise my children without your help. Lord, I can't speak to this church member about this difficult issue without your help. Lord, I can't pass this exam without your help.

I need you, oh Lord. I can't witness without you. I need your help even for this prayer time. God, would you be with me? A sense of total dependence.

Acknowledge it openly. And be fruitful and multiply spiritually. Be fruitful and multiply. You know, I've noticed that these two great themes concerning the church in the New Testament and they're just like pillars in my mind as a pastor and I think about both of them all the time just how vital they are And one of them has to do with the absolute purity of the church. That the church needs to be pure, it needs to be holy.

It needs to be conformed to Christ and holiness. And not worldly, separate from the world, it needs to be that. The other pillar is the church needs to be active in evangelism and reaching out to the lost people of the world. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. It is my observation that people who are serious about following Christ, churches that are serious about following Christ, tend to gravitate toward one of those two poles and not to keep both of them equally together.

The churches that, I'm talking about alive churches where something's happening and there's a sense of the presence of God, the Word of God's being preached there in some way, it's either going to tend to be a soul winning church or it's going to tend to be a separate kind of holy church. And very, very few churches do really well at both. Frankly, there's only one person that's ever done it perfectly, and that's Jesus. To be completely immersed with tax collectors and sinners and prostitutes, and not in any way ever being defiled by them, but always able to reach out and to lead many of them to God through the word. That's the goal.

And so my yearning is to see churches that are characterized by holiness and separation from worldliness, while at the same time complete engagement with lost people for the purpose of bringing them to Christ. And in that way, we need to be fruitful. The Lord added to their number daily those who are being saved. That's right there in Acts chapter two. And so I fear that the tendency among this group might be to dedicate toward holiness, toward purity, towards separation from the world, and that's great.

But please engage the lost people of the world. Please reach out with the gospel. That's so vital. Let's love the church by seeing an awesome harvest of souls. I think the church includes the elect that haven't been brought to faith in Christ yet, at least it will ultimately, because God's going to bring all of those elect before the foundation of the world, every single one of them.

I look at it like a vast jigsaw puzzle. A thousand piece jigsaw puzzle and only when every last piece is in place is the whole picture done. And so we have to go out there and by faith in the Lord win those living stones and see them put into their place in the wall. So we want to be fruitful in that regard. And let's trust the good shepherd as members of his flock.

Let's walk in humility. Let's allow his rod and his staff to comfort us. Let's be corrected by him. Another major heading of metaphors are architectural metaphors and these are metaphors in which the church is a building in some sense, a structure that the Lord is building. It's something that Christ builds.

We've already seen this in Matthew 16, 18. Two talks addressed this already, so I don't have to be labored at all, but just know the verse. In Matthew 16, 18, I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church. So the church is something that Christ is building. It's an architectural image.

Hebrews 3, as I've already mentioned, likens the people of God to a house that God builds. For every house, Hebrews 3, 4, every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. In another place, it calls God the architect and builder of the church and so he has the plans for it and he is executing those plans and so the church is simply put a building listen to 1st Corinthians 3 9 and 10 for we are God's fellow workers you are God's building so there you go that's a straight-out statement that we are a building the church is a building Paul goes on though very famously in 1st Corinthians 3 says by the grace God has given me I laid a foundation as an expert builder and now someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. Having said that, he gives a famous illustration of building with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw.

He's talking about quality of ministry there, primarily. People that come after him, he's urging and charging them to be careful and faithful in how they minister, I think especially in how they handle the doctrine and the Word of God. And so the implication then is that the church is a building that's being constructed with every succeeding generation of ministers who need to be careful, like Paul said, to preach gold, silver, costly stones, to preach solid doctrine so that the church gets built well. We must beware of shoddy workmanship. Secondly, the church is called a dwelling place.

God says over and over that he wants to dwell with his people. In the Song of Moses immediately after the Red Sea Crossing, Moses said this in Exodus 15. You will bring your redeemed people in and plant them on the mountain of your inheritance, the place, oh Lord, you made for your dwelling, the sanctuary, oh Lord, your hands established, and the Lord will reign forever and ever. So the people of God then are a dwelling, a place in which God will live. The temple in the Old Testament then was spoken of as God's dwelling place in their midst.

And it's interesting how the tabernacle, which is the first kind of dwelling place, was just a tent that moved from place to place. The Hebrew word for it is Mishkan, literally dwelling place, and I remember thinking about this expression, you may have heard the Shekinah glory, I had the hardest time finding the Hebrew for it, and I finally was looking and, because it's clearly a Hebrew word, I was trying to find it and then I realized what it is, it's the dwelling glory is what it is. It's the glory cloud that came to display God dwelling in the midst of his people. You know that glory cloud that would descend on the tabernacle, That was the Shekinah glory. It literally is dwelling glory.

So that the people could see with their own eyes that God was dwelling in their midst. It was a symbol of his desire to do so in his people eternally. Same thing happened after Solomon built his temple. Remember the glory cloud came and they couldn't offer the sacrifice, they had to get out because the glory filled the place. It was God saying I am content to dwell in your midst this way.

Well that's what the tabernacle in the temple symbolized but ultimately God was building the church itself to be his dwelling place spiritually And so we don't have a tabernacle now, we don't have a temple now, but rather the people of God are the dwelling place of God. God is dwelling in us. And so it says in 1 Peter 2 5, you also like living stones are being built into a spiritual house. Building material for the church or people as Joel Beekie said we are quarried from Satan's dark kingdom. I put the images together Matthew 16 the gates of Hades will not prove stronger than it and and so that the gates are like defense and we're like storming the gates right They're not moving, they're just right there.

And we're up over the wall, like commando raid, right? Into Satan's dark kingdom. And what are we getting? We're getting living stones out of there for the building up of a dwelling place for God. Isn't that exciting?

I mean, you want an exciting life, right? You want to be part of an action movie. All right, well, that's it. I mean, just go over the walls and go rescue some people so that they can be living stones in this structure that God is building, a dwelling place for himself. And in the consummation of the ages in heaven he will dwell in us among us by his spirit eternally this building project will be over forever and says in Revelation 21 3 I heard a loud voice from the throne saying now the dwelling of God is with men excuse me and God will live with them and so in Ephesians 2 21 and 22 it says in him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.

We already covered this in the religious area, but now it's in the structural area as well. And in him, you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. So God's going to live not just in our midst, but live in us actually by the power of the Spirit. Also, fourthly, under this heading, we are, the church is called a pillar and foundation in 1 Timothy 3.15. God's household, it says, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.

So that's right on your conference booklet there. By the way, I went through and saw in Scott Brown's letter and on the cover how many of the different images I have of my 40 year. And there's like nine or 10 of them there just in the, and they're all over the place. So you have bride, definitely that's in there. But here, right on the back cover, I think it is, or maybe the front even, talks about pillar and ground or pillar and foundation something like that sometimes the translation is bulwark And so the church is both pillar, which is a structural element, but also generally a beautifying one as well.

There are other ways to hold something up, but a pillar is out and obvious and it's got, you know, some kind of a cap on it that makes it look attractive. And so there's a sense that the church holds up the truth in the world. We're here to hold up the truth in the world and to make it beautiful, make it attractive. It's an architectural image. The church is also the foundation of the truth.

Again, it's a sense of immovability. Church is still here. We're still talking about Jesus after two millennia. We're still talking about Jesus being the way, the truth, and the life. We are upholding the truth in the world and we're not going anywhere.

And as we already talked about, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as that chief cornerstone. Fifthly, we have the image of a mountain fortress. So often you have this picture of Mount Zion. Mount Zion cannot be shaken and it's a dwelling place. Generally it becomes really heaven, that heavenly mountain and against the whole land.

Against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests, and its people of the land. And they will fight against you, but will not overcome you. For I am with you and will rescue you, declares the Lord. So that the world, as we stand firm for the truth, is gonna wanna assault us and attack us, but it's not gonna succeed because God is gonna make us strong like Jeremiah, mighty wall that cannot crumble and cannot fall. And so the New Jerusalem has these mighty walls with these gates and all that, and pictures of that.

You wonder about that, you say, well, what enemies are left? Satan's in hell, his demons are in hell, all the unredeemed are in hell. Why the need for these vast walls? Well, it's just giving us a picture. We who are under siege now, we who are under assault, we're heading to a place where all our enemies will be vanquished.

And it's going to be completely secure. So the final architectural image that we have here is of a holy city descending down from heaven to earth. I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband. You know, it's interesting, is the New Jerusalem a city or a bride? Now, which is it?

Well, really, you have to say both. There's the marital image that we already covered, we've got this architectural image, it's the new Jerusalem coming down. And it's a glorious city. And this awesome city is going to be breathtaking in beauty. It will shine with the glory of God.

Its brilliance is going to be like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper clear as crystal. And by the way, everything in the city seems to be transparent. Have you noticed that? Transparent gold. Now, what is that?

I don't even know what that is. It's one of those great mysteries. Kind of like the resurrection body, it's sown a natural body. It's raised a spiritual body. Now Meditate on that with me.

What is a spiritual body? Is it like Jesus' body can go right through walls? I guess, something like that. It's physical and yet in some amazing way spiritual. And so it's an amazing thing, but so also the clarity, and I think it's to allow the glory of Christ to just shine through the city of God, which is the people of God.

And we are just gonna shine like the sun, and it's the glory not generated from ourselves, but it's coming from Christ. And so it's just magnificent. Now, how is this city the church? Well, because the New Jerusalem is the bride of Christ. As it says in Revelation 21, come, I'll show you the bride, the wife of the lamb.

And he carried me away in the spear to a mountain great and high and showed me the holy city Jerusalem. So there it is, there's the bride of Christ. It's a high walled fortress, mountain, city place. And so we go immediately from the marital analogy into that architectural picture. And so it's told in Revelation 21, it had a great high wall with 12 gates and 12 angels at the gates.

And on the gates are written the names of the 12 tribes of Israel. And there are three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south, three on the west. And the wall of the city had 12 foundations, and on them were written the names of the 12 apostles of the Lamb. So there's an intimate connection between the believers and the walls and the foundation of that city. The city is the people of God.

We, the church, are the city of the New Jerusalem. And so we have these beautiful architectural metaphors for the church. They are rich and they are powerful. The church is a building that Christ builds on the foundation of the truth of scripture. As it testifies to Jesus, the church is a pillar and foundation, it's a fortress of Zion, which the world cannot destroy, a new Jerusalem in which God will dwell in the midst and radiate the whole place with the display of his glory.

It's going to meet magnificent, a city in which God will dwell forever. What applications can we take from these kinds of analogies? First, the light and the stability of the church is something Christ is building. The church is a permanent part of God's universe. It's being built by Christ on the foundation of the apostles and prophets is gonna last for all eternity.

I tell you, he doesn't put a stone in the wall and then it falls out later. Once he sets that stone in the wall, it's there for all eternity. Though it is called mysteriously a living stone, yet it is there. And so rejoice in the stability of the church, all this pillar and foundation and walls kind of image. It's beautiful, the stability.

Be a living stone in the wall, okay? Understand your place, you have a place. God has set you where you're to be in the wall and delight in that, that you have a place and that God has chosen that place for you even before the foundation of the world. Immerse yourself in scripture so that you can be what the church is called to be, a pillar and foundation of the truth. Speak the truth to your lost neighbors and friends.

Speak the truth to your growing family. Speak the truth to fellow church members. Encourage other brothers and sisters by the truth. Immerse yourself in the truth of scripture so that you can be that pillar and foundation. Be a pillar in the church.

You know, it talks about those that are reputed to be pillars in Galatians. Well, it's good to be reputed to be a pillar. It's even better to be a pillar, what do you say? I know why Paul uses the word reputed because he's trying to say, look, I got my gospel straight from Jesus. Peter, James and John didn't give it to me.

That's why he says that. But I tell you, we can be a pillar in the house of God, but only as we immerse ourselves in the truth of scripture. So I would urge that you memorize scripture. I really would. I wrote a booklet, and it's on our church's website.

You can download it for free. On how to memorize extended portions of scripture, I would urge that you do that. Memorize a chapter of the Bible. Memorize a whole book of the Bible. Memorize a whole testament, who knows?

I mean, it might take decades, but I mean, just immerse yourself in scripture so that you can be pillar and foundation. And read Revelation 21, just go back and read over it. And just say, Lord, show me the church. Give me a vision for the church in Revelation 21. So many images flowing in from Revelation 21.

It's going to be majestic then. Oh God, make it majestic now. Make the church radiate in my own mind. Help me to see with the vision of faith what it can be. Help me to love, love, love the church in terms of what you want it to be.

And simply put, Let's not spend too much money on like real physical architecture now like buildings I mean, it's amazing how much churches spend on on the building. I As a pastor inherited a building that is built in 1927 All right, it's paid for but no building's ever paid for. You know what I'm saying? I mean, so you're constantly doing renovations and the HVAC system goes out and whatever. And it's like, it's hard to be real purist and say, hey, we don't need heat, okay?

Or we don't need AC. I think we need heat more than we need AC, amen? But there's some things, but I mean, you can always spend more money on the building. And I just think that's a mistake. The real building is the people of God.

And so let's work on the people by spiritual ministry and don't despise that we have bodies and we need a space that's well ordered and lit. That's all fine, But let's not spend too much on that. And instead, let's concentrate on the real building that God is doing. We also have possession metaphors, possession. There's a certain number of passages in which the people of God are spoken of as owned by God, a possession of God, redeemed by the blood of Christ and owned by God.

So we have just simple possession language and I could use a lot of these but Isaiah 43 1 is beautiful passage on this. But now this is what the Lord says, He who created you, oh Jacob, He who formed you, oh Israel, fear not, for I have redeemed you, I have summoned you by name. Now listen to this, you are Mine, says the Lord. Now just meditate on that. You are mine.

That sounds kind of possessive. Well he is very possessive actually. He owns you. You belong to the eternal God. And so he says I have summoned you by name, you are mine.

That's simple possession. But he goes beyond that another passage and says you are my treasure. And so he calls us a treasure. In Exodus 19 five he says, now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all the nations you will be My treasured possession. That's amazing.

My treasured possession. Deuteronomy 7, 6, the Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples of the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. Isaiah 43, 4 says, since you are precious and honored in my sight and because I love you, I will give men in exchange for you and people in exchange for your life. That is a deep verse right there. That really goes to Romans 9 and the vessels of mercy and vessels of wrath, but I'll tell you it's just deep.

He says, you are mine and I love you and you're precious and honored in my sight and I treasure you, That's what he says. We are also, amazingly, God's inheritance. We are God's inheritance. God gets us at the end of the march of redemptive history. That's what he gets.

What did Jesus get by leaving the throne and coming down and humbling himself and going to the cross. You know what he got? He got us. He redeemed us by his blood and he got the honor and glory that goes with doing that. That's an incredible thing.

We are the inheritance of God. The nation of Israel is often spoken of as God's inheritance. Deuteronomy 4 20 it says, but as for you, the Lord took you and brought you out of the iron smelting furnace out of Egypt to be the people of his inheritance as you now are. We are the people of God's inheritance. Deuteronomy 32, 9, it says, for the Lord's portion is his people.

Jacob, his allotted inheritance. That is awesome. We are God's allotted portion. We are His inheritance. So also the nations who had come to faith in Christ are given the same title in Psalm 2 verse 8.

God the Father says to God the Son, ask of me and I'll make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. And so we Gentile believers are Jesus' possession, We are His inheritance. We are also called in another famous passage, the apple of God's eye. It's a bit of an odd expression, but it just means the object of desire. I love to look at you.

And so, you know, A thing of beauty is a joy forever. And you're thinking, are we a thing of beauty? Well maybe not now. But God sees what we will be. And to us, to him, in his eye of, that's separate from time, with a vision of eternity, he sees us as beautiful.

And so we are the apple of his eye. It says in Judeo-onomy 32, 10. In a desert land, the Lord found Jacob in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him. He guarded him as the apple of his eye.

And Zechariah 2.8 picks up on this, whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye. So you don't deal lightly with the church of Jesus Christ because we are the object of his desire. And we are slaves of Christ. We already mentioned that in the household image, but the issue of slavery is that you're owned by someone, right, That we were, that some fee, some price was paid for us. And that's exactly what the Bible teaches.

In 1 Corinthians 6, 19 and 20 it says, you are not your own, you're bought at a price. And so all that bond slave language, or slaves of Christ, that means Jesus bought us and he owns us. And he can do with us whatever he pleases. He can command us. We are not employees of Christ.

You can't walk away from this job. This job will follow you. And so we are slaves of Christ because we're bought at a price. And so Jesus paid that price as you heard beautifully that illustration from Joel Beekie the first night. And so the summary of these possession images.

The church was bought at a price by the blood of Jesus. We are God's own treasured possession. We are God's inheritance. We are the apple of His eye, unspeakably precious and valuable to Him. We are His for He made us and He redeemed us.

And so what applications can we take from this? Well, meditate daily on that statement. I think this is very helpful. Just meditate on this, 1 Corinthians 6, 19, 20. You are not your own, you are bought at a price.

Do you know how often we disagree with that effectively? I mean, I struggle with this every day. I come home, I'm tired, I've had a full day of ministry or whatever, I've done enough. I think I punched out, Lord. I'm not still on the job.

That's just not true. All that I am, every moment of my day, is Jesus' to command. I am not my own. Consider yourself therefore a bond slave of Christ. And concerning self-esteem, there's a lot about self-esteem, you hear about that all the time.

Think of it this way, get your esteem from this. God looks on you as a treasured possession. You are God's inheritance. You're what he gets after all of his toil and labor through redemptive history. And not just you, but a multitude from every tribe and language and people and nation.

Precious and valuable. And therefore love the church because God loves others as his treasured possession as well. And let's cherish them the way God cherishes them. The final cluster of metaphors are display metaphors in which we are called on to display in some way the glory of God in this world. And we will also in the next.

Jesus says in Matthew 5-14, you are the light of the world. Philippians 2-15, it says, do everything without complaining or arguing so that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish, in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world. So we are shining as lights, we are the light of the world. Jesus says, neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl until they put it on its stand and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

We are, Jesus is the light of the world, but we are there called the light of the world. We are also lampstands in Revelation 1 as Jesus goes through the seven lampstands he's going through, and each of those represents, I think, a local church. And so we are putting up, in that case, the light of the world is Jesus, and we're putting him up on a pedestal. We're putting Jesus on display. We are lampstands, golden lampstands.

The mystery of the seven golden lamp stands is this. The seven lamp stands are the seven churches. We are also a city on a hill which cannot be hidden. So I could have put this in the architectural analogy, But I'm just bringing it over here, because it's display, that's the point of it there. We're the light of the world, we're a city on a hill that can't be hidden.

We're out for everyone to see. We are also the salt of the earth, Jesus says. But if the salt loses saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It's no longer good for anything. It's meant to be thrown out and trampled by men.

Salt is a desiccant that stops decay and corruption. And so we are to stand for righteousness in a decaying, corrupting world. So it could be the issue of abortion, pro-life, standing firm for that. We're to stop corruption. And on other issues of truth, we are the salt of the world, salt of the earth.

And so we're also witnesses of Christ, this witness analogy, it's an analogy. It's as though Jesus were on trial and we are being called to testify about him. And we're saying, I testify, he's the son of God. And so we are called on to be witnesses in Acts 1 8 you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem Judea and Samaria and even to the ends of the earth. Hebrews 12 one says we're surrounded by such a great cloud of what?

Of witnesses. And so even that continues even beyond into heaven. We are witnesses of the greatness of God. And then finally we are called to be ambassadors, ambassadors of God. Now this is something that Paul calls himself as an apostle.

He says we are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God himself were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf be reconciled to God. An ambassador is an official envoy coming from one government to the next. And so we're standing in the courtroom of someone's life. And we are begging them on behalf of a king, be reconciled to God.

We're standing as his ambassadors. These display metaphors control our lives. And they call us to a life of active witness to Jesus. A life of testifying to the truth even if it's costly, a life of glorifying glorifying God. Well friends that's what I had.

40, I think 40 different images of the church. I would think if you trace yourself out over these things, you'll have a good idea what the church is. And just how beautiful the church is and what a majestic project the Lord is at work at here. And how much we should love the Church and give ourselves for it as Jesus did. Close with me in prayer please.

Father we thank you for the time we've had to study these seven clusters of images or metaphors for the church. I pray that this truth that's been taught here today would be edifying to us, strengthening to us, enabling us to grow in grace, help us, oh Lord, to embrace these ideas and put them into practice, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. For more messages, articles, and videos on the subject of conforming the Church and the family to the Word of God, and for more information about the National Center for Family Integrated Churches, where you