In his sermon titled 'Beautiful Sociology in the Church,' Scott Brown discusses the concept of a biblical sociology within the church, focusing on the communal life governed by God's commandments. He emphasizes the importance of a church culture where members lose their lives for God by obeying His commandments, fostering unity and love for God and one another. Brown outlines six critical elements for church culture: a deep desire for God, active participation of each member, preserving the unity of the Spirit, fostering a unified body, cultivating a peacemaking environment, and maintaining an intergenerational culture. He stresses the importance of members using their gifts and breaking cliques to create a harmonious community. The sermon also addresses the role of young people in the church, advocating for relationships based on Christian principles and mutual respect. Finally, Brown announces an initiative by the church elders to engage more systematically with church members through house visits, as inspired by the Apostle Paul's practices in Acts 20. This initiative aims to enhance pastoral care and maintain the spiritual health of the congregation.

I'd like to do two things in the coming minutes. I'd like to speak about a biblical sociology of the church, and then secondly I'd like to talk about something that the elders are going to start doing for now till the rest of the year. Now when we talk about a biblical sociology for the church, we're talking about the way that we are together in the church and that encompasses lots of things. Now we just came off a passage of Scripture where there is really a call to die to yourself, a call to hate your life, to Be careful that you don't love your life so that you lose your life, but God wants you to lose your life For his one of the ways that he does that for us And I can't I can't say this without just thinking about how kind God is One of the ways that you lose your life, which is a good thing, is by obeying the commandments of God. The commandments of God take you out of your life into His life, And that's one of the great blessings of the commands of God, is that you're delivered from your ways, you're delivered from your thoughts.

And the Lord creates a people who are continuously losing their lives together as they fellowship with one another in the church. There are commands of God that call us to lose our lives, And then there are situations in life, trials, tribulations, and things like that that cause us to do the same. So that's the idea here. Now, so let's talk about a biblical sociology for the church. And I'm talking about a church life that is governed by the commandments of God.

In other words, a church life where you're not doing your own thing, you're doing God's thing. Now, I'm going to give you six elements of a church culture that are really critical. And the first is this, and this is the most life-giving, the most powerful element of any church culture that you can have, and that is that When you have the people in the church, deep within their hearts, their greatest desire is for God. They come because they want the word of God. They come because they want to do the things that God has commanded them to do.

They want the worship of God. They want the prayers toward God. The single most defining, powerful thing in any church is the hearts of the people, whether it's toward God or whether they're actually looking for something else. When people are looking for anything else, they're gonna get disappointed in the church. It's just the way it is.

It's always been that way. You know, I've been in the church, you know, for over four decades. That's just the way it is. People get their eyes off of God. They get very disappointed with people.

And so that is the most powerful, most pivotal thing. And you know when David said in Psalm 133, behold how good and how pleasant it is for the brethren to dwell together in unity." What kind of unity was that? It was unity in their love for God. Now that has an effect of love toward one another. So the first element is a love for God and His Word.

That is the most powerful shaping element in the life of a church. Here's the second. Participation of each member. And I want to extract this from Ephesians 4.15. But speaking the truth in love, we may grow up in all things into him who is the head, Christ, of whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share causes the growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love." So the second element of a sociology of the church is a people who are working together, who are individually supplying what each can supply.

So to have a church where that's where people are thinking when they walk in, what can I supply? What can I be to my brother? What can I be to my sister? That's the whole idea of many members, but one body. Paul speaks about this in Romans 12, where he talks about using your gifts rather than sitting around, giving rather than waiting around, and things like that.

He says, for we have, for as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function. So we, being many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another, having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us. Let us use them. If prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith, which means whatever somebody gives is really going to end up being in proportion to what God's given them. Or ministry, let us use it in our ministering.

He who teaches in teaching. He who exhorts in exhortation. He who gives with liberality. He who leads with diligence. He who shows mercy with cheerfulness.

So that has to do with every member of the body doing its part. I want everybody in this room to make sure that they know that they have a part whenever we gather together. We're not passive participants. We are active in our ministry. You know, And do you have that in your mind?

Because when you think about the way a church relates, the sociology of the church, if you have people who don't think that way, then you're always going to have people who are on sidelines. And God never really meant that to happen in his church. But each one has been given. Every person in this room who is a Christian has been given gifts. Exercise your gifts in that sense.

Number three, preserving the unity of the Spirit. This is from Ephesians 4.3. This is a critical element. Church members, in order to preserve the culture, a godly, loving culture in a church, they need to actively set themselves to preserving the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. That's why Paul says, I beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with long suffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

So this is a picture of a people who are doing everything they can in a spirit of gentleness and lowliness, long suffering, bearing with one another because people are going to sin against each other, people are going to disappoint one another. So we have to have a culture where people bear with one another in the moment. Number four, a unified people. The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 1 verse 10 talked about the problems of the Corinthian Church and The divisions that were there imagine going to a church like Corinth people were suing each other they they They weren't dealing with sin in the congregation. And there were divisions.

I'm a Paul. I'm a Paul. It was a messed up church. But guess what? Paul didn't say, wow, this is a messed up church.

You need to leave. He didn't say that. He just said, let there be no divisions among you. He says let there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. And then number five, a peacemaking people, people who actually make peace.

Now, one of the things that Proverbs makes it very clear is that there's an element of peacemaking in a church where you don't do anything. One element of peacemaking is not doing anything, particularly not saying anything. And he says, Solomon in Proverbs 26, 20, he says, Where there is no wood, the fire goes out. Where there is no tail bearer, strife ceases. As charcoal is to burning coals and wood to fire, so is a contentious man to kindle strife.

The words of a tale bearer are like tasty trifles. They go down into the inmost body. Fervent lips with a wicked heart are like earthenware covered with silver dross. He who hates disguises it with his lips and lays up deceit within himself when he speaks kindly do not believe him for there are seven abominations in his heart though his hatred is covered by deceit his wickedness will be revealed before the assembly so to be a piece one element of being a peacemaking people is that you don't provide wood. You don't provide wood for the fire.

Peacemaking often involves what you don't do by not saying what you want to say. And so without the wood the fire goes out. Supply wood, the fire will kick up. So if you want to preserve a culture of a church, don't provide wood. Don't do anything.

Number six, an intergenerational culture. Now this is something that is implied all over the Word of God. I don't want to spend the time to try to examine that, But I'd like to just sort of reference Titus 2, which does speak of church life and some of the elements of church life. What you find in Titus 2 is that you have old people and young people in the church and they're reaching out to one another. You have an open society in the church.

It's a wide open society. And ages, you know, should not form the clique or affinity groups should not form the clique. There's really one clique, it's called all of us, and it's all ages, all affinities, all interests, all together like that. And Titus 2 gives sort of a picture of what that looks like. But the church is designed to be an open society where people are befriending one another.

One of the things that's really critical is that when new people come in here that we befriend them. We don't stay with our own people. We go out and do that. I've actually been very thankful for our church. I think our church does that.

Do we do it perfectly? I don't think so. Well, we don't do anything perfectly. But I would just so encourage us to be very careful, particularly when there's a new person, that we're with them. I just, here's personal disclosure.

If there's a new person here, and I see them across the room and they're by themselves I panic and I'll often just leave a conversation to go be with them or I'll grab somebody and say, hey, would you just go meet that guy? I'm in the middle of something or something like that. Well, I'm not saying that's how you should do it, But I do that out of panic because I just so fear somebody being in the church and not being, you know, not being related to and cared for and whatever they need. God sent them here. God Almighty sent them here.

It's important that we avoid a natural tendency that takes place in all churches. Some people call it clickishness, where people just kind of come and they talk to the same people all the time. If you're doing that, break it. We all tend to do that in different ways at different times. I would just so encourage you, if you find yourself doing that, recognize it defeats the kind of culture that's the most helpful in a church.

You know, and I think this also applies to young people as well. You know, one thing I love about our church is that you do have the generations eating together and things like that. I don't think it's wrong for a group of young people to sit at a table together. I just don't think it is. But young people, old people need to be very careful that they don't just gravitate to the same people all the time.

In this church, Reach out, exercise your gifts, you know, don't just hang out with your peer group. That's an order, by the way, for all you young people and you old people as well. You know, it's easy to say to the young people, don't hang out with your peer group when all the adults are doing the exact same thing. Give me a break. It's a bunch of hypocrisy.

I understand that. We all do that, you know. But don't you do it if you're old. You old guys, you young people. Don't you do it either.

Mix it up. You know, go. The older women are supposed to be teaching the younger women and, you know, the older men with the younger men and things like that. We ought to be intentionally mixing it up. So like when we come back here next Sunday, Just say, okay, I'm, you know, I'm going to mix it up.

That's what I encourage you to do. The church is a generational body. Okay, now I want to address young people in particular. Now, my records show that I have not talked about this for seven years, and I'm going to talk about it now. I wish I hadn't just talked about it seven years ago.

And It's really about how young people should relate to each other in a church, because the Bible gives really clear guidelines about what to do. And so I want to go over some of that. You know, how should the young men and the young women treat one another in the church? So if you're not married, that's who I'm talking to. And how should you relate to one another?

Should they act as if one another did not exist? You know, how should they befriend one another? Things like this. Now I want to identify some malfunctions in relationships with younger people in the church of the opposite sex. Okay, are you ready?

I'm going to give you several. Number one, this is a malfunction. This is a relational cultural malfunction among youth in a church. Let's make sure that's not this way number one No relationships where there's an atmosphere in the church where there are no relationships between the young men and the young women. You know, it is true that, you know, friendships can spin out of control and things like that, and people can end up with broken hearts.

But here's the deal. The Bible actually has issued commands for all of this kind of thing. Now, you know, here are a few manifestations of an unhealthy culture. Like, If you see a young man or a young woman talking to each other in the church, don't you dare say, oh, they must be in a relationship. And don't go tell five of your friends, did you see?

She was talking to him. He was smiling. Oh no! The world is coming. No, don't you dare do that.

And you old ladies and old men, don't you dare do the same thing. Don't say, well, if they're in a relationship, you'll know in time. Somebody will tell you when it's your turn to know. But it's incredibly unprofitable to have a culture in a church where it's such a massive big deal when a girl and a guy talks to each other it shouldn't be that way and I'll get to why it shouldn't be that way in just a minute number two another aberration awkward relationships I'm just gonna define an awkward relationship is a relationship where you don't really understand your responsibilities. Number three, flirtatious relationships.

That's bad news when there's a flirtatious spirit. You know, hey, if I see a flirtatious spirit going on with a guy, I'm going after him, or a girl, too, probably. I might talk to their parents first but I might not. Number four, purposeless relationships. These are just where you know nobody has the ability or the desire to have a re a an important conversation it's it's just shallowness, constant shallowness in relationships.

You know, there's a lot to talk about in a church. You know, whenever we gather, there's just been preaching. There are definite directions from the elders of the church on particular matters. Those things should be matters of discussion. But there's nothing worse than boys and girls that have nothing but irrelevancy to discuss.

So that's a malfunction. Purposeless relationships. Okay so what does the scripture say? I want to use two passages of scripture or two books, one in Titus and also in Timothy. And I'm going to read these passages and then I'll want to talk to them, talk about them.

First of all, understanding your role in the church. First Timothy 416, take heed to yourself and to your doctrine. And then he says, let no man despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word. Okay. So, your role is to be an example.

That's your role as a young person in the church. Here is 1st Timothy 5, 1 and 2. Particularly, treat older women as mothers, younger as sisters with all purity. The apostle Paul uses an example here to illustrate how to treat one another than a church. He uses an example from home life.

He says, you know, treat the younger girls like sisters. That's what you should do. Treat them like sisters. With all purity, he says. Now, the treatment of brothers and sisters in the home is often a reflection, is reflected in the treatment of brothers and sisters in the church.

So it's really important that you help your children have good sibling relationships. I just finished writing a chapter about this last week for my book on family life about sibling relationships in the home. It's very important. But one of the reasons it's important is because those kinds of relationships are carried on into the church because the young people in the church need to be treating one another like brothers and sisters, and not like off limits, but brothers and sisters. And then in Titus 2, The apostle speaks about being strategically serious.

He says, likewise, exhort the young men to be sober-minded in all things, showing yourself a pattern of good works, in doctrine, showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility, sound speech that cannot be condemned, that one who is an opponent may be ashamed, having nothing to say of you. So here is a picture of a young person in a church. They're sober, they're self-controlled, they're self-governed. This is, I mean, all of these things destroy ignoring one another, they destroy shunning, they destroy flirting, they destroy a lot of problems among young people in the church if the young men act like that. It fixes a lot of things.

It's a picture of a young man whose mind is saturated with the truth of God and so his conversation is characterized by honor and respect not silliness, not putting one another down, not ungodly teasing and things like that, but rather godliness. Now, I believe one of the most important biblical Directions for young people in the church is found in the one and others. I think sometimes Young people might think of themselves as not part of these one and others, but their relationships together The relationships of Guys and girls together in their youth should be characterized by these things I'm just going to read some of them to you because this is what should define your relationships as young people in the church Be at peace with one another mark 950 Love one another John 13 34 and 35 Be devoted to one another and brotherly love Honor one another above yourselves. Live in harmony. Stop passing judgment on one another.

Accept one another. Instruct one another. Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another. But don't greet one another with a holy kiss. That is one of the one-anothers.

So all of this to say is that there's a way that young people should function in the church and it should be the way that Christians function. So if you want to know how to relate to that person of the opposite sex, here's the answer. Act like a Christian. Just treat them like a Christian. So there you have it.

So all that to just speak to the whole matter of church life. And as I said at the very beginning, the most important controlling factor in this is If we're coming to this church for God, for the Word of God, to pray to God, to be the people of God. I love what David said in Psalm 63 in terms of longing for God he says, Oh God you are my God, early will I seek you. My soul thirsts for you, my flesh longs for you in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water. So I have looked for you in the sanctuary to see your power and your glory that really is the foundation of the entire relational fabric in a church where God is the one supremely desired.

If He's not, then the culture of the church won't be right for you. So okay, now, that's maintaining and sweetening the culture. Now I want to shift gears now. The elders are going to start doing something between now and the end of the year that I want to tell you about. We plan to do something that is pictured in Acts chapter 20.

I'd like you to open your Bibles to Acts chapter 20. It's something that churches have done, that elders have done for many generations. We haven't been doing it systematically. Some of our great heroes of the past have done this systematically. We've been doing it casually, not systematically, but between now and the end of the year we want to be somewhat systematic about it.

You know, a brother asked me the other day, you know, how are you shepherding the church? And you know, there are various ways that we're shepherding the church. One is that we preach the Word of God and we pray that the Holy Spirit moves people. Only God can move his people. We gather together, we look at people in the eye.

Sometimes someone falls into sin and they come to us and we're able to shepherd that way. Sometimes we think maybe we can see that somebody's discouraged and we can ask them and we can shepherd them that way. In many ways though the Holy Spirit is the chief, you know, the Lord Jesus Christ who the Holy Spirit is the chief shepherd of the church. But we put a lot of trust in the preaching of the Word of God. We put a lot of weight on the praying that we do together and the times of fellowship.

We eat 52 meals together a year plus. It's amazing. So we have a lot of touch time in this church. We have other events. In the midst of all those gatherings, you know, we just pray that God would bring forth the things that we need to take action on as shepherds.

But there's another way that the Apostle Paul speaks about in Acts chapter 20, and it's in verse 20, Acts 20. And the Apostle Paul speaks about two elements of his ministry, his public ministry and his private ministry in houses. He says, How I kept back nothing that was helpful, and I proclaimed it to you, and taught you publicly and from house to house. So those are the two means of shepherding that the Apostle Paul provided, or that he was communicating to the elders in the church in Ephesus, which is what he was doing in Acts 20. He had gathered them together on the beach of Miletus, and he was instructing them.

He was telling them about his manner of life. Paul had been in Ephesus for a while, right over where the Carringtons are going, you know, just about a half hour, 45 minutes from from Izmir. Paul was there in the school of Tyrannus and he gathered them together on the beach in Miletus and he's exhorting them and he's telling them about his manner of life and he's commanding them. You know, one of the things he says to them is, therefore take heed to yourselves. In other words, pay attention to your own heart and life and to all the flock.

In other words, take heed to the flock too. See how they're living Among whom the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the Church of God, which he purchased with his own blood. So it's a very serious matter. You have shepherds and sheep. You have overseers and you have those who have been purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ.

You have men who have been appointed by the Holy Spirit of God to be shepherds of God in the church, and as a result they have duties. And so the Apostle Paul, you know, speaking of his manner of life in Ephesus, that he preached publicly and from house to house. So that's the context of this. Now there are various commentators. I'll just, I'm going to just read a couple of phrases out of some of the commentators in this text.

Here's Albert Barnes. Paul's example is a warrant and an implied injunction for family visitation by a pastor. If proper in Ephesus, it is proper still." So there you have it. He also says, Paul did not visit for mere ceremony or for idle gossip or chit chat or to convene on the news of politics of the day. His aim was to show the way of salvation and to teach in private what he taught publicly." Here's another statement by him in this section.

"'How much of this is to be done is of course to be left to the discretion of every minister. So if pastors believe it's a helpful thing, then it can be done, and we feel like it's, that we need to do it. Here's John Gill. As Paul visited the saints in their own houses to know their personal cases and the state of their souls, he instructed them privately and personally one by one. And then Albert Barnes says this, he says, If it is a duty to visit, it is a duty of the people to receive him as becomes an ambassador of Christ.

They should be willing to listen to his instructions. Okay, here's John Calvin. That he did not only teach all men in the congregation, but also everyone privately, as every man's necessity did require. And then here's just a note, finally, in the Westminster Directory of Worship. It is the duty of the minister not only to teach the people committed to his charge in public but privately, and particularly to admonish, exhort, reprove, and comfort them upon all seasonable occasions, so far as his time, strength, and personal safety will permit.

Let me pray. Father, you are so kind to do everything you can that we would lose our lives, lose ourselves, being brought into your great kingdom of love. O Lord, we thank you for the commands. We thank you for the patterns and the principles that are in your word, that you would banish all clickishness, that you would banish all inactivity of the gifts. If there is anyone here, Lord, who has not been exercising their gifts, that you would help them to stir them up to be a blessing to the Church.

Lord, I pray for a Church for very biblically ordered relationships among the young people. I thank you for the young people in our church. I do praise you for them. I'm very thankful for the way they are conducting themselves, and I pray that you would help them to seek wisdom, seek righteous living as they continue to grow up here in this church. I pray that these would be the sweetest days of their lives, being in this church with the fellowship and the prayer and the preaching and all the things that happen here, Lord.

Pray, Lord, that You would mix us up so sweetly, with the older and the younger, the rich, the poor, the wise, the foolish, all of us together as one family, Lord. Thank you for making us a family. Amen.