So, today we have come to our lab once again and we are going to show you what we have done is we have opened up our older version titanium sapphire laser for you and we show you what is inside. I will not be able to show you the laser beam because it is 800 nanometer and if you block it of course, there will be no lasing, but at least you will see what is there inside the laser. Here we have visited the other lab where we have a one box maithai titanium sapphire laser which is essentially a black box. Here we can make the black box a little grayer for us by taking the lid off. Before showing you the laser let us go through the schematics once again. What we have in this laser is first of all we have a pump laser. The pump laser is a diode pumped solid state laser giving 532 nanometer. The laser we have is millenia in principle it can go up to 5 watt of green power. So, this green light comes in hits pump mirror 1 which is a plane mirror goes to pump mirror 2 P2 which is a curve mirror and because of this curve pump mirror it gets focused on to a titanium sapphire rod. What is interesting here is that the pump actually goes through one of the mirrors in the titanium sapphire laser cavity M3. So, this M3 is a dichroic mirror that transmits green light and reflects red light. So, this through mirror pump beam gets focused on to the titanium sapphire rod and then the emerging beam goes through another curve mirror M2 and then it gets dumped. Now, what M2 and M3 do is that they are curved mirrors.  Let us look at M2 titanium sapphire rod is at the focus of M2. So, the fluorescence from the sapphire rod is captured by M2 and is collimated. The collimated fluorescence hits M1 at normal incident and so is made to retrace its path. For a second time it gets focused on the titanium sapphire rod and then it goes to M3. So, why it is focused on the titanium sapphire rod is that it is retracing its cavity and in any case you want this fluorescence light to generate stimulated emission that is why this kind of design of path length is there. Then once again let us not forget that the titanium sapphire rod is at the focal point of M3 as well. So, the fluorescent beam from M3 once again is collimated. It hits a plane mirror M4 gets directed to another plane mirror M5 and then from there it goes into the rest of the cavity. We will come back to this part little later. Let us just ignore it for the moment and let us say that from M5 it goes straight and then it goes to M10 which is the output coupler the partially reflecting mirror through the output coupler we get the laser. After output coupler there is another beam splitter which takes a small part of the beam to a fast photodiode for diagnostic purposes to understand whether it is pulsed what is the repetition rate of the pulse and so on and so forth. And then this is the beam that we finally get that goes to an output Brewster window which ensures that a vertical polarization is maintained. Now let us see what is there inside between M5 and M10. What happens here is that from M5 the parallel beam goes through a prism PR1 on to M6 on to M7 these are all plane mirrors you do not want any more focusing de-focusing to happen there. So only these two are curved mirrors all the rest of the mirrors are plane mirrors. Then from M7 PR2 to PR3 M8 M9 PR4 and then it goes to an acoustic modulator which actually is not really required. As we have studied earlier TICID Titanium Sapphire laser gets modulocked by itself. You do not have to do active modulocking it might help stabilize the operation that is why it is there. But to be honest even if you switch off the acoustic optic modulator once the laser is pulsed there will be no difference. Now why do we have this two prism pairs here there are four prisms. For this I will refer to what we have discussed in the class you might remember that we said within the cavity itself the laser beam gets charged. Red light and blue light have different velocities and so they travel different distances over the same time. And this chirping is going to lead to a broadening of pulse and not only that this pulse will be such that at different times of the pulse you are going to get different colors this is completely unwanted. To eliminate chirp what one does is one introduces these prism pairs which sort of make up for the chirp that is accounted for already. So if there is positive chirp that is already there in the cavity the prisms in introduce negative chirp so that net chirp is zero. So this is what ensures that the pulse width remains 100 femtosecond or whatever it is supposed to be for that particular laser. There is one more advantage in principle you could have accounted for chirp by two mirrors. The reason why we have four mirrors is that if you do it using four mirrors then in this part the beam is completely horizontal however let us not forget that this beam is chirped. So specially it is dispersed in space and chirped in time. So since it is dispersed in space so at the top maybe there is red light at the top at the bottom maybe there is blue light. So what you have here is what is called the tuning slit. So the slit let us say this is the laser beam and each of my fingers represents a different color you put in a slit here and the slit is put in such a way that it cuts the top color and the bottom two. Then this will be the color of the light that gets through. If you move the slit down here then this will be the color of the light that gets through of course let us not forget that when we say that this is the color of the light that will get through we are only talking about the spectral maximum there is always going to be a bandwidth. But this is how TICIFI laser is tuned very conveniently by moving the slit across this particular horizontal beam which is not only chirped in time but also dispersed in space. So that is the design now let us just show you the actual laser itself. This is the pump mirror as we said it is a diode pumped solid state laser the way it works is that under the table we have this diode banks which are pigtailed. Pigtailed means there is an optical fiber that comes out from the end of the diodes themselves and that is what takes the light on to the active medium of the laser that is kept here it is NDELF in our case. NDELF like ND-YAC gives us about 1064 nanometer which is IR light and this is the cavity of the laser. Then what we have is we have an intra cavity second harmonic generation crystal non-linear optical crystal it is inside the cavity itself. So what happens is in every round trip the IR light passes through it and generates green light. The green light comes out through this aperture now since it is a little high energy light we have for the reason of safety kept this green light within this aluminum tubing. But you will be able to see it once we go on to the TICIFI laser. So this is what the action is this is the titanium sapphire laser that gives us 100 femtosecond pulses tunable in principle from 700 nanometer to 950 or 1000 nanometer. In practice in this laser we have never gone beyond say 875 nanometer because once you go beyond 900 nanometer then the moisture in the air starts creating a problem and so you need to keep this entire laser cavity parsed in nitrogen and that too nitrogen would better be dry nitrogen that is too much of a trouble. So you really have not gone beyond 875 nanometer using this laser. Now let us try to look at the parts one by one. You can see this green light coming in that is the pump light well in ideal scenario you should not be able to see the green light you see it because our lab is really not as perfectly clean as we would like it to be there is there are some dust particles whenever this beam is very strong that means dust is too much you should not in a very good lab where you can maintain absolute dust free condition you would not even see the beam because unless something scatters the light it will not reach your eyes. So but here it is a little bit of an advantage so it comes here hits this is mirror this is the first mirror it hits then it goes on to the pump focusing mirror P2 and then it is focused on to this here is the titanium sapphire crystal it gets focused through this mirror M2 and goes through this mirror M3 this is where the residual pump beam is dumped. So the lower mirror this one is actually M2 this is M3 so this is the part that brings the pump laser into the ticep air cavity and pumps the ticep air crystal remember this is where the titanium sapphire crystal is and you might be able to see a little bit of the orange glow that is there from ticep air crystal so that is the fluorescence what happens to the fluorescence this here is one curved mirror M2 and this is the other curved mirror M3 the ticep air crystal is kept at the focal point of both. So M2 captures it sends a collimated beam straight to this is M1 we say M1 because this is the beginning of the cavity and the only controls that you usually do here you see there are controls here if I touch this then the beam position will beam position of the pump will move generally for this laser you do not have to do anything everything is calibrated what we generally touch is these two knobs if we turn this then the P1 mirror the first mirror in the laser cavity will move horizontally if we touch this then it will move vertically you might see the color code green for land horizontal and blue for sky vertical so this is M1 M1 M2 M3 and this these are the pump mirrors then from M3 it goes to M4 from there it comes this side and it is on this side that we have that those prism pairs which we are going to show you now. So we have discussed this part already this is M4 the fourth mirror this here is M5 from M5 where does the light go it goes to the first prism from first prism the light goes here this is M6 the horizontal mirror at the bottom from there it gets reflected vertically up to M7 the seventh mirror from seventh mirror it goes to the second prism this is the third prism and this is the portion where the beam is horizontal spectrally dispersed and chirped in time from the third prism it goes to this mirror here again gets reflected vertically up here and finally goes to the fourth prism from where it goes to the output coupler these are the controls of the output coupler once again blue means vertical these are the controls of the output coupler blue means vertical and green means horizontal by turning these knobs one can play around with the path of the beam but generally we like to play around with only one side so just so that the alignment is not destroyed let us come back to this portion here first prism second prism third prism fourth prism this black thing that you see here in between the two prisms actually contains the slit and this is where by moving this back and forth you can see it's moving that is the slit moving across the spectrally dispersed beam and that is how one selects the modal color and this micrometer gauge what it does is that you can see what happens here look at the look at the prism pairs very carefully you see the prism pairs are getting closer or further apart so what this decides is that I will try that once again if I move it this way the prism pairs get further apart if I move this way the prism pair gets closer together so what this decides is how much of glass your laser light goes through within the cavity and that is what decides the pulse width as well and in order to get the laser pulse all you have to do is you have to just turn this all of a sudden and generally that disturbance is enough to get the laser mode locked so this is what we have seen so far the beam the pump beam comes from here hits the pump mirror here and gets focused onto the tie sapphire crystal here this is mirror 2 this is mirror 3 these two mirrors collect the fluorescence from here it goes to the first mirror m1 then it traces its path from mirror 3 it goes to mirror 4 from mirror 4 it comes to mirror 5 then we have the prism pairs here and the 4 mirrors finally this here is the output coupler and this is the port from which the laser comes out so that's it we have opened up the laser for you and we have shown you the optics inside and I hope now all of us have an understanding of what the light path is inside a typical titanium sapphire laser you might remember that you saw another compact tie sapphire laser earlier there what happens is that in a much smaller space the cavity is folded further and usually those lasers cannot be opened up like what we have done here now the last question how do we know whether our operation of the laser is pulsed or whether it is continuous wave now again going back to our theory classes we know that when it is pulsed there is a broad bandwidth a CW laser can be monochromatic but a pulse laser can never be monochromatic there is always a spectrum with some full width half maximum that will be associated with pulsed operation and we know how to calculate it for pulses of different shapes so what we do here very simply is that we use this kind of a device this is a very simple compact handheld spectrometer what you see here is an optical fiber the optical fiber here captures a part of the laser light scattered by some scatterer placed in its path and this inside contains a grating and an array detector so we get the emission spectrum or we can say we can get the spectrum of the laser and what we do is while playing around with the micrometer that I showed you a few minutes earlier we keep disturbing it until the output of this spectrometer turns from a highly monochromatic one to a little broader spectral one in the laser that I have shown you typically we have a spectral width of about 12 nanometer when the central wavelength is 800 nanometer so that is all for today's module next day we go back to the theory classes and take our discussion further thank you


The electoral process is an ideal and integral part of the democratic process, whether in a developed or a developing nation. A malfunctioning electoral system inadvertently produces mal-administration or bad governance. With the Electoral Act of 2022, which President Mohamed Abouhari finally signed into law this year and its many process-specific provisions, Nigerians expect to have better elections come 2023. However, the ghost of June 12th annulment continues to hang over hopes and expectations. Not necessarily about a possible annulment, but there are indications or plans to ambush the electoral process and cause some of the innovations of the Electoral Act of 2022 to be abandoned. Well, joining us live to discuss this is our Chike Chudehi, he is a public affairs analyst. Thank you so much, Mr. Chudehi, for joining us. Always a pleasure. Great, let's look at this.  Let's start by looking at the questions that are looming, the questions that people are asking about, you know, politicians and those who do not necessarily want the Electoral Act of 2022 to hold sway, looking for ways or avenues to stop the use of beavers in the coming elections.  Yeah, well, it's the nature and character of politicians, especially politicians that we have gotten used to. We know that these politicians are not powered by any artistic purposes. They are not, from my own perspective, you know, they are not patriotic and not committed to the development of the nation state. And that is why they look for every opportunity to sovert, you know, every legal process, electoral process for political gain. And so it will not be untoward that and that's why some of us have to be, all of us have to be extra vigilant because they are always looking for loopholes to exploit. And then if they don't see loopholes, they try to create one so that they could exploit it for, you know, political advantage, you know.  I do not forget that, you know, when he was living, when he had served his second term and was living as a national commissioner, he was quite embittered about the actions of the politicians. And he said that the politicians are the weak link, the major weak link in an electoral process. You know, because they do everything they can to sovert the process.  You know, so this has been the problem. So it will not be untoward for the politicians to do what they have always done. Obviously, a lot of them are not happy with certain provisions of the Electoral Act, especially that that has to do with the use of beaver's machine. And then the transmission, you know, of the electronic transmission of votes as soon as they take place. And they see this scenario as a nightmare scenario, contrary or, you know, to the one that they have been used to, that they have used for about 20 years in this country to sovert the process. And that is the manual, you know, electoral process, which is somewhere along the line is sabotaged and cut short by the deployment of thugs, you know, and all manners of miscreants are to do a way with votes that are already, you know, counted, you know, either for the purpose of stuffing it or just absolutely doing a way with those votes when they are cast in areas where specific political individuals are not popular. So this has been their nature, actually. Judiciary and concerns also, you know, in that direction. Many people have said that the judiciary needs to take on its own sort of a form of activism, being that there's this saying that every policy to be a good politician, you must have somebody on the bench as a friend, meaning that they can be bought off. They can, these judgments can be gotten at any time to favor politicians. And what does that say about, you know, the optimism, the level of optimism we have going into this election as opposed to what these people think they know about the judiciary and how it could play in their favor? Yeah, well, what is to be known about the judiciary is already known. We know that the judiciary is a part of Nigeria, where you talk about a lot of things, a lot of anomalies, a lot of things that have gone wrong in this country. It will be strange to exclude the judiciary, because they are part of the process. I think I remember some years back that it was eminent jurists, jurists, the Karyu Daily Show, you know, and the Afeba Balala talked about at an event, I think in Abuja also, when they were talking about the kind of monies that have been made by justices of the courts due to an election petition tribunals, where you have politicians that are willing to see election as a do or die, you know, struggle and that are willing to spend billions of Naira and to buy cases. You know, and so they say that yes, that some of these judges had actually made become, you know, billionaires overnight. And this is what we have always seen. So obviously in the calculation to manipulate the electoral process or the political process, the judiciary, you know, it's part of the calculation of the politicians that if they fail at a certain stage in the electoral process, they can only seek recourse to the courts. And then the courts, you know, seek recourse to specific judges who might be posted to handle certain cases involving them, knowing that they can always count on the, on the relationship that exists as a result of the financial inducements for the judges to make rulings in a particular, you know, in a particular way. This has gone on in this country for so long. We have seen, you know, the contradictions of a judicial declarations in this country where you have courts of a coordinated jurisdiction in weighing into matters that are, that have already been delivered by courts of the same status, you know, contrary to the spirit of stare decisis, you know, so these are some of the issues. And then the judiciary is negative in this, but that is not to say again that we do not have the brilliant people, people of integrity within the judiciary. We have them. And, you know, we have them. But I think, unfortunately, well, they say that a bad news tends to travel, you know, much faster. And so you have a situation where the very few good ones might be damaging, a cautious damage to others that try to keep their hands clean. And so you cannot exempt, you cannot remove the judiciary from the rough that is happening. And why is it, you know, happening? Even the, some judges in the past have had costs to, you know, be, you know, admonish politicians, you know, and the INEC to act in ways of manners that can show that a vote counts at the polling booths and that it is the votes of the people that determine the outcome of elections and not the declarations by judges, you know, who did not participate in this election as voters, you know, and so that has always been the issue. Votes, you know, winners have to be decided, you know, at the polling booths and not at the courts, you know, but again, when the process, something goes wrong with the process, there is a remedial, you know, a policy more or less that such matters must get to the judiciary for adjudication. So in cases where these things are not settled at the polling units, the only other place rather than to get people to resort to self-help is to take the matter to the judiciary. Will you hold that judiciary will do the right thing? Okay, let's talk about why Nigerians need to be concerned today. There are those of us who pushed for, you know, this amendment of the electoral act and push for certain, you know, adjustments, but then it seems like many people have gone to sleep.  So what kind of level of information do we need to put out? There's also been a call for citizen activism also to hold sway if we must have the kind of elections that we're expecting in 2023. What are CSOs doing? What should political parties be doing? What should the media be doing? Yeah, you see, why it is it to be very good for as many citizens as many voters as possible to have a clearer understanding of the electoral act that puts them in a better position to properly assess the whole gamut of the election itself and to also have an idea where certain things are going wrong. But it is not a given, it's not a must that everybody must equip themselves with that knowledge. I think the knowledge, you know, that the vast majority of citizens should have is the knowledge of their patriotic duties and which is to also to take part in the process, you know, in the registration process and to make sure that they make themselves available on the day of election, you know, to cast their votes and to as much as and as much as is possible to also wait around to see that INEC officials do their own part. You know, because these things have a way, the more people turn up at polling units, the more, you know, miscurrents and political talks are discouraged from invading such places because of the sheer number of the people, you know, that are there. You know, so obviously we had a lot of, we had a major victory, especially civil society activists and campaigners who had worked assiduously to ensure that we had a new electoral act passed by the National Assembly and signed by the President of this country. That has happened, but we know that you cannot go to sleep because somebody has said that the price we have to pay for democracy is eternal vigilance. You know, so we must be ever watchful of our democracy.  We have seen what people have been saying about the use of beavers, the revelations that we had from, I think, COP, the conference of political parties in Nigeria about possible, you know, manipulation in a place like in most states. And I think on Yagocha, a former member of the House of Representatives also talked about that. And then beyond that, again, we have also seen attempts by some people in the media space. We don't know what they are doing is to try to test the waters, telling us about the viability of beavers, you know, in about 40 or 60 percent of the states in this country, making the argument that network, there might be network difficulties in those other places. We all know that the politicians are terrified of beavers because we have been in the field and we have seen how effective beavers, you know, has been. So it is the nightmare of the crooked politician who is not willing to sell himself adequately to the public, you know, to the voting public to convince them about his credibility, you know, and his ability to handle, you know, elected political office properly on their behalf. So what they do is to look for a way to try to get into the background, you know, and so but beyond that is the fact that we are optimistic on the basis of the recent elections that we have had and we have seen the success. We have seen INEC, you know, try to get better at, you know, what they have, what they have done in some cases in the past. We have seen them fail outrightly, but they have been noticeable improvements in the way INEC has conducted, you know, elections in some parts of the country. So we need to continue to engage the process. We need to continue to respond to those people who are just looking for ways not to ensure that INEC does not use the beavers. You cannot give us that, whatever a clinician are giving us an excuse that it is security-based, because if security, for instance, does not allow the use of beavers in many parts of this country, it simply means another massive failure on the part of this government that has failed on so many other areas. And I have made the argument, the president did promise the international community on the floor of the United Nations General Council the very last time, you know, he went, he went there to say goodbye. He said that he was going to ensure that this country would have incredible election. Having in my own estimates, you know, been unable for whatever reason to fulfill the promises he made to Nigerians about addressing the problems of the economy, the problem of insecurity and corruption in this country. The president has a unique opportunity to get it right, you know, with regards to this election and to do what his predecessor had done, organize an election that removed him from power. And that is why Jonathan continues to be a very popular president, not just in Nigeria, but in the continent of West Africa, I mean, in the sub-region West Africa, the continent of Africa. We are not necessarily saying that the president must do the same thing, organize an election that will remove you and your political party from power. We are saying organize an election that is seen to be credible, transparent, accountable, free and fair. And when he has done that, regardless of his many other failures, you know, in other, I mean, in his, in the responsibilities or the promises that he made to the Nigerian people, people are going to remember him for an election that was well conducted. So that is what we have to keep on reminding them, that elections have held even in security, you know, in security-prone areas in this country. Virtually many parts of the country have had an election. So there should not be any excuse for an election not to be held in many parts of this country. If that happens, it will be one more failure of President Mohammad one more failure of his party, the all-progressive Congress, the APC. On that note, we want to say thank you. Chike Ture is a public affairs analyst. Like I said, to my other guest, we'll all be seeing our Hail Marys and hoping for the best. Thank you so much for being here. It's a pleasure. Thank you. All right. And thank you all for joining us. That's the show tonight. But don't forget, you can watch a replay on our YouTube channel. It's Plus TV Africa, our Plus TV Africa lifestyle. And don't forget to click, like and subscribe. You can get more stories on our website at PlusTVAfrica.com. My name is Mary Annakul. And don't forget to get your PVC because it is your passport to the new Nigeria that you deserve. But before I go, I would like to give you my take. Here's my take. Now, in a globalized world where countries are linked diplomatically and economically, it's hard for a nation to hide its struggles and triumphs. As much as we might wish that we could leave our lives without being beholden to societal eyes, the perception others have of us affects our lives. So when we consider the impact that our problems as a nation has on us, we should remember that the world is always watching. Now, Nigeria currently faces trillions of naira in debt with no visible way of paying that down. And we continue to incur more of these with no end in sight. As our leaders continue to borrow just to pay off our bills, it's like taking loan from a bank with 5% interest rate, knowing that we chip away at the perception that we are a viable investment. Ultimately, that eroded perception affects the value of our currency. And when that loan comes due, we ask a different bank for a loan with double the interest rate that just to pay off the other bank loan, even pyramid schemes have a greater rate of success than the model that we are employing in this country. If our leaders were CEOs of a company that had failed to generate any profit for decades, we as the board members would have to consider filing for bankruptcy and shutting it all down. And maybe that's just what our generous creditors are hoping for so that they can buy us up in pisses or for cobblers instead of naira. And we as Nigerians must fight that. I am Mary Annacom. Have a good night.


So it's friend day and we're going to Consider the theme of the glory of a true church throughout the morning and the call to worship the call to repentance during the Sermon and parts of this afternoon That will be the the theme that we'll be talking about and in that We'll be looking at a lot at the book of Colossians Which Sometimes is described as one of the most Christ-centered books of the Bible There is a handout Tina made copies I'm not sure where they are, but if someone could find them and hand them out that would be good I know she was making copies earlier So in the essentials class Most of you have been through it, but some of you may not have or maybe it was a long time ago we look at essentials of the faith We cover things topics the gospel conversion Counting the cost Discipleship assurance of salvation sanctification and and and so in the Course of The classes church membership is one of the topics and so we're going to look at that today If you haven't been through essentials you should if it's been a long time Maybe you should think of we have some folks in the church. You've been here a long time. We're going back through it But it's an amazing blessing To be in a church that will you know For people who are Either new in the faith or who have come from other churches that weren't good It's good to just get Grounded in the basics and I know that when I first started coming to church not not here, but in the 90s And just went years without even understanding the gospel I Had arrived at sort of an intellectual understanding of Who Christ is and You know had a sense that as long as I Didn't disagree with that that well, I must be a Christian and I should join the church So it would have been helpful to have have a class like this and so I'm grateful that we have it here I Want to just start by reading this passage and in Colossians in chapter one Christ is the glory of a true church and In Colossians one we see Particularly in verse 18, but I'll read 15 through 20 That Christ is is the head of the church. He's the head of this church So let's just look at that verse chapter one Colossians 1 15 He is the image of the invisible God the firstborn of all creation For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth Visible and invisible whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities All things were created through him and for him and He is before all things and in him all things hold together and he is the head of the body the church He is the beginning the firstborn from the dead that in everything he might be preeminent For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and Through him to reconcile to himself all things Whether on earth or in heaven Making peace by the blood of his cross, you know, you could preach for years on just that but I wanted to start with just you know pointing you to the fact that Christ is the head of this church. He is the glory of a true church and If we keep the right view of Christ, then we will avoid all kinds of error That threatened to encroach the church and There is a lot of error when it comes to What is a biblical and correct view of church membership? So let's start with the definition of a church membership and This is drawn from some of the passages that we'll be looking at today I The handout that that you're getting is a lesson that Brother Dinger put together here. He is so I called him this morning and I said what yeah Where do we attribute this this membership definition and It's actually one that he put together But so let's look at it Church membership is a visible expression of one's union with Christ and his bride Whereby a professing follower of Jesus Christ formally commits to join serve support and Submit to one local assembly and its leadership laboring to obey God's will for the edification of the body of Christ and the salvation of the lost to the glory of God I'm gonna repeat that And and and we will see The truth of that as we go through this lesson today, but Church membership is a visible expression of one's union with Christ and his bride whereby a professing follower of Christ formally commits to Join serve support and submit to one local assembly and its leadership laboring to obey God's will for the edification of the body of Christ and the salvation of the lost to the glory of God There's a lot there and it is Counter-cultural, right? I mean churches or what pass for churches today Well, they start with a different gospel and so they end up with you know a different idea of what church is In churches that I have been in before one of the things that people prized about the church that Was that they could remain anonymous? That no one would get in their business that you know, no one would Know whether they had come or whether they had gone and That's it's a sad thing when when you know, that's that's what is prized about a church You know, frankly, that's how first Baptist Orlando is which is where I came from 11 years ago praise God It's a church of 14,000 That Starts with the wrong gospel and and so they The wrong gospel, you know carries out and influences everything else they do We start with the right gospel the true gospel Then the church has a completely different Meaning and importance to you For the unconverted The this definition this idea of church is foolishness But for those who Have been set apart by God Who you know are among the few in in the history of All of the world and of the billions of people who have lived over the centuries to know that God has set his love on you and Orchestrated every detail of your life so that at The time that he appointed You would hear the gospel Understand the gospel Respond properly to the gospel in repentance and faith Be saved from your enslavement to sin Saved from the eternal torment that you deserve and To be come To to possess the the righteousness of Christ without which you have no place in heaven To receive the promise of Fulness of joy and pleasures forevermore I mean if that is if that is your experience in salvation Then everything changes, right?  Okay, everything changes and your desires change your Emotions change your will changes and You want To be with the people of God and you want to worship God and you want to know God Because you've been born again in our Weekly Bible study And which I hope everyone's you know trying to make time for either Tuesday or Wednesday nights Jeffrey Johnson Says in the book is the church why bother and it just you know Was a Happy thing that this week's lesson happened to be on on church membership, but he said Scripture teaches that when believers are united to Christ by the new birth they are also mutually United together into one body This union is not merely symbolic or hypothetical, but is purposeful and Productivity and functioning of every Christian Christians are interwoven together in such a fashion That they cannot properly function apart from one another And You know you if you're genuinely converted you you you can't Be apart from from the body of Christ for a long time without feeling like you know things are just not right You need you need the other parts of the body for you to function properly and That's exactly what we read in 1st Corinthians 12 So turn to that please 1st Corinthians 12 12 Where this metaphor of the body is Explained to us by Paul and It's It's worth reading The whole passage 12 through 26 So 1st Corinthians 12 12 for as the body is one and has many members But all the members of that one body being many are one body So also is Christ For by one spirit We were all baptized into one body whether Jews or Greeks whether slaves or free and Have all been made to drink into one spirit for in fact the body is not one member But many if the foot should say because I am not a hand I am not of the body. Is it therefore not of the body if the ear should say Because I am not an eye. I am not of the body. Is it therefore not of the body if the whole body were an eye Where would be the hearing if the whole were hearing where would be the smelling? But now God has set the members each one of them in the body just as he pleased and If they were all one member, where would the body be? But now indeed there are many members yet one body and the eye cannot say to the hand I have no need of you nor again the head to the feet. I have no need of you No much rather those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary and those members of the body Which we think to be less honorable on these we bestow greater honor and Our unpresentable parts have greater modesty, but our presentable parts have no need But God composed the body having given greater honor to that part Which lacks it that there should be no schism in the body But that the members should have the same care for one another and if one member suffers all the members suffer with it Or if one member is honored all the members rejoice with it That's a just a beautiful and and remarkable Description of the interdependence that we have as Christians Among each other And There are several metaphors that we see in the Bible for the church The body certainly is one that Helps us to understand you know how we're to interact with each other. I know that over the years and being in small group which I Guess here you're doing it here in the church Tuesdays and Thursdays or Wednesdays on the west side over the years We've done it in homes We're going back to homes starting next week, but You know there have been people who have have come and gone over the years and have been consistent for a time and then been you know disappeared and You know When I was trying to exhort them to You know to be sure that they were there to be part of that Meeting together during the week. I would always go to this passage Because the I cannot say to the hand I have no need of you You cannot function properly as a Christian apart from being Connected to the body of Christ so we do that I mean we come here on Sunday mornings and we You know listen to the preaching and we sing praises to the Lord and we give as a form of worship and we do all of those things together and it's good and and It's just another way in which we can be amazed at the wisdom of God in establishing his church but in that time we don't often have the time to Talk to each other to find out what Is going on in each other's lives How I can be praying for someone Sorry, I've got cotton mouth It's probably because I'm nervous So in this church the philosophy the way that we try to live these things out and Then it's you know, it's done differently in different churches, but in our church this The way that that we have have set about trying to obey the Scripture in terms of what is the church? So how is it supposed to function? We do that You know small groups are a big part of what we do But we take our our Instruction from scripture and I want to take just a second to look at Acts chapter 2 Thank you chapter 2 Versus 40 and Following so acts is the history of The church or the the foundation of the church The first church and it says in Acts 2 40 and with many other words He bore witness and continued to exhort them Saying save yourselves from this crooked generation So those who received his word were baptized and they were and there were added That day about 3,000 souls and They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship to the breaking of bread and the prayers and All came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles and all who believed were together and had all things in Common and they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need and Day by day attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes They received their food with glad and generous hearts praising God and having favor with all the people and The Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved So does that sound like cornerstone to you It praise God it is what happens here, you know, we have fellowship together we have meals together We study the word of God together. We pray together I had been in church for 12 years, I think it was yeah before I came here and I had never gotten together with just a group of men to pray and it was just a joy and Privilege and a blessing to you know be part of a church where That happens it doesn't happen everywhere But we see in in this Passage this identifiable people this group of people Who you know if you go back to the definition that we started with formally commit To join serve support and submit to one local assembly So, you know from this point on they are Apostles and and and the other Disciples are going about fulfilling the Great Commission this is What they're doing and what an amazing start right 3000 converts Be amazing to see that happen again So but so the Great Commission is something that we have to look at in terms of you know what What it says about church what it says about church membership So turn with me to Matthew 28 18 through 20 Says and Jesus came and spoke to them saying all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit Teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you and Low I am with you always even to the end of the age So in fulfilling that Great Commission You have to have a church you can't do it apart from a church And committed members, so you're gonna go and make disciples. How are you gonna do that? Intentional van evangelism corporate evangelism You know The open-air preaching at Crane's roost Missions to Guatemala You know these things don't happen Well, the right way for them to happen is within the structure of a church It says baptizing them That's there that is that when you are baptized you are baptized into a local body that is you know how you Publicly profess your commitment and and become part of in this church or baptized into the membership of this church So, you know, we we do the evangelism We do some of the disikling, you know, if it's if there's an opportunity Bring them into the church When I first started evangelizing years ago in a in a different church There was the idea that We didn't want to say that we wanted to present the gospel to the people but we didn't want them to think we were just recruiting You know people to our church Well, that's bad thinking I mean I'm recruiting people to this church You know when I preach the gospel I want them to come here and be discipled Because here they'll be properly taught and they will learn to obey all the things that God has commanded So I'm not ashamed to say, you know come to cornerstone But there's so there's a process, you know that We have for members to come in part of it is going through the essentials class and understanding what we believe So that they know that what, you know, what they're joining and so that By the time they join they have a clear understanding that they're they're not coming here to change us They're coming here to join us and submit to the leadership of this church And then teaching them to obey All that I have commanded you is Is you know, that's what we're doing in this church We Have the small groups, which is you know a part of discipleship I mean certainly the preaching is part of the discipleship the essentials class is part of the discipleship there are there's a lot of one-on-one discipleship and And There's also within that context, you know, we do accountability which You know some people bristle a little at the idea of accountability, but it's It's interesting because we're gonna look next at Matthew 18 and and How You know that process of discipline helps us to learn to obey all the things that have been commanded by God But so there is accountability we are exhorting each other to Practice the spiritual disciplines that are means of grace for us And so we check in with each other. Are you reading your Bible? You know, I mean a sure sign that you know, someone is not converted is that they have The they have no desire to know God by reading his word You know, how's your prayer life You know, if you're not praying You're not having communion with God you have Direct access to the holy of holies, which just blows my mind every time I think about it, but To not think that that's worth stopping and Vailing yourself of that and just an incredible privilege Are you evangelizing? Yeah, this is another thing about accountability that we talk about in small groups and You know again, it's it's teaching them to obey all the things. I've commanded you the Great Commission is Make disciples it starts with evangelism if you know, do you not have a desire to preach the gospel to people? Are you doing it? Do you want to learn? I mean these are all things that we talk about in small group and It's you know the mark of a Christian I mean if the pattern of your life is that you don't evangelize then you really need to examine yourself you don't Understand the gospel So there's there's you know the Everything that we do here is designed to teach The people in this church how to obey all the things that God has commanded You know apart from a church, you can't do that apart from your commitment to be here. You can't do that and You know he says In the end of this I am with you always You know what we're teaching here is dependence on the Lord You can't do all of these things in your own strength. You can't just sort of fake it Although people try you know repentance impossible apart from the spirit of God working in you Even evangelism, you know, I mean You can you can force yourself out there And you can go through the motions, but If you want God to bless what you're doing you need to do it prayerfully You know Not relying on your own strength, but relying on the spirit of God to work through you So the Great Commission is worked out in the church Which You know, I praise God we're here in a church where this actually happens I want I want to refer back again to to Jeff Johnson's book if you don't have it I mean, I think there's copies out here, but on page 110 you know, he elaborates on how we are to interact with one another in the church and these are responsibilities of church membership that You don't see in in a mega church usually or you know, sometimes it's even a small church They don't just that don't understand that the the responsibility that we have to each other to exhort each other and Encourage each other and love each other And I'm just gonna read briefly through this on page 110 He's got several sections he talks about the response our responsibilities toward God Responsibilities toward one another responsibilities toward the elders Responsibilities toward unbelievers, but I want to look specifically now at the responsibilities toward one another Does everybody have this book are you reading this book? Good Responsibilities toward one another We're to be active in loving one another I'm not gonna read all of these Scripture references that he has here, but I encourage you to do that active and accountability And in that submitting to one another Edifying one another exhorting one another Admonishing one another And if necessary following through with church discipline Responsibilities include being active and fellow shipping with one another Caring for one another Attending the assemblies of the church with one another and supporting the work of the ministry So You know look at your life look at yourself look at how you're interacting with the church and You know are you are you obeying These commands of Scripture to do these things You know sometimes You know a new Christian comes in and is just all fired up and yeah, you know we're gonna do all these things And they do and then over time You sort of lose some of that initial zeal and so I here to exhort you to Not do that You know your growth and maturity Is at stake, but so is the growth and maturity of the other people in this church to whom you have a responsibility A couple of weeks ago when we were reading the chapter on worship I It was really it was it was awesome I just I learned a lot as we as we went through that chapter, but one of the things about worship That I hadn't really thought about Until I read this this book was that we come in to sing and worship in the in the context of singing Praises to God right so that is one way in which we worship there's something real special about that because we know that right now in Heaven There are real people singing real songs to our real God and when we worship God here in this church we are joining that heavenly choir and Just amazing right But there's something else that we're doing and that is edifying each other in song so You'll you may have noticed in the last few months at least one of the songs that we sing on Sunday mornings They've toned down the music Quite a bit so that you really all you can hear are the voices of the people here singing and That is an encouragement To hear you know our fellow believers here in this church singing praises to God and It should cause you to Worship in song more robustly than perhaps you normally do You're you're edifying each other when you're singing Did you think of that? So that's what we're that mean that that's part of what we're doing all the time in church I mean, that's what these one another's are about We are here to you know Help each other get through The challenges of this life focusing on Christ our Savior and Exorting each other so that we might persevere to the end and get to heaven. I mean We have that responsibility to each other And so that that kind of brings us to I wanted to point your attention to the 1689 Which I was it was you know as I was thinking about this class and thinking about church and You know the biblical Mandate for for being a member of a local church I looked at section 26 which is on the church and I was Surprised to be honest that When you read section 26 and Chapter 5 I'll read it to you if you don't have this I think there's someone the shelf you really ought to ought to read the confession This is sort of a synthesis of you know our understanding of What the Bible says about how we should live and and the doctrines that it teaches Chapter 5 says in the exercise of the authority which has been entrusted to him The Lord Jesus calls to himself from out of the world through the ministry of his word by his spirit Those who are given to him by his father So that they may walk before him and all the ways of obedience which he prescribes to them in his word Those who are thus called he commands to walk together in particular societies or churches For their mutual edification and for the due performance of that public worship which he requires of them in the world So if you if you read this and I know many of you are familiar with it the proof text for this passage is Matthew 18 15 through 20 Which is the one that we all know is is about church discipline It helps me to understand As I considered The fact that you know, that's that's the text in which they're supporting the idea that that you know, we are Responsible and commanded to walk together in particular churches Comes from the the text on church discipline Why? I'm gonna there's a there's an exposition of this Confession of that Sam Walden wrote it's a modern exposition of the 1689 well first. Let me read just 15 through 17 it says Moreover if your brother sins against you go and tell him his fault between you and him alone if he hears you You have gained your brother But if he will not hear Take with you one or two more that by the mouth of two or three witnesses Every word may be established and if he refuses to hear them tell it to the church But if he refuses even to hear the church let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector As a proof text for why you should be in church. This is this is what the exposition of the 1689 says This precept people walking together in churches creates the structure or context in which the Great Commission is carried out Jesus desires that his disciples be taught to observe all that he commanded How shall this be accomplished by the creation of local churches with local teacher elders? Jesus commands such churches in this passage if Jesus commands that Offenses be brought to the church and commands the church to rebuke such offenses and ultimately to exclude the impenitent Then necessarily he commands the existence of such local churches the stated purpose of the church in this passage is to teach an airing member one of Christ's commands by calling him to repentance and if necessary by its disciplinary action So again here. We we have a responsibility to one another And it is not You are not fulfilling that responsibility if you do not Speak to a brother who is either in sin or has sinned against you And you know for the most part that doesn't happen in churches I mean you know, it's everything from You know, you shouldn't judge me and Don't get in my business and you know all kinds of things are said But the loving thing to do is to go to your brother and to you know, call him to repent from sin And this is how one of the ways in which We are taught To obey all of the things that That God has commanded us to do, you know, I hadn't my mindset about discipline is You know hasn't been so much that it is just a part of the way we're to operate the way we're to function the way We're to interact You know, usually when you think of church discipline, it's some monstrous horrible thing that But part of the wisdom is is dealing with things before they become monstrous and horrible What I read Calvin's commentary on this passage And it was really helpful and I would encourage all of you to to look at it because And I'm not gonna read the whole thing here. By the way, you can get all of Calvin's commentary for three dollars and ninety nine cents in the play store Which just boggles my mind too, but so Calvin's commentary on this section is Helpful and understanding just the delicate nature of this process of Holding each other accountable and of Rebuke each other when it's necessary He gives a Just a nice Description of the wisdom of God and how he's laid out these steps and the you know, it's a step at step step there There's you know, it's a process and You know, what he's saying in effect is we need to speak the truth and love to each other in that process We can all learn from each other how to obey all the things that God has commanded us Part of that process and and this is another thing that Well a church discipline in general, you know, just it isn't practiced you you know The the general perception is it's just a mean-spirited hateful thing to do And you know, why would you well you would because God said to But he also says that you know part of church membership is you when you come into a church you are submitting yourself to its leadership and There's you know clear instruction on that If you look at Hebrews 13 7 and in Hebrews 13 17 It says remember your leaders those who spoke to you the word of God consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith and In 17 he says obey your leaders and submit to them for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will give an account Let them do this with joy and not with groaning for that would be of no advantage to you you know, we are rebels by nature and You know when somebody says so you submit, you know It's it doesn't come naturally to you but it is In a way, you know, you need to practice submission as a way of learning to submit to the Lord And and you know that doesn't mean submitting to abusive unreasonable sometimes unconverted leaders Where we're talking about doing this in the context of a real church and so there's instruction to the leaders And first Peter 5 1 through 5 he says So I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ As well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed Shepherd the flock of God that is among you exercising oversight not under compulsion But willingly as God would have you not for shameful gain But eagerly not domineering over those in your charge But being examples to the flock and when the chief shepherd appears you will receive the unfading crown of glory So, you know all of these things inform, you know, what what church membership involves and it's a very different thing than Just church attendance We're glad that people come and attend our church We want them to become members of our church so that they can understand What they're how they're to live as Christians you You're just hard-pressed to to do that and The way that God meant for us to Love each other and to love him outside of a church in the last two Sections here from Romans and we see the instruction of You know, how we're to live how we're to live together love each other Exercising, you know our spiritual gifts with each other I'll just look at Romans 12 verses 9 through 16 Let love be genuine Abhor what is evil whole fast to what is good love one another with Brotherly affection out do one another in showing honor Do not be slothful in zeal be fervent in spirit serve the Lord Rejoice in hope be patient in tribulation be constant in prayer Contribute to the needs of the Saints and seek to show hospitality Bless those who persecute you bless and do not curse them Rejoice with those who rejoice weep with those who weep live in harmony with one another Do not be haughty but associate with the lowly never be wise in your own sight So I hope that it's helpful to you and I hope that it Causes you to be more grateful to God For having established this church and brought you to it So let's pray Father in heaven, we are grateful for your kindness toward us in so many ways and Just we are amazed it at your wisdom and how you've Done just what we need in establishing your church and given us clear instruction on how to Order it and how to glorify you through it We just pray your blessing on the rest of our time this morning in Jesus name. Amen