This morning is both exciting (and a bit daunting) as we look forward to a new corporate study. I briefly mentioned last week that I was leaning toward a particular book, and I wanted to share some about how I arrived at this point and why we need this.

I've been thinking and praying and talking with others about this for a while. This choice wasn't something default or mechanical; there is no assigned curriculum. The following are some of the questions I worked through that peel off the layers to my choice.

What type of study should we do? From a general perspective, there are many benefits to a book study, that is, a line upon line (cf. Isaiah 28:10) meditation. Preaching through a book of the Bible isn't the only acceptable style. I hope so, since I haven't preached a truly expository sermon so far at Trinity. Yet sequential study and sermons make it hard(er) to miss the context of any given statement, and context is key to proper understanding. Besides, God wrote His Word the way He did on purpose (as did the human authors). The flow of an argument helps to make the argument; repetition aims to make us think about something again; the amount of detail included (or omitted) forms our thinking.

I may say something in a letter that could be separated from the letter and still be understandable, but isolated from its original context it may not be as comprehendible or significant. Someone who really understands a complete book may be better able to speak accurately about a part of it, but that assumes having worked through the whole at some point.

I love working through entire books of the Bible, not only because it makes choosing next week's sermon text easier, but also because the work builds on and informs itself as the study continues. There is a very important place for other kinds of messages, but most of our diet at Trinity will probably be line upon line through books of the Bible.

So, should it be an Old Testament or New Testament book? The answer is, Yes. Nevertheless, we can only take one step at a time. I'm eager for more OT study. It took me the greater part of three years to stumble through Ecclesiastes and, though I didn't always enjoy the process, it radically altered my understanding of wise living under the sun. For the past few years I've been in Genesis and, likewise, am not the same image-bearer as when I started. The NT authors lived on the OT, and it's a shame we don't spend more time in it.

Of course, the NT has some good stuff, too. I'm excited to get my Greek on again; work some line diagrams. We are a NT church, so let's take our first expository step in the NT and then we'll take some breaks every so often on Sunday mornings and throw some OT in on various Sunday evenings as well.

So, which NT book should it be? I've taught through a few epistles before and, no doubt, an apostolic letter would edify us well. But I'm intrigued by the gospels. I've never studied a gospel before; I've read them multiple times and studied various passages within them, but never studied an entire gospel.

The gospels are their own unique kind of book, their own genre. They aren't only narrative or history, but they do tell an historically accurate story. They include much of Jesus' teaching, but they aren't only propositions and arguments (like, say, Romans). The most defining feature of a gospel is that it focuses on Jesus, but each gospel is more than mere biography. They are like long gospel tracts intended to provoke belief in Jesus as God's Son, as the promised Messiah, as Lord and Savior.

"God gave us what we know about Jesus' earthly ministry in this way" (Stuart and Fee, 128). I'm more ready to try a gospel after Genesis narrative, and looking forward to the challenge of being faithful to the gospel genre and the gospel content.

I always appreciate the genuine affections John MacArthur expresses when talking about the many years he's spent with Jesus in the gospels; preaching for multiple years through each of them and then writing commentaries later. In some sense, all of the Bible, let alone the NT, is about Jesus, but there is something special and intentional about Jesus in the gospels.

So, which gospel should it be? Obviously, there are four of them: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The choice between them wasn't particularly hard for me. All of them have a place, they all have a unique perspective or emphasis that forms our understanding about Jesus. That said, the first three have the most overlap, usually called the Synoptic Gospels, meaning that they present more of a common view, they "see"" (optic) "together" (sun). Matthew is first because, regardless of what liberal, evolution-steeped "scholars' maintain, Mark and Luke had Matthew's gospel and used it when writing theirs.

John does his own thing; he wrote his own gospel. That fact alone draws me to John. Many key events in Jesus' life are not included in the fourth gospel: no genealogy, no birth story, no temptation account, no transfiguration, etc. For that matter, there is no reference to the Sermon on the Mount, no disciples' prayer, no Olivet Discourse, or even one parable. Yet some of my personal favorites are in John, including the Bread of Life (chapter 6), the Good Shepherd (ch. 10), the True Vine (ch. 15), and the high priestly prayer (ch. 177). I'm sure there are some of your favorites, too.

And that's a CHALLENGE, because let's be honest, we know Jesus, we know the gospel, and we know the gospel according to John. Sure, we can spend time rehearsing the truth, retelling the old stories. Who would say, out loud, that we shouldn't spend more time with Jesus? But is this this the best use of our time?

Maybe not, but here are some compelling reasons that I think the challenge of covering old material in the gospel of John is worth it.

I'm referring to the human author because the other 65 books have the same divine Author and His deity is credential enough. Even on the human level, a case could be made for paying attention to any of them. Let me make the case for John anyway.

In the middle of the second century, book-bound (sewn or glued) copies of four gospels were created and circulated, known as 'The Gospel.' They were divided by Kata ..., "According to ...." to distinguish the authors. Imagine if such a volume was produced today along with a book jacket that included short bios of all four contributors. John's list is unlike, and in may ways is more impressive than, the others.

John was a son of Zebedee, brother of James, the other "son of thunder" (Mark 3:17). That means John was an Israelite with understanding of the Jewish Scripture and traditions.

More than that, John was a disciple of Jesus, one of the original 12 followers (Luke 6:12-16), and one of Christ's apostles who represented Christ after His ascension.

That means John was an eye-witness. He refers to his first hand witness in John 19:35 and 21:24, and also in 1 John 1:1-4. He describes what he saw for himself. He heard both Jesus' public and private discourses. While association with a disciple is good and reliable, John's testimony came from being up close and personal.

In fact, it was very personal to John. John, along with Peter and James, is always included in the "three"; the inner circle of men went more places with Jesus than the other nine. More than that, the typical way John refers to himself is as the "disciple whom Jesus loved" (five times: 13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7, 20). John was a follower and a friend, a close one.

After Jesus ascended John had such a major role in the Jerusalem church that Paul referred to him as one of the "pillars" (Galatians 2:9). John was actively engaged in the development of the church from its inception.

And later, John's bold witness for Christ got him exiled on the island of Patmos.

Putting all of that together into an author's blurb, we might read something like this:

This "son of thunder" provides an eye-witness account of the Lord's life and ministry from an insider's perspective. With the authority of an apostle and the intimacy of a beloved friend, John writes this gospel as a faithful pastor and pillar in the First Christian Church. His other inspired books include First, Second, and Third John as well as The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ.

My point is, John's credentials make his book worth the re-read.

The fact that this gospel was written and published at all is significant. Today, if a person hopes to have something published, they typically need to send a query letter to a potential publisher. A query letter should include knowledge of other works on the subject and what gap the proposed book would fill. John fills an important gap.

Matthew was perhaps written as early as AD 50, Mark sometime in the 50s, and Luke around 60. John wrote last around AD 85. Not only does that put John long after the other gospels, it means John was also composed after most of the New Testament. Only the epistles of John and Revelation were written after the gospel of John.

The church was well on her way by this point and she, along with John himself, already had three gospel accounts and teaching by James, Peter, and Paul. Why another gospel?

Since John leaves out a number of things recorded in the Synoptics and adds material they don't, it's reasonable to suppose that John's gospel intends to supplement the others. By some estimations, 92% of John is unique to John. But, if he only meant to supplement, why not say that? Why create his own gospel rather than write a gospel addendum? He knew how to write letters. Why not include Jesus' teaching in more of a systematic treatment?

D.A. Carson said,

John gives his own witness. Years of preaching to Jews, both in Palestine and in the diaspora, had given him some ideas about how it should be done. Here he puts his ideas on paper; the result is the Gospel of John. (93)

In addition to some supplemental material and adding his own eye-witness perspective, I think John was eager to provide the church community with another Great Commission resource. Writing some 50 years after Jesus' ascension, John was a seasoned ministry veteran. As he neared the end of his life, no doubt he desired to record his own thoughts. But more than that, he wanted to proclaim Jesus after he was gone.

Merrill Tenney said,

This Gospel was probably written at a time when the church was composed of second-and third-generation Christians who needed more detailed instruction about Jesus and new defenses for the apologetic problems raised by apostasy within the church and by growing opposition from without.

The resource works for us, too. It provides content for our Great Commission disciple-making work today, and it also provides a better model than only learning a few verses or a simple outline. Those things have their place, and comparatively, this is quite a long tract. But it is a good one. The fact that the apostle John thought there was a need, and that the church recognized its value even though possessing most of the NT, suggests that we haven't matured beyond it ourselves. This book does indeed fill a gap that we have.

Along with Luke (cf. Luke 1:1-4), John makes his purpose for writing unmistakeable.

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:30-31)

Verse 21 contains a textual variant that has caused some to question whether John wrote for believers or non-believers. If "so that you may believe" is present tense, some argue, John writes so that believers would keep on believing (edification). If "that you may believe" is aorist tense, others argue, John refers to a time of belief, and his book provides evidence that would help one become a believer (evangelism).

This is big, because I could totally try to argue that Christians need the gospel of John because John says so by the present tense. That would preach. We could present the offering and go home and I could justify being in John for the next 10 years and you'd have to love/endure it because John says so. But there isn't any air in that balloon. I believe the gospel of John hopes to make Christians, not instruct them. His purpose statement in 1 John 5:13 serves as a helpful comparison. We could say that 1 John helps a person know that they believe; John helps a person believe in the first place.

That's why we recommended John to those considering reading something in the Bible. We probably have some among us who don't believe that the Son of God, the Christ, is Jesus. This study should be good for them. We know others who don't believe--friends, family--who we could tell these things to, too.

But, Christian, how is your belief? You believe, do you have any unbelief? You have faith in Christ, is it strong? The original disciples lived with Christ and they had trouble believing.

[T]he best evangelistic literature not only explains why one should become a Christian, and how to become a Christian, but what it means to be a Christian. (Carson, 92)

When confronted with Christ, will a man believe or won't he? The signs John includes are intended to substantiate belief. While that has evangelism application, can we really say our belief is where it needs to be? Does belief drive you? Is your understanding of what the Christian life means complete? Is your practice?

Before you answer, the answer is, No. Let me say why I believe our belief isn't where it needs to be. Look again at John's purpose.

these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:31)

Also unlike any gospel, life is at stake in John, in particular, eternal life. No matter how much we plead that eternal life is quality not quantity, a kind of life not just a long time, we have trouble when someone looks underneath the table. We have trouble because we have weak faith that shows in weak life.

Consider just some of Jesus' comments about life in John.

God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (3:16)

Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. (4:14)

Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life... (6:53)

Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. (8:12)

I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. (10:10)

This is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. (17:2)

The word "life" isn't used in John 15, but certainly abiding in the vine refers to living in the vine.

As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. (15:4-5)

So, Christian, how is your life? You profess faith, are you living by faith? You know Christ is the Vine, are you abiding in Him for fruit's sake? For joy's sake? Jesus is the way; we know which direction to go. He is the truth; we have instructions for going along the way. And He is the life; in Him is our breath and our every step. This is why we need the gospel according to John.

I really don't know what sort of pace we'll keep through this study. I don't intend to prove preaching faithfulness by how long I can spend on a verse.

But I am eager to help drag our corporate soul through the gospel of John for sake of our belief, for sake of our life, and for sake of our worship and witness to the only begotten Son of God.

The last few weeks we've been working through the significance of our name, Trinity Evangel Church. There's no claim to inspiration behind the name but there certainly is intention. Each of the three parts, first-middle-and last, are meant to remind us of who our God is and what He is like, as well as who we are and what our lives should reflect.

Trinity reminds us that our God is eternally social and happy in Himself. We know what love is because of the Father and Son. We know what fellowship and intimacy is because of Three-in-One. He is no only an example of relationship, He is the standard for our relationships, especially in marriage and in the church community.

Evangel reminds us that our God is holy and gracious. In Adam, all humanity rebelled against God and that sin (and every sin since) resulted in the righteous judgment of separation. In order for reconciliation to occur a sacrifice was required, and all those who believe in Christ's substitutionary sacrifice are brought to God by Christ. Because every separating sin committed by a man against another man was also a separating sin between man and God, God's forgiving and punishment-taking makes forgiveness possible between us, too. This is good news. This is evangel that saves us and shapes us.

Church is that body of forgiven believers who gather together to worship the Triune God and to celebrate and proclaim and live the gospel until He comes. He unites us in one baptism by one Spirit under one Lord for one hope as one Bride for Christ. We are church, and Trinity Evangel Church is one local expression of a global and historical reality.

These are glorious truths. These are Christian truths. These truths give us reason to sing; these truths give us reasons to live and reasons to die. They are also truths that cause us to be sometimes admired and other times attacked, sometimes sought out for help and other times sought out for slaughter.

On one hand, Christians are to live peaceably with all men (Romans 12:18), Christian leaders are to live in such a way that we have a good reputation with outsiders (1 Timothy 3:7), and yet Christ's disciples will be hated by all for His name's sake (Matthew 10:22). We bring out hatred and we're the only ones who have hope to hold out. How can we live in such a way that they will think good things about us and want to kill us for the very same things?

Sometimes we pursue unity by dividing, we seek peace in our consciences by making war against sin, and we bring life by dying. We mourn a crucified King and then immediately celebrate the same thing.

It's crazy. It's Christian. It's certainly not boring.

When it comes to our name, each of the three parts humble and each of the three parts embolden. They embolden us and will inevitably aggravate (inflame, provoke, make worse) certain offenses. We will offend--on a spectrum from causing displeasure to causing resentment to angering. At the same time, if we live out all three parts of our name, we will be humbled and will likely assuage (avoid, reduce, make the unpleasant less intense) certain other offenses.

What is crucial is that we offend well. If we don't offend the right people we're not living up to our name and if we don't not offend in other ways we're also not living up to our name.

If we're truthful, if we're bold, if we're faithful, we will necessarily offend a good number of people.

As Christians, baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, we cannot help but aggravate Jews, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Muslims (to name a few). We claim that God is Three-in-One. Deism (belief in a some sort of supreme being) and Monotheism (one God) are not enough. Men will go to hell for eternity for not believing Jesus was anything less than eternal God.

Our Triune God is a jealous God (Exodus 34:14). He loves who He is, each Person loves the other Persons and desires their honor. So unless we worship Him as He is, we have no fellowship with Him. Idolators of any sort must be offended.

Likewise, practical idolators must needs be offended. That includes--to name a few--homosexuals who do away with distinct male and female roles, egalitarians who do away with different responsibilities for men and women, feminists who want manly roles for women (such as women pastors) and effeminate behavior from men. For good measure, we should also be offending domineering husbands, authoritarian fathers who reflect a non-Trinitarian Father. As Trinitarians, we absolutely must say that these things are wrong.

He's one God, only one, exclusive divinity in three Persons, and we don't have the prerogative to make Him other than who He is. As His image bearers, we're not entitled to live however we want.

We're not done making people made yet. We who proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ--that He is the way, the truth, the life, and that no man can come to the Father except through Him (John 14:6)--cannot help but aggravate the unrighteous who love their sin and don't want the guilt. They love the world, they love the praise of men, and God's holiness is not beautiful to them. They prefer the darkness.

This is the judgement: light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. (John 3:19-20)

Likewise, we cannot help but aggravate the self-righteous, those who love the glory of their own obedience and don't want to hear that all their obedience is worse than worthless, it is damnable (cf. Isaiah 64:6). They don't want to hear that they must renounce their boasting, except to boast in Christ's imputed righteousness (cf. Romans 3:27).

We also cannot help but offend the cool and the comfortable. You can't have a bloody, crucified Savior and make that polite party conversation. You can be kind--I'll address that shortly--but the cross is scandalous and gruesome and messy and undignified and certainly not hip. This is Christ's call: "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me" (Matthew 16:24). "Come and die" isn't respectable, and it is offensive to those who think themselves wise, powerful and noble (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:26). Who would embrace shame? We do.

We will aggravate postmodern, anti-structure, anti-authority, anti-everything-except-being-anti people. We believe that God makes known his manifold wisdom through the church that meets together in various locations (Ephesians 3:10). So independents and virtual church-goers and good-for-nothing bricks may be offended.

Jesus offended men, and His disciples should expect similar response when they teach His message and follow His example.

Being a Christian is light in darkness and often that irritates the darkness. At the same time, being a Christian humbles us; it makes us servants. It makes us salty (cf. Matthew 5:13). Yes, it makes us an aroma of "death to death" for some, but it must also make us an aroma of "life to life" for some.

But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? (2 Corinthians 2:14-16)

While we aggravate certain offenses, we want to make it hard for them to keep being angry while we're laying down our lives for them.

The old pastor's joke is that the ministry would be great if it weren't for the people. We can laugh at that, but only to an extent. It reflects the attitude of a Boss God, a Unitarian God, a Tyrant or Overlord God who is put out by his "lessers" giving him grief. That turns people off, it offends them, when pastors, or any Christian for that matter, acts with that attitude. We reflect a Triune God. The Father has never said/joked, "Being God would be great if it weren't for the Son." They are personal and they enjoy one another even though they're different.

I get that we are not perfect persons like the Trinity. We have sin and sin messes stuff up so we need the evangel. But if God can take on flesh for us, if God's Spirit can take up residence in our hearts, if God will have fellowship with us, then our distance from others, our unwillingness to engage with them and serve them is our offense no matter how accurate our sentences are. Love is required, and love is more than tongues of men and angels, prophetic powers, and understanding all mysteries and knowledge (1 Corinthians 13:1-2).

It takes spiritual discipline to live like unity doesn't require unison and diversity doesn't equal division. But imagine how much harder (or unreasonable) it would be for the world to hate us if we really were outdoing one another in showing honor (Romans 12:10). As it is, we put ammunition in their criticism guns by behaving in small-minded and selfish and separating ways just as they do.

We pursue Trinitarian joy and gospel graciousness.

The gospel of grace does not ignore sin and neither can we. But the gospel of grace gives us what we didn't deserve. Yes, that means we shouldn't act as if we deserved it when we're telling others about it, nor should we act like they aren't worthy enough to receive it. Yes, we ought to be humble. And we ought to give others what they don't deserve. Humility isn't a state of quiet, secluded meditation, it is a motive for aggressive service and sacrifice (i.e., Jesus, cf. Philippians 2:5-8). Humility is free to give and spend and lose and die. Pride must protect itself, and keep others from getting the good stuff. The gospel is about grace we receive and is a model for us to give grace.

Evangel living loves righteousness, a righteousness that isn't ours. If we're loving Jesus' righteousness we ought to diminish the tone of arrogance that comes from many Christians. Evangel living loves reconciliation, and not just the declaring the doctrine of it, but also the displaying it.

Consider 2 Corinthians 5:16-6:13. There are so many things in this section that require further study and implementation. For now, let us implore men to be reconciled with our hearts "wide open" (v.11).

Should people--I'm think of unbelievers in particular--feel comfortable or uncomfortable when they visit the church at worship? It depends. They might be offended that we only worship one God, or they might be offended because we're jerks. They might be offended that our gospel confronts their sin, but their offense might be harder to carry if we joyfully sang and humbly offered them hope, if we treated them as better than we are, not because they deserved it, but because God has so much grace that we can give out some extra from what we've received.

The Christian life involves growth and so does church life. Trinity Evangel Church isn't yet what she will be someday, but her future is bright if we live up to our name by His grace, through His Spirit, according to His Word.

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Let's start off with prayer, and then I'll get going and You'll see maybe a little different style teaching tonight For those that have you've been around me okay? Father we just thank you for another day another day to praise you and We thank you for the hearts of these people that could sing that song how great you are And how amazing it is that? that just how those voices combine means so much to us.

And I just thank you that you give us a voice to praise you. And I thank you that you give us your word to study, help us be accurate with it, help your spirit that teaches what we would learn through this, and help us to understand the process that you have us in until you come back. And of course, we thank you most of all for your son. It's in his name, Jesus Christ, that we pray. Amen. OK. Well, tonight I chose the subject of Reformed and Still Reforming the Disciples of Christ, which is, you'll notice in our website, Sean has made a page that kind of describes the philosophy of our church. And it's not just haphazardly put together, as I hope you've been seeing through the demonstration of the name that's been chosen and the style of worship, our liturgy as we're learning about. Everybody has a liturgy.

We're choosing to follow one that maybe is a little foreign to those of us that have come from Bible teaching, fundamental type churches. But we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but we also don't want to bring the bathwater in to to make the baby, you know, we gotta kind of find a good balance there. Down below that, the Reformed and Still Reforming, I hope that all of you catch that that is talking about the Reformation. And a teacher that we like, John MacArthur, has said that back in the, I guess it was early 90s when the White Horse Inn was a big thing on radio and everybody was listening to it, and they always would get on and say how they wanted to return to the Reformation. Michael Horton was doing that. MacArthur, I loved it, he would say, we don't need to return to the Reformation. We've already done the Reformation.

We're moving on from there. Remember that the Reformation didn't really do much of anything. Luther was hoping that the Catholic Church would reform. They sent him to translate the Bible, he studied it, he found out it was by faith alone, and he fires off a letter to the Pope thinking that he's going to take it and say, oh man, this is really great stuff, we need to alter the way we're going and we shouldn't sell these indulgences and everything. Didn't work out that way. The thing was a steamroller and a big powerhouse. And a lot of us forget that the history of the church, and we'll get into that a little bit tonight, I hope.

I have 12 pages of sites. We won't get into all of those. But I will pick and choose as we go along. But the idea is that if history tells us what the church is, we get a book on church history, it's really amazing how quickly you start reading, and this pope did this, and this council did that, and this guy conquered this country, and then made them all Christians, and then they became Christians, and like that. And it's really kind of a human view of history, not a spiritual view of history. And it's hard to blend what the spiritual part of history is when you're looking at it from our kind of Renaissance educated thinking that we see history as our human position in all these places.

And it blends in, and sometimes we get mixed up and get away from what God is supernaturally doing to all the people that he is changing and causing his story to happen, which is the real history. The world doesn't recognize his story. It recognizes all these dates and these big events that happen. Luther challenges the pope's thing. The printing press is invented so all of his little pamphlets can be given out to people. and they start reading them and getting all these wild ideas, and they start getting crazy and going and destroying all these churches because they won't want to worship these idols. And all these things come apart, so everybody's going, what's happening here, and why is this happening?

And so they just see it as a kind of a political or structured history of man, when really it's God's history bringing glory to himself through each one of us. And when you get involved in a body, and you start becoming a Christian, and you start discipling people, and you realize how God empowers you to give them the good news, and they realize that good news, and it changes them into somebody different than what they were, you're involved on a huge adventure that most of the world has no idea about. Because supernaturally is the only way we can understand this. It can't be understood really from just observance.

I mean, friends of ours saw the change in Gale and I's life, and they liked the change, but oh man, don't invite me in for that. You can visit and talk to me a little bit about it, but I'm not interested in going overboard like that. So it's fascinating how when you're in the middle of it, sometimes you lose sight of the big sweep that we're in. There's the next sentence on the website says, Trinity Evangel Church is a community of Christians who worship a great God who proclaim a potent gospel and who have loved to serve one another, loved serving one another.

So the idea is if we are a community, which Sean brought up this morning, that's our church, we are brothers and sisters in the Lord and in Christ and all that, we have this community and we are interested in the spiritual wellbeing of each other. And that requires what? Us knowing each other. You have to know who we are. I have to kind of let you into my life and see all of that. You have to kind of let me into your life. And as we do that and rub off on one another, it's like this whole crazy thing starts to happen. And that's what God does to us. And only through those interchanges like that do you strengthen each other. You can sit off and we'll cite some of these things when monasteries were created and they were created very quickly because people said, well this guy's not understanding what I'm talking about so I'll go sit on this pillar and I'll just worship God and be this great holy person and then God will like that.

He doesn't want us to go off and live on some pillar somewhere but there were people that did that and people thought, oh he's so holy. Well is he really? Because what is the holiness supposed to do? Yes, it's separate from the world, but that holiness is here to what? Make the world more holy. We are bringing our salt and light to the world. So, if we're living in a community, we have a potent gospel and we love serving one another, that's irresistible to that person that God is opening his eyes.

Then we have the next, we have three bullet points that's kind of a doctrinal statement, not really, but we believe in the inerrancy and sufficiency of God's Word. Now that's an interesting way to state it, okay? Because sometimes you see we believe in God's Word as a rule for faith and practice. And you'll go to that church and you'll think, well, that's really good. But the problem is when you go to that church and you start asking them if they're really hept to it, what they've done is saying it's a rule for faith and practice, but oh, that stuff about creation. I don't necessarily need to believe that because it's only a rule for faith and practice. So only as it affects my faith or how I practice my faith do I need to pay attention to the Bible. But I don't need to pay attention to that creation stuff because, you know, that's too difficult and we all know that evolution is true in all of that. So what we're saying is we believe in the inerrancy and sufficiency, Okay, so the inerrancy is a big deal there and a hundred years ago you

wouldn't need to put that in because everybody would have known if you're a Bible-believing church of course you believe the Bible but we've now changed and there's lots of tricks in the wording of it. Then we believe in the sovereignty of God's grace that's kind of a big one that's a little touchy that's pushing more into the Reformation. We believe that God God sovereignly chooses to open people's eyes, okay? And that he is in charge, we aren't. There is a God and you're not him, okay? And then if you think you're him and you choose to do what you wanna do, you are doing what? Sinning. That's basically what it boils down to.

If you know better, you're not God and you're not him, okay? So then the next one is we believe in the priority of life on life discipleship. Gee, I wonder where we got that, Matthew 28, right? Go into all the world making disciples. If you do that, the church will be built. Remember, that comes before the church comes. First, you have to have people that hear the gospel, accept the gospel, then they can come into the church, then they can be disciples, then they can be brothers in the Lord and acting it all out. So just those three things, if we do that with excellence, the rest of this stuff will take care of itself.

Because if you're life on life with people, that will keep you in check. As you air off into some heresy, and we all do, the other guy that you're working with will go, wait a minute, that's cuckoo. You can't hold that belief, or where did you get that? And as you wrestle through those things, you'll adjust your theology. That's another hobby horse of mine. We are all theologians. Even if you don't think you are, you are because you have arrived here and you have a certain view about who God is. Or you wouldn't be here. Or a certain view about what the church is. Or a certain view about this or that. And that's caused you to choose to come to be here and be part of this.

So you do have a theology of sorts. And what we want to do is keep making that more and more biblical. And that's a lifelong pursuit, and it's taken a couple thousand years maybe to get that all into perspective. Now I'm going to kind of launch from that little platform into some of my, quote, hobby horses. And I have a friend of mine that this is his favorite thing to start classes off. He's a theology professor. His name is George Simic. And he starts his classes off with this statement. We must consistently examine our hermeneutical, theological, and apologetical presuppositions in the light of the exegetical data.

If you track with that, that covers just about everything you can think of. We must consistently examine our hermeneutics, how we interpret, theological, what our views of God are, and our apologetical, how we defend the faith, presuppositions, it acknowledges we all have presuppositions. Don't think you don't. You're not a blank slate. You come to this with certain information, and you have to recognize the presupposition you have so that you don't carry that over to beat down the truth that God is trying to surface as you study his word. And you have to keep all of those presuppositions in the light of the exegetical data.

The exegetical data is what the Bible says. So we are a Bible-believing church that believes in the inerrancy and the sufficiency of that to give us what we need to do to create our church and to move ahead and to grow in the Lord. So that's a huge thing there when you start thinking about that. If you really believe that, that means you should be reading your Bible. And as you read your Bible, as all you people know, you've read through Romans however many times. And then you read it, and you read the verse, and you look down, and you go, oh, wow, I never saw that before. Or whatever it is that you're reading. I mean, just before we started, a person came up to me and said, when you're reading in Job, Job's three friends are giving him bad advice.

But every once in a while, the advice might be good. But they are really an example of not what God sees in that. And yet, people build whole sermons on a quote from the bad advice guy. Is that right? We need to think about that, right? Context, beating it with a stick, as Sean has pointed out in his seminars on how to study the Bible, that kind of thing. You have to examine all the things that you look at and think about it in that way. And as you hear stuff, you need to keep filtering it through. Where is this guy coming from? What's the basis of why he's saying this or that? So that's always examining that. And that's a great thing that you can do.

Now, if we've done that correctly, and we stand on the shoulders of people that have ground through this, Christianity is 2,000 years old, so there's a lot of people that have ground through this, some of it very badly, as I'll point out as we get into the historical stuff. But we've come to a point at the turn of this century, and as Sean pointed out last week when we studied the evangel part, an evangelical, that there was this point where the liberal Germans in the late 1800s started to destroy Protestantism. And by them bringing in all this liberal stuff, Bultmann and Schleiermacher and all these people that the Bible was just this book of mythology, and you didn't need to read it.

And only when you felt it was it really real and all that kind of stuff. And so the American fundamentalists came up with their five fundamentals in 1895. And those were this, that the inerrancy of scripture, the deity of Jesus, the virgin birth, Jesus' death providing substitutionary atonement, Jesus's physical resurrection and his imminent return or his bodily return to earth, okay? If you don't believe one of those or all of those things, you are not a Christian is what they're saying. The fundamentals said you needed to believe those things. Now notice there's no statement about infabaptism, dunking, pouring, sprinkling, whatever, those kinds of things are left out there to do.

There's no end times thing, there's no discussion of the millennium, There's no discussion of the rapture. There's no discussion of a lot of different things there. But there are fundamental beliefs that we all must have to be Christian. Now, will this church teach things way more detailed than that? Yes. And we're starting to think of how we state that. We may state it as what we teach. If we teach a certain thing, does that mean everybody that comes here has to believe it? No, not necessarily. I would say they should believe the fundamentals, but they don't need to believe each and every jot and tittle way down the branch.

If you're not for pre-trib rapture, then you can't be a member of our church. No. But if you believe that Jesus is coming back bodily, that's your eschatology. Hey, come on down. So it's interesting, because a lot of us have been raised in things when, boy, the red flags go up. says, you know, well, I want to baptize my baby. Well, find out why. Maybe he has some good reasons. I mean, there are a lot of arguments about that. I don't believe that that's what it says. I believe it's believers baptism. And that will be a distinctive of our church. But if a guy has been baptized as a baby, are we going to require him to get re-baptized?

What about that? I know, nice Christian guy. And he got baptized as a youth. And then he kind of deserted his Anglican upbringing. And he got more into a Bible church. So now should he be rebaptized? I don't have the answer. What do you think? Oh, boy. OK, Susan's telling me yes. Yes. Definitely. All right. I would agree with that. Now, would I throw him out if he didn't get baptized? I don't think so. Now, I would be having serious discussion with him. So there's the thing. That's the encompassing, evangel part. But then the other part is we do want to be correct in our theology to the best of our understanding.

Now, there was a term that was coined last week by an eminent member of our congregation, Drew Peters. And he called Shawn up, and he said, so what we are is fungelicals. Fungelical. Fungelical. OK. Fungalical. I like that. Just the right mix of fundamentalism and just the right mix of evangelicalism. So that's the idea. And I thought that was really good. I mean, it's kind of goofy, but Drew made it. It's OK. And I'm repeating it so that gets it. But the whole idea is that's where we want to be. And like Sean says, don't let them steal the good words from us. We do observe the sacraments, but we don't observe them the same way the Catholics do.

So just because the Catholics have taken sacramentalism and made it this crazy talk, we don't need to give up that word just because they've taken it over. We need to define it biblically and not give it up. And evangelical is a good thing. Now, Evangelical carried to the extreme where everybody's in and we can have the lesbian woman pastor, I don't think we want to go there. So it's all this kind of stuff, how you weigh and how you assess the things. That's why most of this church is not the service we have on Sunday. Yes, that's when we come to worship the Lord and everything, But the real church is happening during the week when you're with your family, when you're with the life-to-life groups, or when you're with the Titus II, or when we're doing the men-to-men, and then when you have your individual discipleship.

That's where you're sharpening each other and thinking it through. Or when you're just sitting there talking with your wife and going, what do you think about that? That's kinda crazy. I'm not sure about this. What about that? Those are the times that all of us should be cranking through all the time. And as you do that, you will become more rehearsed you'll say, you know what, I need to study that further. And then you can leap on into that. So with us being funjellicles, I want to make the statement. Sean already gave it away this morning. But we are protestants. The reformers wanted to reform the church. That didn't work out so well.

So then Calvin comes along and Zwingli and all of those guys and a little bit later, like 100 years later from Luther. And they're trying to work them over, and they realize it's a lost cause. They're all being run out of their countries, having to run to like Switzerland, or they'd be killed or burned at the stake or whatever. So they're running. They become the protestants. Not Protestants, but protestants. And we are still protesting. The Council of Trent is the Catholic's argument to the Reformation has never drawn back that we are an anathema. Protestants are an anathema. In other words, we are destined to hell for what we believe.

They have not withdrawn that. And that's a serious business. And as we see when you look through history, when the Catholic Church had big power over governments and appointed people and stuff like that, and they had the Inquisition, it was a dangerous thing to be a Protestant, or anybody that had a little differing view from what the church had. So these are serious things. Right at the moment, they're not so serious. But it can get serious. It was pretty serious that you were a Jew, or a very strongly professing Christian, in the 1940s in Germany. All you need to do is look at the concentration camps, or study the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

I mean, he started preaching the gospel. The more they persecuted him, the stronger his gospel preaching got. And he ended up hanging him for being part of the assassination plot on Hitler right near the end of the war. He almost made it to the end. This guy had come to America and been exposed to American fundamentalism and American Christianity, which really cranked his Lutheran viewpoint. He came back stronger than ever and ended up getting, quote, killed for it in Germany. So it's fascinating when you see some of these people that not necessarily would be able to come in our door and feel really comfortable at our church.

He definitely probably would have come and thought we were a little off. So all of those things through history are interesting how it works out that way. The other thing that happens with us is that we have made a definite stand on how the church is to be governed or constructed, the trellis, as you will, of the structure of how we want to do this. And as we thought about it and studied it, we think that the Bible clearly teaches that it should be elder rule, and there are only two offices in the church, Elder and Deacon, and that there are no lay and professional or clerical and just regular dude type offices. We are the priesthood of the believer. That was a mainstay of the Reformation, that the priesthood of the believer. That's huge.

about that, that you can ask God for forgiveness of your sins. You don't need the priest to do that for us. Okay? But you notice we're keeping the part where corporately, Sean is calling us to have a moment to confess our sins and be clean as a group to worship God. I don't think that's wrong at all. He's not saying he's forgiving your sins. He's saying God is, but He's reminding you of your responsibility to be that way to worship Him in holiness, which is like impossible because you are not quite holy yet. You are to be set apart and holy and how good are you? Okay, I'm pretty good right now, but oh now I got it better. Okay, I confess that one. Now I got proud again. On it goes, but it's a continual process, but as we're doing that God somehow is transforming us into the image of His Son and He promises in 1st John 3 that all of us who are believers will be transformed in the image of His Son. That's like crazy town. That's amazing. That's supernatural and just that's so cool you know how do you even know and then all of us at some

point are going to be in heaven worshiping him together. Forever. Forever is a big time, you know, like in the Greek. It's aestonionion, it's into the ages of the ages, you know, on and on and on. It's just amazing. So the idea of our church government is kind of summed up in this book, the biblical eldership biblical eldership thing. And we're going through this as the men to men and we're going strongly for those of you that talk to your husbands or the husbands that are here or the men that are here. We're only on page 72 now but we're working on it. We're getting there. As in all groups, remember that the book, the lesson is only a tool for you to use to get the people to relate to each each other, to talk, to find out where your heart is, what's your spiritual soul's condition?

You know, soul report. How are you doing? It's no good just to have a bunch of head knowledge and stand up like you're just doing great and you can tell everybody how happy you are and all that kind of stuff. Hey, the world's going to hell in a handbasket and for you to recognize that is not a bad problem. Even for those of you that think it's going good. That was for Dave. Okay. And the thing is, we are living better, okay? I don't want to live in the 1300s. I don't want the bubonic plague. I, you know, I want to be able to have penicillin if I get sick. I want an aspirin if I get a headache. And Christian thought and Christian education, I believe, has brought most of that to the world. I recognize that.

Now, spiritual condition, on the other hand, we can have a debate about that. But that's a friendly debate and an in-house debate that we can have. So all of those things, though, are huge. And just think about how it affects how you look at things. It should affect how you look at your work. Are you doing your work as unto the Lord? You hear everybody talk about doing the dishes, changing the diaper, all that kind of stuff. But for us men, that means if you're the trash guy, Are you emptying the trash can for the Lord? I love David Hocking back in the 70s. He was really going and blowing when he was doing the Biola, or 80s it was, the Biola hour.

And he would get off on his track every once in a while. I hate it every time I hear how some famous football player or basketball player comes to the Lord and he gets all this attention. He says, what happens when my trash man comes to the Lord? How come I don't get a news report? Joe the trash man came to the Lord. Joe the trash man may be the greatest discipler ever. He might disciple the next guy that's going to carry us to the next stage. Who knows? But we all get excited because some famous dude gets saved. So on it goes, right? So in this book, we have a little quote here that I'd like to do that kind of sums it up.

And it speaks directly to the issue of why we're attempting to do what we're doing here. And this is in the middle of the book, Bible-based leadership structure, and he kind of lays it out here. He says, I conclude therefore that the instructions given to elders about elders, as well as the eldership structure itself are to be regarded as apostolic directives, Titus 1.5, that are normative for the churches today. That means that is the way it should be. Now what he's doing is he's going against a guy named George Elden Ladd, who was a professor at Fuller, and a noted Bible commentator, and a good one. But he said, there is no Normandy for church leadership.

And this book is written to directly attack that. And the Bible clearly states how the churches should be run. Then he quotes another Bible teacher at Erasmus Bible Institute in Switzerland, a man named Alfred Kuhn. And he says, has not the history of 20 centuries of Christianity proved that the plan of the primitive church is the only one which is suitable for all times and places, is most flexible in its adaptation to the most divisive conditions, is the best able to resist and stand against persecutions, and offers the maximum of possibilities for full development of spiritual life. Each time that man has believed himself to be more intelligent than God, that he has painstakingly developed a religious system better adapted to the psychology of man, more comfortable to the spirit of our times, instead of simply following the non-testimentary model, his attempt has been short-lived because of failure due to some unforeseen difficulty.

All heresies and deviations in the church spring from the abandonment of scripture and of the model for the church which they represent. The churches established by the apostles remain the valid models for churches of all times and places. So think about this. You're a house church in China. You're being persecuted. You've got some spiritual leaders. That guy's discipled some people. The people are coming in. They got a structure of leadership. That church then gets the police show up. They machine gun the first three guys. Those guys have been discipling people. They can disperse. Those disciples can then spread the gospel to the next one.

And hopefully, the blood of the martyrs is the seat of the church kind of things happens. But in that instance, immediately they can adapt to the next one. They don't need some hired gun from the local seminary that has his PhD in Hebrew linguistics or Aramaic targons or something. They know Christ is the one that died for their sins, and they move on from that. Now, not to knock that. For those of you that have been in classes that I've talked about, I love going down the little rabbit trails and finding the little manuscript evidence that proves this little detail that gets proved that way. Those things are fascinating.

And the more you dig, the more confidence you will have in the scriptures and the bedrock of it. But the real issue is we got a whole world going to hell and they need the gospel. OK? All this other work needs to be done too, But it's your next door neighbor. It's your son, it's your daughter, it's maybe your husband, it's your relatives. It's always the family member that's the toughest. I know that's the way it is in our family, and I'm sure it probably is in your families too. And it's always God brings you some stranger you have no idea, and they go, oh, will you have a Bible study with me and everything? And this guy just takes off and you're going, how come my sister can't hear that?

Or how come my brother can't, or whatever? It's amazing how God works that way, But he sovereignly chooses, and we need to obey to that. So with all of that, that's what we're trying to do here, is be that model, but not get so hokey that we want to go all the way back, and we're not going to sing hymns because they didn't have electric guitars in the first century, and we're only going to sing acapella or something like that. We're in a whole time that gives us all kinds of opportunity to do all kinds of things and enjoy all kinds of things. And the thing is, what is a hymn? It's nothing more. A hymn is one of those words that they took from the Greek, kind of like baptism.

They didn't know how to define it, so they just took the word and made a new English word out of it. But a hymn is singing praises or praise to who? God. So we sing praises to God. How great thou art. how great is our God? I don't care what you play that on. That's amazing stuff, right? Whether you sing it along, whether you got a big full tilt boogie orchestra behind you, like people that go to the Shepherd's conference, they hear 3,500 guys in an auditorium singing those songs. I mean, it's amazing to hear 3,500 guys singing, you know, Mighty Fortress is our God, or one of those kinds of things. You just go, whoa, that's far out.

That's worth the price of admission down there, by the way. But the whole issue is, what is the church? How do we run it? All of that always gets down to us. How do we minister to each other? It's not calling up the next guy up the totem pole and figuring that out. We gotta do that. We're the ones responsible to do that. And we should be doing that with each other. And as we do that, we will sharpen each other and bring each other to the next plane up you do it. As you do these things and teach them, You cannot help but learn more than the person you're teaching. If you're discipling somebody and you're not learning more than the disciple, you're not discipling them.

Because the questions that you encourage them to ask you will cause you to dig deeper, you to get more excited, you to discover another layer of the onion, and you'll go, oh, wow, that was cool. I never even thought of that. That was really a good question. And I don't know the answer, but let's go find out is really a good answer. Don't try to fake it. So that's the excitement, and that's part of the whole thing we've got. Now, that was the introduction, and I've got seven minutes. So that's good. So I only have 12 pages of Sites of Christian History.

But just to see where we're at here, I'm going to skip ahead to the Council of Nicaea, the second one and listen to what it did. 787, it condemns iconoclism, the belief that venerating sacred images is idolatry. Okay? And adoptionism, the belief that Jesus was not the Son of God by nature, it condemned that. Those are good things, okay? This is the last council that is recognized as binding by both the Eastern and Western churches. This is before the great schism when the Catholic Church of the East and the West split. But listen to what it declared. Now it said, you can't worship these things, but listen to what it says.

Declares icons worthy of veneration, but not of worship. So now I have this icon. I'm going to venerate this icon. I got that cross over there. I'm venerating that, but I'm not worshiping that cross. Then anathematizes those who reject the veneration of relics. So now, I poo-pooed you venerating that thing and now I've been anathema-tized. That's sent to hell, you know, cursed. And declares no church is to be consecrated without the presence of a relic. Okay, a relic was a fingernail of John the Baptist or a piece of the cross or those kind of things. Now the same thing that waxed eloquently here condemns iconoclasm, the belief that the venerated sacred images is idolatry, and adoptionism belief that Jesus was not the Son of God by nature.

Those are good things. Also declared the last three. I mean, how much convolution do you get to make that happen? Now, I don't know if you noticed it this morning, but we have the chance to join the church thing here by this definition. When Sean brought the elements over to Brian, He dropped the bread on the floor right here. Now he, being the gentleman that he is, picked it up, took the dirty one for himself, and gave Brian the clean one off of his podium. But you know what we created? That was a relic. The body of Christ hit the floor. If we lived in the 1500s and were Catholics, we would have taken that, put it in a crystal thing, put it in a nice little thing, and it would have been a relic for the church.

That's why when you go to Italy and you see the prayer bar or the thing that separates the altar from the seats out there, there's all these gouges out of these wooden prayer rails. And that's because when the priest had the wine in the cup, if a drop of it hit that bar, they carved it off and that piece of wood became a relic because it had the blood of Christ on it. Because after the three bells ringing, that turned in transubstantiation into the body of Christ. Now, that's kind of cuckoo.

But I can tell you we would have a huge argument if we had a Jesuit priest in here right now that I am being an anathema for saying such a thing. So that's pretty crazy. To me they can't read the Bible and see that. And they what they do though is what do they do? They re-trude to the teaching. The teaching is this, not the scripture. So what have they done? They broke our first rule, they're not going back to the light of the exegetical data. But you are a real pain in the neck in any church when you keep saying, well, where is it written? Where is that rule? Where is this rule? Where is, you know, where are you getting that? And if they can't tell you, and they tell you it's tradition, okay, it might be tradition. Tradition's good. I mean, right now we have this tradition in our church where we're bringing the little bucket up front, you know, for offering instead of passing it around. Now is our tradition worse than passing around the collection plate or is it better? I think it's better but

am I gonna argue with somebody wants to pass a collection plate? No. Or am I gonna argue if somebody has a box in the back and you only put it through a slot or whatever or you go to a Brethren Church and they have a little bag thing with the little ziplock strings and you put your hand in there and hide your hand and then you bring it out you know. I don't care but each one of those things we're making a statement, but we're not pushing the envelope with it. Everybody understand kind of where I'm coming from? All right. So that's like one little point of church history. And then let's move to the 1500s. The 1500s are amazing. Just start here. 1522, Luther translates the New Testament into German. 1525, Tyndale makes an English translation in the New Testament from the Greek without permission and smuggles copies into England.

He's burned at the stake. 1525, the Anabaptist movement starts predecessor to the Brethren and Mennonite churches, teachers, believers, baptism only, democratic decision making and separation of church and state. Those are three years, 1522 to 1525. 1529, the term Protestantism becomes associated with Lutheranism, Zwinglianism, and Calvinism. Protestant characteristics, accept the Bible as the only source of revealed truth, and the doctrine of justification of faith alone, and the priesthood of all believers. Those three things. Now, think how far we've come just examining. Do you want to say to your Lutheran brother, we believe the same things about the acceptance of the Bible as the only source of real truth, the doctrine of justification by faith alone, and the priesthood of all believers, the way that they believe it?

No. We're already making a statement the way we're telling you that we think the church government ought to be. We're definitely stepping out of the synod that you would have to be in your local Lutheran church. You would be in a certain synod, a geographic area, that has a guy over you. And you'd have the local priest in your Lutheran church. He would be running that. It's a different thing we're talking about. And we see that the exegetical data says that. And they have the Bible is the only source of revealed truth. The problem happens that remember these guys were protestants or reformers. They were trying to reform a system that is there.

They're doing all this stuff. And they are what the historians say is what the Church of Christ is doing. I don't want to identify that as the Church of Christ. Now, am I saying that all these Catholics are unbelievers? No way. I think that there were people in monasteries and people that were congregants, they heard the gospel, they knew that Christ saved them. It's just like Catholics today. They go, I believe Jesus Christ died for my sins. And as you give them the truth, they go, wow. Where are you getting that? You show them in the Bible and they go, wow, I gotta go ask my priest. They go ask the priest, the priest gives them some hubbub about, well, this is what the tradition teaches.

And you have to understand that I gotta help you understand this from the tradition. And all of a sudden God gets a hold of them and they start moving. And sometimes they'll go for a week to the Catholic Church, and then they go to the Protestant Church, or they go in the morning there, and then the evening and that stuff. As they realize God is the one who saves them, not the priest, not Mary, not the prayers to the saints, all that, they start dropping that stuff. There's a lot of baggage from the reformers. Remember that they were thinking they were going to reform that system into a more biblical base. And what happened is every time they made a suggestion, They were pronounced heretics and their lives were threatened and lots of them lost their lives over that.

I mean, the scripture were forbidden to be read by people. In England in 1428, they forbid anybody in England to have a Bible. You know, this is not cool. So that, then they tell you what the Bible says. That's a big problem. All right, it's 715. How do I make this all come back together?

That's impossible. So here's the deal. I want you to understand, if anything else, I get excited about all this. And to remember that we could go through each one of these pages and each of the things that I have down here, and you would see a little glimpse of where we're coming to, that, I mean, just here, 1560, John Knox Reformed Church begins in Scotland. Here's a Catholic priest goes to Scotland. He ends up getting burned at the stake in a parking lot now. You can park your car and there's a little brick there where they kill him. So it's amazing how we're part of this. And I'm not saying we're all going to have to get killed for it, but we have a great inheritance that People have really believed so much they died for it.

And the issue is that supernaturally, God will reveal that truth to you as you examine that evidence, as you study it with your fellow brothers and stuff. And as you do that, you will then keep, you'll just work up the ladder and become more mature. And as you do that, then you will be a person that can bless the next person to come along. And that's the way it's always been. The God of the universe, Jesus Christ, who created the world, came to earth, chose 12 people, one of them from Satan, to change the world. And he spent all his time with those guys, instructing them how to go about it. And that's why we're here.

That's amazing. Now he didn't build a church. He didn't just do some magical thing going whoosh. Okay, everybody's a believer. You know, Constantine 300 goes, Everybody's a believer because I saw a cross in the sky and I conquered this army. So now every Roman's a Christian. No, it doesn't work that way. That's goofy. It's you and God, okay? So anyway, be that, go out and be that to everybody that you know, to your family, to all the people that wanna know about it and be excited about it. So let's pray and then we can go do that, all right? So Father, thank you for this time. Thank you that you've given us your word and that through that you individually gift each one of us in all kinds of special ways.

We are those Christian snowflakes. Each one of us are individually gifted and given a way to enhance our body. Help us to understand that each one of us, if we're not operating, our body is sick, whether it be the head, the arm, the finger, all those things need to operate properly. And that means the least of us. The guy that just came to the Lord this morning, maybe that's here, he is just as important and that we need to bring him along so that the body can be strong. And that's the way that we always need to operate. Thank you for that. And thank you for just your spirit to teach us these things and to give us the joy in knowing you, which is like amazing.

And we thank you for that. And again, I thank you for the sacrifice of your son for us that we can even pray to you in this way. And it's in his name, Jesus Christ, that we pray. Amen.

The last couple weeks we've been working through the names of our church. Trinity reminds us that we are made in the image of an eternally personal and loving God. We are made for fellowship with Him and with each other, to share Trinitarian unity and joy. However, when Adam sinned, and humanity in him, we were separated. Only the evangel, the gospel could reconcile us to God. The evangel is the power of God to salvation, and those of us who believe it preach and practice the gospel by dying, forgiving, and hoping.

Those of us who are saved by the evangel are also united by the evangel in Christ. The gospel creates a new people, His Body. His work saves us from hell and forms us into the Church.

We are not a social club. We are not a community defined by schools, pools, roads, and restaurants. We are the church of the living God.

Of course, the church has fallen on hard times. Whether due to individualism, hypocrisy, unqualified leadership, or plain unbelief, the church is not popular. We look around and we know there are problems; we are the problems. Guns don't hurt church people, church people do. All the commands to bear with one another and forgive one another are there because the need is there. Unity requires that we put on love, and loving each other is work.

Paul told us it would be tough. The very next paragraph after the one we're studying this morning says so: 1 Timothy 4:1-3. Acts 20, Paul's instruction to the Ephesian elders, among whom Timothy was stationed, included warning about fierce wolves that would come from within themselves. 2 Timothy 3:1-5 also described how ugly it would be among church people.

Yet with all of that, the church is God's favorite living organism on the planet. His Son promised to build His church and then gave His life on behalf of His church. This local body is a testimony to His great grace and is God's light to this community.

Many consider 1 Timothy 3:14-16 to be the heart not only of 1 Timothy, but of all three pastoral letters. Paul had left Timothy in Ephesus to shepherd the church. This is a personal word to Timothy after giving instruction about men and women and then the qualifications for church leadership (2:1-3:13), and in this paragraph Paul reminds Timothy of the privileged position of the church.

This paragraph establishes three reasons for us to celebrate the church, her character, her calling, and her confession.

I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God,

There are two things emphasized about the character of the church in verse 15. First, the church is God's family. By using this metaphor, the household of God, Paul describes the church not as a building, but as the people. The church is the household, the family of God, with God as Father, and believers as His children, brothers and sisters with each other. Paul told Timothy how to treat other family members in the church in 1 Timothy 5:1-2. We aren't some ragtag, motley group of strangers who just decide to get together on Sunday mornings. We are family.

The second part of the church's character is that we are the church of the living God. In the Old Testament God is often called the "living God" to emphasize how distinct He is from the dead, inanimate idols. The "living God" is also identified some 15 times in the New Testament. We are His church, the gathered people, the assembly of those who worship, love, and serve the living and true God. We are the band of brothers that worships the living God, the Lord of lords and King of kings.

It's virtually impossible to overestimate the value of this spiritual family. The church isn't a vague idea, it has people, and the people have names and faces. John Bunyan offered this analogy about the blessings of our connectedness.

Christians are like the several flowers in a garden, that have upon each of them the dew of heaven, which, being shaken with the wind, they let fall their dew at each other's roots, whereby they are jointly nourished, and become nourishers of each other. (Christian Behavior, quoted in Brown, 173)

When each part is equipped and working properly, the body is built up in love. Ain't nothing like it anywhere else. We can't be content with isolation and separation; we're a gospel family, God's household. The character of the church is a reason to celebrate.

a pillar and buttress of the truth.

I think the last part of verse 15 clarifies the fundamental objective and assignment of the church. Just as there were two parts to the character of the church, so here we see two parts of our calling. Our responsibility, our mission in the world is to be the pillar and buttress of the truth.

First, the church is the pillar...of the truth. There's no doubt that the word pillar would have brought an unmistakable picture to Timothy's mind. The Temple of Artemis (or Diana) was located in Ephesus where he was stationed and was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Perhaps the most striking features were its 127, 40' tall marble columns some of which were studded with jewels and overlaid with gold. But of course, more important than their appearance was their function: to support the structure.

The church is the pillar of truth. The church holds up the truth and supports it before the world. Paul often used the word "truth" as a reference for the gospel, as in 1 Timothy 2:4 - "[God] desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" and in Colossians 1:5 - "Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel." The "truth" is a synonym for "gospel," and that also connects with the content of verse 16. So the church is called to declare and display the gospel.

Second, the church is the buttress of the truth or "ground" (NKJV) of truth. The word "buttress" is a word that refers to a brace or reinforcement that helps to guard and fortify. In other words, the church is called to defend the truth. Like battlements protect a town, so the church is to preserve and take care of the truth, making sure the truth doesn't fall.

Both of these images, "pillar and buttress" suggest strength, permanence, reliability, and indestructibility. John Calvin responded to this description of the church's calling by asking, "Could it (the church's calling) have been described in loftier language?"

Of course, the church does not invent the truth, the truth comes from God. God alone is the source of truth and not the church, but the church is to safeguard that truth in this hostile world. If the church fiddles with, distorts, depreciates, or discards biblical truth in favor of anything else it has abandoned its calling in the world. For whatever other things we do, we must show off and safeguard the truth.

Isn't it stunning that God entrusted the truth, the gospel, to the church? How many other ways could He have spread His truth with greater success and greater nobility than to use us, the miserable lot that we are. But He has made us stewards, and a true church keeps the truth in its purity and entirety. As the church spreads the truth we bring light to darkness, meaning to emptiness, stability to disorder, and standards to relativism.

How do we do this? We preach and write and define and defend. Yes. We must not tamper with God's Word, we believe and so we speak. But that's not all. We also serve and slosh grace. We let death work in us so that life works in others (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:10-12). Perhaps that is part of the reason so many people look down on the church, because the gospel is a two-dimensional pillar, more at home on a printed page than walking around.

We proclaim and protect, we display and defend, we lift it up and fight for, the truth. Though the gospel can never be destroyed, what a responsibility and mission and calling rests on the church to display and defend the treasure of truth. There is reason to celebrate the character and the calling of the church.

Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness:

The chief truth that the church is called to declare and defend is the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In verse 16 we see the content or confession of the truth. There are six parts of this confession, and they likely come from an early church hymn, since there is a rhythm and parallel form to the lines.

These six statements take us from the incarnation to the ascension. They highlight pivotal points in Christ's ministry and the results of that ministry. They are Great indeed, "without controversy" (NKJV), "by common confession great" (NAS) or in other words, these truths are beyond all question. Undeniably great is the godliness mystery (that is now made clear).

He was manifested in the flesh. This refers to the second Person of the Trinity and to His incarnation. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and in Christ the fulness of God dwelt in bodily form. Unless God became man, we would have no mediator to go to God on our sinful behalf.

He was vindicated by the Spirit. As Romans 1:4 says, the resurrection vindicated or proved that Jesus Christ "was the son of God with power." Unless Jesus rose from the dead we have no hope. He conquered death so that we too might be resurrected to eternal life.

He was also seen by angels. Angels prophesied His birth to Mary and Joseph, they announced His birth to the shepherds, they ministered to Jesus after His temptation, they strengthened Him when He prayed in Gethsemane, they declared His resurrection to the women, and explained His ascension to the apostles.

And Jesus was proclaimed among the nations, or, the good news was preached (and is still being preached) to Jew and Gentile. He was believed on in the world. Finally, He was taken up into glory. He has gone to prepare a place for us, and we await His return.

Verse 16 is a summary of the gospel. God became man, died for our sins, triumphed over death, was honored by angels and feared by demons, and ascended into heaven. Even though there is more truth that we declare and defend than what is found in verse 16, this chorus of truth is the possession of the church, and it is a reason for us to celebrate.

So this short paragraph tells us the make-up of the church and designates who we are: the family of the living God. It tells us the mission of the church and delineates what we do: proclaim and protect the truth. And it tells us the message of the church and defines what we believe: the good news of salvation by faith in the God-man, Jesus Christ.

These three reasons (the character, calling, and confession of the church) are not only a reason to celebrate and value what the church has already accomplished, they are the exact same reasons we should commit ourselves to continue the work.

The church is God's chosen instrument of truth in the world. We are the people of God, who know and must uphold the truth of God, about the glorious Son of God. We have a lot to live for, a lot to live up to. We are the church of the living God.

Last Lord's day I began to work through the names of our local body, Trinity Evangel Church. I said that to the degree that we ignore the Trinity--the eternal, intimate, loving relationship between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit--we will fail to be the baptized community of disciples Christ commissioned. We have individual roles and responsibilities, but we work with each other and for each other because God made us that way because He is that way.

I mentioned briefly that there is a major hindrance to this eternal-God life. More than a hindrance, this life of unified diversity and intimate fellowship is impossible because of sin. Sin separates. Sin magnifies differences to exalt itself. Sin wants power, not a partner, or at least it wants a partner to be better than and boss around. Sin turns an affections-producing heart in the wrong direction, usually ending on oneself and not others. Trinitarian life and community sounds great, but it is no longer available to fallen man...without the evangel, the gospel.

This morning we'll consider the evangel message, the evangel movement, and the evangel ministry.

Evangel is a third hand English word that came from Latin that came from Greek. The Latin word is evangel(ium) (classically pronounced ewangel), that came from the Greek word εὐαγγέλιον, translated "good news" or "gospel." The verb is εὐαγγελίζω, to announce or proclaim the εὐαγγέλιον, means to herald the good news.

The εὐαγγέλιον word family is found everywhere in the New Testament (133 times in various forms). Jesus preached it, His apostles also proclaimed it and explained it. The gospel is about Christ, about the need for a Savior from sin, about Christ's work to bear God's righteous wrath for sinners, and the promises of life, forgiveness, redemption, reconciliation, justification, adoption. Disciples are to proclaim the gospel throughout the whole world as a testimony to the nations (Matthew 24:14; Mark 16:15). It is called the gospel of the kingdom, the gospel of God, the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Paul summarized the message of the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4.

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the εὐαγγέλιον I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you— unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.

Paul defined and refined the gospel in Romans. His thesis was: "I am not ashamed of the εὐαγγέλιον, for it is the power of God to salvation, for it is the power of God to salvation, for the Jew first and also for the Gentiles" (Romans 1:16). In light of God's wrath (1:18-3:20), there is good news, the hope of justification, sanctification, and glorification (chapters 3:21-8:39), as well as a life based on those mercies (chapters 12-16).

Luke, in the book of Acts, chronicled the spread of the gospel in the early church, from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth.

The Vulgate--the Latin translation in the 4th century--still used through the Reformation by the church and scholars, had the evangel word group. It was a transliteration of the Greek word, evangel(ium), new letters that make the same sounds as the original letters of the other language.

The Roman Catholic detractors of Protestants sometimes called them "gospellers," or evangelicals.

William Tyndale gave us the earliest recorded (English) appearance of the word evangelical. In 1531, in his commentary on the gospel of John (published 5 years before Tyndale died and just 16 years after Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg), Tyndale wrote, "He exhorteth them to proceed constantly in the evangelical truth." Tyndale was not using the word to describe a theological position. It was simply an adjective meaning "of or pertaining to the gospel." (Phil Johnson, What Is an Evangelical?)

When we say evangel we mean gospel. When we say gospel, we mean "the good tidings of the redemption of the world through Jesus Christ" (Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language). The evangel is our message.

I really don't want to take a long time on this point, but it does impact our name. Here's a jet tour, moving fast and from 30,000 feet above.

In the late 19th century and early 20th century, Liberalism (higher criticism, social gospel) was on the rise, questioning everything about the Bible and in the Bible. Those who loved the Bible banded together to defend the faith and wrote the Fundamentals. The fundamentalists wrote out their doctrinal beliefs, later compiled into 12 large volumes, defending the essential doctrines of Christianity. They began nobly, though they tended to define themselves by what they were against, and that made them more narrow. Everything was suspect; a liberal could be behind any door. After a while some faithful Christians (and some not so faithful) within Fundamentalism realized the constricting circles and broke off, not necessarily in a denial of the Fundamentals, but with a desire to promote the gospel. This new movement came to be called Evangelicalism.

Evangelicals tended to be uncomfortable with the nonstop militancy of the fundamentalists; fundamentalists thought the evangelicals' desire to be as positive as possible was a sign of weakness and compromise. (Johnson, ibid.)

As a observation application, there is an important difference between conviction and contention, between vigorously believing truth and looking for fights. A fine line exists between being known more by what we're against or more by what we're for.

The desire to be broader than the Fundamentals didn't stop for some Evangelicals; some moved back toward Liberalism purposefully or naively. Today, that has made "evangelical" an almost useless word, a vague catch-all term. While we are in the evangelical bowl, it is almost useless because within the bowl one finds soup to nuts and covers all sorts of non-evangel practices.

When we talked about a name for our merry band, we initially considered Trinity Evangelical because it flowed well and while still attached to the gospel. I hate when our good words are stolen and think we should not let others have our words. But maybe it flowed too well. It sounded like something you could say and not really know what you were referring to.

So we went with evangel. It begs for definition, and should open doors into evangelism time after time with people to whom the word sounds funny.

Evangel is meant to provoke more than conversation about a church name and more than a simple reminder about the content of our teaching. It is what we proclaim and it must also be what we practice. Our evangel lives are the platform from which we preach, from which we evangelize. To the degree that we leave the gospel at our justification we will suffer in our sanctification and in our witness.

Maybe some other time I'll address how needful the gospel is for Christian living after conversion. I'll recommend some books on the church blog on how the gospel impacts our battle for personal holiness. But this morning, more than motivation for individual growth in Christlikeness, I want us to consider the gospel as a philosophy of ministry.

There is an evangel way of life, a way to be identified as evangel citizens.

Let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ (Philippians 1:27)

The command is πολιτεύεσθε (a word that includes πόλις, "city"), so it means "to be a citizen," "to conduct one's life," "to conduct oneself with proper reference to one's obligations in relationship to others, as part of some community" (Louw & Nida). For example, Americans have some distinguishing characteristics. How we are living as gospel citizens? What will a congregation look like that preaches and practices evangel ministry?

A call to gospel ministry, a call for every Christian, requires (at least) dying: sacrificial service and suffering, forgiving: reconciling and peace-making travail, and hoping: consuming, happy confidence in God's promises. These are three marks of evangel ministry.

A preacher's work extends beyond the sacred desk (the pulpit) and beyond his study desk (in private). A preacher works with people, not merely at people or for people, and they often cause him pain. The preacher is called to model the gospel in a life of death.

Maybe some day I'll write out posts for a few messages I taught from 2 Corinthians 4, but in summary, the privilege of gospel ministry includes slaving for others. Service is gospel work. Jesus didn't come to be served but to serve (Matthew 20:26-28). Those who would lead like Jesus must be servants. So Paul said, "what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake" (2 Corinthians 4:5).

The privilege of gospel ministry also involves suffering. That, too, is gospel work. Jesus gave His life for us (Matthew 20:26-28). Those who would lead like Jesus must also die. Paul said not only that he was brought to the breaking point over and over (2 Corinthians 4:8-9), but also that death was at work in him (which means that ministry is a dying life). He wrote:

[we are] always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work (2 Corinthians 4:1-12) in us, but life in you.

It's a dangerous buzzword, I know, and I used to argue against it, but "incarnational" is a good word. We usually think about Christ's incarnation, God taking on flesh, taking on a body, and dwelling among us. In a different, but still similar, way we illustrate the gospel in our bodies, in our flesh.

In Colossians 1:24 the apostle wrote that "in [his] flesh" he was "filling up what [was] lacking in the afflictions of Christ." Like Paul, a believer's death isn't redemptive, but it is illustrative of Christ and the gospel. We proclaim a message of death and resurrection from a platform of dying.

We preach forgiveness. We implore men, "be reconciled to God" (2 Corinthians 5:11-21). The gospel, Jesus' substitutionary punishment taking, enables God to be righteous and forgive our unrighteousness (Romans 3:21-26). Vertical forgiveness restores relationship between God and repentant rebels. That is the powerful work of the gospel.

Horizontal forgiveness is secondary but it is not less relevant. In fact, because restored relationships between men and other men are only possible due to Christ's work on the cross, we devalue the gospel to the degree that we don't insist and work for sinners to be reconciled to each other. We are called to teach, counsel, and mediate reconciliation. We must also model forgiveness.

Forgiving is hard work because it means someone did something against us that required forgiveness. That's part of what makes the practice of forgiveness a powerful platform. Love is not surprising when we love those who love us. Proclaiming forgiveness apart from living it isn't surprising. There is nothing supernatural, nothing gospel about hurting those who hurt us, or merely getting far away from them. We're not in the wrong place if there are others who hurt us. We're in a better place to show how fantastic forgiveness looks.

As God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, all Christians are called to put on tender hearts like Christ, forgiving each other as Christ forgave us (Colossians 3:12-14).

We preach the "best" good news; none have a more hopeful message than those who know the gospel. And yet, it's a short downhill slide into discouragement and pessimism. We see dead men everywhere. Many of the spiritually living men we're around struggle with doubt and disobedience. We counsel broken people in broken relationships. We work against the flow in a fallen world and our efforts often appear futile.

Thing is, the gospel doesn't require good circumstances for its effect. In fact, the gospel presupposes problems, problems that are above every preacher's pay grade (think Obama). It is good news precisely because things are bad. The gospel makes alive! The gospel grows! The gospel sanctifies! The gospel heals! Because of the gospel promises, no ministry death is wasted. Fruit will be yielded in due season and our resurrection cannot be concealed. We can serve, suffer, die, and forgive with indulgence.

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:58)

Yes, we'll be burdened when we see sin in ourselves and in our flocks. Suffering is called suffering for a reason. But we have been born again to a living hope (1 Peter 1:3)! Of all the things people observe of gospel citizens, humble and explosive hope should be so obvious and surprising that they ask us about it (1 Peter 3:15).

Throwing around the word "gospel" is ironically faddish. It has emerged as a cover for all kinds of "evangelical" activity. But we desire to be identified by the gospel.

We are to be a community. We are created as image-bearers to reflect God who is Triune. But sin has made relationships rotten and spoiled our hope. Without the evangel we are dead in our trespasses and sin, separated from God and without hope in the world. Without the evangel we cannot have community, separated from others and without intimacy with each other. Whether it was part of our name or not, Trinity Evangel Church exists by the evangel and we will magnify the evangel both by proclaiming it boldly and also by dying, forgiving, and hoping.

Jesus commissioned His disciples to "make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19). The Great Commission--which is no less our commission, too--is Trinitarian. Our God is one (cf. Deuteronomy 6:4) and three Persons. We worship and proclaim a Triune God. Worship of any other sort of god, no matter how almighty or majestic, is idolatry. We make disciples of a Triune God; unless our disciples come to the Father through the Son by the Spirit, we make men sons of hell and not sons of God.

For the most part, the doctrine of the Trinity is like a thick book with small print placed on the top shelf in our library. We would never get rid of it, but we rarely pull it down to read. We're even less likely to make Trinity jewelry or Trinity greeting cards or such. It's not a doctrine that gets frequent play in the rotation.

We named this local congregation Trinity Evangel Church. For the following few weeks I intend to talk about Why, and that we did not thumb through a theological dictionary to find some fancy or serious sounding words and slap them together. There is a reason for all three parts and there is a reason why Trinity comes first. Calling ourselves Trinity for short should make a difference in how we do things. And whether or not it was part of our congregation's name or how many leaves are on our logo, to the degree that we ignore the Trinity we will fail to be the baptized community of disciples that Jesus commissioned. Life without the Trinity is unChristian.

I have no illusions that, in another 35 minutes or so, I will be able to dig up and dust off the mystery of the eternal Three-in-One, nor that I will be able to dig out all the necessary implications of the Trinity for our own interactions. I plan to post some recommended resources for further study on the church blog, and perhaps I will try my hand at another seminar later this year on the topic of the Trinity. For today, though, I want to mention the biblical and historical truth about the Trinity and then meditate on the three practical, familial, relational, ecclesiastical implications of the Trinity for life.

Certain facts about God are revealed. God is who He is, and we are to worship Him as He is, not as we imagine or prefer. The fact is, our God is Triune. "God minus creation would still be God, but God minus Father, Son, and Holy Spirit would not be God" (Sanders, The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything, 70). We must teach who He is and not leave the Godhead vague or foggy. Unless disciples identify with and worship the Triune God, they are idolators.

Any study of the Trinity must get over the hurdles of progressive revelation, dispersed revelation, and divine revelation. What I mean is that God didn't tell His people everything at the beginning, He didn't tell them everything about anything in only one chapter or book of the Bible, and He didn't tell finite creatures everything about His infinite self.

That said, even though the word "Trinity" isn't found in the Bible, the truth of the Trinity is clearly revealed. That means we must receive it and teach it, even if we don't fully comprehend it.

The Trinity is three different Persons all at the same time. At the baptism of Jesus, the Son was in the water, the Father spoke from heaven, and the Spirit descended (Matthew 3:13-17). Jesus prayed to the Father (cf. Matthew 26:39) and was lead and empowered by the Spirit (Luke 4:1, 14; Matthew 12:28). Unless there are three, these prayers are a "ridiculous soliloquy" (Culver, Systematic Theology: Biblical and Historical, 115).

The three Persons are also one God, one substance or essence. The Word was with God and the Word was God (John 1:1). Jesus and the Father are one (John 10:30). Likewise, the Spirit is God (Matthew 3:16; 12:28), He is also called the Spirit of Christ (Romans 8:9; 1 Peter 1:11). There is one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all (Ephesians 4:4-6). It's why we baptize disciples "in the name," singular, of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

We believe, when it comes to revelation, that the Father speaks the word, the Son incarnates the word, and the Spirit inspires the word. All three Persons communicate differently to the same end. We also believe, when it comes to redemption, that the Father chose, the Son atoned, and the Spirit regenerates (cf. Ephesians 1:3-14). All three Persons work distinctly and inseparably for salvation.

"Trinity" isn't a Bible word but it summarizes a Bible truth.

As with any revealed truth, unbelievers tweak or attack it. It's false teaching, it's idolatry: fashioning another god even if using the same name(s).

We are monotheists--one God, not polytheists--many gods. But that's not enough. We are Trinitarian monotheists, not Unitarian monotheists--one God and one Person. Jews who reject Jesus as the Son of God are Unitarians. Allah is a Unitarian god. The Jehovah's Witnesses are also Unitarians; they believe Jesus is a special being, but still a created being, and not eternal God.

We are also Trinitarian monotheists, not modalist monotheists--one God in different forms or modes. Modalism (also referred to as monarchianism) speaks about the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as different expressions or forms that God takes at different times; the three Persons never exist as all three at the same time. A modalist typically understands the Father as God's form in eternity past and in the Old Testament, the Son in Jesus, and the Spirit now. For example, water is always water, it takes different forms--liquid, solid, or gas--but not at the same time. For example, Phillips, Craig & Dean appear to believe in a modalistic understanding of the Trinity.

We believe in one God who is eternal in His existence, Triune in His manifestation, being both Father, Son and Holy Ghost AND that He is Sovereign and Absolute in His authority.

A Unitarian god as well as a Modalist god are idols, another god than the name in which we baptize. Church history, preserved in creeds and confessions, has fought for orthodox Trinitarian definitions. Think the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed.

We believe and we teach the truth of the Trinity as it is revealed in Scripture. The Trinity is truth, to be understood and communicated with accuracy. That is where most disciples leave it, as a truth to be known. We're in trouble if the Trinity is only a doctrine.

Our lives as human beings, as husbands and wives, as disciples of Christ, as members of Christ's Body, the church, will reflect what we actually believe about the Trinity, not what we say we believe. Life without the Trinity will be fractured, stressful, and empty.

As I said at the beginning of the sermon, this will only tease out rather than totally untangle all the implications. But because we become like what we worship, we need the Trinity. To the degree that we live Trinitarian, we will be whole, joyful, and loving.

Again, we are limited and challenged, but consider what the Trinity means. What does it mean that our God is Triune?

Have you ever considered God before Genesis 1:1? "In the beginning was God." He was; He always has been; He never began.

God minus creation would still be God, but God minus Father, Son, and Holy Spirit would not be God. (Sanders, 70)

So what was He doing all that time? Was He bored? Was He lonely?

One provocative translation I've heard is, "In the beginning was community" (Douglas Jones), certainly not "In the beginning was Me." God always has been in relationship. His being is personal. He didn't learn how to relate to others after creation. He has never been alone. That's who He is, not something added. Eternal life is Trinitarian, it is shared life, not individual life.

Tell me that this phrase isn't ringing like bells in your belfry: "It is not good that the man should be alone" (Genesis 2:18). When God made man in His image, He made man and woman; He made more than one, and both equally in His image. Why did Solomon say, "Two are better than one...a threefold cord is not quickly broken" (Ecclesiastes 4:9, 12)? Because we are made in the image of a relating God.

God made us for fellowship, with each other and with Himself. What happened at the fall? Separation from God and separation between Adam and Eve. The separation in fellowship is also called death. But "this is eternal life, that they might know You and Jesus Christ whom You have sent" (John 17:3). Life is fellowship.

that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:3)

Life is not endless bachelorhood or internet church in your pajamas or any sort of extended isolation. What was the greatest pain of Christ? When His Father turned His face away. The Trinity means God is not distant or antisocial, He is eternal community. The Trinity created us, as His image-bearers, for relationship.

Another way to say it would be that the Trinity means uniqueness and unity. Three Persons, all different in function but equal in being, means that all three deserve the same honor.

Within God there is both unity and diversity: unity without uniformity, and diversity without division. (ESVSB, 2514)

One god in three persons--every person is the entire deity and yet no person exists as the deity for itself without the other two. (Martin Luther, quoted in Culver, 105)

The three persons are never in conflict of purpose, never jealous over another's position or specific work, never prideful over one's own position or work, and they are always sharing fully the delight in being the one God and accomplishing the unified purpose of God. (Bruce Ware, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, 20)

What does the Trinity have to do with marriage? We do not say that men and women should be the same or do the same things. Husbands and wives are not interchangeable. We also do not say that men are better or that women are superior. We say they are equal, and not because we desire to be politically correct, but because we are Trinitarians. Trinitarians know that husbands can be the head and wives are co-image bearers and co-heirs of the grace of life. Understanding roles within the Trinity helps authority and submission within marriage to be a dance, not a duel. See Doug Wilson's version here

What does the Trinity have to do with the church? Why can the members of the Body be different and united, without competition?

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.(1 Corinthians 12:4-6)

And

If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. (1 Corinthians 12:17-20, 24-26)

It's not just fact that we're different yet connected; it's better because we're different and connected!

Trinitarians appreciate and exult over diversity; diversity in the same direction produces harmony. Unitarians are cookie cutters; everyone must play the same instrument. Unless the other person looks like them and talks like them (uniformity), something must be wrong (in the other person). Unitarians are always stressed, because they are always needing the other person to change OR they are always competing with the other person for superiority and power. There can only be one person in the first chair, one person who is esteemed. Unitarians serve others out of fear, because the only reason you would serve someone is if they had more power than you. Unitarians can't be served without (wrongly) believing themselves to be in the top spot. That's why Christian Unitarians freak out because they know they're supposed to be humble and let others serve them.

By the way, modalism doesn't work any better. A modalist marriage is one where the husband and wife take turns at the top. They know that they are equal, but that means, in practical experience, that only one can be at the top at a time; they just alternate. The same problem happens in the church with different members. I know I can't always be at the top. Eventually someone is still going to get tired of being at the bottom of the ferris wheel and try to stop it next time they're on top.

The Trinity means diversity and equality, individual roles and responsibilities without individualism. The Trinity created us to be different and simultaneously glorious; no one's shadow gets in the way.

"God is love" (1 John 4:8, 16). He has always been love and He didn't create in oder to finally be able to express it to someone. He has always been expressing it. When He created, He expanded and shared His expression of love, but love always was in the Trinity.

When he established the heavens, I was there;

We should think when we say "Father and Son." It's okay to talk about Jesus as the Second Person of the Trinity, but don't leave it at the technical level. The Persons of the Trinity love each other with hesed--steadfast, loyal love. They love each other with agape--committed, devoted, serving love.

The first and greatest commandment is to love God because that's who God is and we were made to enjoy intimacy with Him. The second greatest commandment is to love one another because we were made to reflect the Trinity. They will know we are Christians, baptized disciples, Trinitarians, by our love.

Love is the nature of God, not power and dominance and authoritarianism like Allah.

The Trinity is a revealed and relevant doctrine, the eternal Three-in-One is truth and life. Our failure to worship a Triune God results in practical day to day failures. Sin messes up Trinitarian life.

Sin is why we need the gospel--the evangel--which we'll consider next week. The gospel overcomes sin to reconcile us to God and to each other, to humble us and help us show honor to one another, and to give us new hearts that can love. To the degree that Trinity Evangel Church ignores the Trinity we will fail to be the baptized community of disciples that Jesus commissioned.

This is our eighth Lord's day of worship together and my message today will be the last in this series on the subject of worship.

I have tried to explain some of my reasons for starting with this subject along the way. There are benefits for the Body and for us as individual members of the Body.

Our very first Sunday we considered the heavenly throne room in Revelation 5. For whatever else we got, I wanted us to see that we are made stable amid changes and hopeful amid challenges when we keep our eyes on the worthy One. The following Lord's day we considered in 2 Corinthians 3:18 that we take on the identify of the God we worship. We become like what, or Who, we worship, and the culture of our congregation grows out of the soul of our corporate worship. This process, what God is doing in and through Jews and Gentiles, in and through the church, is part of God's eternal purpose to make a cosmic point about His profound wisdom according to Ephesians 3:10.

The following two Lord's days we considered the eternal love story between the Father and Son. We, the ones being transformed and united together, are a group gift to the Son. Our lives are not straggling pieces of confetti; we are part of an amazing drama. As we respond to this vision of God's sovereignty over the whole process, Romans 11:33-12:2 demonstrates that we cannot help but sing in theological doxology and sacrifice in doxological godliness. All of this prepared us for last week when we considered that our corporate worship of our great God should be great, it should be purposeful, it should say something in addition to the words we say or sing; our liturgy should reflect what we say we believe. In particular, our times together should be godward, engaging, memorable, and with the awareness that there's much we miss on any given occasion.

My burden in all of this has been to lead us away from the FOG--the fellowship of the grievance. My burden has been to put trivial annoyances in a transcendent context and keep them from becoming tragic offenses. My burden has been to ignite abounding love for God and for each other and for time together with those we love worshipping the God we love. My burden has been to expand our worship horizons and challenge us to develop and diversify our praise arsenal.

And yet, we're not there, not at that place of pure worship bliss. We won't be until heaven anyway. In the meantime, there are still piffling criticisms pulling at our pant legs and interpersonal bickerings and internal anxiousness. We are being transformed, but transformation takes time. The story He's writing includes more trouble, more distractions, more heart breaks.

That puts us in a particular kind of danger. Those of us who know so much, who have been given so many biblical vistas of God's glory will naturally struggle to match our hearts with His majesty; our feet are too small for the worship shoes. There is a very real danger to give up, not entirely, but in certain religious ways. Rather than fight against sin and fight for fuller affections, we settle for worship motions. We do our church thing, and we slip into thinking that God must be happy because here we are again, rather than coming here again because we want our happiness to be in God.

That's tough, but we're not the first or only people to ever be in that dangerous spot. Psalm 50 helps us, though it wasn't written to us. It was for Israel, written by Asaph for Israel to sing. The choir were "God's people," "His people" (vv. 5, 7). They were his "faithful ones" (v.5), or "godly ones" (NAS), "saints" (NKJV), "consecrated ones" (NIV). The Hebrew word is hesedi, a derivative of hesed which we repeatedly heard last week: "for his hesed endures forever." This psalm is addressed to recipients of His hesed, His-mercy-have-gotten ones.

But Psalm 50 is not a song of consolation. It is song a judgment because God is angry. "The Mighty One, God the LORD, speaks and summons the earth" (v.1). "God comes; he does not keep silence; before him is a devouring fire, around him a mighty tempest" (v.3). God is upset and a theophany represents His wrath.

He comes to "speak" (v.7), to "testify against" (v.7) and to "rebuke" (v.8), with "rebuke" mentioned again in verse 21 as He "lays [the] charge" before them. God the LORD, the mighty, devouring, righteous judge has come into the universal courtroom to testify against His people. Why?

The indictment can be found in verses 8-21. There are two basic charges. Before I try to summarize these charges, note what the charges were not: God did not charge them with failure to offer sacrifices nor did He charge them with ignorance of His statutes. "Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you; your burn offerings are continually before me" (v.8). His question in verse 16, "What right have you to recite my statutes or take my covenant on your lips?" assumed that they were singing or speaking His law. They knew who He was. They knew what He revealed. They knew what He required in worship. They knew what He had given them. Yet two things made their liturgy loathsome to God:

Wrong-hearted liturgy is worse than worth-less, it is worth His wrath.

They were busy sacrificers. As I said, God didn't rebuke them for offering strange fire or following unorthodox liturgy. They offered sacrifices, burnt offerings faithfully and according to His law, in that God Himself commanded that worship. He required worship in certain ways, at certain times, to be lead by certain people. He prescribed liturgy for them and, though I don't believe we have the exact sort of detailed liturgy to follow today in the church, we can fall into the same heart problems that made their liturgy loathsome.

God says, "I will not accept a bull from your house or goats from your folds" (v.9). Then He explains the reason why:

For every beast of the forest is mine,

Their first failure was not in the liturgy itself, it was in motivations behind the motions. Their ritual had become ritualism, empty and external.

There is incongruity in that they kept making sacrifices as part of the covenant, they are the hesedy ones, "who made a covenant with me by sacrifice" (v.5). The covenant stated the terms: God would provide and they would be the provided for. They were in covenant relationship with the Provider, they were in a hesed agreement, so acting like God needed their worship ignored the covenant in two ways: first by failing to give Him thanks for past hesed and second, by failing to trust Him for future hesed. They basically rewrote the covenant, drawing double arrows to reverse the roles.

He doesn't require worship because He needs it. He has no needs. But this gets us to the heart of the problem. Our worship won't be right unless we realize He provides all our needs.

Our God has no needs. "Every beast of the forest is [His], the cattle on a thousand hills. [He] knows all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is [His]" (vv.10-11). "The world and all its fulness are [His]" (v.12).

Our God has no needs. He is absolutely self-sufficient. And there is no room for self-sufficient worshippers. If we suppose that our worship is doing something for Him, we presume too much credit for ourselves and we undermine our worship while claiming to be worshipping. "I'm going to act like He is worthy when He needs me to give Him something?"

Men are made in God's image, made by Him to be like Him. But only God is independent. There is no such thing as a self-reliant reflection. Worship without dependence is detestable because it is false worship. It attributes to us and or God things that aren't true. A self-reliant mindset insults the LORD and is death to us.

Consider Deuteronomy 30:19-20

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days....

Dependent worship is war against death. Self-reliance is ruinous.

Unless we depend on Him for all our needs we are not worshipping Him rightly. Our dependence on Him can be seen in three ways (verses 14-15): thanksgiving, commitment, and entreaty.

Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,

In gratitude we acknowledge that He has provided for our needs. In commitment and entreaty we acknowledge and trust that He will provide all our needs.

So if God doesn't need our worship, why is He so persistent that we worship? It's because He meets us in worship. It's because when we worship rightly, in dependence, He is truly glorified. The liturgy is intended to keep our need for dependence on the front burner.

God wants us to "call upon [Him] in the day of trouble; [He] will deliver [us] and [we] shall glorify [Him]" (v.15). This is the covenant we're in. He gives His hesed. We give Him thanks for giving us hesed and we ask for more. It's a good deal for us and it glorifies Him. What He "needs" from us is to depend on Him for all our needs. Otherwise, our liturgy is loathsome.

Another group, the "wicked," is addressed beginning in verse 16, but I don't believe it is an entirely different group, as if verses 8-15 addressed Israelite surface-worshippers and this group doesn't even bother going through the motions. The "but" is misleading as a translation (it could be "but," but it is a simple vav conjunction). I think this group is a subset, Israelites who were busy with the burnt offerings who were also busy saying the right things, saying Scripture, quoting verses and joining in: "for His steadfast love endures forever." This is lip ministry, lip service.

But this group said things that they were not interested in practicing. They were hypocrites. They liked their own way, which apparently included knowing the commandment not to steal but encouraging thieves anyway, knowing the commandment about adultery but acting like it was no reason to break fellowship. They blessed God and cursed their brothers out of the same mouth, things that ought not be so.

Those speech patterns ought not be so, but they also ought not be surprising. If something is wrong in someone's heart (verses 8-15), that will eventually come out. It may not be visible in public worship, at least not right away, but it may be more visible in how they treat other people. The two are connected. If God needs us, if God should be thankful for what we give to Him, then certainly other people should treat us with respect. If they don't, they're fair game to speak against. That's why I've said they will know our shallow beliefs by our petty behavior.

It's also not surprising because the more we have to live up to the more tempting it is to pretend. As we get more excited about growing in our worship, some will appear to be excited but it's too hard to actually be grateful and count on Him. That doesn't mean we need to close up shop, but it does mean that we always want to remember that God is looking at our hearts.

He is always looking, even when it seems like He isn't doing anything. He doesn't separate the wheat and the tares right away. His patience is usually misunderstood by hypocrites as His approval. Patience does not necessarily equate to approval. It never does with God. We're more like that (v.21), but He rebukes us for such an error.

Our God is great, and greatly to be praised. But He is not praised unless we thank Him and seek, by depending on Him, to obey Him. Worship is not dumping our little bucket into His bigger bucket so that His bucket will be filled. Worship is coming with our little buckets to be filled by Him as the fountain of living water.

He rebukes, He will "tear...apart" those "who forget God" in such a way that they will be beyond deliverance. But,

The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me;

Worship renews the covenant, not because we're in danger of losing His hesed, but because we are always in danger of thinking we don't need it. We are constantly tempted to depend on ourselves and/or to decide for ourselves what is right. He detests pretense and hypocrisy. He delights in those who fear Him and rely absolutely on Him.

Finally, who are the instructions for? Who does God command to present a sacrifice of thanksgiving? To whom does God offer to deliver in the day of trouble? The GUILTY!

The church is not a worship union (or labor union); He doesn't need us to sing songs or offer prayers, run machines or teach classes. He owns the equipment and He offers the opportunity for life. We don't gather to worship so that we have bargaining chips with God; now He's pleased, now He must help us, now He owes us more. The church is a need union. We gather to worship as a union who used to be without hope in the world. Christ owes us nothing and needs nothing, but He is a Master pleased to help. Our happy servant's position is to ask for help. Our happy servant's work is to ask Him to work for us. Go in dependence, thanking and trusting.

Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. (Hebrews 13:15-16, ESV)

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Okay, so at our house, we have one child that is not black and white. This child doesn't, like you can say to them, do this. That would be not their head. You can say, don't do that. That is that. Don't do that anymore. That's it. And it's like, what? I don't know what you're talking about. And recently we've been using a lot of metaphors about why we get it. It's been helping a lot. Very engaging. Their imagination is wild all the time. So they've been, it's helped a lot in doing some sin, and one of the ones that we've been using is, I guess, the looser quote, and it's, um, he says that, It's one thing for birds to fly over your head, it's another thing to let them build nests in your hair.

And this one got really wide eyes, like, in my hair. And then we were very distracted by the mouthwash. And we had to talk about, well, how did they actually build these in your hair? I think it's not an actual bird. My point now is that birds flying over your head is temptation. Letting the birds nest in your hair is sinning, actually. Letting the sin overcome you. So, and some of the birds that I see a large flock of flying over the ladies of Trinity, in particular, are birds of pettiness. There are a large amount of them. You know, like, have you ever gone over down the South of America when you're on a freeway?

sometimes there's like, and it's insane, it crushes me out, amount of birds flying over the freeway there. I don't know what they're doing, I think they go sit in that sewage treatment area and walk in the gym. But that, I think it's like that amount of them flying over us. And so I have even noticed a couple trying to land in my hair. And like I said, there's lots of things that are sort of a petting, this is not normally one for me, and they are trying to do my hair. So I wanted to encourage all of us to be looking for signs of them getting in our hair and get them out. If they are getting in your hair or if you notice them getting in your friend's hair, say, hey, you got some birds in my hair.

And the other thing that is really exciting about this is as the women of families and of the church, We set so much of the aroma or the flavor of the body and this is a spot where we really have a great opportunity to set a really wonderful flavor instead of a bitter, stinky yucky. So anyway, I know that quite a few of you are in relationships that because of, you know, how community has come about, it is a church split. because of that some of your relationships are under a significant amount of strain more than is typically encountered with the regular life. And the thing is with something like pettiness, it comes at you, you get it coming and going.

Like you can either be petty, you can be the initiator of it, or you can be petty as you receive pettiness. Does that make sense what I'm saying? It's one of those things that's not just, you know, if you are murdered, then you're just murdered. You're not going to murder anybody back here murdered. But, pettiness is one that it's a, quickly turns into a cycle, and we just need to be on guard for that. So, for anybody that was, my favorite definition of pettiness is the art of living small. Tiny things, really big. You know, lots of times it comes in taking offense, actually more than even giving offense, but it's sneaky and small.

It usually travels in a pack with gossip and slander and backbiting, and I do think that they almost always eventually meet up with bitterness, so it's bad. And they're usually hidden, and I think women are, I do think that these kind of birds like long hair, better than short hair. We are much better at it than men. I think some of that is men are just more upfront. You know, we're really good at like really subtle hoping someone in the eye instead of just saying, I'm so mad at you, I can't stand to get away from me. We do, you know, like little, I don't know, I don't know if it's a look or whatever it's a meaning.

And so anyway, we need to not do that. So the first thing, and this is the most obvious and primary thing, and I don't actually, I have not seen this from anyone, so please don't feel like I'm singling you out. But do be on guard. Don't do the obvious thing. Don't be the perpetrator of this. Don't be the initiator of it. Don't be gossiping about people. Don't slander them. Don't look superior to them, or turn a cold shoulder or anything like that. That's not Christian. And that is one of the things that we've been talking about at our house a lot. The first thing, we are Christians first. We're not anything else first.

We're Christians first. So that means that we love ourselves and loving other people more than we love ourselves. And it's really hard, especially if they're doing something that we think is mean or unkind or they've sinned or whatever, but that's first. Maggie and I recently went into a situation that was focused, thought was going to be difficult and ended up being difficult. And as we were going in, she said, this is weird. And I'm like, this is weird. We have to be Christians first. We are kind, we are friendly, we were going to be, no matter what happens in there, we are kind and nice first. That's the first thing.

Doesn't matter what they're doing, she said. Okay, and so we went in and she's so cute. She's like a little miniature Christian woman engaging people in small talk and acting like it's fun. But we are giving ourselves those pet talks pretty frequently. We're Christians first. Nothing else matters. It doesn't matter what kind of status you have, what position you have, what you've done in the past, none of that matters. What matters is that we live like Christ. So that is really hard, but really important. And that's how we want to be known as kind Christian women. So I have written here, don't be a cranky icky pants.

And secondly, this is less obvious I think, but what to do when you encounter it. And I have a couple things here. The first is don't use it as an excuse for your own sin. This is one of the spots where I am finding the birds are getting in. Because I don't normally feel the need to initiate pettiness, but when I see pettiness, then I want to sometimes get pettiness out of it. I want to start keeping track. I want to be like, hey, that was a deserve, why are you doing that? pick it that which is petty in and of itself. So don't use it, you know, well they said this about me, so I'm not saying that much about them, I'm only saying this. So be careful to not use it, let it excuse your own sin.

Don't take offense. This is a big Christian lady sin. This is like the sin that you can't be confronted on. Well I'm offended. She offended me. She did this. She did this. I can't believe that they looked at me like that. I'm offended, you can't hold me accountable. That was offensive. One of the illustrations that I read when I was reading about this that I really liked was the idea of Susan Wold, a basketball player who has fallen backwards very dramatically after being fouled. Well, he was obviously offended, he's laying on the ground. Well, no, not obviously, maybe he wasn't offended, maybe he's a big drunk.

Well, you know, he's laying on the ground because he wants attention and he wants a foul to be called on that player. Lots of times were the player laying on the ground being in a wrong place about something that didn't break up. And it, lots of times the person that is offended is the person who is sinning. And we need to remember that, you know, it's easy to read, notice what people are doing, or just be looking for something wrong in what they're doing, and be like, oh, I mean, you know, in another way then you can slide back to them, because then you can just, I'm just so hurt by what they did. And lots of times it's better just not to take offense.

just move on from it, trying to think the best of what they possibly could have meant by what they said or did, and move on. You have bigger things that are more important to be thinking about than what may or may not have been done to you. That goes right along with keeping a record of wrongs. That is not, that's true, not Christian. That's not what we do. God is not keeping a record of our wrongs. We should not be keeping a record of the small wrongs that are being done to us. You know, and any time that I need help with that, First Corinthians 13 is good. First Peter 4a, about love covering a multitude of sins.

One of the things you see that's interesting about that first is that it says, you know, the first part is the direction to let your love abound, to be sure that you're loving because love covers a multitude of sins. It's not, you know, love them by covering a multitude of sins, but when you are loving someone, that covers a multitude of sins. Does that make sense? That love comes first. And it's a good indicator if a lot of sins are coming up that your love is not great enough for that person to cultivate it. And that's totally that Spurgeon quote that faults are thick where love is thin. And that's another thing that once you have one fault against somebody, then it's like the love gets thinner and you start seeing more and more and more faults in what they're healing.

So guard against that. Nancy, one quote she has about it, she says, if you keep feeding your imagination with little doses of resentments and disappointments, you'll soon be a total brawn. I thought I was like, okay, that's good. And as a side note on this, I did want to say, I think that there's an important distinction between perceived wrongs done to us and legitimate wrongs done. And I do think that I'd say 90% of the time with ladies, it's perceived wrongs. Lots of the time, we make a big deal out of something that really isn't a big deal. I tell Sean when I'm feeling like that, especially when I'm pregnant, I'm like, I'm like that all the time when I'm pregnant.

I tell him, I know I'm being a girl. I just need you to confirm I'm being a girl. I'm really hurt by it, and he's like, yep, you're being a girl. That's great. That is not even something to spend two seconds thinking about. But, you know, so I do think a lot of the time it's perceived, And that's a whole other issue that you need to deal with, why you're seeing people doing wrong things to you all the time, you're probably thinking about yourself too much. But I do think that recently there are some legitimate slums being done. And I have seen wrongs done to some of the ladies in this room, some of it has been very public, and that, you know, may be new territory for some of us.

Where it's like, wow, okay, that actually is wrong. That is not okay. That person should not be doing that. And you don't need to pretend that what they are doing is right. It's not a matter of saying, oh no, that's okay, it's no big deal what they're doing. If what they're doing is wrong, it is wrong, and God's going to hold them accountable for that, but we still are held responsible for how we respond to that. And that's the part that I really want us to be careful about. So, I have your again, you know, the pep talk. If you're headed into one of those situations where you find yourself in the middle of it, remind yourself you're a Christian first. Ask God for help in that situation to act like Christ was.

And then Nancy Wilson recently posted about this and she gives some basic steps and thought they were pretty good. Her first step when you are a slander or something like this is done wrong against you is to thank God. And she wrote, I'm not joking. That really is true. It's your opportunity, another opportunity to be like Christ because he was swammer and she pointed out that why he was arrested in the first place before he was crucified. It's not like he was actually doing something wrong. And then she said, pray that God will bless the swammer. And she wrote, still not kidding. That's really good because you know that's where it's like, maybe you could get to the point where, okay, you thank God, you know, you get the opportunity to be like Jesus.

But then pray that God will bless the person that's doing wrong to you. Well, I'm going to do that. But actually bless them, that really will help keep bitterness away from you. If you're praying those things, it's going to at least force you to deal with whatever bitterness is there. And then our next step was pray that God will give you an opportunity to bless them. You know, that doesn't need to be a huge thing. Even just smiling and being polite the next time you see them. Or, you know, she gave the example of if they had a car truck and you were given a ride. Just pray for an opportunity like that. And you may need to set that up, you know, give them a gift.

I don't know what, you, each situation is so different, you would have to, obviously be coming up with creative things on your own. And then she also talks about that if this is a public thing, you even more so need to do that. Not in a clownish, you know, big scene kind of way, like, oh, hello, I'm loving you in a gummy way. But remember that if it's public, people are watching. watching to see how that person is acting and they're watching to see how you're going to respond. So we do not want to be known as a petty, cranky, bitter group of offended people. That's not who we want to be. We want to be known as happy, joyful people who are loving and worshiping God and who are eager to serve other people and eager for reconciliation if that needs to happen. So just remember that there are people watching She talks a lot about courtesy, which are like Christians are courteous.

So you don't need to run up and hug them and be like, I'm just really missing you. But being courteous and kind towards them. And it's just a prayer for vindication. And that is something that we can be doing. But I do think that you need to do those other ones first. Because the prayer for vindication can frequently be self-righteous and, you know... If you've really been doing these other things, then I do think that that's a good prayer. And one thing also that we've been focusing on at our house is in that vindication, you know, we pray for, because we're doing this with small children most of the time, we pray that whoever needs to get spanked would get spanked. And if it's us, then we would be spanked immediately.

Like, we want to deal with our sin first, and we want God to deal with us first also. We don't want, you know, because more than likely there's sin on both sides when there's problems. problems. We want to make sure that we are being spanked in dealing with that before we're praying for other people to spank. It's just like you would do with your own children if you're disciplining them. They were telling you, well that one needs spanking. You would say, well it sounds like you need spanking first. So those are good things. And Shania even talked about this a couple weeks ago that pettiness doesn't fit with right worship of God. That shows that you're probably not eating the right bread. If you're going back to the bread of pettiness and that are nesting, those things.

You're not feasting on the good things that God has put in front of you. So I was thinking about that. This is one thing we talked about with that same kid. You know, there are certain things you can do to put a big hat on, and so to keep the birds from getting in your hair. And so a good pettiness prevention hat, maybe even scare phones off to get the birds really far away, is that real worship of God, and focusing on that, feasting on that in your mind. Those are really, that's like, you know, I think I was listening, about thankfulness being a weapon, gratitude being a weapon, and that's against sin. If you are truly grateful for all the wonderful things that God has done and is doing for you and in your life, it's going to be very difficult to even remember the wrongs that are being done.

And definitely you won't be able to focus on them or be wallowing in it. And the other part that we've talked about frequently, it's really good, is in Psalm 52, the directions there are really interesting. David has had some, those are not perceived wrongs that have been done to David before Psalm 52. That's when the whole deal goes down with Doag, who's like seriously bad news, and you know, Saul is trying to kill David. It's that, like David is having very wrong things done to him and he is not doing something wrong that's even causing it. He is pretty much as innocent as you could be in that case. And what his call is to godly people is to see the wrong that's done to them, to acknowledge it.

Like I said, you don't have to pretend like it's not happening. The next step is to fear God, to make sure that you are not going to fall into sin yourself. And then the third step is laugh. Like, what? I don't know, that doesn't sound very serious and godly. You think that the next step is going to be to read your Bible more, or be more serious and intense, or pray very seriously, but to laugh. And I love that picture. It goes back to all throughout the Psalms. God talks about us being at a table. He is inviting us to celebrate. He has won for us. So we're at a table, a feasting table. That's not where you're really serious.

And those guys are being really bad over there. get to laugh and that is such a great conviction, convicting direction to me. I'm like, okay so it's not enough to just not be sinning. I need to be rejoicing, like having a great time because God is blessing us. So anyways, I think that's great and so I wanted to encourage all of you guys and if you all have anything that you would like to say.

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Last Sunday night, I tried to tease out some thoughts on the value of each individual member, each individual part of the church body. I tried to make the case that no part of the church body should try to claim superiority over another part of the body. even our weaker parts, according to the Apostle Paul, our weaker parts have greater honor. Especially reprehensible is the suggestion that only certain sorts of Christians are the really super spiritual ones that really bugs me. And I said that it's me and my ilk, my get a paycheck, my having gone to school and get a degree kind of peoples, the people I hang out with at conferences because I only go to such certain kinds of conferences, I guess.

But me and my yoke are largely responsible for having communicated that idea that the really spiritual people are the ones who read their Bible and pray. And the fact is, there have been, like in history, many pastors and theologians who did a lot of Bible reading and praying who weren't even saved, let alone spirit-filled. So your task is not necessarily what makes you spiritual. It's whether you are, I know this is really the brain surgeon part of me, what makes it a spiritual activity is if you do it spiritually. So obviously, you should be doing that reading your Bible and praying in the spirit. You should also be disciplining your kids in the spirit.

You should also be making cookies for your neighbor in the spirit. You should be visiting the person in the hospital in the spirit. You should be showing up at your job on time and working hard while you're there and not checking out, clocking out early. All of those things can be done spiritually if we do them in the spirit. And even in the church, what I was trying to make the case is that we all have a part, we all have responsibility, there's all things, all of us have things that we need to be doing. There's no monopoly. Pastors, professionally paid ministry kind of people have no monopoly on spirit-driven schedules and task lists. So whatever your weekly calendar looks like, whatever God has put on your task list, whatever your giftedness in this body is, we need it. It's valuable and done by the power of the Holy Spirit makes a huge difference. I'd like to develop that a a little bit further tonight with a few questions.

That is questions that I'm going to ask, and questions for which I expect your multitude of responses. And I get it. Those of you who are students in school, you don't like to have to talk. And those of you who are no longer students in school, in class, you figure you graduated so that you didn't have to do that anymore and you didn't even have to feel bad about it. And I totally get that there's times when, I mean this happens even around my dinner table, let alone when we have a corporate service, there's totally times when I want to talk and I don't want anybody else to talk. And then there's other times where some discussion, some discussion log is a good thing.

And we're in this together. So here's the first question. And I'm serious. And I can stand here for a long time. I run a lot of miles. My legs are strong. Unless God takes my life right now, I can stand here waiting for some answers. So a few questions to tease it out. Then I have some comments I'd like to make after we work through a couple of these things together. The first question would be, and this is not just theoretical. This is really practical for a church that's only been around seven or eight weeks. The first question would be, what is the goal of a church, specifically the goal of a local body of believers?

What should we be aiming at? How will we know if and when we've arrived successfully at our goal, at our purpose? Now, there's probably not just one. And if you say to glorify God, I say, yay, and I will bring out my flanograph, and we'll have Moses on there, and Joseph and his coat of many colors. But in addition to glorifying God, or maybe even we'll incorporate that into the question. This is all giving you time to think about your answers. What is the goal of any given local body, any church? How will they, if they meet their goal, glorify God?

You. To present every man complete in Christ. I think that even has a verse that goes with it in Colossians chapter one verse 28. Great. So to see each and every person, now think about that if that was your goal. To get person sitting right beside you. complete in Christ so that when we stand before Him, He recognizes Himself in us. Or specifically, He recognizes Himself in the person that we've been ministering to. What if that was your goal? You'd be freaked out. And here's the thing, that is your goal. That isn't just my goal, the elder's goal, pastor's goals in general. That's a goal of the body. To see every part, I mean this is a part, these are parts, complete in Christ, perfect in Christ, Christ-like, what else?

What should be the goal of a local body? That's a good one. It's probably not the only thing we could say.

So to summarize, because I have a microphone, to summarize, first that's only in chapter four, nine through 11, the goal of a church would be to love one another so obviously that others would see it and God would be honored. Is that a fair summary of what you describe? Like whoa, I mean try putting that as one thing on your task list. For everyone to be loving each other so obviously that the community sees it and talks about it and glorifies God because they are watching it happen. That's a good one. What else will we say? Goal of a local body. Okay, so serving, taking care of the rest of the body. In terms of your physical health, that's probably a important goal to make sure that each part is working properly, being taken care of, has the support or the strength that it needs because you're connected. So to make sure that the whole body is healthy, taking care of all the needs of the rest of the body, if your foot was on fire you wouldn't ignore it, you would vigorously pay attention to it and seek to remedy that situation. So the goal of the

church, maybe if I was summarizing that would be the health of the whole body in terms of its various needs, serving, caring for, tending to one another. Come on, that can't be it. Okay, unity. And if we miss that one, we miss Jesus' high priestly prayer. Now, I understand John chapter 17 isn't necessarily about the church or about a specific one or all of the different local bodies. And nevertheless, Jesus prayed for his disciples and for all those who would be disciples that they would be one. And what was the standard of their oneness? Now there was a standard of unity that he was praying them towards. That the The disciples would be one just as he and the Father were one.

So until there is a Trinitarian unity, inseparable connectedness between us, we're not done. We still have work to do. There's still a goal. So unity. Okay, to be a light. Israel in particular was assigned the task to be a light to the nations. And I couldn't this afternoon come up with one specific New Testament verse where it assigned that role to the church. And nevertheless, I totally think it is part of the church's goal to proclaim the good news to all the nations.

To make disciples of all the nations, obviously in Matthew chapter 28, And at least Matthew, when he was writing that, didn't say it needed the church to accomplish the making disciples of all the nations. Nevertheless, I mean, clearly we do a lot of discipleship training and teaching men to obey all that Jesus commanded in the context of a church. So kind of a mission mindedness. The church has a light in a dark world. So we should be proclaiming the excellencies of His glorious light who called us out of darkness into light. That's 1 Peter chapter 2. So far we've had a light to the nations, even community around us, taking care of the whole body, unity in the body, loving one another.

What was the very first one that we talked about? to make every man complete in Christ. Anything else? OK. And maybe we could say that's taking the local body and recognizing its place in the universal body. So we take care of the needs of somebody across the room who is in the same local body. And that should cause us to consider also the needs of our brothers and sisters throughout the world who have various needs. Somebody else, okay? And unless we individually are doing our part, it's unlikely that we're gonna have unity. It's unlikely that we're gonna be taking care of the needs locally or globally, unless we are doing our part.

And for that matter, we're not gonna be complete in Christ unless each one of us are serving with the spiritual giftedness that God gave us. How about from a couple Sunday mornings ago when I talked and preached even from Ephesians chapter 3 verse 10 that the church, and I think it's expressed in local bodies, it's speaking on a broad scale, but it's expressed in particular places where the church is the display of God's manifold wisdom to the rulers and authorities in heavenly places. That's a goal. Part of the goal of the church is to live in such a way that the spirit beings we don't even see get that something is going on among us as a demonstration specifically of God's wisdom.

I put that as the church as object lesson, as a universal object lesson. I've got to declare the gospel to the nation's church as a mission platform. How about 1 Timothy 3.15, which talks about the church as the pillar and support of truth. There's an element where the truth is ours unlike it is anybody else's. And specifically that truth as it is revealed even in Jesus, who is the way, the truth, and the life. But we have God's word, which is more certain than people's personal experiences, according to 2 Peter chapter 1. So we are the pillar and supportive truth. Paul is writing, he said, so that you may know how to behave yourselves until I come in the church, which is the pillar and supportive truth.

So I have that summarized as truth protectorate, because I thought that sounded fancy. Is it not the goal of the church to see all of the saints equipped for the work of ministry? That's really what we narrowed in on last Sunday night from Ephesians chapter 4, verse 12. So church as a training center, that has to be a goal.

Ephesians 4, 13 and 15 talks about how none of that is done until the whole body is at the fullness of the stature of Christ. And maybe that's another way to say complete in Christ or perfect in Christ, but that maybe we could summarize the church as a spiritual greenhouse where there's major growth and fruit being produced.

Clearly one of the goals of the church in Hebrews chapter 10, 24 and 25, you know that passage, where we're to be busy doing what? In Hebrews 10, 24 and 25. Stirring one another up to love and good deeds and verse 25 specifically then goes on and says, encouraging one another as the day draws near. So that could be the church kind of as a support group. Church as an accountability group. Stirring one another up or depending on your translation if you like, irritating one another. Stirring the pot so that the beans don't get stuck on the bottom. Making sure that everybody is doing their part. How about 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 5, where we are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

The church is a worship center. And obviously that has transforming power to it in us, according to 2 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 18, where we all are being transformed into the same image. And what is that image? Well, it's the glory of the Lord that we're beholding. So as a group of worshipers offering spiritual sacrifices to God, we're changed. That has to go into being a light to the nations when they see that we have something to actually sing about and praise and be thankful for. They don't have that. So it benefits us. It has implications for outside of our walls and it honors God. But I think another way to say this is the last one I have written down in terms of the goal of a church, of a local body.

Could we not also say that the goal of a church is to get prepared for the marriage supper of the lamb? And who's getting married at that particular celebration? At the marriage supper of the lamb? Jesus, yes, and his bride, the church. The goal of a local body is a season of beautification. Now, that should have been more funny than the looks on your faces kind of expressed. But wasn't it Esther? Not that Esther, but since she has the same name. Wasn't it Esther who had like months of beautification to get ready for the king? We are right now in an ongoing process of beautification. In Ephesians chapter five, it talks about being made blameless, so that we'll be presented holy and without spot to our husband.

And it's a collective group. It's not, you know, I'm Jesus's wife or bride. It's collectively we are, but that's significant, Because that means as a local church, we're a part of getting each other ready as a bride to be married to the king, to be married to our husband, to our groomsman, Jesus Christ. And that's something, obviously, that goes on for eternity. So as the love gift from the father to the son, the arranged marriage, so to speak, between the bride and the groom, That's who we are, and our job then is to grow in blamelessness, in Christlikeness, in unity with one another. Because who wants a bride that's schizophrenic and all over the place?

And who wants one that is continuing to be soiled by other lovers? The point is that we're getting ready for that relationship, consummation in heaven with Christ as His church. So the goal of a particular local body has to include some of those large goals. So that leads me to a second question, your opportunity to give some answers again. How does a church that is a local body reach those kind of goals? What does she do? And let me throw in, it recognizes that only God can do those kinds of things. It's only by his spirit, it's only by his grace, it's only by his power. And nevertheless, he gives us responsibilities to be busy about while we're here as we're filled and moved by his spirit.

So what are we as a local body to do to get ourselves towards some of those lofty, unreachable sounding kind of goals? They would be unreachable were it not for the fact that God promised He was going to get us there. Monday mornings for me, it's a huge difference whether I wake up thinking about responsibilities or promises, because promises make me realize all of the things that are not yet done.

Responsibilities make me think all the things that are not done, a different kind of exhale more in terms of a panic or crying or something like that. What do we though, that was your opportunity to think, That was your Jeopardy music without the music. What do we as a church, as a local body do to get ourselves ready or to move ourselves toward those goals? Okay, ministering the word to each other. And in fact, there's a lot of really good terminology like that in the trellis and the vine. Where, that's where it came from. It was echoing. I heard it reverberating. One of the books that we talked about, The Trellis and the Vine, which, for what it's worth, the logo for Trinity of Angel Church that Jesse Martin beautified, created beautified.

That's a vine. This is taking the unspoken and making it spoken. But one of the things that's supposed to include is the idea of a vine. A lot of that comes from the idea, not necessarily the book, but the ideas presented in the Trellis and the Vine, does a lot of talking in the Trellis and the Vine about speaking to one another with the Word. And significantly, and we'll come back to it, it's the one another ministry of the Word, not the pastor or teacher people ministering the Word, but the among the body. Ministering the Word, speaking the Word, a word ministry is not just something that, You know you need a degree to do it's being a part of the body means you have that responsibility Okay, so it's got to involve the Bible. We're talking about the Bible. We're doing that with each other What else other things we're doing to get to those goals?

Humility in terms of at least an attitude that's necessary because If you come trying to think you're all that You'll probably be less persuasive in encouraging other people to come along. What else? Discipleship and of course that one, it all depends on who you ask for a definition of discipleship. In my mind discipleship should be defined by what Jesus did with the guys he called his disciples, which involved three years of living with them, like constantly. That's discipleship proper. And we have opportunities to do that. We all have opportunities to do that in different ways and not always to that degree or to that extent where we're able to live with people, but it includes then planning lots of life crossing, life path crossing, where we're interacting regularly with each other as if we were living together.

I mean, Jesus living with those guys, they heard him teach. They got to ask him questions when he was done teaching so that he could explain it more. He saw their sins. He confronted them on their sins. He asked them questions, engaged them in different conversations, let them go out, gave them resources to go out, gave them feedback when they came, and reported on what they had done. I mean, discipleship is big and good and hard and long and... really easy if you just say the discipleship means you stand up and you tell other people things, which that's a part of it. I'm not convinced that that's the entirety of it.

What else we got? Accountability. Hey, you part of the body. You falling asleep and you're making it tough. Hey, you wandering eye. I mean, think about that physically. I mean, you can get some corrective lenses maybe that help out. But if, in fact, we're a spiritual body, And one of us has gone off the reservation. We better go get him. So accountability is one of the words that totally can apply or be used in that kind of discussion. Yeah, praying. I mean, we acknowledge that God is the one who does it, but one of the instruments God uses through us is us asking him to do it, to cause growth, to give open doors, to do the things that we can't do, even though he tells us to do them.

So praying is absolutely huge. Ephesians chapter four verse 15, speaking truth. That's all in a very pregnant paragraph there. Ephesians four, 11 through 16, much of which we talked about last week. But speaking the truth to one another, speaking the truth in love, proclaiming the word, preaching the word, I mean, 2 Timothy 4.2, in season, out of season, imploring men to be reconciled to God through Christ, 2 Corinthians 5.20.

If we want people to be like Christ, that has to start with them having a relationship with Him at all. And I realize we're talking about the church, but there are people even within the church who have just grown up with it, or that's all they know, or they heard it was a good thing to do, and they don't necessarily have a relationship. They're not reconciled with Christ.

So we implore them to be reconciled, 2 Corinthians chapter five verse 20.

I think connected with a message from a couple weeks ago and even something I said earlier, one of the ways we get to our goal of being ready for Jesus is singing, is worshiping, is worshipping, is giving thanks, that has a transforming effect on us. I think even to say that there's a part where we suffer and we don't want to just take any kind of suffering necessarily, definitely not suffering that we deserve. There's no credit in that, Peter says in 1 Peter chapter 4. But in terms of 2 Corinthians chapter 1 verses 3 six, we were afflicted and comforted so that we could comfort you. If we want to take care of the needs of the body, one of the ways we're going to be able to provide comfort is if we ourselves have received that comfort, which means you probably needed that comfort, which meant God took you through a time or a season or a lifetime full of heaviness, trials, difficulties, even 2 Corinthians 4 verses 8 through 12 talking about how he brings us to our breaking point so that that spreads grace.

We don't keep all the grace to ourselves. We spill out that grace on other people and one of the times when that grace comes out is when our clay pot is bumped into and bashed into and it should if it's filled with grace If it has been comforted, then it has that to share on other people, and that is healing, that is comforting, that is ministering to the needs of the body. So this should be... this is my last question. So come on, guys. I mean, this is where you need to really get into it, all right? Are you ready? Not ready. I think that this could have some easy answers, though, to it. We'll see. Not that you guys need easy answers.

I'm just saying that like hand on the buzzer. Okay. So, we've talked about some of the broad high goals for a local body. And we've talked about some of the ways that we totally have not exhausted the ways, the means to get to our goals. But this is the third and killer question. Who does this work depend on the most, comma, after the three persons of the Trinity? So yes, we depend most of all on God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit.

None of it's gonna happen apart from them. But who does this work? We put out some lofty goals ahead of ourselves. And we've already described then some of the ways to get to those goals. So who's supposed to do those things? Okay, we've got us, the who? The person you see in the mirror. The person you see in the mirror. But don't walk away from that mirror and then forget what you look like, because that's a person who hears the word and doesn't obey it. Each other, us, me, you, all. Anything you guys want to add? What about the shepherds? Isn't it the shepherds' job? See, because, well, maybe I won't say that yet.

I don't know that super persuasive. I'll think about it. What about the shepherds, the elders, the overseers? Is it up to them? I mean, yes and no. That's the good shepherd answer, is yes and no. It totally depends on them, and it doesn't depend on them at all. Last week I talked about, oh, go ahead. Guiding. Helping. Sure, equipping so that the saints are doing the work. Yeah. Say that again. Shepherds don't produce sheep. Sheep produce sheep. Shepherds just are pulling their hair out, wondering how it's all happening. Yeah. That's even biological and stuff. But I mean, that's a good point.

Yeah, I mean, obviously, there's place in the Bible for shepherds and overseers and elders. That's how she gets to eat because the Bible says there's a place for that. There's totally a recognizable group of guys that have certain kinds of responsibilities in a local body but most of the things that we've talked about are the one and other things. Alleluis is the Greek word one another that occurs over and over and over again in the New Testament. You have to have heard some preacher somewhere give a sermon on all the one and others because that's easy cross-reference picking and fills up a lot of time. But washing one another's feet, which I think is a very practical explanation or illustration of serving one another.

Loving one another, outdoing one another in showing honor, not judging one another. In the Romans 14, 13 cents, in that context it's of the stronger, weaker brother. So the more towards the side of, whether they are or not, more towards the side of law, legalism, and the other group who are more the freedom people, both of them getting along not being the judge of each other, bearing one another's burdens, forbearing with one another in love, forgiving one another, teaching and admonishing one another with songs and hymns and spiritual songs, comforting one another, edifying one another, exhorting one another, considering one another, how we can provoke one another or stir each other to love and good deeds. Even James chapter 5 verse 16 to confess our sins to one another. Obviously there's a part where you got leaders and followers.

There are shepherds and sheep, there are elders and youngers, there's overseers and the overseen, but when it comes to what the purpose of a local church is, all of us have responsibility and by your own verbal testimony, you know that. So that means you should get to work and be busy. Now those who have known me for much time at all know that Colossians 128 and I don't mind if you accidentally throw in 29 along with it.

Colossians 128 has occupied a central place, a precious place in my heart, the name of a ministry that I loved but not only a name more than a name, not just like the text that explained a diagram on a page, 128 for me is more like the muscles that beat and pulsed and pumped the blood. Colossians 128 is that valuable to me. And in its context, the Apostle Paul is the one who's writing it. And specifically in that last paragraph starting in chapter 1 verse 24, he's describing a lot of his apostolic work. And he took his role and his responsibilities as an apostle, which is different. He took those very seriously. He loved suffering for the church. He talked about rejoicing that he could fill up what was lacking in Christ's afflictions. Not in a salvific way, but at least in an illustrative way, in an example kind of way, in Christ suffered for us and we suffer for each other because of Christ, not instead of Christ in His place.

He was the only one who could do it as a substitute. But Paul loved suffering for the church. He loved stewarding the gospel. He loved fulfilling his preaching of the whole counsel of God. And in that paragraph, he has at least three desires for fulfillment. one, to fill up or complete what was lacking in Christ's afflictions. Secondly, was to fill up or complete the preaching of God's Word. If you look at that paragraph, you'll see there's this repeated idea of filling up or completing, depending on which translation you're reading. So, to complete what was lacking in Christ's afflictions, to complete the preaching of God's Word, and to complete Christ-likeness in everyone. That's specifically where we get to in verse 28. In verse 29 he explains he gave all of himself to this work. He labored, he exhausted himself, he let his clay pot be beaten up and worn out. In Acts he described in general his ministry as one being public and from house to house. He exhorted people in the body like a father to his children.

Second, I'm sorry, 1st Thessalonians chapter 2, like a father to his children and he even had gentleness like a nursing mother caring for her babies. That's also in first Thessalonians chapter 2. And all this was done in the power provided by the one who is all-powerful. To this end I labor and strive according to his mighty power which he mightily works within me. That's Colossians 1 29. But having clearly defined goals is good. Complete the suffering, complete the preaching, complete Christ-likeness in all those that he ministered to. Having clearly defined goals as good, spending and sacrificing oneself to achieve those goals as good, depending on God and his spirit, for wisdom and energy is good, but it's not enough. If only one guy is doing it, it's not enough. It takes all of us, part working properly. To present, meditate, marinate, percolate on this phrase just for a second. Everyone complete in Christ. There is a vision and a standard that are unbelievable.

The vision is everyone or every person. Really? Like just the people in this room, in these walls at this time right now, that's a lot of people to see complete and like Christ. Reaching the fullness of the measure of the stature of Christ. No longer tossed around by any ways of doctrine. So that's a vision. Everyone, every person and the standard is completeness perfection total likeness to Christ that vision and that standard are beyond any man's ministry it has to be something done by a church by a body just some bullet points think of the spectrum of spiritual maturity in any given group of believers. From the brand new baby Christians to those who have been believers for twice as long as the other people have been alive, let alone maybe have been Christians. The spectrum of spiritual maturity. Think also of the variety of sin tendencies and struggles.

You know when people say to me, you know what your problem is? I like the line, I only have one. I stole that from another place, but I have some sin tendencies. And they might not be yours. And if you want to help me, then you can't act like mine are yours. And if I want to help you, I can't act like mine are yours. Like yours are mine, mine are yours. Like you have yours, I have mine. But we both are headed in the same direction, the same goal. The variety of sin tendencies and struggles. Think of the different backgrounds represented. The family backgrounds, the culture backgrounds, educational backgrounds, Bible knowledge.

Like maybe there was a time, I don't know because I wasn't living there, but maybe there was a time 50 years ago in the United States where lots of people went to Sunday school and they knew more of the stories but you can't really depend on people having the same foundation of Bible knowledge, whether they believe it or not. Think of the unique giftedness. Dave mentioned that earlier. Like, if we're going to be a whole body, everybody's got to be using their giftedness. Well, that means we've got to help each other identify that and make sure there are opportunities for using the giftedness. It's not just something where we want everybody to be a teacher.

Let not many of you be teachers, James says in James chapter three. But if everybody has a gift, then that means there's things to do. We need to consider the various ways we can support those unique gifts, provide opportunities for them. And I mean, the last bullet point here is think of the multiple life context. Single people married people, old people, young people. Married without kids, married with kids, or many kids. The people who work alone or who work from home, the people who have to work closely with a team, or who work on a factory line, or their work is going to school. Think about the people who are up during the day, the people who are up during the night, The people who spend a lot of time, you know, in the same 10 square feet, or the people who are regularly going across the world, blue collar, white collar.

I mean, we are a spiritual buffet. We are a smorgasbord of all kinds of people. But unlike normally, at least in terms of my preferences, unlike a normal smorgasbord, we're good when we're running together. Not when you keep all of us compartmentalized and separated. We need to be united. We need to be mixing. We need to be gathered. We need to be with. We need to be serving one another, taking care of one another. It's part of the reason why Paul extended the word ministry, even, of teaching and admonishing. Because sure, if we want to say in chapter 1, that's his special apostolic stewardship, teaching and admonishing everyone in all wisdom in order to present everyone complete in Christ?

Sure, say that teaching and admonishing in chapter one is apostolic work or even pastor or teacher kind of work, but in Colossians chapter three, it's work for everybody who is richly and dwelt by God's word. The command is be richly and dwelt, let it be at home in your heart, and the participles that come out of that command, the results of being richly and dwelt, will be teaching and admonishing one another. A word ministry, regardless of giftedness and background and culture and context and work schedule, that seeks the good of each other. You know, it's word ministry, speaking, teaching, sharing, enjoying together the word.

And we could even add onto that in how Jesus commissioned his disciples, not just telling it to one another, but helping each other to obey everything that he's commanded. That's Matthew 28 verse 20. So you are necessary, if you're a Christian, to the body, to the body of Christ at large and to whatever local body you're a part of. Absolutely necessary. And not for sake of financial stewardship, not for sake of lots of easy things, but for things like showing off the manifold wisdom of God to rulers and authorities in heavenly places, loving each other so much that people start talking about it. Building each other up until we are all like Christ, ready to be married to Him, pure, spotless, blameless, beautiful as His bride.

That's my job. and everybody's job. And that's really exciting. So when you have opportunities to meet with one another, when we don't have a corporate Sunday night service, just steal those hours and do your ministry. I mean, obviously, it doesn't have to be limited to that. I'm just saying, like, if you were already planning on taking a couple hours and doing something churchy, then it's not less churchy to minister to the church in the various ways that you can.

I can take place all week long, that'll take place once the lights are turned off and the doors are locked. But we all have fantastic opportunity and the promise that God is with us in his spirit with instructions in his word and help from one another until we're married to him and we enjoy that supper, the marriage supper of the lamb. Father, that's where we want to be. And in the meantime, we realize you've left us here on purpose. So we want to depend on you, and we want to do all that we can, not just Bible reading and praying, though those are important, and those equip us and strengthen us. But we want to work and serve and minister with our giftedness, in humility for your sake, and to build up the body.

Help us as a local church to be a great example of caring for one another, and being a light to those who are still in darkness, whether that's in Marysville or Monroe or Smoky Point or wherever it might be, as well as when we have opportunity to extend that influence and exposure beyond.

All of this is only possible because your son is our head. And obviously he is the groom that we eagerly await. So come quickly and in the meantime, help us work well. We pray in your son's name, amen.

What we say says something. So does how we say what we say. We may not always use the precise words or the logic or the gestures or the tone that we wished we would have, but we are always saying something in addition to the list of vocabulary words in our sentences.

When it comes to corporate worship, the same thing applies. No matter how pre-planned or unrehearsed, no matter the number (or style or instrumentation) of songs, the duration of the sermon, the placement of the pulpit, or how many eyes are closed during prayer, we are saying something in everything we do, and only some of what we're saying can be found in the words that come out of our mouths while we're doing it.

A relevant word in this discussion is the word liturgy. It's a scary word for most of us, either because we grew up in highly liturgical churches (Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, some Presbyterian and Reformed) or because we grew up in churches that made fun of highly liturgical churches. The word liturgy simply refers to the form of worship, the formula or pattern of praise, especially religious services. We talk about "high" liturgy (highly-structured, thoroughly thought out ahead of time) or "low" liturgy (less developed beforehand) because everyone has a liturgy, even if it is the liturgy of trying to look random and spontaneous.

We all are familiar with liturgy, even if we don't tag our behavior with the word. Liturgy includes standing to read Scripture, the fact that we read Scripture at all, standing to pray (Russian churches). Liturgy includes putting our heads down or our hands up.

Liturgy is easily in error, either through overstatement or understatement. It's easy to focus on liturgy rather than on God, it's also easy to forget about liturgy and miss God in a different way.

I have been teaching on some of the biggest, Bible-driven reasons for worship that I know of. I'm planning one more week on the subject of worship and then planning to go through our church name in a short series of messages.

This morning I'd like to consider, with the help of Psalm 136, a pattern of reasons for worship and them move to consider ways to worship, and that the way we worship is not disconnected from the reasons we worship. What we do when we're together, our corporate activity, says something that a mp3 download or book cannot contain or communicate.

We have a great God and we ought to have great liturgy (not necessarily high liturgy, but high enough) that reflects what we say we believe. So my message: In Praise of Liturgy.

We can't give credit to the human author of this psalm nor can we cite the particular context in which it was written. We do know that it was used regularly by the Jews at their annual Passover feast, somewhat because of the content of the psalm (lyrics regarding the Exodus) and somewhat because of its form, a form conducive for corporate worship.

The most striking thing about Psalm 136 is the refrain, "for his steadfast love endures forever." It echoes 26 times, the second half of all 26 verses. There's a reason for the repetition.

The primary purpose in terms of content is to praise Yahwey's hesed, His "steadfast love" (ESV), and a seemingly endless number of other options: "lovingkindness" (NAS), "kindness" (YNG), "mercy" (KJV, LXX), "love" (NIV). We learn about God, His character, and the motivation for His work. It's important to worship God who is the God of lovingkindess, mercy, and grace.

The primary purpose in terms of form is to involve the congregation. This is a responsive psalm, an antiphonal (played alternately by two groups) song. The Levitical priest would lead out in the first line and the choir or congregation would respond. The back and forth engaged everyone in worship. The lyrics teach us about God's never-ending, faithful love for His people, and the liturgy teaches us that thanksgiving for His never-ending, faithful love is given by all His people.

So what is said is important AND how it is said, said by a multitude of voices a multitude of times, sung at a multitude of meetings. It reminded the people and sustained that praise for generations. It was part of Israel's liturgy, their purposed strategy for community worship.

Liturgy needs good content, and this psalm includes many reasons for worship.

The first three verses reveal three names for God that reflect different parts of His character and that comment on His supremacy.

Give thanks to Yahweh, "to the LORD," all upper case. Yahweh is His covenant name, a name of intimacy and relationship with His people.

Give thanks to Elohi of the elohim, "to the God of gods." Elohim is the nonspecific word for deity, the name in the Old Testament referring to the sovereign creator. And He is above all other gods, "the God of gods," the supreme God.

Give thanks to Adoni of the adonim, "to the Lord of lords." Adonai is a word that refers to the master, the ruler, the sovereign king. And He again is above all other lords, "the Lord of lords," the supreme Lord.

In every case, thanks is given to the covenant keeping, universe creating, absolute ruling God because his steadfast love endures forever. He is glorious and gracious. His person is reason for thanks and worship.

From verse 4 through verse 25, God's works are in view, and there are four developments. The first section of the song extolling His work speaks of His marvelous creation.

He alone does great wonders. In other words, He does extraordinary things, unique things, all by Himself; they are things only He does.

The heavens declare His glory (cf. Psalm 19:1) because of the understanding employed to imagine and create and sustain them; think: Big Dipper and Crab Nebula. He made the heavens and spread out the earth above the waters; the land and sea obey the boundaries He sets, and the earth spins and orbits at His command, and it never topples over. He made the great lights, the sun to rule over the day and the moon and stars to rule over the night. We are not in darkness because He did marvelous, great wonders.

Again, all of these creative accomplishments come out of his steadfast love that endures forever. The wonders of creation were for His people. I never realized how His forming and filling of the universe was grace directed towards man (Genesis 1).

The song moves more specific, from God's work in creation history to His work in redemption history. In one paragraph, it also moves from Genesis to Exodus.

He struck down the firstborn of Egypt, the 10th plague on Egypt and a serious statement of His wrath.

The other statements move through major stages of His deliverance program and highlight His might (strong hand) and His personal involvement (outstretched arm). He divided the Red Sea and made Israel pass through the midst of it but overthrew Pharaoh and his host. The word overthrew could also be translated "shook off." Think of the nation defeated, a nation who basically owned everything and everyone in the region due to the earlier famine.

Again, all of this was due to his steadfast love that endures forever.

After considering God's creative wonders and His deliverance of Israel from Egypt, the song turns to consider God giving the promised land to His people.

He systematically empowered Israel to take over the land. They struck down great kings and killed mighty kings in general. Specifically, they conquered Sihon and Og. Their victories were due to God's work and the song repeats that this was their heritage given by Him, promised to Abram generations before.

Israel displaced nations, winning battles and occupying a land of milk and honey because his steadfast love endures forever.

While this section primarily refers to His provision and protection of Israel, verse 25 expands to include every breathing creature, including men from other nations, who all receive their food from the Lord. In Him we live and move and have our being; He makes the rain and sun to fall on the just and unjust. He is to be praised and all is due to the fact that his steadfast love endures forever.

The final verse, verse 26, is a closing call to give thanks to the God of heaven, a general title for the one who ultimately sees and rules all, for his steadfast love endures forever.

The movements of the psalm say a lot. God is worthy to be praised. The burden of the psalm is to show the people reasons to thank God. But the burden of the psalm includes different ways to thank Him. It is a call to the worshipping community and demonstrates different components of worship. There are unspoken implications from this psalm that show us certain things along the path of corporate worship.

I just don't want to take this for granted. As the Israelites in the OT, our Christian gatherings for worship must be focused away from ourselves. I've argued that our souls tend to take the shape and size of the object(s) of their contemplation. We need big souls and the only way to be transformed is to behold the glory of the Lord.

Psalm 136 spills over in godwardness. He dominates every verse, every half of every verse. The psalm rehearses His person and His work. The psalm also does so with a mix of statements and story. We learn facts about God: He is good, merciful, supreme, powerful, wise, strong, giving. These are attributes that can be identified, defined, and defended. We ought to know true propositions about God.

Statements are not enough. There is also story, that is, an account of those attributes at work and in relation with people. We know that these events fit into God's amazing, eternal love story as his steadfast love endures forever.

We gather to get more than our facts in order, we gather to get our story straight, and all our horizontal needs are put in a vertical, godward, transcendent context. Whether we're in the law (Deuteronomy 10:17 - "For the LORD your God is the God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty and the awesome God...") or the apocalypse (Revelation 19:16 - "On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords"), from beginning to end, our liturgy must be godward.

Our liturgy, our practice of public praise, should be corporate. We have a leader or leaders, there are followers, but everyone should be active.

Psalm 136 is a song meant to be sung. There is something about singing that engages multiple parts of us. We think and say and move and hear and feel.

Psalm 136 is a responsive song; the back and forth makes for movement that involves and unites everyone. It isn't a performance or a show. We are all on stage before God and, while some parts of the liturgy are meant to be heard, the whole product is a group effort. You can't get that at home by yourself.

Corporate, community worship propels, and in turn is propelled by, individual worship. For many of the Israelites who did not have their own copies of God's law, these songs conveyed, in learnable, memorizable chunks, truths about God that were taken beyond the annual feasts and Sabbath services.

The form helped rather than hindered expressions of worship. The constraint of words and phrases allowed for freedom rather than restriction.

Think about going on vacation. Thinking out beforehand allows for freedom to enjoy it rather than sitting around all day trying to decide where to go.

The repetition also helped; it would be difficult to know this song and not remember that God's steadfast love endures forever.

Here's one illustration from our liturgy. We have a time for confession of sin every Lord's day. Doing that week after week reminds us that sin is the problem. Even if every sermon isn't about sin, we acknowledge that sin is our problem. It also reminds us who believe that we have forgiveness in Christ. Words well formed may may it memorable, so does planning and purpose and regular practice of worship.

Perhaps this is an odd component to mention, but no one service or song will ever be complete.

Think of all the chapters of the story missing in Psalm 136. There is no mention of the flood, the giving of the Law, or how many times Israel disobeyed. Those are no small events, but not every part needs to be, or can be practically, included every time.

Every good sermon is heresy when judged for all the important truths left untreated (Fred Craddock, found in Eugene Lowry, The Homiletical Plot, xiv).

God is infinite and His story is eternal. We won't wrap our arms around all of Him, ever. We can't even get our mental arms around the entire Bible at one time, and it has covers. We could never exhaust it in a short period of time, the best we'll deal with is a selective sampling.

Back to Psalm 136, there is no mention of the Messiah, let alone Jesus Christ, the Son of God. There is no justification by faith alone, no church, no conquering of the worthy One.

My point is that we can follow a pattern and never run out. We also don't necessarily need to freak out if not everything is said every time.

We have many things to say about or great God and Savior. We have been given many ways to say them, and we want to take full advantage of our opportunities, to express thanks to God (godward) with each other (engaging) with ongoing effect (memorable).

I/we have much more to learn about good thanksgiving and liturgy.

Our weekly, Lord's day worship, is intended to show off all the reasons we have to be thankful to God and to provide many ways to express that thanks as God's chosen ones. We do it by dwelling on His Word, through teaching and admonishing and singing. We give thanks it because it's right, we do it because it's powerful to transform us and powerful to dispel the darkness of dissatisfaction.

And now we must take thankfulness with us out the doors. What you have heard from God's Word, speak to others. "Let the word of Christ dwell in your richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him" (Colossians 3:16-17), for His steadfast love endures forever.

I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will display at the proper time--he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen. (1 Timothy 6:13-16, ESV)