What Is the Church? Part 2

Transcript

GR 1788
11/2/2014
What Is the Church? Part 2
2 Corinthians 1:1; Ephesians 4:1-16
Gil Rugh

We're going to 2 Corinthians 1 in your Bibles. We've just started the study of this letter of Paul to the church at Corinth. And we're really starting out with something of a little bit of a topical expansion because he starts out addressing the church at Corinth. If we spend some time talking about what the Bible says about the church, it's easy just to read what we're talking about the church and we move on. We talk about the church, we have an idea what the church is, it's God's people functioning together. But there is more confusion in this area than we realize. And if we're not clear on what the church is, we will be confused on what the church is to do, how we are to function. And so we've been talking about some of those matters.

Paul began, and let me just read this first verse, “Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and Timothy our brother, to the church of God which is at Corinth with all the saints who are throughout Achaia.”

Let me recommend a book to you that I've recommended before, but I think it is the most helpful book on the doctrine of the church. It's called The Nature of the Church by Earl Rademacher. It's been in print, publication for a while, and for a while it was published under the title What the Church Is all About. In paperback you can get it at Sound Words for $9.25, I think the hardback is about $4 more. It is a good, solid, biblical approach to the church. And it also gives you some helpful history, I'll be referring to some of that. We are the church. We are the church of Jesus Christ meeting in this place. If we don't know who we are we'll be confused on what we are to be doing, really what we are all about.

I've referred in our previous study to different approaches to the church. Three that are popular, rather well-received among many evangelicals are the seeker church, the emerging church and its various names—emergent, emerging and so on. We talked about the deep church which I think is really connected to the emerging church. These are relatively simple to identify. The seeker church we know connected with well-known popular speakers like Bill Hybals of the Willow Creek Church, Rick Warren and Saddleback Church. Other churches, seeker comes from the name the church ought to be focused on the unbeliever, so the seeker. They call an unbeliever a seeker, someone who hasn't come to Christ. And our services ought to be geared toward them, ought to be making them feel welcome and comfortable in our church, our services when they come. The emerging church is frustrated with the seeker church, too much entertainment, focus on that. Although interestingly those in the emerging church movement have experienced stupendous growth, some of them having multiplied thousands of people coming to their services on Sunday. And they think we ought to move away from the narrowness and closeness that characterizes the church. Too much emphasis on doctrine and teaching. We ought to just focus on some essentials, be open to more input from the body, various members of the body on the church and what it is.

As you move away from the authority of Scripture in all areas, what are the key doctrines begin to dissipate. And some in the emerging church deny now the substitutionary atonement of Christ, which we have focused on so much in the songs we've sung. The finished work of Christ Who Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross. They think talking about eschatology and future things, all these things are peripheral. And they want to come back to just an emphasis on the people of God, an emphasis on our culture. They are big on culture, and you have to understand modernism and post-modernism and the impact of the enlightenment and all of these things. And if you are not keeping up with culture, your church is becoming irrelevant. They have very popular speakers, everyone from Bryan McLaren, Rob Bell, Francis Chan and on the names go. And men who have had huge ministries and continue to have huge ministries, although a number of them have moved on from their church ministry, pastoring a local church to more of a broad ministry, traveling, writing books and so on.

All these things come out of the church growth movement, and that really goes back to Donald McGavern and Fuller Seminary where there is a different view of the church. And the idea the church is to be encompassing and we do what we can to make the church grow. For a time I took some studies at Fuller in the church growth department. Part of that, I visited numerous large churches, wrote reports on them, interviewed staff and all of that. Because the goal was, you find out what all these churches are doing that is working and then you incorporate that. And that's what your church ought to be doing. When I raised the question with a professor, what about the theology? His answer was simple, these methods work whatever your theology. And that's a serious issues. Now many in the evangelical world today are adopting these principles and many believers are attending these churches without giving serious thought to the theological issues at stake.

One more approach to church which would be a reaction to these ideas that play down doctrine is the reformed church. There are churches today who say we have to go back to the Reformation and the solution to the problem today is to go back to the Reformation and the doctrines of the Reformation. The deep church thought the correction for some of the flaws in the emerging church, even though he would identify with them, is add tradition. Let's go back to the church fathers, the 3rd and 4th century. That will anchor us. We say we don't need to go back to the church fathers, as Spurgeon said, we need to go back to the church grandfathers, the apostles, the New Testament.

Well, we're creating the same error with the Reformed emphasis. Let's go back to the Reformation and the reformers—Calvin, Luther and others like them, that period of time, men who live around the 1500s, 16th century. But that's not the solution. You know the Reformers were wrong on the doctrine of the church, the Reformers we're most familiar with. In fact those within the Reformation time, known as the Anabaptists or radical Reformation, were as strongly persecuted by the magisterial Reformers as we might refer to them, as they were by the Catholics.

Let me read you a little bit, this is from Rademacher's book, the book I just recommended to you, on John Calvin's view of the church. Finally Calvin perpetuated the church and state amalgamation that characterized the Roman Church. In other words John Calvin never really changed in a significant way his doctrine of the church from when he was Roman Catholic. He gave explicit instructions concerning the duties of civil government. And he did not see a separation between church and state. So this is a quote from Calvin's institutes that he is so well-known for. Yet civil government has its appointed end so long as we live among men, to cherish and protect the outward worship of God. See now civil government's job in its connection with the church is to protect the worship of God, to defend sound doctrine of piety and the position of the church. He goes on and then later says civil government's responsibility is to prevent idolatry, sacrilege against God's name, blasphemies against the truth, public offenses against religion from arising and spreading among men. That resulted in these Reformers feeling they were justified in persecuting along with the Roman Catholics, those of what we call the radical Reformers who held a view of the church which we would feel is more biblical. The separation of church and state and other matters that go with that.

Here is a person evaluating the doctrine of the Reformers. The deity himself had commanded that all men's thoughts be turned toward redemption at prescribed certain means. The church could not accomplish these purposes of God in redemption, unaided by civil authority. The Reformers envisioned the simple and plausible arrangement wherein they, the professional experts in biblical knowledge, should teach the state its duties and the state should silence contradiction. So we end up with a state church. And the government acts on behalf of the state church, in effect, to enforce its doctrine and persecute anyone who opposes it. That's why the Anabaptists, those of the radical Reformation, some of you have studied this, were almost wiped out. The Roman Catholics didn't persecute them any more severely than the Reformers and the general Reformation, the magisterial Reformation.

The teachings of Calvin on the church became incorporated for the most part into the Westminster confession of faith of 1647, accepted by the reformed churches. People think, going to a reformed church, they are strong on doctrine. We're going back to the Reformers. There are some dispensationalists saying the answer to the problems today, we're getting back to the Reformation. I'm not saying there weren't some good things the Reformers stood for, calling the church back to the Scriptures. Great. But they weren't being Scriptural in their doctrine of the church. We don't go back to men in a bygone generation. Those were the glorious days, we get back to that period. We go back to the New Testament, we go back to the Scriptures. What is wrong with the Scriptures?

So in thinking that they are responding to the problems and errors of those who are playing down doctrine, the reformed churches see the solution going back to the reformers. Let's just say the solution to the problems and needs of the church today is to go back to the Word of God. John Calvin wasn't right on everything. He was not right on the doctrine of the church. He thought it was fine to persecute. These who didn't hold this view should be persecuted, and the state ought to represent us. More in line with Roman Catholics than where we are. People leave here and go to a reformed church. Doesn't it matter what the church is? We need to be careful that we are functioning biblically.

Do you know the characteristic of all these, the seeker church, emerging church, the deep church, reformed church? They all confuse the church with the kingdom. They think we are in the kingdom, we ought to be doing kingdom work. And if we are in the kingdom, kingdom has political, social, spiritual dimensions. So these churches think we ought to be involved in politics, we ought to be promoting political action. Some of you find it easy to get caught up in that, the political situation. Someone was talking to me this week, how easy it is to mention to a Christian something the President is doing, going on in politics and they are on fire. They are ready to dump out every thought they have. We need to stop and think, we don't expect the government to be carrying out biblical principles. It would be nice if they were more biblical. It is disappointing to see how openly anti-biblical even our own leaders can be. That's not a surprise. Paul wasn't looking to the Caesars to implement biblical principles, you know. He saw himself carrying the Gospel to the darkness of his world. So if we don't have the correct doctrine of the church, we'll be all over the map.

While we are at that, turn to Matthew 13. If you read very much on those who equate the church and the kingdom, and when you do that you end up promoting a state church by and large because you are constantly pressing the state to implement what the church says. That doesn't mean in our particular system we are not free to vote for those men we think provide a better context for the ministry of the Word and so on, but I'm not looking for them to accomplish what Jesus Christ alone can do.

Matthew 13, the parables, Jesus tells various parables. And we want to focus attention on the parable of the tares, over in verse 24. “Jesus presented another parable to them saying, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed.” Now keep in mind He's talking about the kingdom of heaven, the church has not come into existence yet. It won't until Acts 2. The disciples have no concept of the church. He's talking about the kingdom, what is the kingdom. It is what the Old Testament prophets prophesied would come with the coming of Messiah. We'll say more about that in a moment. “While the men were sleeping an enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went away.” The wheat sprouted, and then the question, how did the tares get among the wheat? I thought we were sowing good seed. Do you want us to go and root out the tares? Jesus said, no, verse 29, “in gathering up the tares you may root up the wheat with them.” You may throw away the good grain with the bad. “Allow both to grow together until the harvest. At the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, first gather up the tares, bind them in bundles to burn them up. Gather the wheat into my barn.” Then verse 36, after they separate from the crowds who were hearing these parables, the disciples want Him to explain the parable of the tares. “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, the field is the world.”

Do you have that underlined in your Bible? Highlighted? Circled? Starred? The field is the world. Where do they get the field is the church? This is the principle that we ought to allow? This is where you get into state churches, believers and unbelievers to co-exist in the church. We let the wheat and the tares grow together, that's not our job to sort it out. You read this stuff and they go back to the wheat and the tares. I read to you in The Deep Church that belonging comes before believing. So you can be part of the church and belong before you believe and so on. All this variation. Unbelievers and believers exist together in the world, they do. But when Jesus Christ comes they will be sorted out. That does not mean the church ought not to be doing sorting within itself. Then you have the New Testament epistles—1 Corinthians 5, the man who persists in immorality is to be put out of the church, Paul said. In 1 Timothy 1 we saw Paul disciplined a couple of men who denied the reality of the resurrection similarly. We looked in a previous study, the epistles of John where you are to have nothing to do with someone who teaches a contrary doctrine.

People come to something like the wheat and the tares and say in the church that's not our job. We are to be open. The liberals used this back in the '30s and '40s to get the evangelicals to be more open. Well, just read it. Jesus did the interpretation. There is no reason for confusion here. He said the field is the world. You do not have the right to change that and say the field is the church because then you are in a world of confusion. The devil uses that to make people alter what God says the church is and is to be.

We talked about the fact that the church is built by Christ, Matthew 16:18, “I will build My church.” It's a future time. Acts 1 it is still future. The baptism of the Spirit would occur not many days from now, Jesus told His disciples in Acts 1. Then on the Day of Pentecost, Acts 2, the Holy Spirit came upon them, they were baptized by the Spirit. And 1 Corinthians 12:13 tells us, “for by one Spirit you were all baptized into one body,” which is the analogy of the church, the body of Christ. So we talked about the church had its beginning in Acts 2 and will go on until the rapture of the church, 1 Corinthians 15, 1 Thessalonians 4, as you are aware of.

When you are baptized by the Spirit, you are identified with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection. Also the Spirit of God comes and takes up residence within you in a permanent way. That is a marked characteristic of a believer who is part of the church. So when Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 1, “to the church of God which is at Corinth with all the saints who are throughout Achaia.” Achaia is the province that Corinth is in, Cenchrea the seaport there also had a church. Corinth is the main focus here.

Come back to 1 Corinthians 1. A similar beginning to the first letter to the Corinthians but I want you to see the connection here. Verse 2, and Paul is writing as an apostle of Jesus Christ, that unique one to represent Christ and be used to convey the Word of God, new revelation being given. He is writing to the church of God which is at Corinth. Now note this, further describing the church of God at Corinth, “to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus.” Sanctified, those who have been set apart by God for Himself. That's who comprised the church of God at Corinth—those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus. Sanctification, being set apart from sin and its defilement, occurs only in Christ. Only when you come to understand and realize your sin and guilt before God and you turn from your sin, place your faith in Christ, trusting Him alone, the Holy Spirit places you into Christ. For by one Spirit we have all been baptized into one body, it's the body of Christ. We are in Christ now, we are identified with Him in His death, burial and resurrection. We now are set apart from the world, from the unbeliever in Christ. That's what the church is, it's comprised of people who have been set apart by God for Himself. They are saints by the calling, sovereign work of God in applying His grace to bring people to salvation in Christ.

The word saint and the word sanctify come from the same basic Greek word. You can hear it, hagiazo would be the verb and hagios would be the noun. The root idea, same word is the root for the word holy—holy, saint, sanctified all come from the same basic word, and carry the same idea—to be set apart, to be separated. God is perfectly holy because He is perfectly set apart from all sin, all defilement. So His instruction is, you shall be holy for I am holy, set apart from all sin, all the defilement of sin. We are saints. You could translate it holy ones. Well, that sounds a little strong. Am I going to say I am a holy one? If you are not a holy one, you don't belong to God; if you've never been sanctified, you don't belong to Him. You may have done your best to clean up your life, you may have been baptized, you may take communion, you may attend this church regularly, but it takes the sovereign power of God to bring about salvation in a heart. And that happens when a person truly places his faith in Christ and Him alone for his salvation. That's how the sovereign God takes us from the realm of sin and death and brings us into a relationship with Himself. Now we belong to Him. Now I belong to Jesus, not for this period of time alone but for all eternity. That's a biblical emphasis. We've been set apart.

That's what the church is. 1 Timothy 3:15, we've studied recently, the church is the family of God. God's family, it's a unique group. What's this idea, you can “belong” before you “believe?” Can you be part of God's family without believing? Can you be the church, be sanctified and be a saint and not have believed? How do you get by calling yourself evangelical and say we believe in belonging before believing? Are we playing games of lying and deceiving people? Of course we're happy that you belong to this church. We're not saying unbelievers can't attend this church, unbelievers do attend this church and they are welcome to attend. They are not truly members of this church. They are outsiders observing the activities of this church and having opportunity to hear the message of God's salvation so that they might by God's grace come to believe. But until God takes hold of a heart and that heart places their faith in Christ, they do not belong to Him. They are not part of His family. They have not been sanctified,. They are not saints. They are not part of the church. In that sense you become part of the universal church before you become part of the visible church. You have to place your faith in Christ.

Understand that the whole focus and ministry of the church flows out of this. We meet together on Sunday. It is not primarily geared to the unbeliever. That's true of the church at Corinth. Paul told them they had to be careful about their activity, particularly in the exercising of gifts and the gift of tongues, because if an unbeliever comes in you only confuse him. So we recognize unbelievers can come. That's why we want to be clear to present the Gospel when we are here, but most of our service is geared for the study of the Word. People say, why don't more unbelievers come? Why should an unbeliever come and listen to the Word of God be taught week after week? They are outsiders. We are talking a foreign language in that sense to them. It's not something they have any interest in, any comprehension of. It's geared to nurture believers. So we have to talk about that.

Come over to Ephesians 4. There is probably no other passage of Scripture we have visited more times than Ephesians 4. I pulled out some notes and I can trace back doing Ephesians 4 with you to October 5, 1975. I write down when I do these. I know when I am repeating myself. You thought I was just forgetful. And we've maybe done it a couple dozen times, focusing on it. This is the heart of what we are, how we function, so we determine what the church is. It is comprised of those who by God's grace have come to believe in Jesus Christ and Him alone for their salvation. They have been sanctified, set apart by God for Himself. Now the passion and desire of our heart and mind is to live for Him. You note how Ephesians 4:1 begins, “therefore, I, the prisoner of the Lord implore you, walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called.” What did we just read in 1 Corinthians 1? Saints by calling. Where does Paul start in Ephesians, in this letter? Ephesians 1 is about the sovereign call of God that brings us to salvation. So with these first three chapters he is focused on unfolding that great truth concerning God's salvation. Ephesians 2, those well-known verses, “for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God, not as a result of works that anyone should boast.” Our salvation is by grace through faith. But we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works. People always get it confused, they think they'll do good works and be acceptable before God. You come to God and you realize you can bring nothing to Him. You only can claim by faith what He has done for you, providing His Son to be the Savior.

So he picks up in Ephesians 4, let's focus on how we live. Let's walk in a manner worthy, consistent with the calling we have received—sons of the living God, saints, holy ones. We walk with humility, gentleness, patience, showing tolerance for one another in love. Being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Recognize here, one of the things that divides the church and this growing together of the wheat and tares, the corruption of the Word of God. We preserve the unity. Not a unity between believer and unbeliever, but a unity in the Spirit. There is to be unity in the local church because the local church is comprised of those who are believers, and when we corrupt it by saying it is a mixture of believer and unbeliever, then we try to make peace, we have departed from the Word of God and the departure will only get larger.

There is one body, one Spirit, we're called in one hope of our calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. Of course there ought to be unity. We function as God's children under the direction of God's Spirit in love with a desire to please Him. Where does the division come from, the conflict? Two possibilities. (1) Unbelievers have infiltrated among believers and naturally they cause division because they are not part, like a foreign object getting into your body. It's going to cause problems. What happens when you get a splinter in your finger? Doesn't have to be a big splinter, but sometimes then it starts to swell, it gets red, it gets sore, it gets touchy. You say there is something there, it has to come out. If it doesn't, it doesn't get better, it gets worse. We're going to see this in the church at Corinth. The church at Corinth was accepting unbelievers into the body. Paul says you bear with these unbelievers beautifully, but what did they do in contrast? They attacked Paul. Something is wrong.

Or the other problem. (1) Unbelievers infiltrate among believers. (2) Believers cease functioning biblically. We no longer do what God says we are to do, and we have trouble. God has established organization for His church. We're going to talk about spiritual gifts, we're not going to go into them all, but He has appointed leadership in the church. We have just studied 1 Timothy 3, elders and deacons. He has instructed that the elders have oversight.

Come back to Acts 20. Paul has called the elders of the church at Ephesus to meet with him,. These are the elders of the church we are going to be looking at in Ephesians 4—the church at Ephesus. They're going to meet with him as he is passing nearby in Miletus. Acts 20:17, “From Miletus he sent to Ephesus, called to him the elders of the church.” We talked about the elders in 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1, their qualifications and responsibilities. Here he unfolds it. Paul reminds them that his life is about “solemnly testifying of the Gospel of the grace of God,” the end of verse 24. He is willing to give his life for that. Verse 26 he says, “I am innocent of the blood of all men.” Why? “I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.” Not just some of it. This idea of the deep church, they say it is like a well, you just pick out the important doctrines and they are like a well. And you have a well in the field and the animals are drawn to the water and that's the way it all works. Paul didn't think this is the way it all works. He says, “I taught you the whole counsel of God.” And that means I am free of responsibility if you don't believe it and act upon it.

Then what does he tell the elders? “Be on guard for yourselves, for all the flock among which the Holy Spirit had made you overseers.” The elders in the local church are appointed by the Holy Spirit. All we do is recognize those men that the Holy Spirit has appointed to serve as elders, leaders among God's people in a local church. These are elders from the church at Ephesus. It's God's church. He purchased it with His own blood. It belongs to Him and He appoints the elders. “After my departure savage wolves will come in, they will seek to draw away disciples after themselves.” Verse 30, “you be on the alert.” Verse 32, “I commend you to God the Word of His grace which is able to build you up, give you the inheritance among the saints.”

We just finished Hebrews. Hebrews 12:13 instructs the church that you submit to those who have authority over you. They will give an account for you, and if they have to give a poor account of your response to their leadership, it won't go well for you when Christ the head of the church does His evaluation. I mention that, God has created the church. It is not complicated. We complicate it by moving apart from what God says. We go through this. Over the years it is a constant battle and we find reasons not to follow the leaders. If the leaders are not being biblical, they have to be rebuked. It's not “well, I just don't agree with what they are doing.” That's not good enough, God didn't appoint you be be an elder, evidently. Well don’t say that. I told the former class, if I ever retire and move to a sunny beach someplace and just become a member of the church, teaching a class, I'm going to tell the people, have godly men as elders and follow them, trust them.

Now get back to Ephesians 4. Here is God's plan. How is the church to function? What about the methodology? What about all these books being written and all these churches growing by the thousands? Here is God's plan. Verse 7, “To each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gifts.” There is unity and oneness, it was emphasized in the preceding verses. There is a diversity in the oneness. The analogy in 1 Corinthians 12 is the physical body—one body and many parts. These gifts were given after Christ's ascension from the dead, His resurrection, His ascension to heaven. Resurrection from the dead, ascension to heaven, Acts 1. They don't begin to be given until Acts 2. These are unique, not the way Israel functioned. Israel functioned as an earthly nation. The church functions as a spiritual body. Spiritual body but it has a physical manifestation—the local church. But its enablement to function comes from the special, unique gifts given to individuals in the body. Verse 11 he says, “He gave some as apostle, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors-teachers.” These are not all the gifts, obviously. 1 Corinthians 12-14 give a more extensive list of the gifts. What characterizes all these gifts? All these gifts are given in the context of communicating the Word of God. Interestingly one of the leaders in the emerging church criticizes churches that are built around the teaching of the Word of God. They think the church ought to be built around God's people coming together and everybody has his input. And that's what determines what the Bible is saying to our congregation. So he criticizes those who have a teaching focus as “speeching” churches. “Speeching” churches, a derogatory way of saying all they do is give speeches. But you note all these gifts here are those gifts involved in the communication of God's Word.

So God's Word is communicated. Remember Paul encouraging the Ephesian elders in Acts 20, “I am free from the blood of all men because I've taught you the whole counsel of God.” Here are individuals responsible to teach the whole counsel of God. Evangelists, obviously they will be focused with the Gospel and they will be carrying it to other people and they will be equipping the body to do that.

These gifts are given in the ministry of the Word for the equipping of the saints, for the work of serving, to the building up of the body of Christ. There is God's plan. Won't sell as many books, but why do we keep going back to men? And I have a new plan. I like the emerging church. I don't know whether I am an emerging church or not but I have this new plan. And Christians read this and say, that's exciting. We ought to implement that in our church. Why don't we just go back to what the Holy Spirit gave through the apostles and prophets and according to Ephesians 2:19-20, the church is “being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,” the doctrine of the church given through them that we now have as our New Testament. What's wrong with that? So we teach the Word that equips the saints, renders them fit, enabling them to do the work of serving. That's what we are. We are servants. We are slaves of the One who is our Lord, our Master, carrying out His work.

This is how we build up the body of Christ. So you know what the devil does? He gets in here to try to turn churches away from the simplicity of the Word of God. And I will fill their building with numbers they can't contain. And that will just encourage them to turn more away from the Word of God. And then I will have succeeded in creating a false religion under the guise of evangelicalism. Some of these men in the emerging church don't believe in the substitutionary atonement, don't believe that Christ died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. You don't believe in an eternal hell? No. You don't believe what God says about marriage? No. But I'm evangelical, whatever that means. How does the church get to this? We depart from God's plan—teach the Word of God, equip the saints to do what the Spirit of God has enabled them to do. Every single believer sitting here, part of this fellowship of believers, this local church has been uniquely and specially gifted by God to contribute to the functioning of this local body so that we can build one another up, until we all attain to the unity of the faith, the knowledge of the Son of God. What does that mean? The unity of the faith? The knowledge of the Son of God? To a mature man. To the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. There is the measure of maturity, to ultimately be as much like Christ as I can.

We have people who say, I sort of quit coming, been through the Word a lot. Oh, you are as mature as you could be, you completely and perfectly manifest the beauty of the character of Christ in all areas of your life.? Well, I wouldn't go that far. Well, then, what makes you think you stopped growing? That's the measure that we're talking about, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. God's not done with me. Doesn't matter if I've been a believer for 50 years, whatever. I'm still maturing and growing as a believer.

This maturity means, verse 14, “we are no longer to be children tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine.” What has happened to the church? Every new book that comes out, the deep church is supposedly an improvement on the basic emerging church, which says it's an improvement on the seeker church. They sell a lot of books. You can build big churches. Christ said, “I will build My church.” You have men saying, I will build it for you, implement my methodology. So I'm going to stand before Christ and say, I know you said you would build your church, but, Lord, I came up with a better idea and I had far more people. And the Lord of the church is going to say, well done, good and faithful servant? I think not. We better take this as seriously as God does. This is His family, this is the church that He purchased with His own blood, the blood of His Son on the cross, Acts 20 said. He gave clear step-by-step instructions. I know, Lord, but they said in this book . . . I gave you the book, this is it. And I told you, don't you add anything to it, don't you take anything away from it. I know, but they said if we went back to the church fathers it would be better. Who told you to go back to the church fathers? I told you I gave you the book. Well, we thought if we went back to the Reformation . . . Who told you to go back to the Reformation? I told you to go back to the book.

I just am puzzled. Do you know who is getting the most severe attack in the evangelical world today? The fundamentalist churches like us. And we're not the only believing church. I know people say, they think they are the only ones right. But that's their view. They are narrow, they think their doctrine . . . That's why we just ought to pick out what we think are the key doctrines and let that be the deep well. They destroy the biblical context of unity, verse 3, we are to be diligent not to preserve unity among all men. We are to be diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit. The only unity that amounts to anything is the unity produced by the Spirit of God.

He is writing here to a local church. That doesn't mean we don't appreciate there aren't other believers in other places and we pray for them and so on. He's not calling for unity among all people. Not saying play down the doctrine, eschatology and future things isn't that important. We have a lot of different views, we won't emphasize that. I tell God what I will pick out of His Word and emphasize on what I won't? How do I claim to be faithful? As though God is too wordy and fortunately He has me as an editor and I've decided what the Bible says about future things is just not that important. I can't help that God didn't know what was important and what wasn't. And then we claim to be faithful?

I don't want to be abrasive, but Paul told Timothy, if you were here for our study in Timothy, he said I am commanding you, authoritatively telling you that you must authoritatively tell these men they can't teach this stuff. I'm not responsible for other local churches, but I am responsible for the influence that backs up here. I am concerned for people who leave here and go other places, not because I'm afraid they are leaving, wherever they go in the country or the world, they understand what the church is. I got into this book because someone went to an evangelical church and they said, what is your church? What is your philosophy of ministry? Read The Deep Church and you'll know what we are about. Why don't we just say we are a New Testament church? What methodology do you follow? Take them to Ephesians 4 and say, here is the pattern. Our pastor is like a broken record. He's done that sermon so many times I could do it for him, and maybe even improve it. That's all there is, I can't help it. There is no new revelation. And if we get tired of doing it God's way, then whatever superficial “blessings” we enjoy, we may be deluded. They may not be the blessings of God. We are equipping the saints to do the work of serving.

Then verse 14, “we'll no longer be children carried about by every wind of doctrine, the trickery of men by craftiness and deceitful scheming.” The devil can keep us from being in the Word and in a serious way we will become susceptible to the craftiness of the devil because he knows the Scripture well. Just like we've talked about, he quoted it when he tempted Christ. And Christians get confused and think, well, I think they are sincere, I think they use the Scripture. “Speaking the truth in love we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head.” That's for our growth, become like Christ from whom the body being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.” That's God's intention for us. We want to reach the unbeliever, we want to share the Gospel with family, friends, and co-workers. We are happy to invite them to come to church to hear the Word of God. But we understand this is a fellowship of God's people. This is a fellowship of the sanctified, the saints, the holy ones, not because they are better than the people out there but because they have experienced the redeeming grace of the living God. We would like others to experience it. But we are here primarily to be nurtured and nourished in the Word of God so that we can walk in a manner pleasing to Him and be used of Him with our various gifts as we grow and mature and have lights that shine brightly in the darkness of this world.

Let's pray together. Thank You, Lord, for the greatness of Your grace. Thank You for the salvation that You have provided in Christ, Lord, that the cross is not just something we sing about, not just a piece of jewelry that is worn, but the cross is the focus of our lives. It's our cause of glory. In that cross our redemption was accomplished, paid in full when we place our faith in the Savior who loved us and died for us. Your power and Your power alone brings about salvation, which we were hopeless to accomplish, which man cannot bring about. But this Gospel is Your power for salvation to everyone who believes. I pray for those who may be here today who are not part of this local church because they have never been sanctified by Your saving grace. I pray that the truth they have heard might cause them to bow before You, turn from their pride and stubbornness and place their faith in the only Savior. Lord, may we never as Your people turn away from that which is life, the truth in Christ, Your purpose and plan for us as Your people in how we are to function as Your church in this place. Bless us through this day, bring us back tonight. Lord, wherever we are, whatever we do, may we honor You. We pray in Christ's name, amen.