Characteristics of a True Church, Part 2

today on grace to you the church is the most precious thing that God possesses on earth it is the earthly expression of heaven it is the dwelling place of the Trinity we are the temple of God the church is the sole instrument of evangelism in this age that is the church that proclaims the message of salvation what is the biggest problem in the church today I will say that the biggest manifest problem is the utter lack of discernment and it backs up to not having clear doctrine makes us so embarrassed about the gospel I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified [Music] [Music] you [Music] now as we continue to talk about the church III want to kind of go back to some basics and I want to say as I've said many times through the years I love the church it is the only institution that our Lord said he would build and bless it is the one work of God in the world the one redeeming work of God in the world through Christ is the establishing and building of the church we started in Matthew where Jesus said I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it we love the church and we want the church to be the church in in terms of its biblical definition the church is chosen by God it is a gathering of people who confess Jesus as Lord who come together to worship God to worship Christ empowered by the Holy Spirit the church is the most precious thing that God possesses on earth it is heaven come down the church is precious because it was purchased by the blood of Christ that is the earthly expression of heaven it is the dwelling place of the Trinity we are the temple of God the church is the caretaker of the truth as we saw last week the pillar and support of the truth the church is the purveyor of the gospel the only message that saves sinners from eternal judgment the church is salt and light having a preserving effect on the society around it the church is the sole instrument of evangelism in this age the church is the communion of saints which gives testimony to the power of the gospel by its joy and blessing and transformation as the watching world views it the church is this distinct group of redeemed people in the world and the world is hostile to the church but the world desperately needs the church it is its only hope because it is the church that proclaims the message of salvation now as we look more closely at the church we sorted out some distinguishing marks of the church each of these could be a study and perhaps should be in itself but we started last week with the first one but the church is distinguished by its commitment to the absolute authority of Scripture the second thing that characterizes the church is its commitment to worship its commitment to worship what do we mean by worship we simply mean to give glory to God to give honor to God to give praise to God to render obedience to God and that starts with knowing God we worship in spirit but we also worship in truth in spirit means with our hearts with all our being we love God with all our heart soul mind and strength or at least we desire to do that and so we're talking when we talk about spirit we mean in the inner man it's not that we're here to do some outward Duty we're not going through some symbolic emotions or emotions we're not doing some ceremonies or rituals or some perfunctory mechanical things we come with a full heart of love directed at God and that love shows up in our praise in our singing it shows up in our prayers it shows up in our hearing the Word of God with joy and receiving it with obedience all of that constitutes our worship we are a worshiping people to borrow the language of John for this morning we worship in spirit and in truth because the father seeks true worshipers if we could define Christians in one word it would be worshipers and I mentioned this morning Philippians 3:3 we worship in the power of the Spirit we worship Christ and we have no confidence in the flesh other language may be from the New Testament 1st Corinthians 10 Paul says and whatever you do even when you eat and drink do all to the glory of God everything a true worshiper does is to the glory of God we give him honor and everything we defer to his will in everything we obey his word in everything that's a worshiper worship rises to God from the heart of every true Christian because the father seeks true worshipers and the father makes true worshipers we have been saved to be worshipers and so the Church of necessity by very definition is God centered is God centered we have been saved to be worshipers the church cannot fulfill its mission and be man centered it must be God centered a couple of verses will put us in touch with this and there are many but let me just remind you of a couple that are somewhat familiar to you turn to Romans 12 for just a moment that familiar opening of this twelfth chapter in Romans as Paul transitions out of the doctrinal section and one to eleven into the practical section he defines essentially what Christians are called to do therefore based upon all the great mercies of God all the great aspects features elements of salvation which have occupied the first eleven chapters every feature of salvation is explored in those previous chapters in chapter eleven ends with this marvelous doxology about the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of God and the unsearchable judgments and unfathomable ways of his and all of it rebounding to his glory at the end in verse 36 for from him through him to him are all things to him be the glory forever amen that is the only possible expression of a true believer worship and naturally all of that section on salvation ends in a in a doxology we always say theology leads to doxology and so based on all of that that has been granted to those who are in Christ called by Paul in chapter 12 verse 1 the mercies of God I urge you brethren to present your bodies a living and Holy Sacrifice that is worship to present yourself your body and all that is in it to God as a Holy Sacrifice a living sacrifice not a dead sacrifice but a living one acceptable to God this is your spiritual service of worship we are worshipers and our worship essentially means that we bow to God fully that we offer up ourselves like a sacrifice on an altar not a dead sacrifice but a living one and we do it in an acceptable way to God that is our spiritual service of worship and again this is not to be mistaken this is so plain and so obvious the contrast is given in verse 2 do not be conformed to this world your stepping away from that you don't bow to this world you don't bend to this world you don't submit to this world but rather to God as your spiritual service of worship and be being transformed literally says by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove in your behavior what the will of God is that which is good and acceptable and perfect what does it mean to worship it means to offer yourself up totally to God as a spiritual act of worship and that fleshes out by you not being conformed to the world but rather conformed to the will of God that is what is good and acceptable and perfect to him this is how we live our lives in full submission to God as an act of worship one other passage just to touch lightly on 1st Peter 2:5 Peter is describing what it is to be a believer here he talks about us like babies who desire the pure milk of the word he doesn't mean we're spiritual babies he means we desire the word the way about baby desires milk it's talking about the single desire of a believer is for the Soul feeding word of and then he goes on further to talk about what it means to be a believer when he says in verse five you also as living stones are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ your life is a sacrifice and everything in your life is offered up as a sacrifice to God you give him everything everything you are everything you do everything you possess every experience every trial every positive event in your life every discouraging event it is all offered up to God in a sense you're saying I submitted all to you to your sovereign purpose and will and I obey in everything that's what it means to be a Christian how can you question confessing Jesus as Lord if you just leave that language aside and look at the language of worship we are worshipers and by the way that's we're gonna do forever in heaven right revelation 4 revelation 5 you can read them on your own all about worship and it's a picture of heaven and all the angels and all the glorified Saints are sitting around the throne of God and worshiping worshiping worshiping worshiping worshiping and what they say and of course forever worshiping and what they do to serve God perfectly the church then is a worshiping community of people it is not man-centered and we don't come together to give attention to ourselves we don't come together to talk about ourselves we don't come together to tweak our lives a little bit on a temporal level or a material level or a psychological level level or a sociological level what we don't come together to figure out solutions to the problems of the planet and we're not a political group we're not a lobby group we are worshipers of the true and living God who is Father Son and Holy Spirit we worship with joy we worship with that's what we do so when you think about the life of the church you have to realize that the church is committed to the absolute authority of Scripture and it's committed to being a worshiping a worshipping group that's what we do we worship with joy and love in the truth revealed in Scripture concerning the Trinity thirdly and this is another very important component of life in the church the church is committed to doctrinal clarity the church is committed to doctrinal clarity I got to be careful here because this is one of my favorite subjects clarity is good wouldn't you agree clarity is good anybody can be hard to understand sometimes you hear somebody say well I heard such-and-such speak but it was over my head not really no do you know why you couldn't understand because the speaker didn't understand if it's not clear for you to understand it it's not clear for him it's very easy to be hard to understand if you sort of pride yourself on being so so erudite that nobody understands you the truth is you don't know what you're talking about and one thing is for sure if you don't get it you can't make somebody else get it easy to be hard to understand you just don't know what you're talking about nobody else will very hard to be clear very demanding to be clear that means you've got to go to the Word of God and you've got to apply the the science of hermeneutics the principles of interpretation to scripture you you've got to work at it you've got a study to be disciplined and to show yourself approved to God a workman needing not to be ashamed it takes great effort to understand the Word of God you need to be like the noble Bereans to search the scripture to see if certain things were so but the church has the obligation to make doctrine clear we're committed to the fact that God revealed himself in his word in such a way that we can understand it that he used real language that means exactly what it says real people real history real language and you can interpret the Bible the exact same way you would interpret the Constitution of the United States or any other thing you read any other document with the same reasonable approach if you were to pin me down on what kind of Bible exposition that I'm committed to I would say it's theological exposition what I mean by that is sequential exposition that identifies theological truth and crystallizes that truth and passes it on to you you understand that it's not just telling the story in the narrative it's pulling out the principle I used to call it principle izing the scripture drawing out the doctrine that is there crystallizing that doctrine supporting that doctrine from other passages you know as I preach that I'll be in a passage and I'll go somewhere else and I'll get a verse here and a verse there and a verse here this is this is what theologians the Reformation called Anna logia scriptura Anna logia scriptura the scriptures analogous to itself that is to say the Bible is the best source of explaining the Bible other passages explain every passage it is consistent because it has one author so we go through a passage and we draw out principles and then I show you typically week after week year after year how this principle is further clarified and articulated in other places in Scripture now you have a doctrine this is consistent with how the church is always function from its earliest days in fact this is what we mean by Creed you've heard about a Creed the Apostles Creed or a confession the Westminster Confession certain Baptist confessions or other kinds of confessions that have been identified through the centuries by groups of believers what they have done is identified in Scripture propositional truth propositional truth revealed clear doctrine and they have crystallized those doctrine doctrines and they've assembled those doctrines into Creed's and you even find some of them in the New Testament such as the one we noted last time in Paul's letter to Timothy just after he talks about the church being the pillar and ground of the truth he then gives the common confession he who was revealed in the flesh vindicated in the spirit seen by angels proclaimed among the nations believed in the world taken up in glory probably a him but a creedal him concerning Christ when all of this comes together we call it systematic theology systematic theology that is to say that you can put all the theology of Scripture together in a consistent system that is reasonable and non contradictory because God is the author of all of it and God is all 'van reason and cannot contradict himself now I don't need to beg the point any further except to say that when you get into the pastoral epistles if if I took the time first Timothy 2nd Timothy Titus write pastoral epistles written from Paul to a pastor telling him about the church time after time after time first Timothy 2nd Timothy Titus you hear this sound doctrine sound doctrine sound doctrine sound doctrine doctrine is kind of a heady word similar means teaching but it speaks of a propositional truth not about a style it's it's it's about propositional truth sound doctrine sound doctrine you get to Titus chapter 2 and we are instructed as those who have been given on the pages of Holy Scripture sound doctrine to teach it but as for you Titus to speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine the chapter ends these things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority and let no one disregard you once you know truth once you know propositional truth once you know doctrine you teach it with authority and you let no one disregard you what does the word disregard it's it's a word that simply means evade get around you wiggle out you have sound doctrine you teach sound doctrine and you let no one evade sound doctrine alright there's a fourth thing and this is tied into it that when you look at the life of the church this is what you see or should see a commitment to the absolute authority of Scripture commitment to worship doctrinal clarity and I just need to say I give a footnote to that every great ministry in the history of the church was founded on sound doctrine not on experiences not on feelings not on emotions not on sort of floating Bible verses but sound doctrine and here's here's why because the fourth element of life in the church is spiritual discernment spiritual discernment the only people who are really discerning are people who have sound doctrine the uniqueness of the church is that because we know what the Bible teaches because we have doctrine that is sound we can discern we we know how to measure everything we know how to test everything this is of course a principle that appears in many places both in the Old Testament in the New Testament we don't have time to go back into the Old Testament but listen for example to Colossians 1:9 for this reason also since the day we heard of it we have not ceased to pray for you and ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding spiritual wisdom and understanding is discernment and when you when you're filled with the knowledge of sound doctrine you have discernment you can sort out the things that are going on in the world I turn to 1st Thessalonians chapter 5 this one will get a direct focus on the issue at hand and we'll just look at verse 20 do not despise prophetic utterances and again this is prophetic not in the sense of predicting the future but like a prophet one who spoke for God don't despise those who speak for God they're going to be out there don't despise them however verse 21 but examine everything and hold fast to that which is good and literally shun evil no matter what form it comes in what form what scheme what system that's the call for discernment be able to separate error from truth when people ask me what is the biggest problem in the church today I will say that the biggest manifest problem is the utter lack of discernment and it backs up to not having clear doctrine which backs up to not submitting to the authoritative Word of God what happens to people without theology without discernment they get caught up in emotion mysticism irrationality they get led astray by false teachers it is desperately critical for us to have our senses brought to a fine point as Hebrews 5:14 says so that we can discern good and evil don't despise preaching but be able to see the truth and the error whatever's good embrace it cling to it hold fast whatever evil whatever scheme it might be shun it stay away from spiritual discernment is critical if you have spiritual discernment you become priceless person you have answers you understand you can pass that on to the people you love to your children and to many others the church is is known for these four things and one more I'll give you the pursuit of holiness we have been called 2nd Corinthians 7:1 to cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh perfecting holiness in the fear of God in the language of first Thessalonians 4:7 God has called us to sanctification the New Testament just makes so much of this first Peter chapter 1 you might turn there verse 11 Peter in verse 13 says prepare your minds for action keep sober fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ as obedient children do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance but like the Holy One who called you be holy yourselves also in all your behavior and then borrowing from Leviticus where it says this many times you shall be holy for I am holy in Ephesians 5 again we find familiar instruction along this line therefore be imitators of God be godlike walk in love as Christ loved you and gave himself up for us and offering and sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma immorality any impurity any greed must not even be named among you as is proper among saints this kind of sin shouldn't even be named among us and where it appears Jesus said in Matthew 18 go to that person confront that sin call that brother to repent if he doesn't repent take two or three witnesses if he still doesn't repent send the church and if he still doesn't repent put him out put him out Matthew 18 there should be no filthiness no silly talk coarse jesting for you know this with certainty that no immoral impure person or covetous man who is an idolater has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God why would you want to act like the people who aren't in the kingdom you used to be darkness verse eight now your light everything has changed he goes on to talk about all of this all the way down in this wonderful chapter even into marriage and relationships and Families the pursuit is always holiness now let's end where we started turn to Hebrews chapter 10 we started talking about worship and let's end there Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 19 this is how we worship we worship with confidence we enter into the holy place the presence of God who inhabits his people's praise he is here we have confidence we enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way the new covenant which he inaugurated for us through the veil that is his flesh and since we have a great priest over the house of God let us draw near we're back to worship let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith and then this having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water that's coming with clean hands and a pure heart to borrow the old testament some pursuit of holiness pursuit of holiness finding a good local church can seem like a greater and greater challenge these days so many churches are struggling to keep their doors open and find themselves looking into new techniques most of which compromise the gospel to draw people in this is nothing new in the late 1800s Charles Spurgeon warned that the church was quickly drifting away from the purity of the gospel can decoding God's Word rather than boldly proclaiming the truths of Scripture over a hundred years later John MacArthur troubled by the secret sensitive and charismatic movements within the church pinned his book ashamed of the gospel this book speaks directly into the dangers of making the church appear and behave like the world around it give us a call at [Music] [Music] you you

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Id: baL1CnqRnNo

Length: 28min 30sec (1710 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 07 2018