Getting Out of Babylon Again The Reformation We Need Today

once again as we gather right after a message our brother John thank you so much for that exposition amen amen and and once again you have a way of putting things that will crystallize an insight such as the fact that from the first to the seventh church you start with all believers and end up with with unbelievers and that's it it's a crucial progression there that also kind of indicates a crucial progression into unbelief and into apostasy and heresy on the part of the church we're here to talk about the Reformation not so much in terms of the the past in terms of history but the need for Reformation in today's church but I do want to go back to Calvin in his letter to Emperor Charles the fifth on the necessity of reforming the church Calvin says something very interesting he says everyone is agreed that the church requires reform the question before the Emperor is is the need for this reform urgent and I think that's a good question I can was able to say everybody agrees that the church requires reform how urgent is it so mark how urgent is it well if we listen what John said in his wonderful overview sermon really of Revelation two and three two huge chapters all in one expositional message you all brought it down into his word to that church and emphasis on you've left your first love and in that sense I left feeling challenged and I think that that's an urgent need for us and that can sound vague you know love Christ more but your quotation that the Flavell quotation the other one were we're helpful I think we as pastors have to realize that at the very core of the church is exactly that it's that love for Christ we want to pray for that to grow in our own lives and in the lives of our members amen okay Ligon where is it most urgent right now I intend to see two large concerns these are big headings there are lot of specific things that could come under them but it you know as you mentioned Calvin saying it is it urgent the other question that he asked and the Reformers asked is what was the nature of the reform that was needed because the Roman Catholic counter-reformation agreed that moral reform was needed but they did not agree to the kind of doctrinal reform that the Reformers were calling for so it wasn't just an urgency for reform it was an urgency for doctrinal reform and you see that in the things that Calvin I mean Calvin and any of the Reformers could have joined with two centuries of pre-reformation Roman Catholics who are protesting the moral condition of the church but they went beyond that Luther went beyond that Calvin would be on that and I still think we have to look at doctrinal reform that is necessary today in the churches and we need to look at reform in connecting our practice to our doctrine the great the great weakness of angelical ISM is that we have believed that our methodology has nothing to do with our theology that you can you can the way you do Church is kind of up to you but the Reformers and and frankly I would say clearly in the New Testament the Apostles understood the unity of doctrine and the order of the church absolutely and and so the way the way we do the ministry of the church needs to be consistent with and flow out of the message that we are preaching the gospel and be grounded in the theology that we are disciple in those areas are important let me make an assertion and on this site Luther in his example and his his exhortation and that was you have to begin the reform at the worship of the church as Luther said it all comes down to what happens when the church gathers and what is said in pulpit John in terms of how Reformation would happen now would happen any differently than during the Reformation well I think I think Luther was absolutely right and I think that's the whole point if you've left your first love you can tell whether a church has that first love by how they worship what is the focus of that look you all are moved to the core when you sing of Christ right I mean it just we're swept away why because we have that first love and it's a rich love because we get it it's a it's informed I mean look at Ephesus they had the sound doctrine they could test somebody and they could determine whether they were telling the truth or whether they were false they were faithful to the truth that's a given there that that had that is that is of course absolutely necessary but how you guard against the loss of first love is you make sure that all your church gathering for worship is Christ focused and that you don't have people sitting in the dark being entertained that's that that just drives in the wrong direction and and again I don't want to belabor the point but with hymns as I said at the beginning I can't I can't come up with those words but somebody else can come up with them for me and literally take me out of myself right and elevate me when I sing those things cuz their expressions that I can't form and they allow me to praise Christ in a way that left to myself I couldn't I couldn't do but I but I think a church a church that has begun to leave its first love will demonstrate that first of all in the loss of a passionate heart for worship we've got to get tangible here I've got two practical things real quickly one I think to do what you're talking about what your tell my leg the reform of the church pastor you need to realize the music is your business if you think the music is not your business you have misunderstood your call to teach your congregation you need to realize that music is your business you know the scripture readings are your business the prayers you the public worship of the surf of this church is the responsibility of the elders and it's particularly in most churches would be structured it is or should be seen to be responsibility the main teaching path so you're the worship leader in that sense yeah yeah if we're going the other thing another quick is go by ji Packers book quest for godliness J I Packer quest for godliness it's 30 years worth of essays on the Puritans and he knows them well and they are theological and practical kind of like what we've been trying to model in comments and messages Jim has looked carefully at the peer movement he knows it well he did a PhD on and he's taught on it for decades and they're practical he looks at evangelism he looks at the services he looks at prayer he looks at their reading of the Bible so friends that you could use a different chapter each month and just let that begin to reform your own thinking about your local church a quest for godliness J I Packer there are copies in the bookstore Luther's point was that if the worship is right other things right may follow but if the worship is wrong nothing right will follow so if that be the case let's be tangible and practical here then what needs to be reformed today Ligon if we're just taking the same kind of view the Reformers were taking and what's wrong that needs to be made right well go back to Mark's point again in the public gathered worship of the people of God Keith yetee said it on the introduction to the hymnal in the video that if if what the content of your singing is not reflective of the theology that you're preaching right your people are probably going to believe the content of the singing not the theology of your preaching that's right so there's got to be a coordination between what we're doing in sung praise and in prayer in the substance of a worship service with a theology that we're trying to inculcate in our discipleship that's one thing that's a that's one of the biggest things I think there is today but I think Luther's principle can be extended to how you do evangelism and discipleship let me make a an assertion here I think there are a lot of pastors or even I should say that there are a lot of churches maybe in many cases to take marks admonition their pastors who aren't as involved as a pastor must be and take making this his business but in many churches they're looking for songs that include no heresy that's not enough we need songs that have genuine content some of them songs I've heard have no capacity for heresy there's not enough theology in it reminds me of a story that comes from quantum physics exactly what you expected here where the story is famously told of of Max Planck the professor I believe it was who had a student defending a doctoral dissertation at the end of it the student said is it right and Planck famously responded it's not even wrong this night it's not even possible for that to be right or wrong it's nothing and and so I when I think of the songs we sang and by the way we sang some really old songs here but you know in even in this new hymnal we sang some glorious new songs you mean some of the people who wrote those songs are still alive and still writing but they had incredible content some of them are here yes and writing well amen we're here thank you so John what else needs to be fixed the rest of your applicationnow yeah I just think just going back to last night with John Piper I think worship is motivated when I understand from where I have been redeemed instead of always preaching this positive positive positive makes people feel good I think our people need to understand the depth of depravity the utter hopelessness of the sinner in his condition unwilling unable and to understand that we have literally been sovereignly lifted up out of death and darkness and blindness you know the Apostle Paul in in 2nd Corinthians 5 it's giving some reasons why he's motivated in ministry and one of those reasons that just strikes me and I don't want to quote it and and miss so that this is this is amazing he says if we're beside ourselves it is for God you know if you think I'm crazy because I'm I'm so energized it's for God what does this come from the love of Christ controls us why having concluded this that one died for all therefore all died that is a statement of limited atonement that's particularly demson he's saying one died for all therefore all died he's saying it isn't just that I have a sense of the general love of God for sinners when he died I died the all is the all who died when Christ died he is motivated by particular reduction he died for me and I think how you generate that love for Christ I mean you could take the the point of depravity and what you've been saved from you can take the point of a particular Redemption and realize that he you were in him when he died you can go to John 17 and realized that there the reason the Lord wants to bring us to heaven is shocking he says in that high priestly prayer this is a stunning statement he says I am them that they may be perfected in unity so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me what he loves me the way he loves his only beloved son I just think all that theology about Christ the fullness of the riches of the glories of Christ motivates the love and people have to be taught all those things they have to be taught all of that so the greatest aid to worship is the explanation of Scripture so the expositor of the Word of God in that exposition is is going to exalt Christ and that's what motivates the love for Christ it's not something you whip up in a song service the song service is the response to the love it's the it's the accolades that rise out of a loving heart and that heart is generated by knowledge of the truth by the way Pelagianism semi-pelagianism doesn't get you to that level of worship because all glory doesn't go to him when we look back at certain moments in church history even back in the book of Acts Simon majors we come to understand that what we now call prosperity theology is not as new as many people think it is but when I look at prosperity theology and I see what's presented as Christianity that's when I have my Tetzel moment that's when I look at that and say that has to be an abomination to God and whatever that is it's a different religion than that handed by Christ to the Apostles and and so let me extend my tencel moment a little bit further and with all due respect and appreciation to every Christian bookstore owner who actually sells Christian books when I go into what is often called a Christian bookstore and once I stopped sneezing from the incense and I get past the Jesus junk trip over several candles on the way past the bathroom plaques and eventually get to a book and when that book is simply chosen by what sells in terms of prosperity theology that's when I want to cleanse of the temples one of the things this we choose I don't think many people may be aware this the the four of us mark leg CJ and I approve every single book that's in that bookstore there are actually books in this bookstore that we want you to read and that that that you will do well to reign but you know in terms of reformation look at how good can we expect it to get you're a church historian I mean we're not pointing back to any particular moment and saying crystal clear that's what we're aiming for how good can we expect it well we're not looking back at some golden age in the history of the church either because when you bet you look back at those golden ages there were there were all sorts of problems along all along the side of even remarkable works that the Lord was doing so we're not trying to get back to the 50s in the Eisenhower era we're not trying to get back to this to the 1650s or to the 1550s we're we're trying to be faithful to what the Bible says about how the church is supposed to be and what our witness is to be in the world and we can expect that to be mixed it's going to be mixed somehow but we can see areas of challenge and areas of progress in every generation for instance the reformed tradition has not had in the last 400 years a great track record on racism we've been horrible in that area and you the young guys here the young guys here you get this it's it's my generation and ten generations before us that didn't get this you get this you don't want a church that's monochromatic you want a church that looks like the book of Revelation where every people from every tribe tongue people in nation or around the throne worshipping the lord I praise God for that that's something you get that I've been blind to in generations before me your mind that's why by the way we need one another and and so when I when I see there's things that this generation is getting that deeply encouraged me that that we're going in the right direction I also think that there is going to be greater pressure on the especially the young guys here if you're 35 and oh there's me greater cultural and even Christian pressure on you to cave on biblical morality in areas of gender and complementarity that my generation ever experienced from our culture and you're good you're gonna have to bow your back up and stand on the Bible and say Jesus gives the marching orders in my church not to culture and so I think I do have some directions that that I see the younger generation going and I'm just I'm watching man you are gonna face headwinds in these particular areas and I just want to be there to encourage you as best as I can while you're facing those things

Channel: Together for the Gospel (T4G)

Views: 24,322

Rating: 4.8306189 out of 5

Keywords: Babylon, Duncan, MacArthur, Mark, Mohler, Reformation

Id: 0CA1eh3rVVU

Length: 19min 40sec (1180 seconds)

Published: Fri May 27 2016