Spiritual Leadership Conference 2018: Pastor Paul Chappell Modern Trends and Biblical Truths Part 2

as you're standing please take your Bibles in turn to the book of Philippians chapter 1 once again and let's set the tone for where we're headed with this lesson I'm gonna try to take about 30 minutes or so with the finalization of this lesson and then from there bring our panel up and thank you for your patience for the panel Philippines chapter 1 and if you would again notice with me verses 9 and 10 Philippians chapter 1 verses 9 and 10 please and this I pray that your love may abound by the way how many of you believe that Bible believing fundamental Baptists can be and should be a loving people our love should abound but our love should be our love should be bound our love should abound but our love should be bound that your love may abound yet more and more in within knowledge and in all judgment and that would be discernment and if we have ever needed to discern the books the blogs the Twitter trollers the thoughts and trends of a day in the Information Age if we've ever needed discernment we need it now why verse 10 that you may approve things that are excellent why why why people want to know the why why are we teaching this lesson why do we need discernment notice what it says again that you may approve things that are excellent that ye may be sincere and without a fence until the day of Christ it is for our testimony until we see him it is for our accountability to him and by the way I'm going to tell you a principle I live with every day and that is this principle that one day I will give an account not to you but to Jesus Christ for how I lead this church and that's why we want to have discernment and that's what this lesson has been about so let's pray and jump right into it father thank you for the wonderful message on the courage of Daniel and help us to have those predetermined decisions of of courage and help us in this session now to continue learning and gaining discernment I pray in Jesus name Amen you may be seated well we're learning about some of the trends and and then the corresponding truths related to those trends and yesterday we talked about some of the contextualization trends and the illustrations were given of over contextualization under contextualization then we moved into some of the interpretation trends how that terms really matter the origin of the terms matter and that we would properly interpret and understand and that we would use that which is biblical and set aside that which is born of of a human spirit or of man's philosophy as we conclude the sporting I want to take a look at what I'm calling congregational trends these trends are a little more long line of practical trends not so much spiritual philosophy trends but these are things we're seeing in the churches today and I believe you'll understand as we move along what I mean by congregational trends the first trend that is being published often in various periodicals today is the trend of inconsistent attendance it's an amazing trend in that many churches are not necessarily losing membership but their attendance is waning and we're seeing as a result of lessened commitment there are people actually feel well if I get their three out of four I'm better than the average member there is a trend to inconsistent attendance 56% of churches in America today are declining in attendance 9% have plateaued and only 35% are growing I read even this morning again some of these trends that are published by various different denominations and so forth and and and with that trend and these trends in mind we're seeing that rather than a spirit of so much the more til we see the Day approaching we're finding churches that are cutting Sunday night services Wednesday night services missions conferences etc and I know there are those that just get kind of you know get their dander up about the idea of boy you know don't tell me to do more and don't tell me but I want to tell you something I think the Bible actually says so much the more I don't I don't think we need to over program I talked about that yesterday but we're seeing the trend today I don't I don't believe when it comes to Bible teaching and preaching that less is more and nor do I believe that many people just given their own schedules are going to find themselves deeply in the Word of God God has called us to teach and preach and gentlemen this is not the time to be lazy in our calling this is the time to get into the word and bring something fresh to the pulpit and and yet churchgoers are less a frequent churches are de-emphasizing membership recent polls have found younger Christians drifting away from the conservative views of their parents and grandparents one survey in fact recently said that half of those under 35 under age 35 in in evangelical churches favor same-sex marriage compared with just 15% of those over 65 think of that a statistic if you would that half of the young people in so-called evangelical churches today favor same-sex marriage that's an amazing thought half of those under 35 now when there's less and less truth being imparted and when there's an attitude towards two by the way they're not going to learn about the sanctity of marriage and the public schools the fact is that we're seeing the reflection of a weakened church and of less preaching in our our church culture today as well so the trend of inconsistent attendance it's it's an amazing newer trend people are so busy people are thinking that you know that's my church I have people that come very infrequently boy when they see me I'm their pastor boy when they're in the hospital I'm their pastor isn't that amazing that's kind of the trend that's going what's the truth related to this trend well we know the truth Hebrews 10:25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the Day approaching so I believe that membership and attendance must be encouraged taught and modeled and and you know I've heard all the arguments well Sunday school was started I know where it was started I've been to the town where it was started in England it was started by Robert regs and and the fact of the matter is that because of that Sunday school millions of British children learn how to read to learn how to read the Bible and we're saved and I understand that you may have different hours of your Sunday you may have different nights of the week all I'm advocating here is that we need to emphasize membership and I actually believe it's a biblical principle they that were baptized were added to the church I think they actually knew who the widows were I think they actually knew one another I think that they had modest one another and exhorted one another and that they were very very relationally involved in this community membership was known attendance must be encouraged I think a lot of this begins in what we call our core class where we bring people into this new Christians class and we talked to them about membership and we talked to them about what is involved with being a member and we talked about our desire to see them learn how to love God and grow together and serve others and they sign a membership covenant when they become members of Lancaster Baptist Church and that membership covenant says that they have read our doctrinal statement of faith and our church Constitution that statement of faith by the way gives the tenants of our faith it also defines the biblical family and no one is a a member of this church until they sign that they have read understood and agreed with those particular documents and I just still believe in the three to thrive motto that dr. Lee Robertson taught me and I believe that the more of the Word of God is needed today and I see that in the spirit of my Lord if there were ninety and nine gathered but one was missing he wanted to know where it was and I believe that's the heart of the Shepherd and this idea that you can have people just missing and missing and missing that's why I love Sunday school Sunday school is the church organized to fulfill the purpose of the church and this is an opportunity for us to keep role and to encourage and advocate and help people along the way so I would just encourage you that while that trend is prevalent let's let's encourage membership let's teach faithfulness let's be excited about the missions conference let's have fresh material on Wednesday night let's do all we can to encourage people in the house of God secondly I want you to notice a trend that is affecting our ministry and maybe a few thoughts here and that is the online impact that we're experiencing online impact of ministry now some of the poll away from the local church is because of the multiplicity of teachers that are out there it's amazing how many people are yanking the chain of your congregation and I'm talking about guys that have never built a church have never won a soul they're writing articles and and getting your people all worked up and sometimes your people are demanding certain practices of fellowship from you because of some llegue that they listen to out there in the internet you know in the olden days you had a church you had a pastor you had a Bible the pastor preached the Bible we all try to obey Jesus now there's now there's so many voices out there now the average person spends close to two hours a day on social media 54% Christian Millennials watch online videos about faith or spirituality in 2017 more than half of Bible readers use the Internet or a smartphone 53 percent to access biblical text people are living on these devices in it's somewhat frightening to us that are a little bit older you take a young man through four years of Bible College you'll break your knuckles preach in and and pray in and and given an education and counseling with them and it seems like 40 minutes on a on an iPad and the dopamine kicks in and all of the sudden a new creature develops and ideas begin to spring forth and suddenly great a great font of wisdom is standing before you because something was on the internet multiple influences pastors it's not something that we can fight I'm not even being defensive about it this morning I mean it is what it is there are thousands and thousands of voices that are speaking into the lives of our members it used to just be that we could maybe preach against the TV evangelists or you know give a warning about you know some of these things the TV and the radio but now it's nearly every moment of every day and there are those that are Twitter trollers and they're throwing out special little phrases and looking for people in their down moments and saying here I can offer you a special dispensation of grace or we can give you an eight percent tie they're just whatever you want come and read our blog and come to our church and and be here and so forth the influences are pervasive I think another aspect to this with respect to online impact is the live streaming and I think it's something that I don't have all the answers to but I do believe live streaming is affecting some attendance trends and and it's something that is becoming more pervasive and yet I that we need to emphasize to the physically able people that they're not to forsake the what assembling together and I really believe and we'll talk about that next let's look at the truth the truth that relates to this online trend and that is that people need relational involvement God has designed the Christian life to be a life of relational community he has called it the body of Christ the local church is the body of Christ and now more than ever before we need to encourage servant leaders who develop an atmosphere conducive to growth in community one of the requirements of a pastor is that he be given to hospitality you know a lot of times you find folks that are kind of out there on the edges and discouraged just having them to your home would be such a blessing to them just bringing them in sitting them down and fellowshipping with them and Hebrews 10:24 challenges us that were to consider one another and to exhort one another unto love and good works and sometimes I find as I pray through our church directory and I have every name in a three-ring notebook and as I'm praying through our church directory sometimes the Lord will bring to my mind someone that maybe is absent or someone that's going through a particularly and when when I'm in that mode sometimes I'll just stop for a moment and jot down a name of someone that I've missed or maybe create a list of 10 or 12 inviting them to our home or having a lunch with them or doing something to encourage them along the way people today with all of the social media are still longing for some spiritual influencer to come into their life and show interest in them and we need to be sensitive to that in the busyness of our schedules as well the Bible says this Romans 1213 given to hospitality Romans 1024 considering one another now people who come in for a service a sit and listen and leave may not see much difference between watching livestream and coming in person and so we want to do our very best to create an atmosphere conducive to fellowship and in courage Minh and relationship and again this for us begins with our adult Bible classes our connection groups and we and III tell our connection group leaders I don't want this to be a little Church I don't want some screaming Mimi type of a teacher in there that's just thinking this is their opportunity to really just preach away I want a teaching context there I want some food in there I want some talking in there some praying in there that's where we do birthdays you'll get to a point where you can't celebrate birthdays in the morning worship service and you can I mean I missed that you can when you're a smaller Church but but as you grow those classes become that place of community and that place of fellowship and and and that's a tremendous blessing for our church people long for community that's what the church is it should be an authentic grace filled place of community and we should make it attractive and and in such a way that people are drawn to the spirit of the fellowship of the local church and again oftentimes in our ministries if we're not careful we can become mechanical going through the motions but we need to take time to see how folks are doing and we'll work along with them and I truly believe that that level of care compassion and community is ten times more powerful than simply someone that's watching something on the internet and it's something very attractive and drawing people in let's look at a third trend that we're facing today and that's a trend of what I would call the lack of cross generational fellowship and council this is something that I see in the ministerial world and I see it in churches it is a polarization of certain age groups and this has always been the case it's natural because of you know people have things in common they remember a car they used to drive they remember how things were when you know that when Nixon got impeached or Reagan was president then you've got folks that weren't even born at that time you know one of the things I love about singing the hymns in the church is that it it ties together the generations I love that I love that my grandchildren can sing the same songs that I say when I was in church and I understand there's joy in learning new songs as well but I'm saying we need to do everything we can to develop a oneness in the church I have our teenagers a couple times a year visit all the widows in the church every year just going out and talking to them and sometimes going to arrest home and and I really believe that we need to have an emphasis in our churches of helping one generation to know another generation we need to help many of you older pastors instead of getting frustrated at the Millennials with certain issues you need to have them out to your home or have them to your church or have some coffee with them because honestly so many of them are doing a great job and they may have a few ideas you don't understand guess what you had a few dumb ideas too I'm thankful that men have been patient with me over my life and and just when I was younger encouraging me along the way and and we need to have that and so here's the truth we must encourage younger and older to meet and grow together proverbs 27 10 thine own friend and thy father's friend forsake not neither go into thy brother's house in the day of calamity for better is the neighbor that is near than a brother far off and we have some activities that try to help us with this sometimes we'll have a men's retreat where we'll take 30 or 40 men and we'll go to a conference room or a hotel and have some time of training and we'll get some of the older and some of the younger together sometimes it happens in prayer meetings at the church my wife has a program called home helping our mothers Excel and she has the older ladies teaching the younger ladies it's an opportunity for mentoring in that way and I just believe that we need to work at this in our churches and in our pastors fellowships just keeping that contact I'm going to tell you something both generations can learn from the other if we have a teachable spirit let me go to a fourth trend in the local church and this is a trend that is concerning to me it is the trend of fewer young people going into the minister started about ten years ago we started hearing more and more parents well we want our kid to get this eighty SAT score and this a CT score and we want to help them get into this university so that they can get this job so that they can become self-dependent you know there's something more important than self-dependent it's called being God dependent and and we're seeing teenagers surrender at the ninth and tenth grade to go into ministry to go to Bible College and by the time they're in the twelfth grade they're maybe going to maybe a Christian College taking liberal arts thinking they did a good thing but it wasn't what they had committed to when they said I'm gonna give my life to get the gospel of Jesus Christ out pastors if you and I are not burdened about seeing timothy's raised up in our church where are they coming from I can tell you very very certainly that other denominations groups and church planning organizations strategically have recruited from the Independent Baptist ranks to get young preachers even to take their churches because they're not raising up preachers in their own ranks but now we're beginning to see the decline in our ranks now we're beginning to see churches were I would preach or we'd have a college group go and sing and they'd have 27 high school graduates from their high school and they'd have 17 or 18 of them saying bury my heart of the mission field and now we're seeing maybe one go to Bible College maybe to consider the ministry so you're just saying this because you have a college that's not my primary reason for saying this I'm saying this because there's a world that needs the gospel we love training students at West Coast Baptist College there are other tremendous colleges represented here I'm just saying it's not not about one college it's about the harvest field and getting the gospel out and this is a this is an alarming trend it's an alarming trend and pastors we need to be concerned about this so what are some truths related to this well let me give you this truth Jesus Christ had one prayer request and this was it pray ye therefore the lord of the harvest that he will send forth laborers into his harvest can you do something we did in our Wednesday night prayer list would you put on your prayer list and get your people praying for laborers for the harvest just explain to them this is a prayer request that young people in our church will surrender their life to ministry and let's begin to teach our parents again that if one of your children desires to be in the ministry they're not a second-class citizen you know and I know people have to tippy-toe as preachers on this because people say well I mean if my son's not in the ministry then he's the second-class citizen that's not it at all I mean listen the ministry doesn't go like this you know here's the real important here's a less important the ground is level at the cross and if it's God's will for someone to be a policeman or a doctor then that's God's will for their life but let's not shy away because of some cynical parishioners from this idea of emphasizing the privilege of the calling of God to preach the gospel and we ought to preach for it once in a while when was the last time a young person came forward in your service on a Sunday night and said I'm here to declare that God has called me to be a preacher of the gospel when did that happen and if it's not happening then are we gonna be like that look at we poke fun at the Congregational churches in New England that are now libraries and coffee shops why they just ran out of preachers ran out of you know giving the truth out did you know that we cannot keep up with the calls from churches that need pastors right now that come to our office there's an amazing shortage of preachers in our land and folks as the baby boomers retire by the thousands we must have younger preachers coming along to take these ministries so have nights called youth nights where they just take over the service and four or five of them preach and training inthere preaching and and have lunch with your teens and and and spend time with them preaching and and modeling and helping them along the way let me give you another trend as I hurry today let me share with you a trend that also concerns me and maybe give you a few scriptural truths as well and that is the trend of slowing in evangelism and soul-winning I told you yesterday that I get concerned about alleged gospel centered churches that have cancelled soul-winning how can you be gospel centered and not have a soul-winning ministry somebody can help me right there by the way I do not have as one of the main mission statements of Lancaster Baptist Church to be involved in trying to write social injustice --is that's not the vision of Lancaster I'm not for social injustice but my number one calling is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to be a soul winner the Son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost you get enough people save society will rise up and you look at John Newton and some of the others Witherspoon that that got burdened and helped to end slavery you'll find that when the church is strong social ills get taken care of but the church is not strong if the church is not growing and reaching new people with the gospel so I'm advocating to you as Independent Baptist that we keep the main thing the main thing and the main thing is soul-winning the son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost however there is a tremendous slowing there are Deacons that don't go soul-winning so we have leadership requirements at our church I always have thought it's funny that you have to have a requirement to tell somebody to do what Jesus has already commanded them to do we have pastors that don't go souling it I often tell our choir I do not want to choir that sings about the untold millions and never tells any of them and I have friends that come from very conservative musical backgrounds and I mean they I mean they know about downward slides upward slides rollercoaster slides they think they know rules I just can't even sometimes get my brain around but they don't know about the soul winning slide that's the one when you're witnessing on the roller coaster on the way down and now soul winning is one of those areas like prayer I believe that must be scheduled and it must be emphasized now it's interesting to me this trend and and I don't know exactly why we see it I think one of the reasons perhaps in some of our cities is that there's an increasing concern over safety I actually think this is a reason people are becoming more reclusive how many of you have the little ring doorbell let me see how many of you have it all right some of you have it all right you know what I'm talking about it's it's quite pervasive here in Southern California it's a little device and I mean people can see you coming to the door you know and and and that and talk to you if they if they want to in 1960 only 16% of Americans were afraid to walk alone at night today forty-nine percent say they're afraid even to walk at night I mean I remember the day brother Wilkerson when I would just go out soul-winning a lot of times in dart in the dark just door-to-door in the dark that day is probably gone as far as door-to-door is concerned 71% of Americans say they have limited or change their activities because of crime I mean the idea of just going up to a door actually frightens some people thirty five percent of Americans say their neighborhood is dangerous enough that they have thought about moving I believe perhaps in some cities that safety is a concern and then I think another concern is that there's an increasingly distrustful spirit towards Christianity and some of this is media portrayals of Christianity and and some of it may be that there have been failures in Christianity that have caused people to have distrust and so forth November 2017 one newspaper said Christianity in America is the single greatest cause of atheism today and what they meant by that was all of the failures of Christianity and all of the all of the difficulties that we've seen in sin has actually discouraged people from coming to know the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior so we're seeing safety concerns we're seeing people that distrust Christianity sometimes we're seeing a spirit of just open hostility toward the faith and it comes from the strangest places even the other day Mitt Romney called Southern Baptist pastor Robert Jeffress a religious bigot because he said Mormonism is a heresy from the pit of hell by the way how many if you're glad Jeffress got it right Baptists have been saying that stuff for years and I for one don't intend to stop saying it if you can't call a call to cult if that's being unkind and if that's not being gentle enough folks God has called us to cry aloud and spare not God has called us to buy the truth and sell it not and when someone gets it right we ought to be glad they get it right but you know what when you get it right a lot of times society is gonna call you a bigot so now we're telling people this is the amazing thing about church ministry we're telling them to go out in a dangerous society in a distrusting society untrusting society and and in a society that thinks we're bigots because we believe there's only one way to go to heaven and we're telling them to go out there and and see these folks converted how many of you have figured this out without the Holy Spirit that's the dumbest thing in the world without the Holy Spirit involved in this equation it's just not going to happen and because of perhaps some of these thoughts and because perhaps of the busyness of schedule the trend of soul winning and soul winners that are engaging the community is going down what are some truths here well we know that his last command must be our first priority and I think the truth is really just pastors emphasizing soul winning in our preaching in the attendance of meetings I get tickled some of these guys are members of these fellowships and boy it's almost like they're required they got to go to you know the the annual meeting for the you know for the missions or the church planning or the graduation or the monthly meeting for this the monthly meeting for that you know I have figured out that if you miss two or three times a month from your church's soul-winning program no one else is gonna think it's important people do what people see our people need to see us there at soul-winning they need to see us going out sewing they need to see us after the loss acts 20:20 publicly and from house to house now now we can use social media for soul-winning and and I think we can buy Facebook ads and do some of these things eighty-eight percent of Millennials are are using Facebook 68 percent of US citizens use it use use the technology but can I tell you something nothing replaces just talking to a real live person and I still believe if we go in the spirit I believe we have a right attitude if we have the right manners that God leads us along to people that we can talk to people that can be saved and so yes consider times you might consider certain neighborhoods for more of your men soul-winning group and more of a daytime event but let me encourage you to have enrollment times where you're enrolling soul winners and partnering soul winners and maybe having some meals for them maybe involve your folks in some outreach events that that do involve some form of a community service with the gospel attached and and then of course provide quality services for once the folks are coming in that that there's a not just the go and they asked to come but when they get there that there's something that causes them to want to come back and spend time on your services on your message preparation and so but these are some congregational trends that alarm us but friends can I just tell you there's always a correspond truth and if we'll come back to the truth of the word of God and just be faithful to do what God has called us to do I believe this the church is a living organism and if we'll remove the rocks from on top of the plant the plant will grow if we do our job to remove these particular impediments by believing and practicing the truth that God has called us to now I want to conclude this just with a few quick thoughts and then we're gonna bring our panel up when I think about trends of contextualization trends of interpretation and trends that we see in the congregation's I think there's a few things we can do as far as some takeaways or some routine things we can receive as far as takeaways let me say first of all as we consider these thoughts let us walk in humility I think older pastors we need to have the humility to search out a matter I think the weakness of my generation is the quick answer because I said so because that's how it's always been done I hope you can see in this particular lesson my goal was not a quick answer we need to search out the matter and try to understand if I could encourage some of you younger pastors to have a heart that's pliable and that would listen sometimes I talk to young men 5 10 15 20 minutes trying to pour into their life do you know a good response if your pastor does that with you would just be to say thanks for caring about me you that our assistant pastors and the last time your pastor maybe talked with you about trends or concerns number one your job is to lean with his concern not to pull him your way to lean with him but number two when was the last time you wrote a thank-you note and just said hey pastor these discussions and talks thank you for taking time to help me sometimes there's a spirit that does not allow growth to go forward and it's a spirit of pride gospel centeredness should create humility Jesus humbled himself and became obedient unto the cross humility before God promises more grace growth and grace promises God sufficiency for continued ministry beware of that smug attitude beware of getting that idea you know that well I read these few books and I'm gonna tweet this or that be careful about that and then let me say also here concerning this matter of walking humbly biblical gospel ministry will cultivate humble humility in your heart and as that happens I want you to remember this that you may not agree with someone's method but we must not attack their motive be careful even as you watch some younger pastor and doing something different you don't there there are men that I love with all my heart whose methods with whose methods I disagree okay their preference is not mine or whatever you however you want to term it but I don't want to go to the step of saying their motive of their heart is wrong you you can't really know that and I think we need to be careful in crossing that line that it may be the case as as you've talked to someone personally but 99.9 percent of the time when I hear people attacking others for their motive they've never even met them the the greatest critics I've had in the ministry have never stepped foot on this campus they get a little skewed something that's they saw on the internet or somebody said or whatever and they go off with it and and fellas be careful about judging others motives that may be really trying to please the Lord let me just say this then deal biblically and honestly biblically and honestly and legally with sin and abuse because there is such a distrust in society and in listen it seems like one group kind of rejoices when it's in another group and you know and they call out let me just tell you what let me tell you about sin and immorality it's pervasive I mean it in the last in the in the last several months it's been just about in every group and we when we're when we're involved in a local church if there's a pastor or if there's a staff member that's involved in immorality it should be dealt with immediately rebuke them before all that others may fear it should be done in love and we should seek to restore their family but not standing up and saying well this is a really good guy and some stuff happened and but you know it's gonna be okay and he'll probably be a pastor again next week not in my book and not in God's book there's some choice words in 1st Timothy 3 including the word blameless and and what I'm saying is that when they're sinned by the way if there's sin involving a child we must call the police immediately and so let's listen let's build trust let's not destroy trust let's build trust and then and then let me say this seek to grow in grace and seek to grow in the area of servant leadership and and make sure that we have the heart of our Lord John 13:5 as he washed the disciples feet and then number to be clear in the use of trends in terms clear in the use of trends and terms can I just say something publicly and for the record fundamentalists did not create the term neo evangelical a lot of these younger men think that that's a term we use to kind of make this smokescreen to try to scare them away from some group friend it was not something created by a Baptist in fact I want you to read from the president of fuller seminary and for though if you want to be defensive and defend full or seminary you're just gonna self-identify by doing that but you can read here it is this is from Harold Ock and gave former president evangelicalism was born in the 1948 in connection with the convocation address which I gave in the Civic Auditorium in Pasadena while affirming the theological view of fundamentalism this address repudiated its ecclesiology in its social theory the ringing call for a repudiation of separatism listen to this now a repudiation of separatism okay and the summons to social involvement now look right here what happened yesterday in the Southern Baptist Convention is the direct playbook that was written in 1948 it's some of you just need to get it okay What did he say here What did he say he says the reaffirming the theological view of fundamentalism this address repudiated its ecclesiology and social theory the ringing call for a repudiation of separatism so there there repudiating the idea of separatism and the summons to social involvement received a hearty response from many evangelicals now some some of you have to determine are you a new evangelical or are you a Bible believing fundamental Baptists now notice this it differed from fundamentalism in its repudiation of separatism and its determination to engage itself in the theological dialogue of the day it had a new emphasis upon the application of the gospel notice this to the sociological political and economical economic areas of life so new evangelicalism is an attempt to bring the Liberals and the evangelicals together around social issues and and and to say let's stop separating from one another and the fact of the matter is a liberal denies the truth of the word of God a bible-believing fundamental person stands for the truth of the word of God and the knew of angelical tries to get the two to compromise but I just share all that with you just simply to say I didn't in everything I just said was not my invention now you can you can be upset with me for revealing it to you today and I'm sure some will but I didn't create this philosophy of let's really get involved in social justice and let's get the United Methodist in the assemblies and try to get some of the fundings and get them all together that wasn't my idea I'm just happy over here being a funding so what I'm trying to say is as we've looked back to yesterday understand the origin of terms and the meaning of the terms more clearly okay and then number three make the adjustments the Holy Spirit leads you to make you can be creative you should be gospel centered in your motivation and in your message but we must buy the truth and sell it not next both the commands and the gospel have a role in teaching us and forming us spiritually and any emphasis on gospel centered ministry that diminishes the role of biblical commands is going in a direction towards antinomianism that will weaken the church okay so gospel centered motivation we as Bible believers need to come back to that Baptists need that we don't need to be motivated by our alma mater by some great oratory speech that we heard our motivation needs to be the love of Christ constrains me okay but when someone says gospel only and they they put down the idea of just preaching through the Bible and I thought I thought brother Jill its message last night was a masterful illustration of the combination of both he gave many admonitions and exhortations and he concluded the message at the cross I was a great illustration of what we're talking about the cross is the reason we do what we do and then let's stay focused on Christ and his mission and finally let's be bold in our faith for the future churches are either risk taking care taking or undertaking and we want to be bold as go forward in the future doing what God has called us to do and so I pray that these last few days have just caused you to think fact some some pastors sitting here today came up to me and just said you know what brother Chapel I've been doing a lot of reading and some things you said got me thinking about some things I've been reading and I thought well good that was one of my goals let's let's stop and think before we swallow a hook line and sinker every term and philosophy and concept that's out there well I'm gonna call those that are on the panel to come up and join with me if you would right now so those men that are on the panel come on up here if you would and we're gonna go through some questions and I appreciate them coming I think I've got brother Anspaugh and I think I've got brother Jill it may be and maybe a few others that are coming and so we're gonna take a minute with them and we're gonna we'll be dismissed in a few minutes here but I want to take some time here for some questions and answers so those that are on the panel come on up here and we're gonna go through this together how you doing this morning brother Julian brother Delaney brother Farrell come on up brother brother names Bob there you are good good how are you this morning great good to see you guys all right let's just stay standing for a second dr. Tom Farrell's been in evangelism how many years brother Ferro 40 years brother Dave Delaney's the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Long Beach where the Tyler Jill at Worth Baptists in Fort Worth Texas and brother am's BA is at the heritage Baptist Church in Woodbridge Virginia and thank you men for being with us you can be seated and let's go through some of the questions here for this particular hour of discussion first question every preacher studies audience context and of course biblical context and yet how can we be careful not to bend a biblical truth because of not wanting to offend and and prefer I'll talk to us about that you know we're studying the context how do we know where to draw that line the Word of God itself offends it could be your presentation that's more offensive are you trying to help people take their spiritual step are you trying to show off your masterful mind your sermon what's your motivation and that people pick up confrontation with compassion it's not either/or but I believe it's both but you cannot diminish the truth in order to satisfy an audience amen that's true thank you for that here's a question two questions dr. anspaugh if we affirm gospel centeredness as a proper motivation in serving Jesus is it wrong to emphasize obedience in keeping biblical Commandments and a follow-up to that is why is this term mostly emphasized by Calvinists on the market today well I'd venture to say that first of all there's more to the gospel than just justification I think we would have to argue that sanctification is part of the gospel as well and I think if we split that hair too thin then we we don't really make disciples we may get some converts out of that but we don't make disciples so my estimation of true gospel centered ministry would include sanctification and that has to have a lot of specifics to it and especially as even as you're raising children the younger the children the more specific you have to be with teenagers you might coach according to principles with a two-year-old don't stick your finger in a light socket you have to be very specific about they can't discuss electricity with them you have to say here's what you have to do so there's a growth process that has to take place and a lot of people in the very beginning especially of their Christian faith you know they want specifics and it helps them to grow and then I believe as we've talked that some of this philosophy you have felt kind of roots back into reformed theology and talk to us about that I think there's a big difference that if there's a difference that exists between historic Calvinism and neo Calvinism and historic Calvinism you go back in the spurgeon era of that there was a great emphasis upon holiness with in historic Calvinism because they believed that that was an evidence of the perseverance of the saints but in neo Calvinism there's been a great shift I think that and it goes something like this because peep the elect are going to get saved regardless of how I behave then I could behave anyway because my holiness has no bearing upon someone else's conversion and I think that's fallacious because I think the Bible says that we ought to pursue holiness without which people won't be able to see the Lord people often only see the Lord when they see holiness in us so in neo Calvinism there's been this idea that because of my lifestyle doesn't have any bearing on anybody else come in Christ I can live however I want to live I think that's completely false brother Juliet some men disenfranchise themselves from a ministry that maybe did not deal with sin properly or someone disappointed them there and then they begin to choose mentors in other circles who are equally flawed and it kind of becomes a cycle in their life what would you advise on avoiding that cycle I think anyone that has been keeping up with the news lately and those that some of these problems are not just happening in fundamentalism they're happening really all over Christianity so I think for a young man what a young man needs to do is he needs to figure out what he believes and why he believes it regardless of the other men that believe it and he needs to stick true to his convictions knowing that there will be Mentors and there will be other Christians that will disappoint along the way I think if we'll just keep our focus on the Lord Jesus and on the Word of God and stop putting our focus so much on men that when men disappoint us we won't fall out of the ministry will continue because we were doing it for Christ in the first place well said pastor Delaney why would someone who speaks a lot about being gospel centered and again we affirmed that term yesterday but I'm speaking of someone that writes a lot or reads a lot about it in their quest to flee moralism why would they DMS eyes preaching messages of admonishment what's the mindset of that several things but I think you touched on it fear of man approval among their peers I think I really liked your point in your lesson where you said that some younger men in ministry need to just have your cake and eat it too right and I think that that's that's a very valid point you know if God be God then serve him but if they'll be God then serve him but choose you this day whom you will serve and there's a there's a biblical principle there of learning to decide who you want to be then go after that which I think ties to what the question to Tyler was in finding finding men and mentors in ministry who we can who we have learned of you know so Paul said to Timothy being convinced of what you have learned of me now do this and it's important for us to have godly mentors who can help us in that way obviously not not holding our faith to those men but following those men and being being assured of who we are following so many men and I appreciate that and and I really believe that that we are are seeing sometimes overreaction and I feel like again focusing on Christ and proper mentorship has certainly helped me in my life and I'm thankful for the examples and and appreciate that answer I'd like to ask brother Farrell with respect to preaching in this culture some of the books that are written and some of the things we hear about there's almost a reverence for a culture it's like you shouldn't preach again the culture and I mentioned that yesterday we don't preach against everything in the culture but let me ask this give an example of some things that you can use in preaching from the culture things that you could affirm or illustrate with and then things that you would say you know this is this is an area that must be preached against do you think the Bible's against we should be against a ment of the culture of false - that the the concept that you blend in the idea of preaching of connection in spite of confrontation we're afraid to offend anybody I'm afraid to offend God he has the final authority his book will not change John the Baptist did not get beheaded because he was who's who in Jerusalem and so I think we have to understand who we're preaching for what we're preaching but we're speaking truth in love so therefore when we can agree with concern about issues of morality we can agree with issues about the way women are treated when we can agree with the things in our culture and we can be positive why be negative right but if the culture contradicts the Word of God we stand with the Word of God right and we must make up our mind who were preaching for and the fact that you said today there's a date at the judgement seat of Christ they must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ and so I'm constantly seeking to know what the culture is saying but the more people who get saved by the grace of God and they get enlightened and they get born into the family of God they begin to understand cultural issues right they begin to he's people living living together well people we know live together so they get saved by the grace of God it's interesting how quickly they understand that what they're in is sin we cannot tone down the word sin we're trying to make things every adaptable we can't do that but at the same time we can love those who are living together point them the right direction and help them to take spiritual steps I think we also must be careful that we don't try to make them take quantum leaps when they get into the family of they're not supposed to be quite as spiritual as people have been saved for 20 years right and in our congregations we have to help our folks have been saved for a long time to be careful about their attitude of people Amen new converts are just coming in because they're not going to dress like us and talk like us and we wouldn't have either had we've been raised that way and so we we would agree with the things that are anti Bible we would agree with the things that are even anti cultural but we want to make sure that we don't major on minors and we have to help people get saved to see what the truth is all about I believe as preachers when there are for example if there's a discrimination that's clearly discrimination in our culture something that's on the news or someone has mistreated because of say for example their race I don't think it's wrong to say that was wrong what happened in that situation I don't think that should be our major ministry that's what I said a moment ago always social injustice all of the time but I do believe there are points when something's happening like that that we can say that was wrong and so forth but also believe that to try to redeem sinful elements of culture as a matter of our preaching in order to be relevant is violating the principles of the word of God dr. anspaugh when we think about the subject of God's grace and you touched on this a moment ago it seems like many times people in talking about their position in Christ who we are in Christ Romans chapter 6 then carry that into the idea that progressive sanctification then can somehow be neglected and I'd like you to address that and and talk about also what is antinomianism how does this principle of grace sometimes get to that level of perversion well I think it's clear in the 2nd Corinthians 7:1 that were too perfect holiness in the fear of God so we are positionally holy we are positionally set apart but we have to perfect holiness in the fear of God so for example in 1987 I became a married man studied marriage altar exchanged vows with my wife preacher said preacher pronounce us man and wife and I was married now every day that I get up I have to live like what I am and I am positionally set apart in Christ at the moment of conversion but every day I have to get up as a Christian and live like what I am and so that means I have to perfect holiness I have to live according to what is true of me I am a Christian that never changes but every day I have to live Christ like that fluctuates a good deal and so I have to learn how to perfect that then just because your positionally this does it mean that you shouldn't work on acting like what you are and we have to learn how to do that's Christian living 101 and that means and that requires certain rules now legalism is obeying the law for the law sake fidelity is obeying the law because you love the law giver antinomianism is saying we don't need rules well that's crazy if I'm gonna live like a married man there's a rule thou shalt not commit adultery that's a rule I live according to that rule not because it's a blatant rule but because I love my wife Amen well there's certain rules that I do in Christianity because I love the Lord and because I love my Lord and I want to be like him and want to be set apart like him and I want people to identify me by my lifestyle as being what I profess to be there are certain rules that I follow and I'm not just doing it so I'm say I'm better than you or you're less than me I'm doing it because I love Jesus and this is what his life has touched in my life and said here's something I'd like perfect in you and I perfect that holiness because of my love for the Savior and rules are not I mean there are certain things that we just do inevitably as married people for example because we love our spouse and it's not the weight of the rule that's so heavy upon us it's the love of the spouse that motivates it and because of love the spouse motivates it the weight of the rule and the rules not Rivas to us because of the love and God's rules are not Grievous His commandments are not Grievous because of our love for him so the proper thing is not if you're obeying rules it's why are you obeying Rosen if you're obeying them for the right reason you enjoy doing it I only go to church when I want to I just always want to alright good brother Joey sometimes in in busy seasons of ministry we can create maybe in our churches and maybe it's our fault for not working on the calendars welling up but we can create a sense of burden and sometimes people can feel even a sense of guilt that we would not have intended and sometimes it's maybe somewhat of their personality and so forth but what can be done what can we do as pastors to try to give the rhythm and to emphasize the grace that is needed in ministry to avoid you know the overburdening in that sense I think it starts with being spirit directed on how you put your calendar and events together there are only so many things that church can do in any given year and when you give yourself to everything you've really given yourself to nothing so every year I'm gonna take a personal planning retreat and spend some time with the Lord and the Word of God and a long season of Prayer trying to figure out what the vision for our church is gonna be for the next year I took over a church that was well established with a lot of programs and ministries and many of them were doing well some of them just weren't working and I saw that our people were tired so slowly but surely and in a way that affirms the previous leadership and is honoring to them we've cut some of those things out of the calendar and tried to add if we add something that'll do the purpose of what we intend for it to do whether it's evangelism or disciple-making or a mission so a lot of it comes with being spirit directed and how you put the calendar together I think the next thing that comes is preaching proper motives to your people in other words not asking them to come to something just because the pastor expects them to be there but to ask them to come to something because they love the Lord Jesus and with all their heart they really want to be there they want to be soul winners they want to be disciple makers they want to be involved in the mission of God so they're coming is not a matter of performance for me or for their church they're coming as a matter of their love relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and I think dr. hamster ball just said it perfectly when you do that people don't come to church because they have to be there they come there because they want to be there so proper planning and preaching proper motivations will keep our people from responding in a out of guilt and we'll keep them responding in a spirit of grace so brother Dave sometimes there are people that you know they are almost trolling for the beleaguered member of your church and all its tough to you know have to live with this schedule and you still have church on Wednesday what kind of a weirdo are you and you know and and one of the words we hear is it's just not sustainable this is just not sustainable right and so talk to me about sustainability how do you how do you maintain being an aggressive soul-winning Church that's regularly meeting around the Word of God and you do it for decades and you're on the early end of it in your ministry but what are some things you're thinking about as you dial in that direction well there are some ministry models that aren't sustainable right so there's there's truth in that and I think we should be careful that our model is sustainable for the land and maybe mention if you want to elaborate on something that the said aren't sustainable well I liked what you said because that's the question we want to do this for decades you know so do you want to have seven nights of VBS for decades you know I don't so one or two that's good for me you know so that's that's really that's really what you're what you're asking you know you're asking how how can we do this for the long run in a way that's healthy in a way that's balanced that that was a look that was a word I learned early on in working with you just balance in ministry and having that proper context and balance to ministry certainly motivations is one of that is one of those as well and I love it brother Eames well said the love of Christ Paul said constraineth me you know not not not just my love for Christ but my understanding of Christ's love for me so my love of or the love of Christ the love he showed to me that's what ties me up and causes me to do this but then inside of that I we don't guilt people into doing every activity of the church and sometimes what you need to say is we have lots of activities you don't need to come to them all you know you just need to give your people permission to do that hey man and and and having the the willingness to understand that just because as the pastor maybe were at those things or maybe as the staff we're at those things that that's not necessarily the expectation of all of all the membership as well so making sure that what you're doing is sustainable making sure that you want to do that for the long haul your motivations or some of those things as well then it then helping your people understand that they do not need to be at everything but that they ought to be at something you know and they can't use that as their excuse I think sometimes we buy the idea that our people are afraid of commitment but they're not afraid of commitment they're committed to soccer lease and they'll go to that three times a week you know so I think sometimes we we buy the lie of saying people want less and less commitment which is not necessarily true they want a balanced commitment inside of all the other commitments that they have and so I think we need to make sure that we're giving space for people to be able to do the things that they want and as long as we have that balance in that approach I think I think we'll be will be good there amen and I really think too there are some things that are priorities that we emphasize such as the preaching times and such but I think there's a lot of calendar that we can't cut and and I think it's something we need to do brother Farrell I want to ask you you know back when I was younger and and you can remember the day of the big discussion was lifestyle evangelism the term now seems to be missional right and so having a lifestyle or a testimony we never were against that having an involvement in events of your life that has the mission of Christ in mind we're not against that how do you avoid getting into the trap of just being a friendly guy that never wins someone to Christ and I have an answer for that but I want to hear your answer to that okay I live into our philosophy seize the moment to share the message amen and I always want to look for an opportunity it may be a short time like my my wife is in the hospital for 76 days being treated for leukemia and we made up our mind that every doctor every nurse that came they might not be there long we're gonna seize the moment to share the message amen of the gospel out I think you you do remember the days when it was scalps and scores and if you don't win so many people to Christ you're not spiritual I don't find that in the Bible that's an overemphasis that Brad never heard scalps and scores I heard notching your bullet no no but scalps and scores that's a new but at any rate what we're trying to do is find a way to give the gospel whether it's short or long lifestyle evangelism confrontational evangelism in John chapter 3 Jesus didn't warm up he said to Nicodemus you must be born again in John chapter 4 he said could I get a drink of water and I don't think it's either/or I think it's both how much time do you have what is the right situation you're praying in the spirit God give me wisdom to know what to say at this moment right and we're all should be on a mission and the mission is to glorify God God's glorified John 15 says when there's fruit and that fruit remains well and I really believe in obeying every impulse of the Holy Spirit yeah I let I let a young lady to Christ not long ago and and we sat down we had a few people in the room and she was on her lunch break and I said how much time do you have she said about 25 minutes I said we'll get to know each other later I'm going to tell you the most important thing that I'll ever be able to tell you and she prayed right in that restaurant and got saved and I think sometimes if we buy into this thing if I've got to you know develop all this relationship we're gonna miss some opportunities as well we're witnessing I'm sorry we're witnessing to a doctor of internal medicine right now he's a Muslim and I got introduced to him his name's dr. Maui dr. Maui came in he said I pray for you bless you I said sir are you a believer he said namah devout Muslim I said well I'm a devout Christian so we're gonna have a lot of fun over the next few weeks and the first time he gave me 20 minutes to give him the gospel he came back in later and spent five minutes with my wife and sat down and he said let's talk about Jesus so for forty-five minutes I got to show him exactly the difference between believes what the Bible says he's not been offended he's open to the gospel we're gonna try to have lunch together last time he was on Ramadan but he still wants to do lunch seize the moment to share the message amen brother Anspaugh I touched on it yesterday and but I'd like for you to talk for just a moment about this inaugurated eschatology and how it's affecting this ethics committee and some of the talks and some of the stuff coming out of the the gospel coalition the the process of the of the application of that particular view of eschatology to the way they're emphasizing somewhat of a social gospel inaugurated eschatology is the idea sometimes it's more in a progressive dispensationalism but it's the idea that the kingdom is now and yet there's a sense in which the kingdom exists currently there's a sense in which the kingdom is still coming and of course this all is a watering down of the what's promised is around what's promised of the church it doesn't draw that sharp demarcation the way historic dispensationalism has drawn it to me the danger of that is that we're trying in many instances the people who this and it's you'll see that now I'm not yet all the time in commentaries it's week seeking its way into just about everything that you read now and the idea is that we're trying to build Kingdom like conditions here on the earth I think it was even Bill Gothard he said - the most important word is kingdom and that we're trying to build a kingdom right now well the danger of that is is there's no separation of church and state in that there's a and what we do is we're trying to permeate the culture and we're trying to build a kingdom like mentality effects just and our church has lost its evangelistic edge in this regard it's it sees the ideas establishing a kingdom rather than confronting the world with the gospel images Christ and you'll never have Kingdom like conditions if you don't make evangelism a top priority this is what is so confusing to me in the gospel centered ministry the gospel is not central and so really it's an enigma they want to castigate ministries like this one well it's amazing how many people get saved every year at the Lancaster Baptist Church now you should show me someone who's in a Calvinistic gospel centered ministry and a ministry like this and then ask yourself whose gospel centered I mean the it's just a buzzword that's not really accurate it's a hood ornament but when you pop it the engines not there and you know it's all great to have the gospel centered on your hood ornament but you know you better have a gospel centered engine that's driving that thing and I just don't see that as happening so we have to be careful even in our I know and believe going where demons and angels fear to tread now but even in our homology and things like that we have to be careful that we understand that we're not bringing in the kingdom through the preaching of the guns right that's not the purpose the darkness is not turning to dawning in a dawning to noonday light it's it's getting bleaker by the moment but we understand that our job is to preach the gospel and to get it out there and I'm in favor of living a certain way to create an atmosphere that's conducive to the preaching of the gospel you know I don't want my life to be so offensive that people won't hear the gospel but this atmosphere that I'm creating is not the gospel right that that is not the preaching of the gospel giving people good drinking water and a healthy garden is not the gossip men now that may create an atmosphere that's conducive to the gospel Jesus gave people fish but he gave people fish so he could give them the bread of life amen and you have to keep that focus of the gospel central and not just talk about it but make it a reality and how does that relate to this replacement theology then because if the church is bringing in the kingdom what does that do to Israel well obviously you know there there are some people who believe that the the New Covenant was made some people believe the New Covenant was made to Israel some people believe there are two new covenants one to the church and one to Israel some people believe that the church replaces Israel as the recipient of the New Covenant I believe that there's one new covenant it's made predominantly to Israel and the church merely gets to share in the salvation aspects of that new covenant but that's the point our job is to be for all their talk of missional our job is not to bring in the kingdom that's predominantly an Israeli concept what we're to do is to preach the gospel and in the Church of Jesus Christ there is neither you know Greek amen amen

Channel: Lancaster Baptist Church

Views: 2,498

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Keywords: lancaster baptist church, lancaster baptist, baptist church, paul, chappell, paul chappell, pastor paul chappell, leadership, conference, modern, trends, biblical, truth

Id: XAxIyG20kL0

Length: 73min 54sec (4434 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 16 2018