{"id":18477,"date":"2018-04-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-04-01T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sugar-land-bible-church.local\/sermon\/ecclesiology-018\/"},"modified":"2018-04-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-04-01T05:00:00","slug":"ecclesiology-018","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/es\/sermon\/ecclesiology-018\/","title":{"rendered":"Ecclesiology 018"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","book":[94],"series_event":[484],"sermon_service_type":[473],"speaker":[6],"class_list":["post-18477","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","hentry","book-ephesians","series_event-ecclesiology","sermon_service_type-sunday-school","speaker-dr-andy-woods","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":{"sermon_title":"Ecclesiology 018","sermon_date":"20180401","sermon_month":"4","sermon_year":"2018","sermon_notes":5632,"sermon_slides":5635,"sermon_mp3":5641,"sermon_id":"411891393","series_or_event":484,"service_type":[473],"speaker":6,"books_of_the_bible":94,"chapter_and_verse":"3:21","sermon_transcript":"Andy Woods\n\nEcclesiology 18\n\n4-1-18 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Lesson 18\u00a0\u00a0 Ephesians 3:21\n\nLet\u2019s open with a word of prayer.\u00a0 Father, we\u2019re grateful for this particular day; kind of a capstone \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0if you will of Christianity and we\u2019re very grateful Father, that You\u2019ve given us a risen Savior.\u00a0 And with the resurrection from the dead comes something that we have called hope that we too will participate in future resurrection.\u00a0 And there are very real things that are going to happen subsequent our resurrection.\u00a0 So help us, Father, to approach these things with humility today and gratitude and appreciation and greater understanding and awareness as we look into Your Word and see what the future has for us.\u00a0 We\u2019ll be careful to give You all the praise and the glory.\u00a0 We ask these things in Jesus\u2019 name, and God\u2019s people said... Amen!\n\nGood to see everybody.\u00a0 If we could take our Bibles and open them to the Book of Ephesians, chapter 3 and verse 21.\u00a0 If you need a handout just put your hand up and Ron will help you with that.\u00a0 We\u2019re continuing to move through our teaching on ecclesiology, which is the study and the doctrine of the church.\u00a0 And we\u2019ve completed Roman numeral VI last time, the subject of the church as the inter\u00adcalation.\u00a0 And just real quick, to review, you might recall that intercalation is a term coined by Lewis Sperry Chafer, maybe he didn\u2019t coin the term but he was the first that I know of that used the word intercalation to describe the church.\u00a0 And basically what he\u2019s saying there is the church is so unusual in the outworking of God\u2019s purposes, its calendar and its purpose are so different than anything that\u2019s preceded it related to God\u2019s work concerning Israel, and God\u2019s future concerning Israel, that the only way He knew to describe it was an intercalation, which is basically an interruption in Israel\u2019s calendar.\n\nAnd of course, when you talk this way people will say you\u2019re teaching Plan B theology and all these things and we tried to answer that.\u00a0 We carefully worked our way through what\u2019s called the inter\u00adcalation model and we spent I think all last week on Galatians 6:16, didn\u2019t we do that, where it seems to at first glance call the church the Israel of God.\u00a0 And I gave you ten reasons why that\u2019s not what the verse is saying at all.\n\nSo we move away from intercalation, the subject of intercalation and we get to really what I think today is become probably the greatest battle ground related to church and the life of the church and what a church should be.\u00a0 And I know this is a big issue because I get e-mails from all over the country saying we would love to attend a church like yours in our area but we can\u2019t find one, and they name some location expecting me to say oh yeah, I know exactly where a good church is over there.\u00a0 And the fact of the matter is there\u2019s a famine for hearing the Word of God today in church.\u00a0 Did you all know that?\u00a0 And people are all over the country struggling to find a church and one of the reasons they\u2019re struggling is because churches, when they\u2019re set up, aren\u2019t really set up according to God\u2019s original purpose for the church.\n\nSo a lot of people think the function of a church is to attract unbelievers in and so they kind of dumb everything down to the lowest common denominator under the guise that we\u2019re doing the Lord\u2019s work.\u00a0 And people are frustrated because they used to go to a church that was a Bible teaching church and then some new person or group got ascendency in that church and they\u2019re not teaching the Word any more and what\u2019s going on?\u00a0 And there\u2019s just massive confusion all over the country, really all over the world on this subject of the church.\u00a0 And it really relates to Roman numeral VII there, The Purposes of the Church.\u00a0 I mean, when God established the church what were the divine purposes that He gave to it?\u00a0 Not purposes that man comes up with, not purposes that the Wall Street Journal comes up with, not purposes that Peter Drucker, the business guru, comes up with.\u00a0 But what does God say about the church?\n\nAnd I can\u2019t think of a more fundamental question to ask because\u2026 I\u2019ve used this analogy before,\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0if your business is failing and you hire a consultant to help you with your business failings, if the consultant is worth his or her salt the first question they\u2019re going to ask is why do you exist as a business.\u00a0 And it\u2019s interesting, you go into businesses and you ask employees that question and a\u00a0 lot of them really can\u2019t articulate why they exist.\u00a0 They might know their job well but what\u2019s the\u00a0\u00a0 big vision of the business?\u00a0 Why does it exist?\u00a0 And today your average pastor and your average church leader and your average church attender, if you ask them why does the church exist you\u2019re going to get probably a plethora of answers.\u00a0 And if we would just get back to the fundamentals I think a lot of this confusion would stop and we would get back to God\u2019s design for the church.\n\nSo what, therefore, are the purposes of the church?\u00a0 There are, for the local church, three basic purposes which we\u2019re going to start walking through this morning.\u00a0 Number one, to glorify God, that\u2019s why I had you open to Ephesians 3:21.\u00a0 Number two, to edify the saints, Ephesians 4:11-16. And number three, world evangelization, or to fulfill the great commission.\u00a0 So everything we do as a church here at Sugar Land Bible Church, if this is biblical, and I think it is, we have to ask do all of our activities relate to these three purposes.\u00a0 And this is a list, I didn\u2019t invent on my own, I got it from the gentleman on the picture there, Dr. Robert Lightner, who I was fortunate to have for systematic theology at Dallas Seminary.\n\nSo here we go, number one.\u00a0 The first major purpose of the church is to glorify God.\u00a0 Now why would \u00a0I say that?\u00a0 Because God\u2019s purpose in history is doxological.\u00a0 Doxological is a fancy word, it just means glory. God\u2019s purpose in history is to glorify Himself.\u00a0 Everything that He does is to glorify Himself.\u00a0 In fact, my salvation is not even God\u2019s purpose in history.\u00a0 When I\u2019m saved who gets glorified?\u00a0 God!\u00a0 So even the preaching of the gospel itself, or evangelization and winning the lost to Christ, as critical as that is, as important as that is, that is really not God\u2019s primary purpose in history.\u00a0 That purpose is subsumed under His larger purpose of bringing glory to Himself.\n\nSo the system of theology that we follow at this church is called dispensationalism and you might be saying what is that about?\u00a0 Here is Charles Ryrie with a very concise definition.\u00a0 \u201cTraditional or normative dispensational theology is a system that embodies three essential fundamental concepts called,\u201d I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve brushed up on your Latin lately, \u201ccalled the sine qua non.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0 Sine qua non <\/em>means without which there is not.\u00a0 And what he\u2019s saying is to be a dispensationalist you have to believe in these three basic things and if you take away one of these three things then dispensation\u00adal\u00ad\u00adism can\u2019t be dispensationalism.\u00a0 So these are the bare essentials.\n\nNumber 1, you have to believe in a consistent<\/u> use of a plain or normal, literal, grammatical-historical method of interpretation.\u00a0 And you\u2019ll notice that I have \u201cconsistent\u201d there underlined because a lot of places they will apply this method of interpretation, literal interpretation, in areas like the resurrection of Christ but they won\u2019t apply it in the area of prophecy or Genesis 1-11. So you have to be committed to that method of interpretation.\n\nNumber 2, this method of interpretation reveals that the church is distinct from Israel.\u00a0 In other words, all of these differences that we\u2019ve gone through in this class, twenty-four differences between Israel and the church, it\u2019s not like we sat down one day and said let\u2019s push this into the Bible.\u00a0 We believe that the difference between Israel and the church is self-evident once you become committed to point number 1 which is a consistent method of interpretation.\n\nAnd then Ryrie says, number 3, God\u2019s overall purpose in history is to bring glory to Himself, and you\u2019ll see that he quotes several verses from Ephesians chapter 1.\u00a0 He goes on and he says God\u2019s ultimate purpose for the ages is to glorify Himself.\u00a0 Scripture is not human centered as though salvation were the principle point, but God-centered, because His glory is at the center.\u00a0\u00a0 [Dictionary of Premillennial Theology<\/em>, Charles Ryrie, p. 94]\n\nAnd the basic problem if you say God\u2019s purpose in human history is salvation (I\u2019ll give you the fancy name for that) God\u2019s purpose in history is soteriological rather than to glorify Himself or doxological, is there are parts of the Bible that can\u2019t be explained.\u00a0 For example, the plan of salvation is not open to the fallen angelic realm.\u00a0 The plan of salvation is not open to Satan.\u00a0 And yet the whole program with Satan, the whole program with the demons, the whole program with the fallen angels is something that God is using.\u00a0 So therefore I can\u2019t say that God\u2019s purpose in history is salvation because that doesn\u2019t apply to Satan and the demons.\u00a0 So I\u2019ve got to back up and come up with a different statement that captures the whole Bible.\u00a0 And of course, if you find yourself with a statement about what the Bible is all about and yet that statement doesn\u2019t capture everything in the Bible, you\u2019ve got to back up for a moment and reform\u00adulate your statement.\n\nHe goes on and he says, \u201cThe glory of God is the primary principle that unifies all dispensations, the program of salvation being just one of the means by which God glorifies Himself.\u00a0 Each successive revelation of God\u2019s plan for the ages, as well as His dealing with the elect, non-elect, angels, and nations all manifest His glory.\u201d\u00a0 [Dictionary of Premillennial Theology<\/em>, Charles Ryrie, p. 94] \u00a0So when you get into the subject of the nations and angels and good angels and fallen angels and the fact that those are all parts of the blueprint of God, what you see is that the concept of salvation doesn\u2019t cover those angels.\u00a0 And because the concept of salvation doesn\u2019t cover those angels what you have to do is you have to back up and you have to formulate a new statement.\n\nSo being a dispensationalist basically means three things.\u00a0 Number 1, you\u2019re committed to a literal interpretation of the entire Bible, Genesis through Revelation.\u00a0 Number 2, from that method of interpretation you start to see two things develop; God has a blueprint for Israel and God has a blueprint for the church. \u00a0And then the purpose of God in human history is to glorify Himself.\n\nSo this triangle here I got from Dr. Michael Stallard, at Baptist Bible Seminary and what he\u2019s showing is that everything God is doing, either in creation, which is the left hand side of that triangle, or everything He\u2019s doing in redemption, which is the right side of the triangle, is all subsumed under the purpose of glorification of God.\u00a0 So whether it\u2019s the creation of the nations, Genesis 11, the creation of the world, Genesis 1, the creation of Israel, Geneses 12, creation of the church, Acts 2, God is doing all of these things in history to glorify Himself.\u00a0 And it\u2019s also true with the other side of the triangle, redemption, but whether it\u2019s redemption, creation, judgment of the nations, restoration of the nation of Israel, rapture of the church, and in fact as you look at all of these passages that describe these things you\u2019ll see all of them are intimately bound up with God\u2019s glory.\n\nSo why do we exist as human beings?\u00a0 The basic purpose of our existence is to glorify God. Why do we say that?\u00a0 Because God\u2019s purpose in history is doxological, to glorify Himself. So if all of that is true then it has to be true in the church also, right?\u00a0 If God is not being glorified in a church then the church has failed in its most basic assignment.\u00a0 And that\u2019s why I had you open up to the Book of Ephesians, chapter 3, verse, 21, which says, \u201c\u201cto Him\u00a0be the glory<\/u>,\u201d now that\u2019s the word doxa <\/em>and you see the next prepositional phrase there, \u201cTo Him be the glory\u201d in city council meeting\u2026 NO!\u00a0 \u201cTo him be the glory\u201d where, \u201cin the church<\/u>,\u201d so the primary focus and purpose of the church, at its most basic level, is to glorify God.\u00a0 The church isn\u2019t here to make people happy necessarily, although we\u2019re not against happy people.\u00a0 The church is not here to raise money although that\u2019s needed.\u00a0 You can go through all of these things that churches are involved in but that\u2019s not really what their most basic foundational purpose is; it\u2019s to glorify God.\n\nNow why would that be?\u00a0 Because that\u2019s what God does all of human history; why would that be any different in the church?\u00a0 And that\u2019s why the Apostle Paul said to the Ephesians, where he unfolds the doctrine of the church probably more than anywhere else in the entire Scripture, He says first and foremost \u201cto Him\u00a0be the glory in the church<\/u>\u2026\u201d\u00a0 So the church\u2019s first basic mission is to glorify God.\u00a0 That\u2019s in Ephesians 3.\n\nThe second basic mission that God has given to the church is to edify the saints, and all you\u2019ve got to do is turn one chapter to the right, from Ephesians 3 to Ephesians 4 and what you do there in verses 11-16 is you get a wonderful description as to what the life of the church is supposed to be like.\u00a0 So let\u2019s work through, if we could, Ephesians 4:11-16.\n\nVerse 11 says, \u201cAnd He gave some<\/u> as<\/em> apostles<\/u>, and some as<\/em> prophets,<\/u>\u201d now I took the relevant, it\u2019s all relevant of course but the things I was going to emphasize I put those in underlining.\u00a0 You\u2019ll notice the word \u201csome\u201d and then he mentions spiritual gifts, \u201capostles, prophets, evangelists,, pastors and teachers,\u201d not everybody has every single gift.\u00a0 There are a plethora of spiritual gifts in the church and just because someone else is an evangelist of someone else is a pastor-teacher doesn\u2019t mean that you are one as well.\u00a0 It\u2019s like I\u2019ve got a right hand here and I really don\u2019t need another one but God gave me a left hand and when these two hands are connected to my brain and functioning the way they\u2019re supposed to function you have body life.\n\nSo what we\u2019re starting to discover here is there are a plethora of what we would call spiritual gifts which we\u2019re going to be defining as the study goes, that God has given to the church and just like your human body, 1 Corinthians 12, Paul explains the life of the church as a human body, just like your human body with its different parts they all function in harmony with each other.\u00a0 That\u2019s how the church is supposed to work.\n\nSo, \u201cHe gave some,\u201d now notice the word \u201cgave\u201d there, the fact that some are apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers, that\u2019s a gift of God because a spiritual gift is a Spirit empowered ability to serve God in a very special way, within primarily the life of His church, and that gift wouldn\u2019t be in existence, you wouldn\u2019t have the gift had God not worked in history to give these gifts to us.\u00a0 So that word \u201cgave\u201d is very important.\n\nAnd then you\u2019ll notice this expression apostles and prophets, \u201cHe gave some as apostles and some as prophets\u201d and if you back to Ephesians 2:20 what does he say here about apostles and prophets? \u201chaving been built\u201d this is speaking of the church, \u201con the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone,\u201d\u00a0 so here He analogizes the church to a metaphor of a temple and he says the first thing in the temple that\u2019s laid is the cornerstone.\u00a0 And when you study Greco-Roman architecture what you learn is they used the cornerstone to measure all the other stones in the temple.\u00a0 In other words, the cornerstone is the first stone in and you figured out where every\u00adthing was supposed to go based on the cornerstone.\u00a0 So the cornerstone is Christ.\n\nThen he talks about how the foundation is laid by \u201cthe apostles and prophets.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 So God worked in history in such a way that the foundation of the church was laid through apostles and prophets.\u00a0 Now just a fast question, in architecture or in building anything how many times do you lay a foundation?\u00a0 You lay a foundation one time.\u00a0 So there are many, many people today that will call themselves apostles and prophets; the problem with that is that was a particular gift of the Holy Spirit that the Lord used strategically to lay the foundation of the church.\u00a0 God is not relaying the foundation today.\u00a0 What He\u2019s basically doing is putting on the roof of the house, in my opinion, as the church age is winding down.\n\nAnd when Judas betrayed Christ and the original apostles needed someone to fill Judas\u2019 position so that they would have twelve, in Acts 1 you\u2019ll see what an apostle is.\u00a0 An apostle, as the criteria were laid down for the twelfth person to fill Judas\u2019 spot that had just committed suicide, the apostle that they picked, Matthias, had to be someone that had seen the risen Christ and was with us from the very beginning, with the ministry of Jesus Christ from the beginning.\u00a0 So you had to have been an eye-witness to the things of Jesus Christ in His earthly ministry to qualify as an apostle.\u00a0 And so in this sense that\u2019s why I don\u2019t believe that there are apostles and prophets today, yet it was a very real gift that God used to lay the foundation of the church.\n\nAnd then he goes on and he mentions another gift here, evangelists, going back to Ephesians 4.\u00a0 Then he mentions another gift called pastors and teachers and I think it would be better read pastors hyphen teachers because there is a grammatical rule which governs that phrase called the Granville Sharp Rule, and the Granville Sharp Rule says that when there\u2019s one definite article followed by two nouns separated by a conjunction, like the word \u201cand,\u201d then those two nouns are equal.\u00a0 So if you have a definite article, two nouns joined by a conjunction then those two nouns are equal.\n\nSo I believe that what he is talking about here is a unique office that God gave to the church, called the office of pastor-teacher, pastor hyphen teacher.\u00a0 And I\u2019ll explain his function in just a minute but even before we get to that God has given to the church evangelists.\u00a0 Evangelists are those who work primarily amongst the unsaved and they have an ability to lead other people to saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, not just share the gospel with people but actually see results or fruit in leading people to Christ.\u00a0 And if we didn\u2019t have evangelists we would have a decaying, dying church.\n\nGod has designed the church to grow so He\u2019s given to the body of Christ this gift of evangelist. Evangelists, I kind of like to analogize to obstetricians that help with the birthing process.\u00a0 The pastor-teacher, on the other hand, and I\u2019m reading it that way because of the Granville Sharpe rule, has the unique goal or roll I should say, of not being an obstetrician, that\u2019s what the evangelist does, but being the what?\u00a0 The pediatrician.\u00a0\u00a0 What does a pediatrician do?\u00a0 He helps a child that has already been birthed to be nourished properly, to grow properly, and all that kind of thing.\n\nSo these are two different gifts and in my experience rarely does someone have both although I have seen examples of evangelists and pastors and teachers rolled up into a single individual.\u00a0 So as my friend, Dr. Randy Price, likes to say, you know, it\u2019s not catching the fish that\u2019s the hard part it\u2019s what?\u00a0 It\u2019s cleaning the fish, that\u2019s where it gets difficult, because you get these newborn people and they\u2019re coming out of paganism and their minds haven\u2019t been renewed and the function of a pastor-teacher is to help those people to grow.\u00a0 So the primary ministry that we\u2019re doing at this church is that ministry there, of the pastor-teacher and that\u2019s because\u2026 that\u2019s my primary gift mix and the elders hired me, they didn\u2019t hire an evangelist.\u00a0 And so I wish I were an evangelist but I just don\u2019t have that spiritual gift.\u00a0 And by the way, just because I\u2019m not an evangelist doesn\u2019t mean I don\u2019t have a respon\u00adsibility to share my faith with people.\u00a0 All of us are called to do that; it\u2019s just some people are good at it.\u00a0 It\u2019s like a softball team, everybody gets a turn at bat but some people can hit the ball a lot farther than others.\u00a0 But my primary gift mix is pastor-teacher so basically what I\u2019m trying to do in my ministry time here is to help people that are Christians already, help them to grow in the faith.\n\nAnd then it goes on in verse 12 and it says, \u201cfor the equipping of the\u201d who? the goats\u2026 it doesn\u2019t say that does it, \u201cfor the equipping of the saints,\u201d so what you see there is the pastor-teacher is working amongst the saved.\u00a0 Not so the evangelist who is primarily working among the unsaved.\u00a0 And the function of a pastor-teacher is to equip the saints for what purpose, we\u2019ll explain that in just a second, but right here, the way this is set up you can see who church is for. \u00a0Is church for unbelievers or believers?\u00a0 It\u2019s very clear that if God gave the gift of pastor-teacher to the church and he is to use that gift faithfully to equip the saints then church is not set up for unsaved people.\u00a0 Now can an unsaved person come to church?\u00a0 Of course they can and that\u2019s why we give the gospel every single week at this church, because we acknowledge that some people can come\u2026 you know, sitting in a church doesn\u2019t make you a Christian any more than sitting at McDonalds makes you a hamburger.\u00a0 You get unsaved people that come to a church so we give the gospel.\u00a0 What I\u2019m trying to say though is that\u2019s not the primary purpose of the church.\n\nThe primary purpose of the church is to equip you so you can go out and share the gospel because think of the impact a pastor can have.\u00a0 I mean, I could try to go around and get every single unbeliever in here or I can do what God has called me to do to equip you.\u00a0 Now if I went and tried to get every single unbeliever into this building, our capacity is only\u2026 I don\u2019t know, 250-300 people at best, but think if I was to faithfully use the gift that God has given me and that gift equipped you, you are going to have access to people this week, in your family and in your work place that I don\u2019t even know.\u00a0 And if you just do the math on it, if every person in this room shares the gospel with two people this week you\u2019re going to have a far greater impact in terms of multiplying your ministry than simply trying to get a bunch of unbelievers in the door.\n\nAnd the problem with trying to get unbelievers in the door is unbelievers don\u2019t like to hear about sin, they don\u2019t like to hear about hell, they don\u2019t like to hear about the Second Coming of Christ, they don\u2019t like to hear about Satan, so if I\u2019m trying to get all these unbelievers in the door I\u2019ve got to water down all those other subjects that are taught in the Bible and who gets neglected in the process?\u00a0 The what?\u00a0 The saints, I\u2019m not equipping you.\u00a0 And what I\u2019m articulating here is probably the most basic issue that\u2019s going on in all of these churches; they\u2019ve never really sat down and thought who are we here for?\u00a0 Are we here for saved people or are we hear for unsaved people?\n\nAnd I\u2019ve been old enough now to see this whole thing come and go; I mean, it started with Robert Schuller, Garden Grove California, I grew up I would say twenty minutes from his giant Crystal Cathedral and he was one of the first persons that began to articulate this idea that unsaved people don\u2019t want to hear expository preaching.\u00a0 Well dah!\u00a0 I could have told him that.\u00a0 So what he did is \u00a0\u00a0he canned expository preaching and he came up with sort of sermon topics that appeal to what the church marketers call unchurched Mary and Harry.\n\nSo if unchurched Mary and Harry come to church what do they want in a church?\u00a0 They don\u2019t want what we\u2019re doing here, Bible teaching, they want maybe a little bit of a laser light show, they want maybe somebody like Disneyland on a tightrope going across the congregation.\u00a0 And they want messages that appeal to their lives, how to\u00a0 be successful in business and those kind of things.\u00a0 And so Schuller began to promote this ministry philosophy and guess what?\u00a0 It was very successful.\u00a0 In fact, I, at one time in my life was a limousine driver for a law firm, which was a joke in and of itself because I had no sense of direction, and I remember the partner\u2019s mother was in the backseat and she was very Jewish.\u00a0 And you know, we would get in conversations about different things and she all of a sudden starts going on and on about the Crystal Cathedral and Robert Schuller and how great it is and finally I asked her, I said well do they ever talk about Jesus in that church?\u00a0 And this is her honest answer, she says well, not per se, I don\u2019t recall per se ever hearing the word Jesus but let me tell you, and she started going on and on about what a place it is and how it makes her feel so good.\n\nAnd this model was then taken by Rick Warren and he created Saddleback Community Church (I think it\u2019s called), also not too far from where I lived, Orange County, California.\u00a0 And then you take Bill Hybels who replicated the whole model in Illinois if I remember right.\u00a0 And then you have\u00a0 younger people like myself, like Andy Stanley for example, taking the whole thing and doing it in Atlanta, Georgia.\u00a0 And it\u2019s sort hard to argue with them because they have results and they have these massive churches.\u00a0 But here\u2019s what I would say, as all these other churches are trying to imitate what they\u2019re doing they\u2019ve failed at the most fundamental level.\u00a0 The purpose of the church is not to be a mass audience and pack people in.\u00a0 The purpose of the church is to equip the saints.\u00a0 That\u2019s why God gave these particular spiritual gifts, evangelist, and pastors and teachers to the church.\u00a0 And this is why I\u2019m getting these e-mails from people all over the country if not the world saying we can\u2019t find a church that teaches the Word of God.\n\nWhy is that?\u00a0 Because they\u2019ve all gone after the Schuller, Hybels, Warren methodology and what is being neglected, almost everywhere you go, is the equipping of the saints.\u00a0 Now how does the pastor\u2026 the sheep are starving to death, that\u2019s what\u2019s going on.\u00a0 What did Spurgeon say, we\u2019re not here to entertain the goats, we\u2019re here to feed the sheep.\n\nThe primary model today that\u2019s in vogue is goat entertainment, and then the thinking is well, maybe we can get them to come back on a Wednesday night study, we\u2019ll kind of sneak in the gospel and hope it doesn\u2019t run them off.\u00a0 The problem is the gospel is an offense, Galatians 5:11.\u00a0 [Galatians 5:11, But I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? Then the stumbling block of the cross has been abolished.\u201d]\u00a0\u00a0 So you can\u2019t even in that environment preach the gospel clearly because the gospel is an offense. \u00a0God designed the gospel to be an offense and so the gospel, as God delivered it is really not being faith\u00adfully proclaimed in these churches, but they\u2019ve got these massive audiences.\n\nSo how does the pastor-teacher equip the saints?\u00a0 Well, this letter was written to the church at Ephesus.\u00a0 Did you know that there are some other letters written to the church at Ephesus?\u00a0\u00a0 Two of them are the Timothy letters, where Timothy was pastoring where?\u00a0 In Ephesus.\u00a0 So Ephesians is designed, I believe, by God to be read in companion with the two Timothy letters.\u00a0 The two Timothy letters, both written by Paul, to a\u00a0 young man struggling to be a pastor-teacher in the church at Ephesus, all of this data needs to be taken into account.\u00a0 And so in the companion piece Paul explains to the leader of the church at Ephesus exactly how the saints are to be equipped, because we saw earlier, didn\u2019t we, that God has given the gift of pastor-teacher for the equipping of the saints.\n\nWell, how does the pastor-teacher do that?\u00a0 Does he give a motivational talk?\u00a0 Does he become sort of an electrifying speaker that knows how to give people the liver quiver of the day?\u00a0 Does he give three points and a poem.\u00a0 I mean, how exactly does he do this?\u00a0 How is this equipping ministry that God gave to the church supposed to work?\u00a0 Well, the companion piece, 2 Timothy 3:16-17 tells you exactly how it\u2019s supposed to work.\u00a0 It says this: \u201cAll Scripture\u201d that would be the 66 Books of the Bible that we have, right?\u00a0 Notice it doesn\u2019t say \u201csome\u201d of the Scripture, it says \u201cAll Scripture\u201d which means the obligation of the pastor-teacher is to teach the whole thing, not just parts of it.\n\nBecause under the Hybels, Warrens, Andy Stanley, Schuller model\u2026 and they got all of this stuff from a business man who, to my knowledge, isn\u2019t even regenerate.\u00a0 His name\u2026 I think he\u2019s passed on, was Peter Drucker.\u00a0 And Peter Drucker came up with the three-legged stool, and basically what he is doing is he is bringing a business consultant\u2019s mind to the life of the church, is what he\u2019s doing.\u00a0\u00a0 And in marketing there\u2019s something, I should have brought my triangle in called Maslow\u2019s Hierarchy of Need<\/em>, have you seen that?\u00a0 Maslow\u2019s Hierarchy of Need<\/em> is basic marketing technique.\u00a0 I actually used to teach marketing at a community college in a former life, and so I understand a little\u2026 and marketing was one of my majors in college so I know a little bit about marketing.\n\nMarketing is basically designed to put together a marketing mix, a product mix that appeals to people\u2019s areas of need.\u00a0 And the areas of need are discovered in the writings of Abraham Maslow, also an unregenerate person.\u00a0 And basically the idea is people have physical needs so you come up with this new security system that they need for their security needs or physical needs.\u00a0 Or you come up with some kind of retirement program, or insurance program and you\u2019re appealing to their physical needs and once that is met then you make an appeal to their social needs, the need to feel important.\u00a0 And that\u2019s where you get a lot of these commercials related to automobiles and things, you get yourself set up in the brand new automobile and man, you\u2019re the man once you\u2019re in this automobile.\u00a0 So that\u2019s an appeal in marketing to your social needs, esteem needs, we also have community needs.\u00a0 And so all of these commercials that you see are trying to appeal to these different areas of need given to us through Abraham Maslow.\n\nNow what Warren, Hybels, Andy Stanley, not to be confused with his father, Charles Stanley, because to my mind Charles Stanley is not into this stuff at all but his son is, and Schuller and all of these guys, what they\u2019re saying is you don\u2019t teach the whole Bible, I mean, what are you doing teaching on the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation, and the resurrection of Christ?\u00a0\u00a0 You don\u2019t do that!\u00a0 That\u2019s going to drive off unchurched Harry and Mary.\u00a0 So what you do is\u00a0 you isolate passages that appeal to people\u2019s area of need as given by Maslow\u2019s triangle.\u00a0 See that?\u00a0 So people have a need to feel financially that they\u2019re going to be taken care of so you go to those passages where God says he\u2019ll provide your needs.\u00a0 And people have an esteem need so you go to those passages that say you\u2019re made in God\u2019s image.\u00a0 And see, what is happening is those areas of the Bible are taught over and over again but anything outside of Maslow\u2019s needs hierarchy is omitted from the church\u2019s diet.\n\nThat\u2019s why all of these sermons that you hear start sounding an awful alike like the sermon you heard last week from these people, because there\u2019s only so many places in the Bible you can go.\u00a0 And this is a deliberate marketing methodology designed to NOT do what verse 16 says, \u201cAll Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness.\u201d\u00a0 The goal of the pastor-teacher is to teach the Bible in a way that\u2019s understandable, in a way that people can apply it and as you faithfully execute that ministry God makes a promise that something is happening, not necessarily amongst the unsaved but amongst the saved.\n\nWhat is happening?\u00a0 Something profitable is happening.\u00a0 What are those things?\u00a0 Teaching!\u00a0 Reproof! Correction! And training in Righteousness!\u00a0\u00a0 Those are things that are automatically happening in the life of the saints or the sheep when the pastor who has that gift of pastor-teacher fulfills his task of teaching the whole Bible and executing his ministry amongst the\u00a0 saved.\n\nAnd then look at verse 17, \u201cSo that the man of God might be adequately\u201d what? \u201cequipped.\u201d\u00a0 17\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [2 Timothy 3:17] Now didn\u2019t he just say a little earlier that the function of the pastor-teacher is to equip the saints?\u00a0 When you put Ephesians together with 2 Timothy, and I\u2019ve explained why I think those need to be studied in harmony with each other, what you discover is 2 Timothy is giving the tools by which the pastor-teacher is to equip the flock. He is to teach the Word of God and when the Word of God is taught God makes promises that will happen in the life of the sheep, not the least of which is the sheep will be adequately equipped for 90% of good works\u2026 is that what it says?\u00a0 \u201c\u2026for every <\/u>good work.\u201d\n\nIn other words, you will discover how you\u2019re supposed to act and function on the job as a godly person if you\u2019re under a pastor-teacher teaching the whole counsel of God\u2019s Word using the spiritual gift that God gave him,\u00a0\u00a0 You will also understand how you are supposed to be a parent.\u00a0 How even if you\u2019re a child in a family how you\u2019re supposed to act in that family.\u00a0 You will discover how to discipline and use your finances to God\u2019s glory.\u00a0 You will discover information about how to manage\u00a0 your emotions, like anger and bitterness and anxiety and negative emotions like that when you are under a pastor-teacher who is executing the assignment that God gave to him.\n\nSo as the Scripture is being taught God\u2019s saints are being \u201cadequately equipped for every good work.\u201d\u00a0 [2 Timothy 3:17, \u201cso that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.\u201d] In fact, as the Scripture is taught you\u2019re even being prepared for your ministry that God has for you, perhaps within the church.\u00a0 You say well how can you be so confident of this?\u00a0 I\u2019m confident of it because this is not anything other than a divine promise.\u00a0 This is what God promises to do when the church functions according to the blueprint that God gave to the church.\n\nSo we have pastors and teachers equipping the saints and what are you being equipped for?\u00a0 For the work of what\u2026\u00a0 \u201cservice,\u201d isn\u2019t that interesting?\u00a0 You mean ministry doesn\u2019t just belong to the preacher and the piano player?\u00a0 No it doesn\u2019t.\u00a0 The ministry belongs to the body of Christ.\u00a0 In fact, every child of God is called by God into the ministry.\u00a0 And you run into people quite frequently and they\u2019ll say well, I\u2019m thinking about going into the ministry.\u00a0 And my reaction is well are you a Christian?\u00a0 Well, yes I am. Well you\u2019re already in the ministry, by divine design.\u00a0 I mean, what people say when they say I\u2019m thinking about going into the ministry is they\u2019re saying I\u2019m thinking about doing this full time, which would require an assessment of where their gift mix is because not everybody is called to do this full time, those that have the appropriate gifting are called to do it full time.\u00a0 If you\u2019re not in a church full time you already have a ministry, it\u2019s called your family, it\u2019s called your co-workers, it\u2019s called your children, it\u2019s called basically anybody you come in contact with.\u00a0 And so you are being built up for your ministry.\n\nAnd guess what, now most churches function according to the\u00a0 80\/20 rule, you all know what that is, right?\u00a0 20% of the people do 80% of the work.\u00a0 So people think this way\u2014well, the task of ministry, I\u2019m just going to assign that to the person that gets paid to do it.\u00a0 And I\u2019m just going to kind of sit, soak and sour.\u00a0 Well, you can see how that\u2019s a convoluted model, that is not at all what God designed the church to be.\u00a0 All of us have giftings; all of us have callings.\u00a0 My calling is not your calling; my gifting is not your gifting.\u00a0 The person you\u2019re sitting next to you\u2019re gifted different from that person as well because who needs to right hands?\u00a0 Right.\n\nAnd so what happens as\u00a0 you sit under the teaching ministry of a pastor-teacher is God makes a divine promise that as the saints are ministered to they are being equipped and as they are being equipped God is equipping them for their ministry and as we all fulfill our ministry what gets built up in the process, at the very end there?\u00a0 The body of Christ. Let me tell you folks, the Peter Drucker model is 180 degrees opposite of what I\u2019m saying.\n\nWe go on and we go Ephesians 4:11-16, picking it up there at verse 13, so if the function of pastor-teacher is to equip the saints so that they might be adequately equipped, and gain maturity,\u201d see that expression there, \u201cto a mature man\u201d?\u00a0 \u00a0The function of a pastor-teacher is not the obstetrician, it\u2019s the pediatrician.\u00a0 He\u2019s bringing the newborn child to maturity; as that happens we need a definition of what maturity looks like.\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 I mean, what does a mature Christian actually look like?\u00a0 Well, we start getting an explanation of that beginning in verse 13, \u201cuntil we all attain to the\u201d what? \u201cunity of the faith,\u201d you mean if there is massive divisions taking place in a local assembly that\u2019s a sign of immaturity?\u00a0 Yes it is because\u2026 I\u2019m not talking about divisions over doctrinal issues; I\u2019m talking about turf wars, personality conflicts.\u00a0 If I were a psychologist what I would do is give everybody a personality test and put the similarly situated personality types to have them work together with each other.\u00a0 And that\u2019s modern day psychology\u2019s answer to this, that\u2019s not the biblical answer.\n\nA lot of the people that came\u00a0 up with modern psychology, whether it\u2019s Freud or Skinner or Young, if I were to describe the bios of these people you wouldn\u2019t even invite these people over for dinner, let alone direct your church.\u00a0 Carl Young, I don\u2019t know if you know this, had a basic spirit guide which was a demon that he talked to regularly. By the way, catch this, the spirit guide\u2019s name was Philemon, a biblical name.\u00a0 And so a lot of people are trying to bring all of this psychological stuff into the church and they don\u2019t even realize they\u2019re bringing doctrines of demons into the church.\u00a0 So we\u2019re not going to go around give people a personality test to figure out let\u2019s get the similarly situated people working together to solve divisions over turf wars and personality conflicts. What we\u2019re going to do is we\u2019re going to teach the Word of God, we\u2019re going to trust the promises of God and people are going to start to mature where they start to get along with each other.\u00a0 Look at that!\n\nIf you want an explanation of immaturity in the body of Christ you only have to look no further than 1 Corinthians, chapter 1, verse 11, where Paul says, \u201cFor I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Cloe\u2019s people that there are quarrels among you.\u00a0 [12] Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, \u2018I am of Paul,\u2019 and \u2018I am of Apollos,\u2019 and \u2018I am of Cephas,\u2019 and \u2018I of Christ.\u2019\u201d Paul says has Christ been divided?\u00a0 All these people are divided over who their favorite speaker is and what does Paul say?\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t say you all need a personality profile.\u00a0 What he says is this is immaturity; the reason there\u2019s immaturity is because there\u2019s a lack of unity on issues like this and there\u2019s really a lack of teaching and preaching of the Word of God and people receiving it by faith.\n\nSo maturity, a person that\u2019s mature in Christ is somebody that basically gets along with other people.\u00a0 I\u2019m not saying you have to get along with everything everyone says all of the time but what you find in a lot of people is basic lack of interpersonal skills or abilities.\u00a0 I mean, we say things in church and we say things to pastors and we say things to fellow Christians that we would never say to anybody else, because we\u2019re mad about this or mad about that.\u00a0 And the reality is this is just immaturity, it\u2019s a lack of the pediatrician doing his job correctly.\n\nAnd then as we become unified we gain what?\u00a0 Knowledge of the Son of God.\u00a0 There are an awful lot of Christians that have, I would call a John 3:16 understanding of the Bible; they know the verse that got them saved and they don\u2019t know anything else beyond that, and they\u2019re sitting in churches which are still telling them how to get saved every single Sunday.\u00a0 And there\u2019s just a lack of understanding of the whole counsel of God\u2019s Word but that is not what maturity looks like.\n\nOver in 2 Peter 3 and verse 18, \u201cbut grow\u201d that\u2019s maturity, \u201cin the grace and\u201d what? \u201c knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.\u201d\u00a0 There has to be a point in your life where you\u2019re starting to understand more about the Bible in 2018 than you understood in 2017.\u00a0 And it\u2019s not just information that stays in the cranium or the brain; it\u2019s information that turns into wisdom where you start to apply it to your life daily.\u00a0 So the Word of God is being taught, you come to a Scripture that convicts you, and you say I need to apply that this week.\u00a0 I learned it and I\u2019m going to try to apply it under God\u2019s resources.\u00a0 Now what have\u00a0 you just done?\u00a0 You\u2019ve taken a step out of infancy into becoming that mature man.\n\nAnd over in 1 Peter 2:2 it says this: \u201clike newborn babies, long for the\u201d what? not just the milk of the word but \u201cthe pure milk of the word, so that by it you may\u201d what? \u201cgrow in respect to\u201d what? \u201csalvation,\u201d which you already have.\u00a0 Now when my daughter was very young and we just brought her home from the hospital, I mean, it\u2019s amazing how such a small kid can make so much noise.\u00a0 And she would wake up in the middle of the night just screaming her head off and I would say to my wife I think that calls for you\u2026 no, I tried to help.\u00a0 (Is she in this room?\u00a0 Okay, I can get away with that).\n\nAnd she wasn\u2019t interested in a theological lecture about the Trinity, I can tell you that much.\u00a0 She wanted to be fed, her body was demanding to be fed because if her body was not fed properly how in the world could she grow?\u00a0 And what if we, as parents, took milk, which she needed to grow, and poured into it some 7-up, or some root beer.\u00a0 I mean, the kid would be more hyper than she already was.\u00a0 And what with this mixture of things she could not reach her goal, the goal for her developmentally.\u00a0 Whether she was going to grow developmentally or not was contingent upon the parents giving her, not just milk but it\u2019s very clear here in verse 2, \u201cpure milk.\u201d\n\nIf you\u2019re going to a church where it\u2019s a perpetual mixture of Darwin in Genesis, psychology, Sigmund Freud, B.F. Skinner and Paul, some kind of motivational speaker like Tony Robbins and the Book of Acts, and all this stuff is being mixed.\u00a0\u00a0 You see what\u2019s happening?\u00a0 The pastor-teacher is depriving you of the ability to grow into the full stature of Christ.\n\nAnd that\u2019s what it says here \u201cto a mature man,\u201d going back to Ephesians 4, a \u201c stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.\u201d\u00a0 Verse 14, \u201cAs a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming.\u201d That is a wonderful description of what maturity looks like; a mature Christian does not believe everything they\u2019re told because they have a preexisting grid by which they can screen good ideas from bad ideas.\u00a0 Now if you don\u2019t have that grid anything you\u2019re told by anybody that has the gift of gab, you know the three \u201cg\u2019s\u201d in ministry, which are good looks, the gift of gab and a guitar.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve got the three \u201cg\u2019s\u201d you\u2019re going to go far in ministry this day and age.\n\nAnd that\u2019s how people are, anybody with those three \u201cg\u2019s\u201d will just believe it because it\u2019s a spiritual idea, they think it\u2019s coming from a spiritual source.\u00a0 But you see, the mature Christian hears things and they say well wait a minute, that contradicts something I read earlier this week in the Bible, let\u2019s screen it and check it out.\u00a0 That\u2019s what maturity looks like.\u00a0 A mature Christian is not a pugnacious fighting fundy.\u00a0 A mature Christian is someone that has a preexisting grid, a preexisting screen, a preexisting worldview coming from the Word of God where they can screen good ideas and bad ideas.\u00a0 Immature Christians have no ability to do that.\n\nSo my daughter, when she was very young would crawl on the floor and everything she saw on the floor she would put in her mouth\u2026 every single thing, if it was on the floor it was going in the mouth.\u00a0 Now what if she\u2019s doing that now at age 12?\u00a0 You know daughter is going to be 12 this month on April 5th<\/sup>, she was born April 4, 2006, it\u2019s amazing.\u00a0 What if she\u2019s doing that at age 12, age 13?\u00a0 Then what you would say is there\u2019s been a developmental problem.\u00a0 See that?\u00a0 Because a child as they grow they don\u2019t just take everything they see and put it in their mouth; that\u2019s what infants do.\u00a0 As you grow into further childhood, further adolescence, ultimately into maturity you don\u2019t just put everything you see in your mouth.\u00a0 You can see things\u2026 well, that\u2019s going to hurt me so I won\u2019t eat that. \u00a0But this over here may help me so I can put that in my mouth.\n\nAnd you see, that\u2019s what maturity looks like in Christianity. It\u2019s interesting that the Book of Acts holds up the Bereans in Acts 17:11, as sort of a model of what maturity looks like.\u00a0 And I\u2019ll close with these verses.\u00a0 It says there, verse 11, \u201cNow these\u201d now who are these?\u00a0 The Bereans that interacted with Paul on missionary journey two, \u201cNow these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica,\u201d in other words, the Bereans had a leg up on the Christians in Thessalonica, why was that?\u00a0 They seemed to be at a higher level of maturity.\u00a0 Why is that? \u201cfor they received the word with great eagerness,\u201d so they weren\u2019t fighting fundies, they didn\u2019t just bark back and oppose every teaching they\u2019d ever received, they loved the fact that they were being taught spiritual things, they received it \u201cwith great eagerness\u201d but what does the rest of the verse say? \u201cexamining\u201d what? \u201cthe Scriptures\u201d how frequently?\u00a0 Once a month, once a week\u2026 it\u2019s very clear here, \u201cexamining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.\u201d\n\nThey had quite a teacher in Paul and they would hear things and they would say hold the phone Paul, I need to find this in my Bible; I\u2019m not going to absorb it just because you tell me it\u2019s there, I need to see it for myself.\u00a0 That\u2019s maturity.\u00a0 And when we become like that what are we no longer like? \u201cWe are no longer like children tossed here and there by wind and waves and carried about by every doctrine of the trickiness of men,\u201d think of a wave in the ocean.\u00a0 [Ephesians 4:14, \u201cAs a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming;\u201d]\n\nI grew up on the west coast, the left coast so the ocean was a big part of my life.\u00a0 You think of those waves tossing and turning and carrying things about and that is a tremendous description of the instability of an immature Christian.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And I\u2019ve been old enough now to see in my lifetime multiple trends blow through the body of Christ.\u00a0 One of the latest ones that I can remember is the prayer of Jabez and I can count down a number of trends I\u2019ve seen that are very popular and they seem to enthrall the masses of the Christian community.\u00a0 I\u2019m thinking of Promise Keepers, that would be another example.\n\nAnd these things come through and they\u2019re very popular and everybody jumps on board and then in a year or two the whole thing disappears and you don\u2019t even remember what it was about.\u00a0 See, and then this is why the body of Christ just jumps on bandwagons constantly; it\u2019s a lack of maturity because they\u2019re kind of still like that infant crawling on the ground and they just put everything in their mouth that they see.\u00a0 See that?\u00a0 That\u2019s not what a mature Christian looks like.\u00a0 A mature Christian has a preexisting grid and they screen everything by that preexisting grid from the Word of God.\u00a0 And this is the purpose of the church.\u00a0 This is why God created the church in part 2 here; not only does it exist to glorify God but it exists to help the saints become edified so that they will no longer be immature and that\u2019s what the gift of pastor-teacher is supposed to do.\u00a0 And we\u2019ll pick it up right there in the middle of the book of Ephesians 4 next time.","series_sermon_number":""},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t