{"id":18479,"date":"2018-04-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-04-15T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sugar-land-bible-church.local\/sermon\/ecclesiology-020\/"},"modified":"2018-04-15T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-04-15T05:00:00","slug":"ecclesiology-020","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/es\/sermon\/ecclesiology-020\/","title":{"rendered":"Ecclesiology 020"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","book":[85],"series_event":[484],"sermon_service_type":[473],"speaker":[6],"class_list":["post-18479","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","hentry","book-matthew","series_event-ecclesiology","sermon_service_type-sunday-school","speaker-dr-andy-woods","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":{"sermon_title":"Ecclesiology 020","sermon_date":"20180415","sermon_month":"4","sermon_year":"2018","sermon_notes":5675,"sermon_slides":5683,"sermon_mp3":5685,"sermon_id":"415181024520","series_or_event":484,"service_type":[473],"speaker":6,"books_of_the_bible":85,"chapter_and_verse":"28:18-20","sermon_transcript":"Andy Woods\n\nEcclesiology 20\n\n4-15-18\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lesson 20\n\nFather, we are grateful for another opportunity to worship You, learn of You, fellowship with Your people.\u00a0 We, Father, are very privileged that you give us an opportunity in this life to make eternal investments and one of those investments we can make is investing in Your Word and we recognize that all the energy we pour into it doesn\u2019t dissipate because \u201cthe grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our Lord abides forever.\u201d\u00a0 So we thank\u00a0 You for that and I just pray, Father, that the Holy Spirit would be with us, illuminating Your truth today to Your people as we look into Your Word.\u00a0 I pray people would come today and they would be blessed, edified, challenged, changed and Father, if it\u2019s Your will maybe today is the day of salvation for people, some people.\u00a0 And I pray that not only for this immediate local church but for people that might be listening or viewing online.\u00a0 So I pray that You\u2019ll use our time together to strengthen them because we know that \u201cman does not live by bready alone but by \u201cevery word that proceeds from the mouth of God.\u201d\u00a0 And 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\u2026 Amen.\n\nGood morning everybody; if we could take our Bibles and open them to Matthew 28:18-20.\u00a0 If you need a handout just put your hand up and Ron will help you with that.\u00a0 We\u2019re continuing on studying the doctrine of ecclesiology which is the doctrine of the church and we\u2019ve covered a lot of different subjects\u2026 Amen!\u00a0 But we\u2019re at a part of it, Roman numeral VII which I think is one of the most important to understand, which is the purposes of the church, not so much what man thinks a church ought to be but what does God say about the church?\u00a0 What is God\u2019s design for the church.\n\nWe\u2019ve studied here that the church basically has three functions; the first two we\u2019ve covered and we\u2019re going to look at the third one today.\u00a0 The first is to glorify God and I\u2019ve showed you basically that that\u2019s God\u2019s purpose in history, to glorify Himself.\u00a0 Everything God does in creation or redemption revolves around His glory and this is why the Apostle Paul says, \u201cTo Him be the glory in the church.\u201d\u00a0 [Ephesians 3:21, \u201cto Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.\u201d]\n\nAnd the second great purpose of the church is to edify its members or to edify the saints and the last couple of Sundays we\u2019ve spent a lot of time going through a very important paragraph, Ephesians 4:11-16, which describes the fact that God has given certain spiritual gifts to the church, one of which is the office of pastor-teacher or the gift of pastor-teacher to equip the saints.\u00a0 And you have \u00a0a great description of that equipping process in that paragraph.\u00a0 Of course the tool that the pastor-teacher uses to equip the saints is the Word of God, the consistent preaching and teaching and application of God\u2019s Word in its entirety, not a piece here or a piece there, as we\u2019ve talked about.\u00a0 And that paragraph goes on and it tells us what the consistent teaching and application of God\u2019s Word does in the life of God\u2019s people\u2014it brings them to maturity out of spiritual infancy.\u00a0 That becomes one of the dominant purposes of the church.\n\nSo we\u2019re moving on here to Roman numeral III, what is the third purpose of the church and I want to explain it briefly and then I want to show you how these concepts that we\u2019re coming up with here, purposes of the local church, are being almost jettisoned by people, willy-nilly.\n\nBut before we get to that, the third purpose of the church is to fulfill the great commission.\u00a0 A lot \u00a0\u00a0of people listen to teaching like this, about the equipping of the saints and they say well, what about missions, what about evangelism, what about the unbelievers, and what we discover about the local church is God has not designed the local church to be what I would call a \u201choly huddle,\u201d where people sit, soak and sour and just let the unsaved world go into hell.\u00a0 I mean, that\u2019s a misunder\u00adstanding completely.\n\nBy the way, if you want an example of somebody in the Bible that lost their missionary focus and became very internally focused--- I\u2019m thinking of a particular prophet in the Bible, anyone know which one I\u2019m thinking of?\u00a0 Jonah. The word \u201cJonah\u201d actually means silly, and the whole Book of Jonah is really designed to be coming relief of how ridiculous we look when we just focus on ourselves and forget the purpose of why we\u2019re in the world.\n\nSo the tragedy is a church, even like ours that\u2019s very focused on Bible teaching, can lose sight of the unsaved world all around us.\u00a0 The purpose of the church is to equip the saints in such a way that they become effective within the four walls of the church but also outside the four walls of the church.\u00a0 And one of the things that I believe very strongly in is healthy sheep, when they\u2019re nourished properly in their local church have a tendency to reproduce.\u00a0 So when you\u2019re consistently fed God\u2019s Word\u00a0 you\u2019ll discover that you have the fortification to contribute to ministries, conversations in the work place, conversations in your family, you have the ability to speak the truth in love and you have the ability to reach and touch people that leadership in a church doesn\u2019t even know and doesn\u2019t have access to.\n\nSo Jesus, in Matthew 28:18-20 as the kingdom was offered to first century Israel and was post\u00adponed because it was rejected, Jesus starts to begin to describe a coming church.\u00a0 [Matthew 28:18-20, \u201cAnd Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. [19] Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, [20] teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.\u201d\u00a0 He says \u201cI will build My church, the gates of Hades will not prevail against it,\u201d]\n\nHe says [Matthew 16:18] \u201cI will build My church, the gates of Hades will not prevail against it,\u201d And He begins to say something very different than what He said in Matthew 10:5-7 and other passages like Matthew 15:24 where the offer of the kingdom was only to Israel.\u00a0 [Matthew 10:5-7, \u201cThese twelve Jesus sent out after instructing them: \u201cDo not go in the<\/em> way of the<\/em> Gentiles, and do not enter any<\/em> city of the Samaritans; [6] but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. [7] And as you go, preach, saying, \u2018The kingdom of heaven is at hand.\u2019]\n\nHe begins to describe a new man that would come into existence in Acts 2 and He starts to give hints of what coming new man, including the missionary focus of the church.\u00a0 So one of the things He said at the very end of Matthew\u2019s Gospel is this:\u00a0 \u201cAnd Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, \u2018All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. [19] Go therefore and make disciples of\u201d the nation of Israel\u2026 it doesn\u2019t say that does it?\u00a0 \u201cGo therefore and make disciples of\u201d who? \u201call the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, [20] teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.\u201d [Matthew 28:18-20]\n\nNow that\u2019s a command that completely contradicts (at first glance) what He said in Matthew 10:5-7 where He sent out the twelve to offer the kingdom to Israel and he said do not go the way of the Samaritans, do not go the way of the Gentiles, go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.\u00a0 [Matthew 10:5-7, \u201cThese twelve Jesus sent out after instructing them: \u201cDo not go in the<\/em> way of the<\/em> Gentiles, and do not enter any<\/em> city of the Samaritans; [6] but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. [7] And as you go, preach, saying, \u2018The kingdom of heaven is at hand.\u2019\u201d\n\nAnd now at the end of Matthew\u2019s Gospel He\u2019s giving something completely different; He\u2019s talking about going into \u201call the nations.\u201d\u00a0 And you say well how do you reconcile the contradiction?\u00a0 It\u2019s easy if you understand the offer of the kingdom framework; the kingdom was offered to Israel and rejected thus God raised up a new man called the church and He began to give the church a missional or missionary calling.\u00a0 And in fact, when you go through all the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, what you\u2019ll find there are different versions of this universal command to go into all the nations.\u00a0 Sometimes we call these commands the great commission.\u00a0 So Mark\u2019s Gospel puts it this way, Mark 16:15, he said, \u201cGo into\u201d where? \u201call the world and preach the gospel to all creation.\u201d\u00a0 So obviously there\u2019s a missional evangelistic calling for the church.\n\nOver in Luke\u2019s Gospel, Luke 24:46-48 it says, \u201cand He said to them, \u2018Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, [47] and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to\u201d who? \u201cto all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. [48] You are witnesses of these things.\u201d\u00a0 And these are very important words, Luke and the sequel Acts; does anybody know who Luke and Acts were written to?\u00a0 What specific man?\u00a0 A man named Theophilus, and everything we know about Theophilus indicated that he was not Jewish, he was Gentile.\n\nYou can sort of peace that together from how early Luke, particularly Luke 1:1-4 describes Theophilus.\u00a0 Luke calls Theophilus \u201cmost excellent Theophilus\u201d which most believe is a title of authority amongst the Gentiles.\u00a0 [Luke 1:1-4, \u201cInasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, [2] just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, [3] it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it<\/em> out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus; [4] so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught.\u201d]\n\nAnd so Theophilus is reading Luke, the prequel, in Acts the sequel and he\u2019s understanding that the gospel is not just Jewish, it\u2019s not just for the Jews, it\u2019s not even for people like himself.\u00a0 And so you can see how Theophilus reading a command like this in the original letter or gospel, written by Luke to Theophilus recording the life of Christ would be very meaningful to him and very significant.\n\nAnd then Luke is the prequel, Acts is the sequel, and so you find early Acts continuing on with this command to the new church.\u00a0 Acts 1:8 Jesus says, \u201cbut you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses\u201d it doesn\u2019t just say in Jerusalem, it says \u201cboth in Jerusalem,\u201d so you start with Jerusalem, that\u2019s the immediate neighborhood, and then you move into \u201call Judea and Samaria, [and even to the remotest part of the earth.]\u201d \u00a0Jerusalem would be like \u00a0a city, Judea and Samaria would be the outside neighboring counties to put it into modern day vernacular.\u00a0 And by the way, when he says \u201cSamaria\u201d that no doubt blew their minds for the simple reason that for 700 years the Jews hated the Samaritans and the Samaritans hated the Jews, that\u2019s why in Luke\u2019s Gospel the shock of the whole story is the story of the Good\u00a0 Samaritan; the Good Samaritan is the guy that comes out smelling like a rose in that whole story.\u00a0 And that\u2019s intentionally inserted, I believe, to reveal to Theophilus, a Gentile, that the gospel is for him as well.\n\nWe could go on and on about this Jewish\/Samaritan conflict.\u00a0 I mean, Jesus ministered to the woman at the well in Samaria, John 4, and the disciples are saying what are You talking to her for?\u00a0 Number 1, she\u2019s a woman, and this culture didn\u2019t treat women very well, and number 2, she\u2019s the wrong race, she\u2019s a Samaritan.\u00a0 And in fact, there\u2019s one scene in Luke\u2019s Gospel where Jesus goes into a Samaritan village and James and John, the sons of thunder say\u2026 they didn\u2019t like the response and they said Lord, shall we call down fire from heaven and nuke these people?\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t say \u201cnuke,\u201d that\u2019s my own translation of it.\u00a0 But you have to understand that the Jews hated the Samaritans and the Samaritans hated the Jews and Jesus says you start in Jerusalem but you go into Judea and even Samaria.\n\nSamaria, as you know, is within the land of Israel but then he goes on and he says you go out of even the land of Israel to where?\u00a0 The \u201cremotest part of the earth.\u201d\u00a0 And so the Book of Acts records how the gospel finally made its way all the way to Rome, Acts 28 records Paul in house arrest evangelizing, taking the gospel all the way to Rome.\u00a0 And that\u2019s where the Book of Acts stops and I think it stops there because there\u2019s an understanding that once it goes into Rome it\u2019s going to go everywhere because in the ancient world all roads lead to Rome.\u00a0 So Theophilus would read this and say wow, I\u2019ve been contemplated in the plan and program of God from the very beginning.\n\nSo you can see in all of these passages that the church has a missional emphasis and a missional calling.\u00a0 You even find sort of a version of the great commission in John\u2019s Gospel at the very end of the book, in chapter 20, it says this.\u00a0 \u201cSo Jesus said to them again, \u2018Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 [John 20:21] \u00a0So just as Jesus was sent in the world the disciples were being sent out into the world.\u00a0 And who was Jesus ultimately sent to?\u00a0 For God so loved Israel that He gave His only begotten Son. \u00a0It doesn\u2019t say that!\u00a0 \u201cFor God so loved\u201d who? \u201cthe world\u201d which would include Theophilus, it would include the Samaritans, it would include Rome, and it\u2019s supposed to go even into the ends of the earth.\u00a0 And so just as Jesus had a worldwide calling He gave that same worldwide calling to the disciples also, in John 20:20-21.\n\nSo when you put all of these Scriptures together you start to see coming into focus the three great purposes of the church.\u00a0 Number 1, the church exists to glorify God.\u00a0 Number 2, the church exists to edify the saints through spiritual gifts.\u00a0 And number 3, the church exists, not to just sit soak and sour, but to fulfill the great commission.\u201d\n\nAnd what you discover as\u00a0 you travel around and go to most churches is most churches will do one of the three or usually at best the two of the three.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s sort of difficult to find a church that\u2019s doing all three.\u00a0 I think in the prior generation what was happening is the church was glorifying God and edifying the saints but there are some Bible churches I\u2019ve been to where it\u2019s almost like to under\u00adstand what\u2019s going on you have to learn some kind of secret code that the pastor expresses himself in.\u00a0 He\u2019s got his own sort of verbiage and he uses a bunch of words that are over people\u2019s heads.\n\nAnd what happens in those kind of environments, and I\u2019m not against big words as long as they\u2019re explained properly, but what happens in a lot of those environments is unbelievers are basically given a signal, you know you\u2019re not welcome here.\u00a0 The church is for the believers but here, for example at Sugar Land Bible Church we recognize that unbelievers come all the time; some people come to church just because it\u2019s cultural.\u00a0 And so we don\u2019t want to talk in such a way that the unbeliever is excluded; we want them to understand what is being said and we want to include the gospel.\u00a0 But you run into a lot of places where that is sort of clipped off and the whole focus is ourselves.\u00a0 And you start to lose sight of the fact that God has given us all of these wonderful things, the riches of His Word, spiritual gifts, ultimately to be built up to be a blessing to the world.\n\nSo I think sometimes in the prior generation, in my humble opinion, what they were doing is they were glorifying God and edifying the saints and the great commission was kind of clipped in their thinking.\n\nNow today in our generation what I think is happening is if churches are doing number three and perhaps number one what is getting left in the dust is edification of the saints because you have what is called the advent of the speaker friendly movement where the whole name of the game is to make unbelievers feel as comfortable as they can possibly feel in church.\u00a0 And you\u2019ve got to get all these unbelievers in and that becomes the focus and the fact of the matter is if that\u2019s your focus that really isn\u2019t church, that\u2019s an evangelistic rally; that\u2019s an evangelistic meeting but it isn\u2019t church because you have to neglect certain subjects to make unbelievers feel comfortable.\u00a0 And the more you neglect certain subjects who is not being edified in the process.\u00a0 Who is not being given their full food groups?\u00a0 The saints.\u00a0 You see?\n\nSo I\u2019ve been in churches where their marquee is our church is a soul-winning station.\u00a0 That\u2019s almost a direct quote, we are a soul-winning station.\u00a0 And I appreciate what they\u2019re trying to say but that isn\u2019t the church either.\u00a0 The church is not a soul-winning station; the church exists to equip God\u2019s people so they can win souls outside the four walls of the church.\u00a0 Now am I against evangelistic rallies?\u00a0 NO!\u00a0 Just don\u2019t call it church.\u00a0 I would call it an evangelistic outreach but that isn\u2019t church.\n\nSo the great struggle in the life of the church is to try to do, not just one of these, not just two of these, but all three.\u00a0 And what I\u2019ve discovered is it\u2019s difficult to find places that are aware of all three and are interested in doing all three.\u00a0 So it\u2019s always a tough balance.\u00a0 And the devil\u2026 I think it was C. S. Lewis who said this, is always pushing us to one extreme or the other.\u00a0 The devil loves it when we go off into extremes.\u00a0 So you get so focused on edification that you forget the great commission or you get so focused on the great commission that you forget edification, and we have to be all three.\u00a0 This is what God has called the church to do.\n\nSo having laid out, from my professor, Robert Lightner, who got these from God\u2019s Word, the three basic purposes of the church, I want to shift slightly here, do a slight pivot, and I want to talk briefly about how these things are being challenged today because what a lot of people are talking about is the church exists to bring social justice to the earth.\u00a0 So there are a lot of buzzwords today about social justice and these kinds of things and what is happening, in my humble opinion, and I\u2019ll show you the quotes that demonstrate this from different writers, but what is happening is the pastor\u2019s role is being subtlety changed.\u00a0 The pastors, in a lot of places are just really no longer seen as an equipper of God\u2019s people through the Word of God but he is seen more as a community organizer or something to that extent.\u00a0 I\u2019ve seen this language: someone that\u2019s re-weaving the community.\u00a0 So when\u00a0 you don\u2019t tightly define why a church exists you get sucked into what I would call three misdirected church purposes.\u00a0 And so I\u2019d like to share those with you briefly.\n\nYou have all of the quotes, you may not have this little outline; I developed that last night about 11:00 so it might not show up on your sheet but you\u2019re going to have all of these quotes.\u00a0 But the three misdirected purposes are, and these are the big buzzwords: number one, holistic redemption.\u00a0 There\u2019s a lot of talk today about holistic redemption.\u00a0 The second thing you get sucked into is something called social gospel which really isn\u2019t new, it\u2019s just kind of given a new package for the current generation.\u00a0 And then the third misdirected purpose you get into very quick if you don\u2019t tightly define why the church exists is you get directed into an idea that the church is somehow bringing in the kingdom.\u00a0\u00a0 Churches call themselves kingdom builders and that sort of thing.\n\nSo let me walk through each of these three words so you understand what they mean because almost everybody is using this language today and I believe it\u2019s a manifestation of not first sitting down and thinking about why does the local church exist.\u00a0 So what is met here by \u201cholistic redemption.\u201d\u00a0 What does that even mean?\u00a0 What that means is the name of the game is no longer so much on individual salvation but collective salvation.\u00a0 So instead of individual salvation, the saving of souls and building them up in Christ so they can be effective witnesses, now the whole point is collective salvation of nations, and ultimately collective salvation of the entire world.\n\nSo in this type or rubric the great commission is substituted for a lot of talk about changing these structures of society.\u00a0 And you\u2019ll hear a lot of talk in these circles about structural bias, structural racism.\u00a0 And what are they talking about?\u00a0 They\u2019re talking about the institutions, for example, let\u2019s say the United States of America, you know, I love being an American; we all acknowledge though that we live in a fallen world, America is not a perfect country and so the name of the game is sort of to fix America. Now how do you fix America?\u00a0 It depends on your own politics.\u00a0 If\u00a0 you\u2019re coming from the right and try to fix America or are you coming from the left and try to fix America and holistic redemption becomes sort of this ambiguous buzzword that people use to dump their own philosophies into it, trying to change pastors into what I would call community organizers.\n\nProbably one of the first guys that I can think of that began promoting holistic redemption was Robert Schuller.\u00a0 Robert Schuller, he\u2019s passed on now but he was a very popular speaker in what\u2019s called The Hour of Power.\u00a0 And he wrote a lot of books about self-esteem and this kind of thing, and his church was probably about 15-20 minutes from where I grew up, you couldn\u2019t miss it driving on the freeway, a giant church made of glass called The Crystal Cathedral.\u00a0 And here is quote Robert Schuller makes in one of his books.\u00a0 And there\u2019s so many things to react to in this that are just outrageous in my opinion but I won\u2019t do that, I\u2019ll just focus on one sentence.\n\nHe says, \u201cNegative-thinking theologians looked at the doctrine of sin, salvation and repentance... through distorted glasses tinted with mortification mentality.\u201d\u00a0 I have to laugh because I think sin and salvation and repentance is not like the heart of the whole Bible.\u00a0 \u201cToo many prayers of\u00a0confession of sin and repentance have been destructive to the emotional health of Christians...I am not fully forgiven\u00a0 until I allow God to write his new dream for my life on the blackboard of my mind, and I dare to believe 'I am; therefore, I can. I am a child of God...\u201d\u00a0 Now look at this, \u201cGod has a great\u00a0plan to redeem society<\/u>... The emerging church, reformed according to the needs of self-esteem-starved-souls under the Lordship of Christ....\u201d by the way, if you look at surveys do you know where they have the highest self-esteem amongst the population?\u00a0 Prison inmates!\u00a0 Prison inmates have a very high self-esteem so I\u2019m not sure self-esteem the way he\u2019s defining it is really the way to go.\u00a0 \u00a0\u201c\u2026 under the\u00a0 lordship of Christ will help us to affirm the concept that \u2018While God's ideas may seem humanly impossible, he will give us these ideas which will lead to glorious, self-esteem-generating success.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 [Robert H. Schuller, Self-Esteem: The New Reformation<\/em> (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1982), 104-05]\n\nBut the part of the quote, there I have it underlined, is the goal of the church is to \u201credeem society.\u201d\u00a0 I mean, you don\u2019t hear anything about the passages we just went through, Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, Acts 1, there\u2019s nothing about the great commission, suddenly it\u2019s all about redeeming society.\u00a0 It\u2019s just about collectively changing nations and changing their social structures.\n\nNow, as you know, my alma mater is Dallas Seminary and I received a lot of good teaching there, but there was, when I was there and it continues to progress, a movement that developed called progressive dispensationalism, which to me is neither progressive nor dispensationalism, other than that little problem I began noticing in the writings of progressive dispensationalists and listening to their lectures that they started to talk this way\u2014it\u2019s all about the community.\u00a0 So Craig Blaising, one of the progenitors of progressive dispensationalism writes this:\u00a0 \u201c\u201cUnfortunately, present-day dispensationalists have written very little in proposing a theology of social ministry.\u2019 He continues, \u201cif we as a community of Christ worked on creating our community as a model of social justice\u201d those are key words today, social justice, \u201cand peace,\u201d I mean, I don\u2019t even know what social justice and peace is, it depends on who you\u2019re talking to, if I\u2019m talking to a libertarian they\u2019re going to define it one way; if I\u2019m talking to a Marxist they\u2019re going to define it a different way, it\u2019s just this fluffy term that people throw out and they kind of dump in their own personal philosophy as to what it means.\u00a0 He says, \u201c then we really would have some suggestions to make for social reform in our cities and nations.\u201d\u2019\u00a0 if we as a community of Christ worked on creating our community as a model of social justice and peace, then we really would have some suggestions to make for social reform in our cities and nations.\u201d\u00a0 He says, \u201cif we as a community of Christ worked on creating our community as a model of social justice and peace, then we really would have some suggestions to make for social reform in our cities and nations.\u201d\u00a0 [Craig Blaising, \u201cDispensationalism: The Search for Definition,\u201d in Dispensationalism, Israel and the Church<\/em>, ed. Craig Blaising and Darrell Bock (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), 14, n. 3; idem, \u201cTheological and Ministerial Issues in Progressive Dispensationalism,\u201d in Progressive Dispensationalism<\/em>, ed. Darrell Bock and Craig Blaising (Wheaton, IL: Victor, 1993), 288\u201389.]\n\nSo what he\u2019s saying is let\u2019s bring social justice and peace, whatever that is, to the church and then we can tell the unsaved world how they can have social justice and peace too.\u00a0 What did Jesus say to the disciples?\u00a0 \u201cI will make you\u201d what? \u201cfishers of men.\u201d\u00a0 [Matthew 14:19, \u201cAnd He said to them, \u2018Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.\u201d\u2019]\u00a0 Now we\u2019re not fishers of men, we\u2019re cleaning up the fish bowl that we caught the fish out of.\u00a0 See that?\n\nYou may say well, you\u2019re just nitpicking but this is a profound change in how the life of the church is understood.\u00a0 And Charles Ryrie, someone that I agree with on probably most things, properly comments on this.\u00a0 And he says, \u201c\u201cHolistic redemption can easily lead to placing unbalanced, if not wrong, priorities on political action, social agendas, and improving the structures of society.\u201d\u00a0 [Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism <\/em>(Chicago: Moody, 1995), 176.]\n\nSo this is what is meant by holistic redemption.\u00a0 And a related concept is called social gospel.\u00a0 You guys have heard of social gospel, right?\u00a0 Has anybody heart the expression social gospel?\u00a0 Social gospel is the idea that the purpose of a church is to bring social justice to the earth.\u00a0 So there\u2019s a lot of talk in social justice circles about the environment, the greenhouse effect, alleged global warming, and these kind of issues.\u00a0 They talk a lot about redistribution of the wealth.\u00a0 They talk a lot about universal health care.\u00a0 And one of the big buzzwords is racial reconciliation, when I think God has given us the best book you can ever read on racial reconciliation because according to Galatians 3:28 there\u2019s neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female; for we are all\u201d what? \u201cone in Christ Jesus.\u201d\n\nYou get two people of a different skin color that are both in the body of Christ and\u00a0 you honor them as fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, you know what disappears really quick?\u00a0 This silly concept of racism.\u00a0 So if you want to get rid of racism, I would say preach the gospel because racism emanates from depravity in the human heart and the gospel changes that, doesn\u2019t it!\u00a0 But that\u2019s not what they mean, we\u2019ve got to get out there and change the structures of society.\u00a0 They talk a lot about structural bias, institutional racism, and we\u2019ve got to change all that.\u00a0 And there\u2019s a lot of talk about how the\u00a0 United States was founded (they think, I don\u2019t necessarily agree with them) founded as a racist country.\u00a0 And we all acknowledge that there\u2019s things in our past as Americans that we wish weren\u2019t there but the reality of the situation is there isn\u2019t a country anywhere in the world that\u2019s done more to make up for its past than the United States. Amen!\u00a0\u00a0 Things like the Civil War, where a lot of white people died. Right?\u00a0 Things like the thirteenth, and fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments to The United States Constitution passed in 1866 where our constitution was changed three times to eliminate the vestiges of slavery.\u00a0 Things like The Civil Rights Act of 1964 which was designed to remedy the problems of the Jim Crow South.\n\nBut when you bring these things up people say well that sentiment of racism is still there and no matter what America has done in the past she still thinks like a racist country because that was her origin and so the purpose of the church is to fix that, to fix structural bias and institutional racism and things like that.\u00a0 So my point is not to get into a big talk about America and racism; it\u2019s to show you how the focus of the church is changing in these other subjects related to social causes.\u00a0 So let me give you some quotes to demonstrate this.\n\nThis is Brian McLaren who is one of the, if not THE thought leader of the emerging church.\u00a0 And Brian McLaren says this, it was stunning when I read this, I couldn\u2019t believe this was actually said.\u00a0 But he writes: \u201cThe church has been preoccupied with the question, \u2018What happens to your soul after you die?\u2019\u201d\u00a0 Now given the fact that the soul is eternal and hell is forever, I mean shouldn\u2019t that be a concern of ours, where people are going to spend eternity?\u00a0 And he writes, \u2018\u201cWhat happens to your soul after you die? As if the reason for Jesus coming can be summed up in, \u2018Jesus is trying to get more souls into heaven as opposed to hell, after they die.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 I thought that\u2019s why Jesus did come.\u00a0 And then he goes on and he says, \u201cI just think a fair reading of the Gospels blows that out of the water. \u201d\u00a0 [Brian McLaren; cited in Roger Oakland, Faith Undone<\/em>, 203]\n\nAnd I think what he\u2019s talking about is miracles that Jesus did to feed the masses and Jesus did do humanitarian things but you\u2019ll notice that when they stop believing in Him for salvation the miracles stopped as well.\u00a0 And He said in John 6 the only reason you all are following me, John 6:15, is because I fill your stomachs with food and he stopped the miracles at that point.\u00a0 [John 6:15 So Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone.\u201d ]\u00a0 John 6:26 says, \u201cJesus answered them and said, \u2018Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled.\u201d I mean, what good does it do to fill someone\u2019s stomach with food for 24 hours if their soul goes into an eternal hell.\n\nSo I think Brian McLaren is sort of piecemealing the life of Christ; but this is basically classic social gospel. To my mind one of the biggest proponents of social gospel in our lifetime is Rick Warren.\u00a0 I understand, people say well Rick Warren has done this good thing and that good thing and I acknowledge that.\u00a0 But the reality is when you listen to some of the things that Rick Warren talks about what he\u2019s doing is he\u2019s recycling social gospel.\u00a0 One writer puts it this way: \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cP.E.A.C.E.\u201d now P.E.A.C.E. is Warren\u2019s vision for the church.\u00a0 P.E.A.C.E., there\u2019re different vocabulary words or concepts for where he thinks the church ought to be headed.\n\n\u201c\u201cP.E.A.C.E.<\/u> is an acronym for\u201d P<\/u> stands for \u201cP<\/u>romote reconciliation; E<\/u>\u201d stands for E<\/u>quip servant leaders;\u201d A <\/u>stands for Asist the poor; C<\/u> stands for \u201cC<\/u>are for the sick; and E<\/u> stands for E<\/u>ducate the next generation.\u00a0 Coalition members see these actions as Jesus\u2019 antidote to five \u201cglobal giants,\u201d\u2014 Now where is he coming up with\u00a0 five \u201cglobal giants\u201d?\u00a0 He gets that because David, when to slay Goliath, had how many stones in his backpack?\u00a0 Five stones.\u00a0 So they take these five stones and they turn each stone into a global giant that the church has to topple.\u00a0 So what are those five global giants? \u201c\u2026problems that affect billions of people worldwide: spiritual emptiness, self-centered leadership, poverty, pandemic disease, and illiteracy.\u201d\u00a0 [Rick Warren and 1,700 Leaders Launch the Peace Coalition at Purpose Driven Summit,\u201d accessed November 15, 2014, [http:\/\/www.christiannewswire.com\/news\/2495867<\/a>]\u201d\n\nAnd I keep reading this saying when is he going to say the great commission?\u00a0 I mean, when is he going to quote Matthew 28?\u00a0 When is he going to quote Mark 16.\u00a0 I think the greatest problem facing people is their hurling towards the Judgment Seat of God and they need to hear the gospel and be saved from that.\u00a0 And as flowery as this language sounds, that is the major component to my mind, \u00a0that just got omitted from Rick Warren\u2019s peace plan because the focus is changing the structures of society.\u00a0 You see that?\n\nAnd as you move into that emphasis what get eclipsed is the great commission, the great commission becomes the great omission.\u00a0 Now am I against helping the poor?\u00a0 Not at all.\u00a0 But here\u2019s what you discover is sometimes you have poor people because of capitalism and they\u2019re being treated unfairly, but when you actually get into the Book of Proverbs what you start to see in that Solomonic wisdom is a lot of people are poor because they made themselves poor by dumb sinful decisions.\n\nSo what the social justice warriors want you to believe is all poverty is caused by capitalism, which is basically a Marxist paradigm, I\u2019m not denying that people sometimes are treated unfairly in the work place, I\u2019m not denying that at all, but biblically speaking that\u2019s not the only cause of poverty.\u00a0 I think the Puritans were pretty good at distinguishing between the legitimate poor and the illegitimate poor; they drew that distinction in Puritan writings.\u00a0 They helped people, like the Book of Job, where Job had all of these calamities that came upon him outside of his control, but the Puritans also recognized that there\u2019s another form of poverty that\u2019s self-inflicted.\u00a0 And if you just read through the Book of Proverbs you\u2019ll see this constantly.\u00a0 Speculation makes people poor, not working diligently makes people poor.\u00a0 Signing a what\u2019s called a suretyship where you make yourself responsible for someone else\u2019s debts,\u00a0 you know, a lot of parents do that for their teenagers thinking that\u2019s loving. The Book of Proverbs tells you not to do that.\n\nAnd you can go right on through the Book of Proverbs and you can see self-inflicted poverty.\u00a0 And see, that gets omitted; the gospel gets omitted, the clear purpose of the church gets omitted, and I believe this, that yeah, I think we ought to be concerned about literacy, poverty, these kinds of things but as a church you use those issues as a basis for preaching the gospel.\u00a0 You use those issues as a platform for preaching the gospel.\u00a0 You don\u2019t just go into humanitarian work just for the sake of humanitarian work because that is not a purpose that God gave to the church.\n\nSo social gospel is trapdoor two, and then lastly, trapdoor three is bringing in the kingdom.\u00a0 And this is why I wrote this 400 page book called The Coming Kingdom<\/em>, because I saw millennials all around me being pulled into Kingdom Now thoughts, Kingdom Now thinking.\u00a0 And I noticed that most of the scholars that had defended a future kingdom are very old now or have passed on so I tried to take their mantle and push forward the conversation a millimeter by contemporizing their arguments.\u00a0 So when a millennial is drifting into Kingdom Now theology there\u2019s now a book available that I think is at a certain scholarly level, that they will appreciate and give them the other side of the story.\u00a0 But there are countless churches that are drifting into Kingdom Now theology.\n\nSo back to Brian McLaren, look at what Brian McLaren says. \u201cHe\u201d that\u2019s Jesus, \u201cselected 12 and trained them in a new way of life. He sent them to teach everyone this new way of life...Even if only a few would practice this new way, many would benefit.\u201d\u00a0 So what are the benefits as the message of Jesus goes out?\u00a0 \u201cOppressed people would be free. Poor people would be liberated from poverty. Minorities would be treated with respect. Sinners would be loved, not resented.\u201d Here comes the politics, \u201cIndustrialists\u201d that\u2019s capitalists, right?\u00a0 That\u2019s all these people that provide goods and services that the rest of us need and provide a tax base to fund the United States govern\u00adment, which is supposed to be doing these things.\u00a0 See, industrialists are always demonized, this is a Marxist, basically this is a Marxist paradigm.\u00a0 The people that took the risk to start a company to create a product and service that the rest of the human race needs, those people are demonized.\u00a0 And I think it was Atlas Shrug, isn\u2019t it, where it\u2019s basically a book and it became a movie about this idea that eventually these people are going to be so demonized that they\u2019re just going to close up and leave.\u00a0 And what\u2019s going to disappear is your jobs and a tax base, not to mention the product or service that they\u2019ve created.\u00a0 And that\u2019s the problem, in my humble opinion, with demonizing industrialists all of the time is you\u2019re killing the goose that laid the golden egg.\u00a0 But anyway, I won\u2019t go there\u2026 well, I just went there.\u00a0 I\u2019ll stop.\n\n\u201c\u201cIndustrialists would realize that God cares for sparrows and wildflowers-so their industries should respect, not rape, the environment.\u201d\u00a0 So if you\u2019re an industrialist you\u2019re described with the harshest vocabulary that can be imagined, an analogous to rape.\u00a0 It\u2019s amazing.\u00a0 \u201cThe homeless would be invited in for a hot meal.\u201d\u00a0 And then what does he say here?\u00a0 \u201cThe kingdom of God would come\u201d <\/u><\/em>see that, \u201cnot everywhere at once, not suddenly, but gradually like a seed growing in a field,\u201d and then he says, oh no, \u201clike yeast spreading in a lump of bread dough,\u201d now I have a problem with that because when you look at yeast in the Bible it\u2019s not something good, it\u2019s something what?\u00a0 Bad!\u00a0 Jesus, in Matthew 16 says, \u201cBeware of the yeast of the Pharisees.\u201d\u00a0 \u201c\u2026 like light spreading across the sky at dawn.\u201d \u00a0[Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy<\/em>, 111.]\n\nSo what he\u2019s saying is Christianity is about getting the message of Jesus and as we do that all of these structures of society that we don\u2019t like will start to get changed.\u00a0 And that becomes the focus of the church.\n\nRick Warren is a very big believer in bringing in the kingdom.\u00a0 He says this at a coliseum, a public address, he says: \u201cI stand before you confidently right now and say to you that God is going to use you to change the world...I'm looking at a stadium full of people right now who are telling God they will do whatever it takes to establish God's Kingdom<\/u><\/em> \"on earth<\/u> as it is in heaven.\" What will happen if the followers of Jesus say to Him, \"We are yours?\" What kind of spiritual awakening will occur?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [Rick Warren, cited in Oakland, Faith Undone, <\/em>Kindle edition.]\n\nSo we, as the church, are supposed to be doing everything within our human power to (he says) establish God\u2019s kingdom on the earth.\u00a0 Now sorry, in the Lord\u2019s Prayer what are we to pray?\u00a0 \u201cThy kingdom come,\u201d we\u2019re to pray for its arrival.\u00a0 So if I\u2019m in the kingdom already and bringing it in why would I pray for it to come, I\u2019m supposed to bring it in myself.\u00a0 I mean, when Jesus said \u201cGo into all the world and preach the gospel\u201d He never said go into all the world and bring in the kingdom.\u00a0 Go into all the world and change the structures of society.\u00a0 In fact, if I\u2019m understanding my Bible correctly Jesus, two times, it\u2019s recorded twice, once in Matthew 26:11 and once in John 12:8, He says, \u201cthe poor you will have with you\u201d what? \u201calways.\u201d\u00a0 There\u2019s not going to be a great fix in poverty.\u00a0 You can make certain dents in it I guess, but that issue, just like racism is not leaving this earth until Jesus comes back and sets up His kingdom.\u00a0 Then poverty disappears permanently from society, as does structural racism or institutional racism.\n\nThere\u2019s a book by Stearns called Hole in the Gospel<\/em>.\u00a0 Did you know the gospel has a hole in it? I didn\u2019t realize that until I read his book.\u00a0 I thought the gospel was \u201cthe power of God unto salvation,\u201d Romans 1:16-17.\u00a0 [Romans 1:16, \u201cFor I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.\u00a0 [17] For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, \u2018BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.\u2019\u201d]\u00a0 Stearns says no, there\u2019s a hole in the gospel.\u00a0 What\u2019s the hole?\u00a0 The hole is until the church assumes its kingdom role and gets involved in all of these social causes and changing the social structures of society the gospel is not really being preached, is basically what he\u2019s saying in the book.\n\nSo Stearns writes, \u201cIf we are to be a part of this coming kingdom<\/u>, God expects our lives \u2013 our churches and faith communities too \u2013 to be characterized by these authentic signs of our own transformation: compassion, mercy, justice, and love \u2013 demonstrated tangibly<\/em>. Only then will our light break forth like the dawn, our healing quickly appear, and our cries for help be answered with a divine Here am I.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0 [Stearns, Hole in the Gospel<\/em>, 57.]\n\n\u201cThe gospel that we have been given \u2013 the whole gospel \u2013 is God\u2019s vision for a new way of living\u2026Christ\u2019s vision was of a redeemed<\/u>\u201d what? world, doesn\u2019t that sound like Schuller, Holistic Redemption, the redemption of the world, the redemption of society.\u00a0 \u201cChrist\u2019s vision was of a redeemed world order populated by redeemed people \u2013 now<\/em><\/u>.<\/em>\u201d Look at that language, \u201cworld order,\u201d gosh, I\u2019ve heard that before.\u00a0 Let me tell you something folks, I don\u2019t want to be in any new world order.\u00a0 The only new world order I\u2019m comfortable in is the one that Jesus is administering from Jerusalem in the millennial kingdom.\u00a0 \u201cTo accomplish this, we are to be salt and light <\/em>in a dark and fallen world,\u201d oh here we go again, \u201cthe \u201cyeast\u201d that leavens the whole loaf of bread (the whole of\u201d what? \u201csociety). We are the ones God has <\/em>called to be His Church. It\u2019s up to us. We are to be the <\/em>change. But a changed world requires\u201d oh my goodness, look at this, \u201cchange agents, and <\/em>change agents are people who have first been changed themselves.\u201d\u00a0 [Stearns, Hole in the Gospel<\/em>, 276, 243-44.]\n\nSo what\u2019s a pastor supposed to do?\u00a0 He\u2019s supposed to be the change agent, he\u2019s supposed to get into the pulpit and misdirect these poor misguided fundamentalists away from what Christ says about fulfilling the great commission and the purpose of the church and let\u2019s get into the social causes of the day.\u00a0 We\u2019re bringing in the kingdom\u2014this is essentially what he\u2019s saying.\n\nNow am I against Christians voting?\u00a0 Am I against Christians being involved in political causes?\u00a0 Am I against Christians showing up at City Council meetings and voicing their concerns?\u00a0 NO, I appreciate that, I support it, I try to do a little bit of that myself, but here\u2019s the reality of the situation.\u00a0 That type of activity plays a role in slowing down the progress of evil; that\u2019s what it does.\u00a0 It puts maybe another hindrance on Satan\u2019s next move.\u00a0 But it does not and it cannot bring in the kingdom of God, which can only be brought in through a converted Israel at the second advent of Christ, and it cannot and should not become the primary purpose of the church because those things, as important as they may be, are not our primary purpose.\u00a0 The primary purpose is fulfillment of the great commission.\n\nSo if we\u2019re not going to bring in the kingdom who\u2019s going to bring it in?\u00a0 Any guesses?\u00a0 The stone cut without human hands which will appear suddenly at the end of the tribulation period which will shatter the antichrist\u2019s ten nation or ten kingdom confederacy cataclysmically, and that stone will grow and grow and grow until it fills the whole earth. That\u2019s when the kingdom comes.\u00a0 And until that time in history arises, which is yet future, any language that we\u2019re bringing into the kingdom now is completely misguided.\n\nPeople say well Andy, why do you emphasize eschatology so much?\u00a0 Because your eschatology, understanding it correctly, determines your what?\u00a0 What\u2019s the name of our study here?\u00a0 Ecclesiology!\u00a0 Because you eschatology is wrong and you think we\u2019re bringing in the kingdom it changes the whole focus of the church.\u00a0 The church becomes a colony of the kingdom bringing in the kingdom.\u00a0 \u00a0And that\u2019s outside of our instruction manual.\n\nI like Daniel 2:44, \u201cIn the days of those kings\u201d Rick Warren will set up a kingdom\u2026 Robert Schuller will set up a kingdom, Brian McLaren will set up a kingdom.\u00a0 It \u00a0doesn\u2019t say that at all, does it?\u00a0 \u201cIn the days of those kings the\u00a0God of heaven will\u00a0set up a\u00a0kingdom<\/u>\u201d in the days of what kings? \u00a0\u00a0The ten nation confederacy of the antichrist which will exist in the tribulation period.\u00a0 The world is in change right now.\u00a0 Romans 8, it\u2019s groaning. [Romans 8:22, \u201cFor we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.\u201d]\n\nAnd\u00a0 yet the day is going to come when God is going to liberate this world from its chains. That\u2019s why so much language in the Book of Revelation sounds an awful lot like the Book of Exodus.\u00a0 Have you noticed that?\u00a0 Sores, plagues in the Book of Exodus\u20141st<\/sup> \u00a0bowl judgment, Revelation. Rivers to blood, 1st<\/sup> plague, Exodus, 3rd<\/sup> bowl judgment, book of Revelation.\u00a0 Darkness, 9th<\/sup> plague, the Book of Exodus, 5th<\/sup> bowl judgment, Book of Revelation.\u00a0 Hail, 7th<\/sup> plague Exodus, 7th<\/sup> bowl judgment, Book of Revelation.\n\nWhy the parallels?\u00a0 Because in the Book of Exodus God is taking His people out of 400 years of Egyptian bondage.\u00a0 In the Book of Revelation God is taking the whole world out of the bondage that it\u2019s in.\u00a0 We are in bondage just as literally right now as was Israel in Egypt.\u00a0 And so God did a work to liberate from bondage and God has to do a second work to liberate the earth from the bondage that it\u2019s been in, not under Pharaoh but under the devil.\u00a0 The church can\u2019t do this.\u00a0 The church is not given the task to do this.\u00a0 The church isn\u2019t given the power to do this.\u00a0 This doesn\u2019t happen until the events of the Book of Revelation begin to unfold.\u00a0 THEN the kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.\u00a0 [Revelation 11:15, \u201cwill become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.\u201d]\n\nThe church can\u2019t bring this in, only the eschatological end time events of Revelation can bring this in.\u00a0 And this is why I so appreciate this quote by Hal Lindsay in one of his lesser known books, called The Road to Holocaust.\u00a0 \u201cBestselling author Hal Lindsey warned what could happen to the church in the last days if she began to see herself as the establisher of God's kingdom:\u201d\u00a0 he says, quote, \u201cThe last days of the church on the earth may be largely wasted<\/u><\/em> seeking to accomplish a task that only the LORD Himself can and will do directly.\u201d\u00a0 [The Road to Holocaust<\/em>,\u00a0 269]\n\nThe devil is a pretty sneaky guy, would you agree with me on that?\u00a0 And wouldn\u2019t it be very sneaky of him in our waning hours on the earth to get us involved in some task that we don\u2019t have the power to pull off, nor the instructions to do it and we omitted what we\u2019re supposed to be doing.\u00a0 You see, this is why defining what the purpose of the church is becomes so significant.\u00a0 What is God doing today in the age of the church?\u00a0 He\u2019s not bringing social justice to the earth.\u00a0 What He\u2019s doing, Acts 15:14 is He is taking out from among the Gentiles a people for His name.\u00a0 [Acts 15:14, \u201c\u201cSimeon has related how God first concerned Himself about taking from among the Gentiles a people for His name<\/u>.\u201d]\n\nHe\u2019s not redeeming all the Gentiles; what He\u2019s doing is He\u2019s taking out a select group from amongst the Gentiles, which is much smaller, isn\u2019t it, of a task than bringing social justice to the earth.\n\nSo I hope you enjoyed that, Roman numeral VI, the purposes of the church.\u00a0 Next time we\u2019re together we\u2019ll do Roman numeral VII, the activities of the church.\u00a0 Anybody have a quick comment or question?","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