Speaker: As you're seated, I, I want you to ask yourself a question and, and
that is this question, why are you here?
Why do you show up at church week after week after week?
Maybe some of you have been doing this your entire life.
You were born behind the baptistry, so to speak.
Your, your parents had you in church, just like little Rosies in church here, from
the time that she was barely awake to, to know what's going on with the world.
You've been in church from day one and you've always come to church,
but, but have you ever asked yourself the question, why are you here?
And maybe your answer is, well, because Jesus tells me to come to church.
Maybe your answer is because the Bible says I should come to church.
And, and, and Yes, that's true.
But why?
Why does Jesus want you to come to church?
Why does the Bible say you should come to church?
See, we've been here now for about two and a half years as as a church,
and yet we've never really all said, let's get on the same page about what
the church is in, what we're doing.
Uh, you've heard sprinkles of it here and there as I've, I've preached various
messages, but what we wanted to do is we turned the page on a new year before we
jump back into one Peter again, which we will hear beginning again in February.
We wanted to take just three weeks here to really zoom in on what is
the church and what are we all doing?
Why are we here?
Why does Jesus say to be a part of the church?
Why does the writer of Hebrews say, Hey, don't neglect meeting together.
But make sure you're consistent in showing up and stirring one another
up towards love and good deeds.
What are we doing?
Why are we here?
Charles Spurgeon thought about that, contemplated that and,
and said this at one point.
He said, if I had never joined a church until I had found one that was perfect,
I should never have joined one at all.
In the moment I did join it.
If I had found one, I should have spoiled it for, it would not have been a perfect
church after I had become a member of it.
Still imperfect as it is.
It is the dearest place on earth.
To us, it is the dearest place on earth to us.
When you think about the church, when you think about our church, could you say
it's the dearest place on earth to you?
W was Spurgeon doing too much with that?
Was he wrong?
Should we all feel that way?
These are some of the, the questions that I think it's good for us to wrestle with.
Why am I here?
Why do I keep coming back to church?
Okay.
Jesus told me too, the Bible told me too, but why that's so important for
us understanding and being effective and being fruitful as a church is to
understand the why behind all that.
To understand why the church should be the, the dearest place on earth to us.
And I think if we get a biblical picture of the church, we will get closer, at
least to that feeling that Spurgeon had when he looked at the church and
said, man, this is the, the dearest place on Earth to me, if you're not
already there, please take your Bibles and open up to Ephesians chapter four.
Ephesians chapter four.
We're gonna be in verses 11 through 16 together this morning.
And so we start in verse 11 of Ephesians chapter four, and it says this.
It says, and he gave the apostles.
The prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and the teachers.
Let's just stop there for just a second here.
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the
shepherds, and the teachers.
These are various offices in the church that have existed during
different times in church history.
And, and so if we just start with the first two, the apostles and the prophets.
The apostles were those who biblically defined were.
Eyewitnesses of the resurrected Jesus, and they were commissioned by him to
do the work that he entrusted to them.
And so you think of the apostles, you've got Peter, you've got
James, you've got Paul, you've got, uh, the, the, the, the 12.
And, and Paul May stand out to you on that because you think
to yourself, well, well, the.
Paul see the resurrected Jesus.
And the answer is yes.
If you'll remember Paul's testimony, he's on the road to Damascus and he's about
to, to go and persecute the church more.
And Jesus shows up and knocks him off his donkey and blinds him
temporarily and appears to him as the resurrected Christ there.
And so Paul is an eyewitness of the resurrected Jesus and
commissioned by Jesus to do the work.
Jesus had for him to do.
The Apostles were instrumental in laying the groundwork of what
we know as our Bibles today.
As you read through the, the, the New Testament writings, the letters, as you
read through the gospels, as you read through these things, these are books
that were written by these apostles, those that were eyewitnesses of the
resurrected Christ that were sent by him in, powered by him, commissioned by him to
go and do the work that they were to do.
The apostles, but then you have the prophets and, and, and so there's a couple
of different possibilities here At times.
The phrase the apostles and the prophets was a, a bookend used to refer to both
the New Testament and the Old Testament.
Uh, the, the prophets used as a standin overarching, uh, word to,
to sum up the Old Testament, uh, the apostles and the prophets as
the, the foundation with Christ, Jesus himself being the cornerstone.
Uh, that's a reference to scripture as, as a whole, but there was also a New
Testament office of the, the prophet.
If you think of the book of Acts, if you remember the man Agabus, if that name
strikes, strikes a bell for you at all.
Agabus was a prophet.
He prophesied about a famine that was going to come to the land.
He also prophesied with Paul when he took Paul's belt.
And if you remember the scene, he wrapped Paul's hands in his
belt and said, you're gonna be arrested when you get to Jerusalem.
So Agabus served as a New Testament prophet.
Uh, but these New Testament prophets weren't just there to foretell.
They were also there as the church, which was in, its, its
nascent stage, its fledgling stage.
They were there to help the church know and define biblical authority.
Uh, so they would go to the churches, acts 1532 says, and
even exhort the churches as well.
And, and so these prophets were there to help these upstart churches and
to strengthen them and to provide wisdom from God to know kind of what
it looks like to move forward as the church before they had what you
and I have right here in our Bibles.
In the word of God.
Well, well, these two offices, the apostles and the prophets, they eventually
faded from existence within the.
The way that we understand offices within the church today.
Uh, today you may drive by a billboard that says, apostle so-and-so
is the pastor of this church.
And, and, and they are, are intending that I'm gonna give them
the benefit of the doubt in the sense of all of us are lowercase a
apostles and that we have been sent.
By God.
That's where the, what the word apostle means.
It's one who has been sent, but the office of Apostle as far as the authoritative
office, an eyewitness of the resurrected Jesus, who was sent specifically by
Jesus to do the work of the ministry.
That office is no longer in operation and it ceased.
Why?
Well, because naturally speaking, all of the original eyewitnesses
of Jesus, what happened to them?
What's batting a thousand taxes and what else?
Death.
And so those eyewitnesses of, of Jesus, they eventually all died.
Peter died.
James died.
John died.
Paul died, and so forth and so on.
So the, the office of the Apostle as the authoritative office naturally
faded from existence from the church.
Okay.
What about the office of prophet?
Well, remember what the prophets were there to do.
They were to there to strengthen the, the early church and help the early church
know how to kind of operate before the, the canon was, was crystallized before
we have the authority of God's word.
Our possession to be able to know this is what it looks like to be the church.
Well, as the, the canon became more formalized, as the writings of the
apostles began to be circulated wider amongst the, the various churches,
the need to have those prophets also began to become less and less.
Unless, the other thing that contributed to the fading of the,
the role of the the prophet was the rise of the false prophets.
So you had a lot of people come on the scene and say, I'm here to
speak on behalf of Jesus Christ.
I'm here to speak on behalf of God.
And then they would speak heresy.
They would speak false teaching, but they were professing to be prophets.
So what was the church left to do?
Well, the church, as the apostolic writings grew in their corpus and we
began to recognize more and more of what we now know as our New Testament.
The, the church began to say, well, let's take what this guy's saying to be
true, and let's go to the New Testament.
Let's go to the word of God together, and let's say, does it match up?
Is this really true?
And, and so, because there were so many false prophets rising up on the
scene, the, the authority shifted from the office of Prophet to more
and more the, the word of God.
It.
And so the role of prophet began to fade away as well as
the canon became crystallized.
We'll talk about the canon more in just a minute here.
Uh, but these other offices then we read about are the evangelists.
Well, who were the evangelists in the first century?
These were the, the church planters.
These were, these were the ones like Paul and Timothy and, and others
that were going out to new regions and sharing the gospel and planting
churches and establishing them.
Right?
That's who the evangelists were.
Is are there still evangelists today?
Absolutely.
There are still evangelists.
Today we still have people planting churches and missionaries like the
Eubanks and others that, that are doing the work in the ministry, taking the
gospel places, trying to reach more people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Evangelists are very much still on the scene today.
And then the final office that we see there is the Office
of the Shepherd and Teacher.
And my argument here is that this is not two offices, but really just one.
And I think what this office is, is the office of the elder
or the office of the pastor.
And, and, and so the, the pastor's job, my job, pastor Mark's job Pastor
Raj's job is to both shepherd the flock and to teach the word of God.
Those are the two things that we must be doing as pastors, and that's what
God has given to the church in, in order to take the, the word of God,
the, the authority of God's word, and, and to bring it to bear on the
lives of those that are gathered here.
And notice the.
The, the pastors are not just teachers, right?
I, I don't know who the, the first teacher or first pastor to say it
was, but, uh, the, the Shepherd should smell like the sheep.
And, and so my job is not just to show up here and parachute in on Sunday
morning and preach a sermon to you and then disappear from life for the next
seven days until I'm back to do it again.
My job as your pastor and so is Pastor Raj's job and so is Pastor.
Mark's job is to be involved.
It's to be connected with you.
It's to live life with you, is to show up at the graveside.
It's to show up at the hospital.
It's to show up for the marriage counseling.
It's to show up at the birth of the baby.
That's what our job is to do.
We're to shepherd.
And we're to teach.
Okay?
And so these are the offices that, that God has entrusted to, that God
has given to, uh, the, the church here.
These are the five offices that represent these sources of authority,
again, given to the church.
And, and, and that brings us to today, we're trying to figure out why am I here?
Why does Jesus want me to be here?
Why does God through his word, tell me I should go to church?
And what we're beginning to see here is because the church has been entrusted
first here as, as the bastion, as the, the pillar in support of the truth, as
the, the place where God's authority through God's word, wielded by God's
men who are faithfully expositing it is, is most tangibly experienced.
And so, lemme put it this way, if I can for point number one,
we come to church to gather under the gift of ecclesial authority.
The word ecclesial it, it comes from the Greek word.
Cia.
CIA means the called out ones.
Okay.
That is the word for church in the Greek cia.
Okay.
That's why this series is, is called out.
We are called out, we are called out from the world to be distinct.
We are called out from the world to be different, and one of the things
that we're called out to be different by is to gather together weekly on
a Sunday morning when your, your unbelieving friends are sleeping in
and enjoying another weekend day.
We show up, we do something different.
We gather here in part.
To gather under the gift of ecclesial authority.
Ecclesial authority.
What do I mean by that?
Well, I mean, what we just looked at, the word of God that is wielded
and handled by the faithful men of God, AKA, the pastors now.
Some of you know me well enough, I trust to know that I'm not up here
telling you I'm God's gift to you.
The rest of you who are new or don't know me that well, I don't
think that I'm God's gift to you.
Okay, so I know this, this seems like a self-serving point for a pastor to
say, Hey, gather under the gift of of pastors, uh, in the word of God.
Rather, what I mean to stress by this is God has given
pastors to you for your good.
If I'm doing my job well.
Then it's less about me getting kudos, and it's more about the, the,
the good that you receive from that.
And, and that's my, that's my burden When, when the writer of
Hebrews says that I am gonna have to stand before the Lord and give an
account for the souls under my care.
Okay, that's my job, and I need to have done that.
Well, if I'm gonna do it biblically, my only argument for us this morning is just
to look to the God's word and say it.
That's what it says is it says that God gave us the word of God.
And the pastors that he's entrusted to, to.
Wield the word of God.
Okay?
And, and, and, and I've sat under pastors.
I still have pastors that influence me.
In fact, if you've been part of our weekend intensive Pastor Lucas
Pace, who's here with us from, from our sending church, he's, I would
consider him one of my pastors.
I can go to him and he counsels me.
He helps me.
He shepherds me as well.
So we all have.
Pastors that God has given to us and, and as the church, that's such an
important part of why we gather and there's, there's these two components
that I want us to think about a little bit more clearly, though we
gather under ecclesial authority.
What is ecclesial authority?
Well, first it's, let's start with the Bible.
Ecclesial authority begins with the word of God, the apostles
and the prophets, right?
These apostolic writings, one of our distinctives here is the Bible is central.
And so what that means is we practice expository preaching because we
feel like that honors the word of God, the the, the best way possible.
It.
It also means that, that we're gonna emphasize the daily Bible reading.
As you heard us, heard me preach on it a couple of weeks ago.
Here, it's so important to be in God's word every single day.
We do a daily Bible podcast, and we do that to help encourage you to be
in the Word of God every single day.
The Bible is central.
Why?
Well, because the Bible is the root of all ecclesial authority.
Okay?
Any authority that I have as your pastor is only derived from the word of God.
The, the power that, that I have to produce any positive change or impact
in your life is only so much so as I'm bringing God's word to bear in your life.
Life.
I'm, I'm meant to be a vessel through which God uses me.
In, in, in the study of the scriptures and the exp exposition of the word,
to use the word of God to bring that benefit to your life, the word
of God is our authority, which may raise a question to you in saying,
well, how did we get the Bible then?
How do we know that we should trust this?
There was a, a book, and then it turned into a movie called the Da Vinci Code.
Anybody remember the Da Vinci Code out here?
A few of you do.
And, and the Da Vinci Code kind of popularized a, a myth that's
been around for a long time.
And, and the myth was this.
The Da Vinci Code says the way that we got our Bible is that Constantine
commissioned a group of bishops to get together and decide on a Bible, decide
on a cannon that was going to, uh.
Reject any threats to the, the, the, the deity of Jesus and only
admit the books that agreed with what he thought should be true.
And so, in other words, this myth is that this group of of bishops got
together and said, uh, we're gonna decide what we like and just reject
all the things that disagree with us.
You see how that's a problem?
Right?
If that was actually true, then we shouldn't have much
confidence in this book.
Dan Brown's problem.
And, uh, the problem with that view is that that's actually
not what took place at all.
What took place at that council that he's referring to, which is the Council of
naia, was the church gathered to combat a false view that was being proposed
by a man named Aria who was challenging the deed of Jesus, who was arguing that
Jesus was in fact, a created being.
And so the church gathered together and they condemned Arianism as
a heresy, as a false teaching.
And one of the ways that they did that at the Council of Nasia was appealing
to the New Testament books, citing them and saying, no, this is what the
New Testament says about Jesus Christ.
In the beginning was the word, the word was with God.
The the word was God.
And so that's what was taking place there.
So this idea that a group of men got together in a room and said, well, what
do we like and what do we not like?
That's not how we gotta the Bible at all.
How did we get the Bible?
Well, I alluded to it a little bit earlier during the apostolic era, the Apostle
Paul wrote a letter under the inspiration of the spirit to the church at Colossi.
That's the letter that we know as Colossians.
And in the letter to the Colossians, he said, look, I want you to understand
that Jesus is supreme, that you don't need anything beyond Jesus because
Paul was saying there's a threat to the church at Colossus there where
some false teachers are coming in trying to tell them they need these.
Mysticism, these, these experiences, these visions, and Paul saying,
no, all you need is Jesus.
And so Paul wrote this letter to the church at Colossus.
Well, Colossus, they get this letter from Paul and they read it and
they're like, man, this is good.
And so what does the church at Colossi do?
They write it down and they think to themselves, you know,
who else would benefit from this letter, the church at Philippi.
And so they write their copy of Colossians down, they hold onto that, and they
take the, the copy that they made.
And they send that over to the church at Philippi and say,
Hey, we received this from Paul.
We think you would benefit from it too.
The church at Philippi, they get the book of Colossians, they read it.
They're like, man, this is really good stuff.
You know who would benefit from this?
The church at Thessalonika.
Let's make a copy of this and then you know what we're gonna do?
We're gonna send this copy over to the Church of Thessalonika.
And so they did that and so forth and so on.
That happened with Colossians.
That happened with Philippians.
That happened with Ephesians.
That happened with Thessalonians, and that's how.
These New Testament apostolic writings began to be circulated
and how the authority of God's word began to be agreed upon.
So all that happened later on, like in one 40 and one 70 with the moratorium
canon and all these other things is the church said, Hey, let's, let's
define what is already accepted.
Okay, so the church basically gave borders to the, the canonical
writings of the scripture.
They didn't give more authority to certain writings over others.
The writings were authoritative.
Why?
Well, that's a good question.
Part of it was they were traceable back to Apostolic authority.
That was a major test for these writings, and so they could be
traced back to Peter or to Paul, or to James or so forth and so on.
The writer of Hebrews, whoever that guy was.
Right, that they could trace them back to the Apostolic Authority and say, we
can accept these based on the fact that we know where they originated from.
The second thing is the the doctrinal agreement.
They looked at these writings and said, do they measure up with the rest
of what we know to be authoritative?
Do they deny a teaching in the Old Testament?
Okay, well then that's a clear sign that this is probably not an agreement with
what we need to see as authoritative.
Does this disagree with this letter over here?
For example, the Gospel of Thomas?
How many of you you have heard of the the Gospel of Thomas before?
Okay.
The Gospel of Thomas has put forward by some as something that we should accept.
Well, if you read it, you're gonna see there's so much within the
gospel of Thomas that has nothing to do with anything else you've
ever read about in the Bible.
In fact, there are things in the gospel of Thomas you'll
read about and say, this seems.
Anti what we know to be true about Christ anti what we know to be true about Jesus.
The other problem with the gospel of Thomas is that there's no evidence
of it beyond the second century or earlier than the second century.
And so we look at this and, and we say, okay, there are so many reasons
why we can take a book like that and say it doesn't pass the test.
All this to say what you can trust your Bible.
Okay, you can trust your Bible church.
This is how we began to get the authoritative writings.
They were recognized, they were preserved, and eventually, yes, the church said we're
gonna canonize them, but the church was not saying we're giving them authority
that they didn't already possess.
The authority came from the fact that they were apostolic writings.
Okay?
So that's part of ecclesial authority that we're gathering under here.
But the second part is those that are entrusted to wield that.
Those that are entrusted to teach that.
Right.
And, and that brings us to what we're doing right now.
And, and this is the office of the pastor.
And so it's not laid out here and I don't have the, the
full time to get into it here.
But one of the things that we need to understand behind this is, is that the
office of the pastor is not just free for anyone to stand up and say, well,
yeah, I want to do that regardless of the character of the man that says that.
The Bible lays out qualifications, first Timothy chapter three in
Titus chapter one that says, these are the qualifications of an elder.
If a man does not measure up to these qualifications, he
cannot serve in that role.
And so the assumption made by Paul here is that the men who are entrusted to
teach the word of God, the authoritative word of God, are men of character.
Men who.
Would be able to put themselves forward, not as perfect, but men who would be
able to put themselves forward and say, we, we fulfill the obligations,
the requirements of an elder.
And, and, and we love the Lord and we love his church.
And so we're here to preach the word of God.
And so that's what they're called to do.
They're called to shepherd and they're called to preach.
But if you ever wondered, what's the point of preaching, we're asking a lot
of questions this morning, aren't we?
What's the point of, of preaching?
WW why do you come here and listen to me?
It, it, it, it can't just be an info dump.
Okay.
I, I'm a graduate of Dallas Seminary and the Master Seminary,
so I know what an info dump is.
Um, it, it, it, it has to go beyond that.
And here's what I mean by that.
Our, our sending pastor wrote a book, uh, that called, that's called
Preaching, that changes lives.
And, and I got to sit under his, his leadership and his
teaching for, for six years.
And, and when I showed up at, at our sending church as a pastor, I, I
knew how to ex expose it, a passage.
What he taught me to do I is to take the, the word of God and, and to bring
the exposition into the application.
Okay, and, and this is not lest you think, well, this is all about pragmatism and
everything else we've got No, no, no.
This is simply about saying, this is what the word of God does in our life.
Here's the sign of a successful sermon, and you can hold me to this.
In fact, I would ask you to do this.
The sign of a successful sermon is twofold.
Number one, you walk away feeling like you understand the passage better.
Okay, that has to be done.
That's, that's part of the job of expositing.
That's what it means to explain, to give light to the text, that you walk away,
say, I understand that passage better.
And second, you walk away saying, I know what I should
do in response to that sermon.
If you walk away from a sermon that I preach and you think to
yourself, okay, that that was fine.
I agree with what he said, but I don't know what difference
that should make in my life.
I have failed you.
Okay.
That's part of our job is to preach in such a way that we bring the
word of God to bear in your life.
And, and listen, y'all, I'm preaching to myself in the study for the, the whole
week before I stand up here, so I'm not exempting myself from what I'm preaching.
I need to be transformed by the word of God that I'm preaching
just as much as anybody else does.
Us, but that's the job.
That's what God has done.
And so we gather under the gift of ecclesial authority.
That's my job.
That's Pastor Raj's job.
That's Pastor Mark's job.
Whenever you see a pastor here, stand up and handle the word of God.
Our job is to bring the authoritative word of God to bear in your life in
such a way that you will be different, that you will be transformed.
Okay.
That's what we're doing.
That's one of the reasons why you're here this morning.
I'm here this morning because Jesus tells me to be here.
'cause God's word tells me to be here.
Yes, but why?
Well, because this is where you encounter the authority of the
Word of God, preached by the men that God has entrusted to do that.
That's unique to the church.
That's one of the reasons why the church is the dearest place on Earth to us.
But it's more than that.
'cause that preaching that it does transform, then what
does it transform us to do?
We'll keep going in our text.
Look down at verse 12.
He says this, he gave these offices then to equip the saints for the
work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attained
to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.
To mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that
we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by
every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness, in deceitful schemes.
So it would follow then if the pastor's job is to preach in such a way as to
transform, uh, that, that Paul would then shift to the impact that the, the
proclaimed word should have in our lives, which is what that we would be equipped.
My job and Pastor Rob's job and Pastor Mark's job, and as Lewis
preaches too, his job is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry.
And so I've, I just said in, in point number one that we gather under the,
the gift of ecclesial authority.
But here's where I want you to understand too, that, that my task is every
single day I need to be aware that this church does not rise or fall on me.
It doesn't rise or fall on our pastors.
It doesn't rise or fall on our staff.
Okay, this church rises and falls on whether or not we as a church
body are doing the work that God has called us as a church body to do.
And you are a part of that just as much as I am.
My job is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry.
My job is to do that and, and listen where we are at in this dispensation of
our church, if I can put it that way.
Uh, I, I am cognizant, cognizant of that on a, a weekly basis.
I need to be even more so probably, but here's why.
Do you know all of the different teams that were active this
morning to make this possible?
Uh, this is a cafeteria that you're sitting in.
I know.
It's shocking.
I know.
It feels like, man, this is the, the, the most sacred space
I've ever been in my life.
No.
Uh, there are sloppy Joes served in here on like Monday through Friday probably.
Um, and sometimes it smells like it when we come in on Sunday morning to set up
church, but our setup team, the guys that show up before anybody else to pick up our
trailers and, and drive those over here, uh, we have our church, the entirety of
it fits in two trailers, uh, every week.
If, if somebody stole those trailers, um, we're still gonna have church,
but it's gonna look different.
Okay.
But, but the guys that drive the trailers here, the, the team that shows up to
set up the stage, to set up the pipe and drape the, the projectors, the
sound team that we have in the back, y'all, none of this is, is paid labor.
None of this is, is staff labor.
Our, our kids men side, the, the kids, men volunteers that we have that show
up, that coordinate all of these things that, that pull everything out to
make sure that our kids are, are not just babysat over there, but taught
the word of God on a weekly basis.
You add to that our ushers, you think about our welcome team.
You think about a hospitality team.
You think about our greeters, there's a team that tears down all
of this at the end too, and people that drive the trailers back.
This church is so much bigger than one person.
You add to that our, our community groups, we have 11 community groups that meet
throughout our area here, and these are groups where people gather together, we're
gonna talk about this more next week.
And they gather together and they gather together to encourage one another and
to live life together and to know each other and to be known by other people.
You know, this church is way bigger than a pastor or a group of pastors,
and that's so important for me to understand because part of my job
is to make sure that that's true.
Part of my job is to make sure that this never comes, becomes about me,
or it never becomes about our staff, or it never becomes about a brand that
this is always about, Hey, I'm here to make sure that we're equipped to be as
effective as a bride as we possibly can.
And so as we think about that, that's another reason
why you're here this morning.
Why do I go to church?
Well, Jesus tells me to and the Bible tells me to.
Okay, but why?
Well, because this is where we experience that equipping work.
And we do that as we gather under that ecclesial authority.
And so our second point this week is this value the results of ecclesial
authority, value the results of what happens when you show up here.
And those results are the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry.
And, and really there's, there's two.
Components of that.
There's two components of this equipping.
There is a building up component and there is a shoring up component.
Okay?
As you gather together to be equipped, you are equipped to be able to build up
and to be built up, and you are equipped to be able to shore up and be shored up.
And so let me explain that a little bit more.
First, you're, you're gathered to build up.
Notice what he says here.
He says, for building up, you are equipped for the building up of the body of Christ.
Until we all attain to the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the son of
God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
In other words, what Paul is telling you church, is that you have a role
in the edification of the church.
This is one Corinthians 12.
This is the, the hand can't say to the i, I I don't need you.
The, I can't say to the ear, I don't need you.
The foot can't say, man, I wish I was a nose.
We need all of us working together to build up the church.
It's, it's using your giftedness.
It's it's serving for the body of Christ.
And this is another distinguishing factor of the church.
You can belong to a lot of different organizations and
belong to them passively.
You cannot belong to this church passively.
You can belong to your HOA.
Right?
And, and, and you don't have to serve on the board of your HOA.
You do have to pay your HOA fees, so that's no fun.
But you don't have to, you can just benefit from the
pools in your neighborhood.
You can benefit from the the workout facility.
You don't have to contribute anything to the plans for the HOA parties.
You can just show up at the event.
There's no expectation placed upon you.
Same thing with Little League, even though they strong arm you
to try to sign up to be a coach.
I know enough about my competitive nature that for me to coach my kids' team would
be regressive sanctification on display.
So I don't coach my kids' teams, but you don't have to.
You can sign your kid up to play and then you can just attend and watch.
There is no attending and watching at church.
That's not what it's for.
You're here to be equipped to do the work of the ministry with us.
The church is strongest when everyone is working together for her good.
And the the reverse is true of that as well.
We will suffer when not everybody is working together for her good.
In other words, we come here to, sometimes we say, you don't
come to church to consume that.
That's not true.
You do come to church to consume.
You're consuming right now, you're listening to this sermon.
The difference is you come to church, to church to consume, to contribute.
That's the difference.
Nobody comes to church or nobody should come to church to just consume, right?
We are not here to build spiritual fat.
We are here to be a church that is spiritually fit.
And so we want you to consume in order to then contribute to what
we're doing here as a church, to the building up of the body of Christ.
And you say, well, how long do we have to do that?
Well, Paul just says this, it's only until we attain to the unity of the
faith and the knowledge of the son of God to mature manhood to the measure of
the stature of the fullness of Christ.
So I promise you, church, that I'll stop asking you to serve once we as a church
get to the place where we at the fullness of the stature of the measure of Christ.
And I promise you, church, that that is not gonna happen this side of eternity.
In other words, this is who the church is always gonna be.
And this is why Spurgeon said you're never gonna walk into a perfect church.
And, and, and so if, if I come back here and I say, man, I just,
I, I, you know what I really want.
I just wanna be a church, part of a church where I don't, I'm
not being asked to contribute.
I, I just wanna be a part of a church.
I wanna find a church that's already done.
Listen, we've had some people leave our church here because of that.
They're like, well, you know, I'm, I'm not really looking to,
to need to, to serve this way.
If you're looking for a church where you can just show up and
receive and consume, you're looking for a church that doesn't exist,
at least it shouldn't exist in, in every church.
Whether it meets here in in a cafeteria and we have to do all of
this work to get it set up and torn down and everything else like that.
Or whether you have the multi-billion dollar facility and you've got everything
taken care of and you've got a paid staff that takes out the trash and sets up all
the chairs and everything else like that.
Regardless, every church needs the church being equipped to do
the work of the ministry together.
There's never a church that you're gonna walk into where you should be said, it
should be said to you, you, you're good.
We don't need you.
Man, if we ever say that, have we missed the point?
We're here to equip the church for the building up of the ministry.
So it's, it's to be built up.
But the second thing that you, the, the second result, the second benefit that you
get is that you are going to be shored up.
That word means to strengthen.
Look again, back at our passage.
And this is what it says.
He says, so that, uh, you're being equipped so that we may no longer
be children tossed to and fro by the waves, and carried about by every
wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes.
Uh, the, the second effect that ecclesial authority should have on a church is the
shoring up of any weak spots in the wall.
This is so important for us because we have an enemy, as we're gonna get to in
one Peter, who's prowling around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.
We have an enemy who wants to stop us in our tracks in what
we're doing here at the church.
We have an enemy who wants to undermine ecclesial authority.
We have an enemy that wants to tear down pastors.
We have an enemy that wants to sabotage the church in any way possible.
We have an enemy that wants you to believe the church doesn't need me.
We,
and so Paul says, we're being equipped so that we would no longer be children.
That word is used as a, a stand-in for the concept of, of spiritual immaturity.
Paul's saying that God has given the the church to equip you, to mature
you, to grow your in your faith.
That's one of the ways that you're equipped to build others up, is as
your faith is developed, so that what will, so that you would no longer be
tossed to and fro by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine.
The ecclesial authority of God's word, faithfully handled by God's shepherds,
provides a spiritual anchor for your soul.
We don't have false prophets today in the same way the early church did
showing up and saying, well, hey, here's my, my word from the Lord.
But you know what we have, we have social media influencer pastors
all over the place, don't we?
Y'all?
It's a minefield out there on your Instagram reels.
If you're getting your theology from Instagram, you're getting
your theology from the wrong place.
It, it's, it's the church that God has given to wield that it's
the church that God has given you to, to protect you from that.
And I'm not condemning every Instagram pastor out there.
That's not my point.
My point is just we there, we're gonna hear voices from all over the place.
We have to say, where do I know where the truth is gonna be heralded?
And if your response right now is to say, well, what gives you the right to say
that you have the, the right view of that?
Listen, if you can't trust your pastors to be able to do that, then
this isn't the right church for you.
I, I, I, if you're here cynical every single week,
then, then you're not benefiting your soul and you're not benefiting
anyone else in this room either.
I, I mean, I, I can show you my resume, my credentials, everything
else like that, that, that's not, that's not here, nor there.
The the test is, I want you to look at the word of God as I preach the
word of God and say, is it true?
Is, is that what the Bible says?
And if it is, then there's your answer.
So we gather to be equipped, to be strengthened, to be shored
up, to safeguard your walk.
It, it, it's, it's become in vogue for a lot of people to,
to deconstruct their faith.
In fact, there have been some very public Deconstructions of
Faith, Rett and Link Josh Harris.
Here's something that I've noticed about those that end up deconstructing.
One of the first steps towards the deconstruction process is they
divorce themselves from the church.
They leave the safety, the haven of God's church where they're being built up and
shored up to be able to stand against the attacks, the enemy, to be able to
stand against the winds of doctrine that are gonna toss them to and fro.
And once they leave the safe haven of the church and they give themselves
over to say, well, it's not that I'm totally walking away from Jesus.
I just don't want Jesus' bride, and then they're gonna go over here and
try to to do church by themselves.
What they're gonna find is you can't do that.
You can't be a Christian and reject the church.
It doesn't work.
And so it's no surprise when those guys that start that way end up
saying, actually, you know what?
Nevermind.
I'm out on Christianity altogether.
There's also a growing Chen trend recently where I've seen a lot, especially of
young men who have said, you know what?
I, I, I am really, I'm into Roman Catholicism now.
I'm, I'm really into the ancients.
I'm really into Eastern Orthodox.
I'm really into these things.
And a lot of that comes from a desire to say, well, I, I want more.
I want more.
I want more of an experience.
I want the new, I want something different.
I want to feel something.
I want the smells and the bells, and that's what they give me.
And so they're looking for more than what God has given to them as the ecclesial
authority of the church to say it's God's word and God's pastors and God's
people and saying, it's not enough.
I'm gonna leave church.
It's, it's a good thing for us to be here.
Why do we gather?
It's because it's safe for us to be here.
It's safe for us to be here.
I had a friend who was a helicopter mechanic in the army, and this was
during the height of the war in Iraq.
And he was deployed and, and I remember when he came back from
his, his first deployment, I talked to him, I said, Clint, were, were
you afraid while you were there?
He said, honestly, no, because he was on one of the, the massive bases there.
And he said, our, our base was so big.
That you really didn't have any clue or feeling that you were anywhere
else in, in, in any sort of danger.
I said, well, were you ever in any sort of danger?
He said, no.
He said occasionally there was some small arms fire or whatever, any like that, but
he said, honestly, when that happened, all of us would go run up and, and, and
get on the wall and stand and look it out on the wall, because what they would
do is they would call in the coordinates of the insurgents and the, the Air Force
would come in and just obliterate them.
And so the troops were never afraid.
Why?
Because they knew they were in the safe haven of the base.
I knew they knew that while they were there, the attacks
were still gonna be out there.
It's not that there wasn't any danger anywhere, but they knew that while
they were there, they were safe.
Y'all, while you are with the church, and I'm not just talking about being inside
the four walls of the church now, but when you are a part of this family, this body
with your pastors overseeing you and your leaders and one another, encouraging and
building each other up, you are safe here.
You're safe here.
It's not that there's not any dangers out there, there are plenty of
threats to our faith out there, but the safest place for you to be to
stand against that is in the church.
That's why we show up at church.
But there's one more thing that we should consider and why we show
up in church, and that is what?
What's the end goal in all of this?
What's the point in all of this, and that's where Paul
goes in the rest of our passage.
Notice he says this in verse 15.
He says, rather speaking the truth in love, we are to grow
up in every way into him.
Who is the head into Christ?
From whom?
The whole body joined and held together by every joint with which
it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow
so that it builds itself up in love.
So what's the goal in all of this?
Paul just said it to grow up in every way into him.
Who is the head in Christ?
In Christ?
And so he says there in verse 15, he says, rather speaking the truth in love.
Look at the context here.
Look back at at verse 14, if you will.
Uh, verse 14.
He, he's talking about those that are threatening the church.
He says, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro
by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine.
Notice this by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.
So you have cunning, you have craftiness, you have deceitful.
This is the nature of the false teachers that are attacking the church, that
are coming after Christians, and he contrasts that in the very next verse,
he says, rather than that, what does the church need to be characterized by?
We need to speak the truth in love.
Not in deception, not in underhanded ways.
We're not trying to manipulate, we're not trying to, to, to, to tug
on heartstrings and, and play on emotionalism and all those things.
We're certainly not trying to deceive no.
We're gonna declare the truth and we're gonna do it in a spirit of love.
Love for one another.
Love for those that come and visit us.
Love for the lost, uh, the church response to the threats of false teaching
in the bold assertion of the truth.
Of ecclesial authority, the word of God.
And that's not just a job.
Now for the pastors, that's a job for all of us.
All of us, as we are equipped, are being equipped to be able to
go out and speak the truth and love into the world around us.
And as we do that, what happens?
We grow up as a church in every way into him who is the head into Christ?
That word head can either mean source or authority.
And so when we talk about Jesus as being the head of the church, do we mean
that he's the source or the authority?
Yes, he's both.
Christ is the source of the church.
We don't have the church without Christ.
And Christ is the ultimate authority of the church.
There is no authority that exists outside of the authority of Jesus and
the authority that he has given to us.
And so Jesus as the primary authority of the church, has given his word
to the church to be faithfully and accurately taught by the pastors
who serve as his under shepherds.
And so we are called to combat the false doctrine, the false teaching
by speaking the truth in love.
And what's the result of all this?
We are growing up into the head, into him who is Christ.
In other words, the goal of why we gather is the exaltation of Jesus.
The goal and why we gather is the, the, the magnification of
Christ to say he is the head.
He is why we're here.
He's the one that's worthy of the attention, the
adoration and our affections.
And so our final point this morning in why we show up.
Why we're here is this, we here are here to commit to the
goal of ecclesial authority.
We're here to commit to that goal, that goal of glorifying Jesus, exalting Jesus.
That's why you come to church on a Sunday morning.
You come to church to exalt Jesus.
To glorify Jesus.
Notice he goes on, he says this, from whom?
This is the head.
This is Jesus from whom the whole body joined and held together by every
joint with which is it is equipped when each part is working properly, right?
We want to be a church where every part is working properly
because that's the way that Jesus is gonna be exalted most clearly.
And so when every part is working properly, that's what we were just
talking about a moment ago, being equipped to build up and shore up
using our gifts to serve the church.
And so when each part is working properly, we will be a
church that is exalting Christ.
And the result of that, he says, is that it will make the body grow so
that it builds itself up in love.
I get that it's probably not a shock to hear a pastor preach a sermon
on why it's important to be a part of the church to be a committed
part of, of what we're doing here.
But I, I hope this third point at least pivots your
perspective on that a little bit.
Listen, at the end of the day, I want you to love our church.
I want you to say, this is the dearest place on earth.
I want you to say, I'm, I'm all in here.
And I want you to say that because the word is faithfully taught.
I want you to say that because you love your pastors.
I want you to say that because you love your brothers and sisters in Christ
and that you love serving them and you love being served by them, and you
love to be built up and to shore up.
I want you to say all of those things, but my ultimate prayer is for you to
get to the place if you're not already there, and I know so many of you are.
But I want you to get to the place to embrace the mindset that says, I love
this place because I want to honor Christ.
And the best way for me to honor and exalt Jesus Christ
is to love the bride of Christ.
That's why when you come here on Sunday morning, I want you
to come here on Sunday morning.
You're driving force being we're, we're coming together corporately
with my brothers and sisters of Christ to to exalt Jesus.
To lift Jesus high this morning.
That's what we're here to do.
You can't grow up into him.
Who is the head?
If you're not committed to his bride, you can't do it.
You can't be a lone ranger Christian and honor Christ.
You have to be a part of the bride of Christ.
You can't fulfill God's purpose for you.
God has saved you and given you his spirit, and he's given
you a gift to be used for the building up of the body of Christ.
If you walk away from the church and say, I'm not gonna be a part of the church.
Because the church hurt me.
You've got a long line of people to get behind and say, join the club on that.
But, but if you reject the entirety of the bride of Christ because you've had a
bad experience with the bride of Christ, then you are rejecting God's design
for you and you are not honoring Jesus.
I I if, if you are here at arm's length.
Don't confuse showing up at church for honoring Christ either.
If you're showing up and you've got a hard heart and you've got a cold heart
and you are bitter in spirit, Christ isn't exalted by your presence here,
and I don't know who you think you're impressing either.
I
don't mean for this to be a pew emptying sermon.
I really, really don't.
But I do want us to be a church that does honor Jesus, and I want us to be clear on
what that looks like and what that means.
And let me say church, I think you're doing a great job.
I love this place more than I've loved any other church
than I've ever been a part of.
And even as I'm looking out at this room, I'm seeing so many people that are
doing this, that have Jesus and that are honoring Christ and that He, you are gonna
hear well done, good and faithful servant.
And I love being a part of the story that God is, is, is weaving through your life.
I love to be able to get to do that.
I just, again, it, it's important that all of us are on the same
page together as what the church is and what we're talking about here.
We need to be a place where we're all working properly because what's at stake?
It's not my name, it's not my brand, it's not my, my preaching, it's not my legacy.
It's whether or not we're a church that exhausts Jesus.
And, and, and if that's not what your goal is here, then, then, then you're not
gonna find yourself at home here with us,
because we want to be a church that is bent on exalting Christ.
He's the one that gets the glory here.
No one else, no one else.
That church is far more important than I think our world or culture
or society gives her credit for.
We have to say, why are we here?
Uh, uh, Charles Spurgeon loved the church so much that he made it his life's work
to not only preach in such a way that he earned the, the nickname the Prince of
Preachers, but he also founded a, a, a college to train up pastors to be able to
go out and plant more churches and to be able to, to strengthen existing churches.
And Charles's wife, Susie, she was also committed to the same thing and
loved the church this much as well.
So, so for them, the, the phrase the dears place on earth was not
just a, a tagline or a nugget, a tweetable quote from a, a sermon, and
they, they lived it with her life.
Susie, she, she founded what came to be known as Mrs.
Spurgeon's book Fund.
And so this became a ministry that she was collecting books and, and she saw
to the distribution of nearly 200,000 books to more than 25,000 pastors over
the course of her life that otherwise wouldn't have been able to afford them.
Why?
Because she loved the church.
She loved the bride of Christ.
My my prayer is that after this first message, at least we can walk away
saying, I know why I go to church now.
We're gonna talk more next week as, as we get into, okay, what is, what is
making church, giving church the, the place in my life that it, it deserves?
What does that look like?
Is we're gonna talk about the church and community.
Okay.
But what we're about to do right now is we're about to turn and remember
why the church exists to begin with.
And, and when we do this, what we're doing is, is we're remembering, as Paul's
gonna say, the, the death of Jesus, right?
And so in just a minute here, not just yet, not just yet, in just a minute
here, the, the ushers are gonna come down and, and pass the elements.
And when they do, uh, what we're gonna have is, is a wafer and
we're gonna have a cup of juice.
And, and I, I say this often, um, nothing's gonna happen
magically to that wafer.
It came from a box that was on a shelf in Kroger, and the juice came from a bottle
that was also on the shelf in Kroger.
And it's still gonna be that when you hold it in your hand, okay?
Uh, it doesn't mystically transform into anything else.
Rather, what these are meant to do, as Paul reminds us, is
they're meant to be reminders.
Reminders of what?
Reminders of the death of Christ.
And, and what's so important is these reminders of the death of
Christ are, are essential to why we're here this morning as well.
Because if Jesus didn't die for this place, this place doesn't exist.
If Jesus didn't die for the forgiveness of our sins, none of us can be here and
offer anything acceptable to the Lord.
If Jesus didn't break his body and shed his blood for us, then none of our worship
serves to the exaltation of Christ at all.
But rather in Acts 2028, Paul said that that Christ didn't indeed die to
purchase the church with his blood.
As these elements are going to be passed, I wanna encourage you to
be careful of, of a few things.
Number one, beware of a lack of conversion.
If you're not saved, then what we're doing here is, is not for you right now.
And I say that for your, your protection because the Bible talks about if we take
communion in an unworthy manner, we can eat and drink judgment to ourselves.
So this is really for believers.
So I would encourage you, be careful of a lack of conversion.
The second thing is a lack of confession.
If you haven't gotten right with the Lord as far as confessing sin before
the Lord, and you're harboring, no knowingly harboring sin in
your life, unrepentant sin in your life, let me encourage you as well.
Do not take these elements this morning if you're not willing to confess that
sin and lay it at the foot of the cross where it belongs, and to repent
from that sin and to put it to death.
Do not take these elements this morning.
And the third thing, I would encourage you to be aware of a
lack of concentration this morning.
It can become white noise.
We've done this before.
They're gonna pass through.
The pastor's gonna read something.
We're gonna take this.
We're gonna eat, we're gonna drink, and we're gonna move on with our life use
this time, as the elements are passed, the music is played to make sure that
your mind is in the right place as well.
For you to take these elements, do what, what the scriptures
call you to do, contemplate.
Remember the death of Christ for you and what it means for you.
So these elements will be passed, and then we'll take them together in a moment.
As we understand it biblically, there are two ordinances that are,
the church belong to the church.
There's the ordinance of baptism and there's also the ordinance that we are
remembering right now, which is communion.
We can back the music out if we can.
Thanks guys.
Which is communion, which is the, the Lord's table.
And these are given to the church to be done within the church because they're
part of what binds us together and unites us as the church we've been talking about.
Why we're, we gather, this is one of the the greatest reasons why we gather.
We gather because Jesus died for our sins and rose again.
From the graves that we might be forgiven.
And so as we gather, we read what Paul wrote to the church
in Corinth when he says this.
I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the
Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed, took bread and when he had
given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.
Let's eat together.
In the same way.
Also, he took the cup after supper saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.
Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.
And then he says, for as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you
proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
And what's awesome is every single Sunday morning when we
gather together as the church.
We gather together to proclaim the Lord's resurrection as well.
Until he comes church, let's stand together and I will pray
for us as we're dismissed.
Father, we are so grateful for the bride of Christ.
We are thankful that you have saved us and placed us into a community, into a family,
into a, a place with, with brothers and sisters who care for us and serve with
us and serve alongside us, Lord, that we are here to be equipped together
for the building up in the shoring up of the church, Lord, that we are here
to ultimately exalt Christ together.
What a glorious reality that is, that you didn't save us and leave
us by ourselves to figure this out.
And so, Lord, I, I pray that you would just continue to bless what's
going on here at Compass Bible Church.
I thank you for these faithful saints who are so passionate about exalting Christ,
who do this so well week in and week out.
I pray that you would continue to give us, uh, just a, a, a, a
sense of, of love for Christ that bleeds out into this community.
Lord, make us a bright and brilliant lampstand to all around us.
We pray this in Jesus' name.
A man.